- The
communal Threat: A Deepening Challenge for the Struggle for Human
Rights
-Fifty years
down the line has the Indian Constitution proven inadequate?
Teesta
Setalvad
Fifty years ago the UN Declaration of
Human Rights came into force worldwide. This time frame, give or take
a few years also coincided with the birth of fledgling nation states
who emerged from centuries of colonial rule in Asia and Africa.
Within these formulations, many of whom
consciously, as a result of their individual nationalist struggles
chose the democratic option sworn to notions of egalitarianism, the
realisation individual human rights ought to have been more and more
assured. India is a classic example. Our Constitution adopted two
years later after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by
the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948, is an admirable sister
document, or proud replica of the UN charter reflecting the same
seriousness and commitment to notions of equity and justice in the
context of a democratic and secular order.
The opening declaration of the UDHR
compares so closely to the Preamble to the Indian constitution; the
UDHR’s Article 2 on non-discrimination on the basis of race, colour,
sex, language, language, religion, religion, political or other
opinion etc. is ably reflected in our constitution’s Article 15:
“Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race caste, sex
or place of birth of any of them.”
Similarly the UDHR’s Article 3 on
“everyone has a right of life, liberty and security of person” is
reflected in Article 6 of the Indian Constitution: “Every human being
has the inherent right to life. The rights shall be protected by law.
No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.”
The same comparisons can be found
between Articles 7 and 18 of the UDHR that deal with
non-discrimination in protection before the law and freedom of
religion, thought and conscience and the Indian Constitution’s
Articles 14 and 25.
But like in the west where inherent
notions of white supremacy and dominance have allowed racism to exist,
or subsist, surface and even flourish within western democracies -
side by side with the laudable Bill of Rights and other fundamental
freedoms -- inherent inequities among the social and economic starts
of these fledgling nation states India have seriously hampered the
application and realisation of individual human rights to citizens
living under the Indian political dispensation.
Poverty, or economic deprivation is
undoubtedly the greatest obstacle in the attainment of
individual freedoms and genuine liberty. The tragic disparities that
Indian society not merely always did have, but appears to have
enhanced over fifty years’ of independent governance, are clear
pointers to this inescapable reality: that economic dignity and
independence go a long way towards exercising choices and living lives
that are genuine manifestations of lived, personal liberty.
For the purposes of this paper however,
I have, while acknowledging at the outset the overriding concern
towards increasing poverty in India and suggesting that removal of
such should be top priority within the broader struggles for human
rights, restricted the subject to the social inequities and realities
that have not only seriously hampered the realisation of human rights
for hundreds of thousands of Indians, within whom I include dalits,
women and the religious minorities, but have in the more recent past,
particularly or the latter, have had these rights violently and
forcibly taken away. Despite the continued existence, on paper of the
secular, democratic Indian constitution, there has been no positive
intervention from the state, be it the law and order machinery or the
executive.
The denial, or rather violently
snatching away of the rights of minorities (religious) to life,
protection from the law, access to employment, right or residence in
any part of India have been insidiously taking place in the country
over the last decade and a half, under the increasing social sway of
and credence being given to the majoritarian communal ideology of
Hindutva. The successful erosion into the basic ethic and morale
of democratic institutions like the law and order machinery -- the
police, the executive and even the judiciary has also been by the
inroads that this very philosophy/ world view has made into the
discourse, formulations and functioning’s of the administration and
the executive, of the Indian mainstream. This, therefore, poses the
single most serious threat to Indian democracy today.
What exactly am I referring to?
Examining today’s India and within that framework the question of
human rights, requires at the foremost contextualising the discussion
within the context of the political emergence of the ideology of
Hindutva, the ideal of a Hindu nation that at its very basic is
anti-democratic, anti-socialist and anti-secular. An anathema then to
every single provision that the Constitution of India has stood for.
The party that heads the coalition that
the Indian Union government today is run by the political party, the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), that is sworn to this ideology. Until
the elections to many Indian states a fortnight ago, this party was
also in the seat of governance in five Indian states. Maharashtra,
where I hail from, is still run by the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance that has
a Shiv Shahi/Hindutva dispensation.
It is of no material consequence for the
political representatives of these parties to attempt and perpetually
reiterate that Hindutva or Hindu Rashtra is inherently
secular and democratic. The farthest and crudest justification or
reasoning for this is them saying that under their political
dispensations, once they come to power, “no riots take place.”
