As I write, Dalbir Kaur is appearing before the television cameras, to plead with the government of Pakistan for the life of her brother, Sarabjit Singh. The family -- Dalbir Kaur and her husband, Baldev Singh, Sarabjit Singh's wife, Sukhpreet Kaur, and their daughters, Swapandeep and Poonam -- say that Sarabjit Singh was nothing more than a farmer who wandered across the border while he was drunk; the Pakistani authorities insist that he is a terrorist.
Whatever the truth of the case, what strikes me is not what Dalbir Kaur is saying as where she is saying it from, in Lahore, not far from the gates of the Kot Lakhpat Jail, where her brother currently sits behind bars. It is difficult enough for someone to get to meet a condemned prisoner in India, it must be a magnitude of order tougher to obtain permission from a foreign country.
There is a mountain of paperwork to climb before even a journalist can meet an ordinary prisoner, leave alone someone on death row. The meeting simply could not have taken place without the explicit consent of both the president and prime minister of Pakistan.
That, I should add, is much the same in India. Sixty years ago, in 1948, there was a famous instance when such permission was actually denied. The editor of the newspaper
The Hindustan Times wanted to meet Nathuram Godse before the sentence of death was carried out. The gentleman holding that post in those days was Devdas Gandhi, the Mahatma's youngest son and Rajaji's son-in-law.
The matter was considered so sensitive that it landed up on the prime minister's table. It is a matter of record that Jawaharlal Nehru rejected Devdas Gandhi's plea.
I cannot find any record of Pandit Nehru's reasoning. (As a matter of fact, several records from that time, including Nathuram Godse's statements in the court seem to be unavailable.) Nor can anyone be certain so late in the day what Devdas Gandhi hoped to achieve by meeting his father's murderer; by all accounts, Godse was unapologetic to the very end. However, the fact remains that Devdas Gandhi was refused permission.
Playwright Pradip Dalvi got it completely wrong in his controversial play
Me Nathuram Godse Bolte, where he showed Devdas Gandhi actually going to meet Godse. (And even shaking hands with him!)
Occasionally, however, truth can be stranger than fiction. It is on record that Pope John Paul II entered an Italian jail to meet Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish man who had shot him in 1981. In the year 2000, the Pope went farther, pleading with the Italian authorities to release his would-be assassin. We