Chinese torture 24 Apr 08## (http://thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=4&theme=&usrsess=1&id=200812
Notwithstanding Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent visit to China, the first by him, and the by and large cordial tenor of the visit, Beijing is never averse to baring its teeth every once in a while. India's ambassador to Beijing, Nirupama Rao, was recently summoned to the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing at 2 a.m. to indicate Chinese displeasure with the protests by the Tibetan refugee community in India. If Ms Rao found that a bit over the top, she would do well to reflect that some Indian envoys have in the past suffered greater indignities.
In mid-1967, China was in the throes of the Cultural Revolution. On 4 June, the second secretary in the Indian embassy in Peking (today's Beijing), K Raghunath, later India's foreign secretary, and the third secretary, P Vijai, were surrounded by a mob in the Chinese capital and taken to a police station on charges of spying. They were released after eight hours of confinement.
Throughout this time, the foreign ministry kept insisting it could not intervene, because the matter pertained to "local jurisdiction". Eight days later, Raghunath was declared an "out-and-out spy" and threatened with trial by a people's court. The following day, both the Indians were in fact tried in absentia; Mr Raghunath was ordered to leave China immediately while Mr Vijai was granted three days to follow suit. Both were ordered to use a particular route while exiting from the country and warned that in case of any deviation, they would be held responsible for all consequences.
In the usual tit-for-tat in such cases, India's external affairs ministry summoned the Chinese charge d'affaires for the third time the same day and told that the first secretary, Chen Lu-Chih, had been stripped of diplomatic status and would have to report to the foreigners' registration office.
On 14 June, there was a demonstration in front of the Chinese embassy organised by the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, accompanied by slogans and speeches attacking China. However, as demonstrators began to leave the place, some of them turned violent and hurled stones at the embassy building damaging a display of photographs. The police were swift in dispersing the crowd.
By then, however, reports had reached Delhi of some brutal treatment meted out to Mr Raghunath and Mr Vijai at the Peking airport. At 3.50 p.m., the external affairs ministry sent a terse note to the Chinese embassy ordering the immediate deportation of the first secretary and declared the third secretary persona non grata, ordering him to leave the country in seventy-two hours.
However, the first secretary decided to ignore the Indian order; neither did he turn up at the foreigners' registration office nor did he show any inclination to leave the country. On the top of this undisguised act of insult, the chauffeur of the charge d'affaires slapped an Indian policeman who, under orders, was checking vehicles leaving the embassy.
China on its part failed to honour its commitment of providing safe passage to the two Indian diplomats who were being escorted on 15 June by public security personnel and the Red Guards. The diplomats were subjected to humiliation and physical abuse, forced to leave the aircraft at Canton and paraded through the town in a truck. Later, at the border town of Shumchun, they were once again subjected to similar harassment and abuse.
Reuters reported from Peking on 18 June that the Red Guards ringing the Indian embassy in the Chinese capital were taunting Indian diplomats to come out and face the crowds as a siege continued for the second day at the embassy. The intimidation intensified and the embassy was effectively cut off from the outside world. The siege of the embassy was made official when the Chinese foreign ministry announced that no person of Indian nationality in the embassy could leave the premises without permission.
On 18 June, Mr Raghunath, who had returned to New Delhi with Mr Vijai, narrated at a press conference the terrible happenings in China. He said that the Chinese escorts saw to it that they would not suffer physical torture on their way out but that they would be humiliated in all conceivable forms. As they were being escorted to the aircraft at Peking airport by a cordon of Indians, the mob attacked them. They were tortured and at one point they could well have been throttled. The news of the extreme humiliation and physical abuse suffered by the Indian diplomats was, however, already common knowledge in India. New Delhi reacted by making elaborate security arrangements for the Chinese embassy. It was then left to two private initiatives to provide a fitting reply to the Chinese outrage.
The first of these came from the Delhi University Students' Union, led by its president, Subhash Goyal. It put up posters announcing a protest at the Chinese embassy on 16 June. By 5.30 in the evening on that day, a large crowd of students had gathered in the neighbourhood of the embassy, clearly in an angry mood.
Independently, the late ML Sondhi ~ then the Jana Sangh MP from New Delhi ~ decided to organise a protest. He first approached the Jana Sangh, which refused to play ball, saying that they had already held a demonstration. Sondhi played a lone hand. Along with his wife, Madhuri Santanam Sondhi, he decided to use donkeys as part of the protest crew. Ms Sondhi had the bright idea of designing placards to be hung round the animals' necks with the inscription 'Mao's Thoughts'.
Sondhi left the Lok Sabha early for the demonstration with not more than a handful of followers. To increase that negligible number to respectable proportions, he stopped on his way to the Chinese embassy at a bus stop near the Chanakyapuri police station, castigating people for not reacting adequately to the Chinese insult. The ploy worked, with a number of people joining Sondhi. En route, Ms Sondhi met them along with the donkeys, all suitably 'garlanded', and the group joined the students' demonstration.
As the demonstration got into full swing, some of the demonstrators jumped on to the compound wall and began to throw stones at the Chinese. The situation worsened when the Chinese emerged from the embassy building in an obvious retaliatory move. At this point, Indians entered the embassy grounds from the north, and the Chinese began to throw stones at them. The mob altogether numbered around five thousand, though not all of them had entered the embassy grounds. Those who did ran straight for the flag-pole and pulled down and tore the Chinese flag. The Chinese tried to save the flag but could not and got beaten up in the process. Seven Chinese embassy staffers had to be hospitalised.
The most spectacular and memorable part of the demonstration, however, was yet to come. With the temperature rising, the main gate of the embassy was pulled down. Sondhi charged into the compound with about 30 donkeys. The Chinese soon capitulated and hostilities were suspended. However, the message reached home. Indian diplomats in China were never again harassed.
## The author, Apratim Mukarji (not mentioned in the online ed) was Hindustan Times Special Corresndent in Calcutta,Colombo and New Delhi. The Bengali version of it appeared in Dainik Statesman a shortwhile back. __._,_.___
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