Last week the UK’s crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion agency, the Crown Pros­e­cu­tion Ser­vice, which was ef­fec­tively rep­re­sent­ing the In­dian Gov­ern­ment in its quest to ex­tra­dite three in­no­cent Sikhs from the UK on fab­ri­cated ter­ror­ism charges, sud­denly aban­doned the case. Con­ced­ing that there was no case to an­swer, the CPS backed out of pro­ceed­ings that were self-ev­i­dently po­lit­i­cally mo­ti­vated and bound to fail in the face of a de­ter­mined de­fence put up by the three Sikhs who were whole­heart­edly backed by the Sikh com­mu­nity in the UK. Ran­jit Singh Srai, co-or­di­na­tor, Self-de­ter­mi­na­tion Coun­cil of the World Sikh Par­lia­ment nar­rates the fall­out of the case of the West Mid­lands 3 on the case of an­other British Sikh de­tenue in In­dia -Jag­tar Singh Jo­hal.

The drop­ping of charges against British-born West Mid­lands 3 young Sikh in­di­vid­u­als has come as a huge em­bar­rass­ment to the In­dian state ma­chin­ery.

It was not only a com­plete hu­mil­i­a­tion for the In­dian Gov­ern­ment but a se­vere em­bar­rass­ment for the UK’s Home Sec­re­tary Priti Pa­tel, a known ad­mirer of In­dian PM Naren­dra Modi, who had scan­dalously sanc­tioned the ar­rests of the three Sikhs and their ex­tra­di­tion to a coun­try no­to­ri­ous for rou­tine hu­man rights abuses. 

Crit­i­cally, those Sikhs could quite eas­ily have been given death sen­tences by In­dian courts for the crimes they were falsely ac­cused of.

The World Sikh Par­lia­ment is de­lighted with an out­come that sees three young men, all of the good stand­ings and with de­pen­dant fam­i­lies, emerge with­out any find­ing against them. They have en­dured a night­mare nine-month pe­riod start­ing in De­cem­ber 2020 when the UK po­lice smashed down their doors in need­less early dawn raids to ar­rest them fol­low­ing Priti Patel’s sig­na­ture on an ex­tra­di­tion war­rant that de­fied both com­mon sense and le­gal norms. 

The al­le­ga­tions against the ‘West Mid­lands 3’ re­lated to an at­tack on an agent of an ex­treme right-wing Hin­dutva group in In­dia in 2009 in re­la­tion to which, a UK po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion (which in­cluded send­ing spe­cial­ist of­fi­cers to Pun­jab) had al­ready found no ev­i­dence against these in­no­cent men. With no new ev­i­dence since that ex­on­er­a­tion in 2011, how was it that the UK’s Home Sec­re­tary took the ac­tion she did last De­cem­ber? 

The tim­ing of her ac­tions speaks vol­umes; the UK Gov­ern­ment had just agreed to a huge trade deal with its In­dian coun­ter­part. Sea­soned ob­servers of UK-In­dia re­la­tions were un­der no il­lu­sions about the dri­ver of that ap­palling dere­lic­tion of duty by Pa­tel in re­spect of three UK cit­i­zens, born and ed­u­cated in this coun­try with young fam­i­lies. 

She ap­par­ently saw no rea­son why they should not face the in­evitable tor­ture in In­dian jails, along with the guar­an­teed un­just out­come in an In­dian le­gal sys­tem that has be­come a mere tool in the hands of a fas­cist Hin­dutva-pro­fess­ing rul­ing elite.

There are im­por­tant lessons for those cul­pa­ble of these shame­ful pro­ceed­ings and the World Sikh Par­lia­ment, along with oth­ers, will press home that mes­sage to those who have shown them­selves un­able or un­will­ing to live by a rules-based in­ter­na­tional hu­man rights sys­tem.

The In­dian gov­ern­ment, along with its dis­cred­ited in­tel­li­gence agen­cies, should re­flect on this de­ba­cle and un­der­stand that cases such as this can only show­case their ‘out­law’ be­hav­iour, which Sikhs have long been aware of, but which is now in­creas­ingly recog­nised in­ter­na­tion­ally. 