Both in its ideological construct and
its actual operation -- now we have had the sorry privilege of
Hindutva-inspired Hindu rashtras in many parts of the
country-- demonstrate that this ideology is anti-democratic and
violative of the basic tenets of the Indian constitution containing as
it does the basic human rights of a life of equality, freedom and
dignity.
We have seen clear and continuing
evidence of this in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra
we have had, or still have in these areas that have had saffron
dispensations. I shall go into these details but first at the level of
ideology.
The ideology of Hindutva can be
best summed up in the words of Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, the second
Sarsanghchalak of the RSS, who wrote in his book, We; or Our
Nationhood Defined, in 1939: “The foreign races in Hindustan
(read all Muslims and Christian) must either adopt the Hindu culture
and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence (sic) Hindu
religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of
Hindu race and culture, i.e., of the Hindu nation and must lost their
separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or stay in the country,
wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving
no privileges far less any preferential treatment - not even citizen’s
rights. There is, at least should be, no other course for them to
adopt.” (9).
We need to clarify and stress that here
was/is not a benevolent philosophy unlike what the Indian Supreme
Court has had to say on Hindutva (“calling it a way of
life”)this is what ‘Guru’ Golwalkar had to say about the prosecution
of the Jews in Nazi Germany:
“German race and pride has now become
the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the Race and its
culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the
semitic Races - the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been
manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is
for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be
assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan
to learn and profit by” (10)
For over seven decades since its
formation in 1925, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the
organisation founded on this upper-caste Hindu Brahmin ideology, has
been working insidiously at its task through varied front
organisations, cultural, educational, labour fronts, womens’
organisations all over the country. It is founded on deep-rooted
notions of pitrubhoomi (fatherland, land of ancestors/origin)
and punyabhoomi (land of faith, worship). Implied in these
formulations in the crudest sense is that therefore the “Muslims” and
“Christians” are by faith and history, outsiders. So are, of course,
the vast majority of other Indians, Dalits, tribals and OBCs, who do
not fit into definitions of culture, custom and religion as this rigid
outfit sees it, though serious attempts have been made to give this
ideology an all-Hindu orientation. Hence the emergence of more
vociferous and cruel outfits like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and
Bajrang Dal. The basic agenda of this ideology in operation is,
however, clearly political: to significantly alter and change the
existing Indian democratic order.
Much time and unnecessarily wasteful
energy has been spent on discussions of whether or not the Hindutva
agenda can be termed fascist. The blatant harking to a superiority
of race for one section of the population over others, the artificial
“demonising” of the “enemy other” to explain current day problems,
wrongs or conflict, the blatant disregard for the rule of law and
flaunting violations of it, all through an embracing of violence. What
more indicators of fascism do we need?
The crucial difference between today and
the situation in India five-ten years ago is this. It is the
difference between say, a historical denial of access to resources,
employment and self improvement to large sections of our Dalit
population (in over 75% of our village even today Dalits cannot draw
water from our village wells) and the current day humiliations through
acts of targetted violence being perpetuated against Indian Muslims
and Christians, and justified by lies, that through mass hysteria
become weapons of venom and murder.
This is not more rhetoric. What exactly
do I mean ?
Shiv Sainiks in Mumbai and Delhi attack
and vandalise theatres showing a film with impunity, despite the fact
that its producer has, following the due process of law, obtained an
‘A’ (adult) certificate from the Censor Board. The chief executive of
Maharashtra, democratically elected to his chair, applauds the acts of
vandalism, violence & unlawful behaviour. The Delhi SS chief , V.
Goel is on record saying that following unconstitutional norms is the
philosophy of his party. Madhukar Sarpotdar, another MP of the SS, is
on record before the Justice Srikrishna Commission of Inquiry saying
that his party “believes in the retaliatory killings of innocents.” He
was admitting this in cross-examination when it was stated that the
mere rumours of killing of Hindus in one part of Bombay in 1993, had
led to SS leaders exhorting their supporters to killing Muslims, and
actually doing so, in another part.
This is the blatantly anti-democratic
thrust of Hindutva in ideology and in operation.
But friends, we need to look closely at
the horror stories emerging out of Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh if we
want to truly appreciate the gravity of the situation before us.
Welcome to Hindu Rashtra,
are the boards put up by the VHP in over 1,200 Gujarat villages.
