India, Pakistan not telling truth: Dayal Singh

PARROD (Patiala): Tears well up in the eyes of 97 year old

Dayal Singh

of village Parrod when asked about the present day war like situation between India and Pakistan.

“I feel pained to recall those horrific days of partition and the wars India fought with China and Pakistan,” said Dayal Singh. In a two hour tete-a-tete with TOI on Sunday, he said “The present day situation between India and Pakistan is unfortunate. I want to tell Modi and

Nawaz Sharief

not to go for war as it ruins economy and puts the country in debt. Thousands of lives are lost. ”

To a question he said “Both the countries were lying in connection with surgical strikes. Neither, Pakistan nor India is showing any evidence of the damage caused and lives lost.”

“If Pakistan has claimed that it killed 8 Indian commandoes, where are their bodies? And India is also not showing anything to substantiate its claims of killing some 40-50 terrorists,” he says.

He said that Pakistan had been sending terrorists to India and we remained mum. India was declared a jackal (Gidharr). The surgical strikes were necessary. Moreover, elections to Punjab, UP and Goa were due in 2017 which influenced Modi government.

Born in 1919 November, the octogenarian vividly remembers the scene of 1931 when his village Nathein Jagir 45 km from Lahore was informed through posters that Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev had been hanged to death. He was 13 years old then.

According to him, in 1965 war India lost to China due to soft policies of the Nehru government. “Nehru had been telling us that

Hindi-Chini bai bai

but the truth came forward in form of a bloody battle. We lost thousand hectares of land to the enemy.”

Dayal Singh, remembers 1971 as the day of India’s victory when Pakistan was bifurcated and Bangladesh created. He gives all the credit to late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and hurriedly added that she was wrong in attacking the Golden temple in 1984.

The old man maintains, “It was the Indian farmer especially of Punjab who made it possible for Indira Gandhi to conduct the Pokhran nuclear blast.”

India was deficient in food grains and was dependent on import of wheat and rice. But once the country became self-dependent, Indira Gandhi took no time to go nuclear even as America was opposed to it, he said.

The old man recollects, “In 1971 war which started on December 3 the Punjabis followed Indian Army across the border to cheer them up.” Dayal Singh has a grudge against the Indian leadership. He says, “When we migrated to India in 1947, leaving home and hearth in Pakistan, the leadership did not compensate us economically. We had 500 acres of land in Pakistan and India gave us only 88 acres in return.”

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