The In­dian gov­ern­ment, along with its dis­cred­ited in­tel­li­gence agen­cies, should re­flect on this de­ba­cle and un­der­stand that cases such as this can only show­case their ‘out­law’ be­hav­iour, which Sikhs have long been aware of, but which is now in­creas­ingly recog­nised in­ter­na­tion­ally. 

It is time they ac­knowl­edged that such be­hav­iour is not ac­cept­able and will not be tol­er­ated by those who es­pouse the rule of law and de­mo­c­ra­tic norms. 

It is a mat­ter of time be­fore In­dian per­pe­tra­tors of the mas­sive, sys­tem­atic rights abuses against the Sikhs since the late 1970s will be held to ac­count be­fore a le­gal tri­bunal; those who now con­tinue the abuses should also be mind­ful of fac­ing le­gal sanc­tion for their ac­tions.

The UK Prime Min­is­ter Boris John­son, al­ready em­bar­rassed on sev­eral other oc­ca­sions by his er­rant Home Sec­re­tary should dis­miss Pa­tel; she has dan­ger­ously jeop­ar­dised the rep­u­ta­tion of and trust in the UK agen­cies that pur­sued this wholly un­just ex­tra­di­tion case. 

He should think about the im­pact on com­mu­nity re­la­tions in a coun­try where an es­ti­mated 700,000 Sikhs live and con­tribute in every walk of life. The uni­fied re­solve of that com­mu­nity in coun­ter­ing Pa­tel on this mat­ter has been both vo­cal and im­pres­sive; she is a li­a­bil­ity which any sen­si­ble PM should rapidly re­move from the po­lit­i­cal land­scape.

The UK Prime Min­is­ter Boris John­son, al­ready em­bar­rassed on sev­eral other oc­ca­sions by his er­rant Home Sec­re­tary should dis­miss Pa­tel.

The UK Gov­ern­ment must also fi­nally now make some se­ri­ous ef­forts to se­cure the re­lease of an­other UK cit­i­zen, Jag­tar Singh Jo­hal, who has been tor­tured in In­dian jails (with­out any le­gal re­dress) whilst held on sim­i­lar false charges since No­vem­ber 2017. 

The re­luc­tance to take any mean­ing­ful ac­tion, in that case, once again dri­ven by an un­prin­ci­pled and undig­ni­fied chase for trade deals, must now end in the light of last week’s events. 

The col­lapse of the ex­tra­di­tion case high­lighted, amongst other things, how In­dian po­lice had ma­nip­u­lated ev­i­dence to fool the UK courts; if that can hap­pen in high pro­file in­ter­na­tional pro­ceed­ings, what chance is there for jus­tice for ‘Jag­gi’ Jo­hal fac­ing a politi­cised court sys­tem in In­dia? The UK must re­quire his im­me­di­ate re­lease and im­pose mean­ing­ful sanc­tions on In­dian of­fi­cials and lead­ers un­til that hap­pens.

The back­drop to all these sor­did deal­ings (there have been other in­stances) be­tween the two gov­ern­ments has been an un­scrupu­lous ef­fort to pre­vent Sikhs, in­clud­ing those in the world­wide di­as­pora, from rais­ing hu­man rights con­cerns fol­low­ing In­di­a’s un­de­clared war on the Sikh na­tion over past decades. 

The col­lapse of the ex­tra­di­tion case high­lighted, amongst other things, how In­dian po­lice had ma­nip­u­lated ev­i­dence to fool the UK courts; if that can hap­pen in high pro­file in­ter­na­tional pro­ceed­ings, what chance is there for jus­tice for ‘Jag­gi’ Jo­hal fac­ing a politi­cised court sys­tem in In­dia?

It is high time for some wis­dom on the part of these gov­ern­ments; rather than fac­ing hu­mil­i­at­ing re­ver­sals, they should recog­nise that the Sikhs have in­di­vid­ual and col­lec­tive hu­man rights, en­shrined in in­ter­na­tional law, which they will never sur­ren­der. 

As a na­tion, the Sikhs have his­tor­i­cally al­ways pre­vailed over in­jus­tice. We re­main stead­fast in our law­ful mis­sion to se­cure peace, pros­per­ity and self-de­ter­mined free­dom in our home­land and no amount of op­pres­sion or un­eth­i­cal chi­canery will ever change that po­si­tion.