“Lived fascism is a grim reality in Gujarat today” said a senior
activist from the state when I interviewed him. When we investigated
the state for our journal, Communalism Combat a shameful and
sorry tale unfolded.
* March 5 1998,
Vadodara: An assembly of a group of Pentacostal Christians is
violently disrupted by the VHP-Bajrang Dal, after incendiary pamphlets
are first distributed. The police help the vandals, other Christians
are beaten up.
*April 15,
Naroda near Ahmedabad: A Catholic Church is demolished by a
violent mob of the BJP,VHP and Bajrang Dal. The attacking mob is given
police protection!
*July 8 1998:
The body of Samuel, a Methodist Christian is exhumed and dumped
outside for 3 days by VHP leaders in a bid to terrorise the small
local minority community.
*July 20, 1998:
The I.P. Girls Secondary School in Rajkot: 300 copies of the Bible are
trampled on and burnt on entirely false allegations of “conversions”
dished out by local VHP-Bajrang Dal squads. Incidentally, 90 per cent
of the students in this school are Hindus. The school has been in
operation for over a century. Human rights group, NISHANT, that met
students days after the incident reported for Communalism Combat.
The students were in tears. Zala Aruna, a Hindu girl, said, “They
snatched the Bible from the primary kids, stepped on the books, danced
on them shouting, Jai Sri Ram. Then, sprinkling kerosene on
them, they set them on fire. Would they have done it to the Geeta?”
this child innocently asked. Not in BJP’s Hindu Rashtra!
This human rights’ group also
interviewed Ilabehn Mehta who passed out of the school in 1960. She
said, “We were told about Christianity, but we were never asked to
adopt it. I was a Hindu when I entered the school, and a Hindu when I
left.”
Over 40 incidents in Gujarat alone since
February 1998 since chief minister, Keshubhai Patel’s ministry took
over in the state. There has been no action taken in any of the cases.
The rape of nuns in Jhabua, the assault on other sisters in Haryana,
the blatant attack on ordinary Christians observing Sabbath, praying
on Sunday in Mangalore. Over 131 attacks against Christians in the
last year alone. All over India. In each case, goons of the
RSS-VHP-Bajrang Dal, even the BJP and the SS in Maharashtra have been
indicted. And what does the Home Minister of India have to say ? He is
busy trying to convince the Indian Christian leadership that in the
Jhabua rape case, 12 of the rapists were Christians!
What about Rajkot, Latur, Maharashtra,
and the case of Father Jesudas in Dhumka, Bihar where the BJP was
involved ?
Using this forum, I would like to ask
the Home Minister of this country, what is he doing about each of
those cases that have been listed out? The questions that we need to
ask ourselves are, can we really expect anything from a man who is
named as co-conpriator in the criminal act of the demolition of the
Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992? Is there not a conflict of interest
because of which he should not occupy his chair, until charge-sheets
have been filed and the case reaches its conclusion in accordance with
the due process of law ? Is this not necessary given the magnitude of
the crime?
Thanks to consistent public pressure in
Mumbai, at least the Justice B.N. Srikrishna Commission report has
become what every government investigation into mass murder should
become -- a public document. What, Mr. Advani, has happened to the
Liberhans Commission inquiring into the Babri Masjid demolition other
Inquiry Commission into the violence that racked Ayodhya in 1992? Have
these judicial probes completed their tasks? Have they been
disbanded? The nation demands that these reports be made public. And
thereafter action into each one of them.
The story of Gujarat, however remains
incomplete without more sordid details.
Randhikpur village Panchmahal district
(July 1998): 60 Muslims families are forced to free from their
villages following mass hysteria whipped up through pamphlets
distributed and public meetings held by the VHP and the Bajrang Dal,
alleging that Muslim boys were kidnapping Hindu girls. The charges
were false. Over four months later, not all the families are back.
They have been terrorised into giving up control over their local
business by the VHP and the BJP leadership.
Sanjeli village, in Rajkot district. A
similar tale. Over 100 families are forcibly evicted from their homes.
Terrorised, they had to flee to neighbouring villages, following which
their transport businesses have been appropriated by VHP-Bajrang Dal
youth who allow only jeeps with a saffron branding to ply the roads.
Apart from the gross violence it appears to be as clear attempt to
economically cripple the minority community.
So friends, to comprehend the full flow
of Hindutva ideology in operation, we need to closely analyse
how locally the VHP-Bajrang Dal brigade fully utilises Hindutva’s
exclusivist ideology to whip up mass local sentiment against the
minorities while a silent administration looks on. The prevarications
that “Muslim boys are marrying Hindu girls” to convert them and
thereby increase their population and Christian minorities are going
about their evil designs of “forcibly converting” local populations
are the two lies currently being used by VHP_Bajrang Dal squads in
Gujarat to whip up mass justification of brutal acts against a section
of our own population.
They
prepare the ground carefully, friends. They distribute pamphlets.
These contain crude and provocative language against Muslims and
Christians. No action is taken against them by the police for these
violations of the law. They create a silent support for their
prevarications. These prevarications are baseless but let’s not deny
that they win a silence from the rest of us. And there, then, is where
the power of the genocide comes from. From the silent support of a
vast majority of the population. That is what lived fascism is all
about. It exists among us today. It happened in Mumbai in 1992-1993.
It is happening in Gujarat right now.
In the
state’s Dangs district, Christian and Muslim places of worship have
been attacked and pulled down. A shuddhikaran
(purification) ceremony has been performed on the person of every
single minority community member at the local Unnai
temple. Following the “purification”, the local sarpanch
has decreed that these sections cannot drink water from the village
well nor use the common grazing lands for their cattle. Relegating our
religious minorities to how we treat our Dalits, what?
The Gujarat DGP
in an exclusive interview to our journal proclaimed two things. One,
that it was the activists of the VHP and
Bajrang Dal who were taking law and order into their own hands in
Gujarat. And, two, that the allegations of forced
abductions/marriages or conversions, after investigations by the
police have been found, to be entirely baseless.
But what does the police do?
The local police in Gujarat watches as
more & more incidents are reported. In the Randhikpur and Sanjeli
incidents (wherein Muslims were forcibly evicted from their villages)
these actions were preceded by Dharamsabhas held by the
VHP-Bajrang Dal in full public view. Publicly-reported documents and
police station records reveal what was said by these leaders at these
Dharamsabhas. “If Muslims want to live here they must live as
Hindus!” And to any member of the police who dare to speak up: “Both
here (in the state of Gujarat) and in Dilli (Delhi) amari
sarkar che (it is our government). Your silence would be your best
friend.” To a sole officer who tried to uphold the basic duties of his
uniform VHP leaders threatened, “we will strip you of your vardi
(uniform) in public”.
Journalists were embargoed form visiting
Sanjeli & Randhikpur. The Indian Express, July 1998, reported:
“On Sunday evening, Bhupendra a freelance photographer went to
Randhikpur accompaning this reporter (Darshan Desai). There he was
trailed by a group of 10 people who heckled and abused him as he
entered. He was gheraoed by at least 100 people, led by Shailesh Bhatt
of the VHP. He was abused, pushed around, slapped on the face and
asked to leave. Patel says he saw a sub-inspector hiding his nameplate
before entering the scene and also asking him to leave for his own
good. When they told him he should be protecting Patel, he said ‘Don’t
be oversmart, I will slap you if you teach me my job. Now get out.”
The reporter left. Gujarat Today’s Yunus Gujiwala was detained
for several hours at the local police station when he tried to visit
Randhikpur.
This then is lived fascism in Gujarat
today.
The alleged “forced” conversions by
Christians is also a myth that is a duty of every rational-minded
Indian to explode. What is the reality?
How many of us know that Christians who
formed 2.6% of population in 1961, 2.4% in 1981 constitute only 2.3%
of our population today? These are census figures given in the Tata
Statistical Handbook. How many of us know that both states of Orissa &
Madhya Pradesh have in existence, legislations, ironically called the
Freedom of Religions Act, passed between 1967-68. The basic thrust of
these is that any conversion that takes place in these states has to
be reported to the local district magistrate within 48 hours. The
underlying assumption, of course, being that conversions are coerced
or forced !
In the case of Orissa, no single case of
violation of the act has ever been reported in the 30 years of the
act’s existence. In MP, of 40 cases registered in the same period, 37
have been dismissed by the courts as superfluous. These have been
cases registered to harrass, with no shred of evidence to back them.
Three have not yet come up for trial.
Ironically, all the cases in MP have
been concentrated in the area under the sway of Dilip Singh Judeo (BJP
MP from Jaspur) and the Vice President of the RSS-run Vanvasi Kalyan
Ashram.
How many of us know that the same
Gujarat police whose chief proclaims that all rumours of forced
marriages (with the motive for conversion behind them) were and are
blatant falsehood, has set up a police cell to investigate each &
every case of inter-community marriage in the state. Is not this the
grossest denial of a citizen’s personal liberty as guaranteed under
the Indian Constitution? What is the judiciary doing about this?
Let’s now take a look at Uttar Pradesh.
On November 2, 1997 at a public meeting
at Kaushambi in Manjhanpur, the chief minister, Kalyan Singh, openly
declared that “whenever the police apprehends a criminal, he should be
disabled by hurting the lower half of his body by any means whatever,
so that they may not thereafter be able to have a normal life.” This
passage is quoted from a public interest petition filed before the
Allahabad High Court by the state unit of the People’s Union for Civil
Liberties (PUCL) that has demanded, on grounds of violation of
fundamental rights, the dismissal of the UP government.
On April 30 this year, in a much-publicised
speech to the UP state police on the occasion of a law & order review
meeting, chief minister Kalyan Singh said : “I want performance,
results. I want you to create a dhamaka (impact). If noted
criminals can be liquidated in encounters, do it. If you take the life
of one person who has taken the life of 10 others, then people will
praise you. And I am here to protect you.”
But who has the UP police -- following
the adesh (directive) of Kalyan Singh killed? Sourcing a list
methodically compiled by two Indian journals, India Today (Aug
98) and Teesri Duniya (Sept 1998), I quote some examples. These
show that a majority of the victims are Dalits and Muslims. Senior
policemen concerned with the situation in the state now reveal that
“the conditions are worse than Bihar.” They have given confidential
reports suggesting that today 32% of UP’s policemen have criminal
backgrounds and 16 % of these actually have criminal cases pending
against them. When independent Rajya Sabha MP and veteran civil rights
activist, Kuldip Nayyar, led a protest dharna in Lucknow barely a few
months ago, he and the local activists were forcibly stopped from
demonstrating at the venue which they had arranged for the protest.
Some of the hair-raising killings need
to be highlighted for us all to recognise the magnitude of the problem
:
*August 9, 1998:
A woman, Ramkeshi, was shot dead in a police encounter in Bakevar near
Ittava after which the police tried to fabricate the theory that she
was a dacoit. Following a strong public protest, 15 men have been
suspended from service.
*Aug 25 1998:
Five dehadi Muslim workers -- Saleem, Nafeez, SajidNanhe and
Farmood -- were shot dead, one after another, at Lodhpur village near
Muzaffarnagar. Hailing from Meerut, they were headed for Balipura
village when the truck they were travelling in broke down. Near
Lodhpur (a village notorious for dacoits) villagers mobed them and
informed local police. A police patrol led by inspector K.K. Gautam
which was passing by promptly swing into action, took the youth to a
deserted spot and shot them down, one by one, at point black range.
None, except Salim has any police record.
*July 8 1998: Following
inquiries made by the father of 14-year-old Sunil from the local
police after he was found missing, it transpried that the teenager had
been tortured to death by police. The father, a garbage picker died of
grief two days later, on July 10, 1998.
The list goes on. Five Dalits were
killed in a police encounter in June 1998. Despite the fact that
presently UP has the poorest human rights record in the country (the
NHRC has recorded that over 46% of the cases of human rights
violations received by it during 96-97 were from here, the state
government is adamant against setting up a state Human Rights
Commission. For the information of this gathering, the state unit of
the PUCL is battling this issue through the courts as well.
Which brings me towards another crucial
point. This is also a fervent plea to both the Indian legislature and
the judiciary. In an executive controlled by the BJP, I have no hope.
The legislature, presently at least, is
multi-tiered. This forum must be used for the high ideals with which
it has been instituted. It was in those very seats that members of our
Constituent Assembly in their ultimate sanity and wisdom, charted
India’s future respecting her multi-cultural, multi-dimensional
reality. It was not merely the most ideal way, it remains today the
only practicable way that this country can hope to survive as one
nation. Tampering with that diversity, attempting to impose a
hegemony, a rigidity on this vast canvas, snatching people’s lives,
property and livelihoods by force; denying them access to employment,
forcing them into ghettos by simply not leasing, renting or selling
properties to some segments in some areas, is not merely Hindutva
in operation. It is a recipe that is inviting retaliation
–increasingly, as more and more systematic attacks and pogroms take
place -- inviting violent retaliation.
Bombay 1992-1993 was followed by March
1993, the serial bomb blasts. Coimbatore November ’97 was followed by
February ’98. And what did the local leaders of the BJP from
Coimbatore say in their official deposition before Justice Hosbet
Suresh investigating the tragedy for a human rights tribunal: “We want
more bomb blasts. Everywhere there are such actions, we win seats.”
How much more cynical can you get?
In report after report of every
investigation into post-partition communal riots -- since Jabalpur in
1961—the judiciary has identified right-wing, Hindu exclusivist
organisations as responsible for repeated provocation that finally,
after weeks of simmering, erupt into violent outbursts. And these very
forces are the ones that want the victims to retaliate, brutally,
violently. So that the schisms that run central to their politics are
driven in finally and become complete among the people, irreversible.
When are the rest of us going to see the
writing on the wall?
This presentation would be incomplete
without a serious introspection into the analysis and response of the
Indian judiciary, the last bastion of Indian democracy to the
insidious and overt perversions and subversions of the law and the
Indian Constitution by these majoritation forces of Hindutva.
Barring some noble exceptions, it is my
humble submission that the Indian judiciary, the last bastion of
Indian democracy has proved itself entirely inept, so far, in
containing the spread of this communal poison even in clear-cut cases
where the law and provisions of it, inviting strict penal actions,
have been violated.
We have in existence today on our annals
a judgment from the apex court giving a clean chit to the philosophy
of Hindutva, describing it as a “way of life.” This decree has
been recently challenged by several organisations.
But where was the Indian judiciary in
the run-up to Dec. 6, 1992, before the demolition took place at
Ayodhya and after violence was unleashed systematically in many Indian
towns and villages? On November 30, 1992, a conscientious citizen,
through a public interest petition, earnestly pleaded before the
Supreme Court of India: Do not turn a blind eye, My Lordships, he
said. The Kar Sevaks are arriving in their hundreds of
thousands at Ayodhya. Look at the kind of speeches being made to
mobilise these crowds along the way, whether it is Sadhvi Rithambara
or Lal Krishna Advani. (The latter, India’s Home Minister today, if
you recall, had exhorted crowds en route to Ayodhya, in Kashi and
Mathura that, “the kar seva shall be performed with bricks and
stones, not bhajans and kirtans this time.”) The
petitioner brought these points before the apex count, urging the
judges to intervene, to be more pro-active, saying it would be naďve
to believe that the kar seva could –under all these
circumstances-- be peaceful. What did the SC do? It sent an
“observer” to watch, who could only have been sorry witness to the
demolition, not much else.
Within eight months of this, more
committed citizens and lawyers from Mumbai filed another
path-breaking, historic, writ petition. Quoting extensively from
writings in Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray’s mouthpiece, the Saamna,
written before and at the height of violence in 1992-93, the
petitioners demanded his arrest by the state. Their grounds?
Serious and consistent violation of
sections 153 a and 153b of the IPC that relate to the offence of
promoting enmity, hatred and incitement of violence against certain
groups. Among the reams of vitriol reeled of by Thackeray through the
Saamna is this: “Muslims should draw a lesson from the
demolition of the Babri Masjid. Muslims who criticise the demolition
are without religion, without a nation.” (Saamna, December 8,
1992).
What was the Mumbai High Court’s
response? Justices Majithia and Dudhat dismissing the petition
commented, “These articles refer to the fissiparous tendencies among
Muslims…these articles do not criticise Muslims as a whole but Muslims
who are traitors to India.”
The High Court did not recognise that
these statements constitute violations of 153a and 153b despite the
fact that Bal Thackeray had made a public statement in course of these
hearings (he was quoted in his own paper and in the Loksatta on
June 28, 1993): “Mein adalat ke faislon par laghushanka karta hoon.
(I piss on the judgments of the courts)”. But what does the High
Court do? Dismiss the petition. And the Supreme Court? Dismiss the
special leave petition challenging the High Court’s dismissal and
asking for a judicial review.
Eminent jurists, the late H. M. Seervai,
Soli Sorabjee, Nani Palkhiwala, Fali S. Nariman, Justice Suresh,
opined (in CC, Jnauary 1995) that the judgement of the
apex court was wrong in law, a dangerous precedent and should be taken
up for review. A 50 page legal opinion was exclusively authored by the
late justice H.M. Seervai for CC to establish his point.
Fali S. Nariman, a senior lawyer, was
constrained to observe and I quote, “When Judges speak, what they say
(and, significantly, what they, do not say) sends down strong signals.
People listen and shape their actions accordingly. The message
conveyed by the judgement lies as much in what it does not say as in
what it does. The message clearly is that the intemperate words (of
Thackeray) against a particular community likely to cause disharmony
will now not only go unpunished, but will not ever suffer a judicial
rebuke. This is the single most sinister, most deplorable fallout of
the judgement of Justices Majithia and Dudhat (of the Bombay High
Court). That all this should not have seen fit to be corrected by the
Supreme Court of India when its jurisdiction was invoked, prompts only
a plaintive prayer, “Where then, O Lord, shall we turn for the
redressal of palpable wrongs?”
I have carried out the rather sordid
task of investigating every single post-Independence Judicial Inquiry
Commission Report into bouts of communal violence:
* Jabalpur Riots. 1961. Justice
Shivdayal Srivastava’s Report.
* Ranchi Riots. 1967. Justice Raghubar
Dayal’s Report.
* Ahmedabad Riots. 1969. Justice
Jagmohan Reddy’s report.
* Bombay-Bhiwandi Riots. 1970. Justice
D.P. Madon’s Report.
* Tellicherry Riots. 1971. Justice
Joseph Vidyathils Report.
* Jamshedpur Riots. 1979. Justice Narain
Ghosh and Justice Rizvi’s Report.
The list in endless. Kanyakumari
riots. Meerut-Maliana. Bhagalpur (1989).
Delhi Riots (1984). Justice Ranganath
Mishra Commission.
* Now Justice B.N. Srikrishna Report.
Bombay riots (1992-93).
What do these investigations reveal?
That a pattern is clearly discernible.
These judicial investigations have
revealed that in riot after riot the reports have identified the
systematic vitiation and poisoning of the atmosphere has always been
through the provocative acts of Hindu communal organisations like the
RSS, Jana Sangh, SS, Hindu Munnani, VHP, or Bajrang Dal. These outfits
through incendiary propaganda for weeks, or months, before the first
visible outburst not only inject the poison of communalism into the
local atmosphere but have successfully for the public consciousness
manufactured and disseminated the myth that it is always “the Muslims
who cast the first stone.”
Not only is every riot a replay of these
orchestrated lies. The guilty -- though identified by all these
wonderful, historic documents, the reports of inquiry commissions --
have gone unpunished.
My analysis has also revealed that each
of these judicial investigations have identified, and strongly
criticised the conduct of senior officers in uniform who have acted in
an utterly partisan way. The Justice Srikrishna report, the most
recent document of its kind, has named 15 senior police officers,
including one as high-up as the then Joint Police Commissioner, R.D.
Tyagi. Incidentally, this officer was rewarded for his conduct during
the riots by the SS-BJP combine who made him Mumbai’s police
commissioner in October 1995! On retirement early this year, he
joined the SS, publicly declaring, “I am a loyal soldier of Balasaheb.”
Apart from this, most recent such
indictment, every riot report since 1961 has castigated the complicity
and bias visible in the state machinery. Justice Jagmohan Reddy,
commenting on the situation in Ahmedabad as far back as 1969 says that
while more than half a dozen Muslim places of worship were attacked
though they were actually adjoining police lines or police stations
whereas not a single Hindu place of worship was similarly destroyed.
Or take the comments of Justice Madon on police conduct during the
Bhiwandi riots in 1970: “The working of the special investigation
squad was a study in discrimination. ”
Every example fits
in. The Justice Vidyathil inquiry into the Tellichery riots of 1971
has observed how in the heat of the moment, two constables in a
complete state of frenzy yelled to the Muslim victim: “Go to Pakistan”
with two of them getting so carried away as to enter a mosque, beat up
the elderly Usmankutty Haji and shatter the tubelight, chandelier
inside. Meerut, Maliana, Bhagalpur. Same story. The height of course
was Mumbai rioters. In the taped wireless messages intercepted by this
speaker, policemen were intercepting official communication exhorting
their officers not to go to save “landya” areas, not to reach
relief there.
After the bomb blasts, things only got
worse. In the guise of a displaced national honour, several hundred
Muslim families were illegally detained – often women members of
alleged accused in the bomb blasts – and then physically stripped and
humiliated at the Mahim police station and along the Konkan coast
where the RDX was purportedly smuggled in. I have personally recorded
video-taped interviewed with the victims. The torture was systematic.
Young men, but women too. Physical assaults and the taunts that
accompanied these assaults were, “Where is your Allah now? Learn to
say He Ram.”
Over the past decade, responding to this
acute bias displaying itself in the conduct of our police forces,
senior policemen have been speaking out, boldly identifying the
problem and suggesting systemic remedies.
The crux of the analysis of members of
the IPS like Mr. Vibhuti Rai (IG, BSF), Padma Rosha, former DG, Jammu
and Kashmir, Julio Ribeiro, former DG, Punjab, Shankar Sen, former
chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission is that where
communal riots are not put down firmly within a few hours, it must be
accepted as a major failure of the state administration and the state
must accept responsibility for fully compensating the loss and injury
to innocent victims of communal rioting and restoration of their homes
and sources of livelihood. This must be done not as an ad hoc
disbursal of charity but as something which citizens are entitled to
as of right and according to certain norms laid down beforehand.
Indian citizens must have the security of feeling that they are
insured against injury. The rationale for this sound argument, being
articulated by senior echelons of the police force is that –
Firstly, mob violence takes place more
or less openly in public spaces where the mobs go on the rampage
looting, burning, killing, often with live coverage by the media.
Secondly, such mobs include large numbers of the inhabitants of those
areas. The whole process of inflaming passions of sections of the
populace, bringing them out, working them into a frenzy, and then
pushing them over the threshold of violence, allows ample opportunity
to the administration at every stage. There is nothing covert or
surreptitious in such mob violence.
The immediate transfer of the SP or the
CP responsible for laxity of control in a riot in the area in his
jurisdiction and strict punitive action for the failure in containing
the violence are also among the suggestions that have emerged.
Punishment of the guilty, whether they be the masterminds behind
communal outfits who fuel and fan the flames of violence, the
individual rioters themselves or guilty men in uniform is a must if
society needs to be given a message that the guilty will be punished,
justice will be done and the peace and reconciliation process
initiated, facilitated by the political will of the state.
Or else, with these growing incidents
nationwide, some festering as wounds for decades, others making a
mockery of our fundamental rights, the only sorry conclusion one will
be forced to draw is that the writ of the Indian Constitution sways
this country no more. That admirable and worthy as every one of the
fundamental human rights and liberties enshrined within it are – the
right to life, liberty, property, dignity; the right to freedom of
expression, to freely propagate, preach and practice my religion or to
peacably denounce it if I am a non-believer are, these are only rights
on paper. And the deathly tentacles of communal politics and
propaganda have irretrievably corroded all our democratic
institutions. That will be a sorry day, friends. It is not that far
away if the rot is not stemmed right now.
Before we conclude, we must remember
that this erosion began its destructive course even under previous
governments ruled by avowedly secular parties like the Congress (I),
Janata party and the United Front. The Congress (I) in fact, with its
cynical disregard to the systemic blows being perpetrated by the
venomous leaders outits sworn to the Hindutva world view,
ignored, pampered and fondled these tendencies allowing them greater
and greater legitimacy and sway in civil society each time. No better
example of this can be found than the manner in which the party, in
Maharashtra encouraged the shrewd shaninigans of the Shiv Sena and its
chief, Bal Thackeray, who from the launch of his notorious political
career, ridiculed democracy as a political choice, scorned debate and
dialogue, eschewed violence and just by the way, in the course of his
unhindered political career, activity fermented hatred among his
followers, urging them through persistent hate propaganda, to kill,
attack and loot the homes of first south Indians, then Gujaratis and
now, Muslims.
Thackeray and his senior partymen stand
seriously exposed for their techniques of operation most recently in
the Justice B.N.Srikrishna Commission report of Inquiry into the
Mumbai riots of December 1992- January 1993. Yet no action was taken
against them by the Congress dispensation in the state between 1993
and 1995? This document, the Justice Srikrishna report, is one of the
finest analyses from a member of the Indian judiciary, a sitting
member of the Mumbai High Court of how the politics of hate-mongering
actually works. It elaborates in detail how the systematic whipping up
of sectarian, communal sentiments among the majority community creates
a climate conducive for the complete failure of the state
administration -- because the administration itself has become victim
of a certain malicious propaganda based on lies and myths, and
therefore an agent provocateur in the violence itself --- to intervene
and protect lives and property of minorities. That is how a minor or
major incident of communal violence swiftly transforms itself into an
all-out, full-fledged pogrom against the minorities.
It happened under a Congress (I) regime
here in New Delhi in 1984 when senior Congress leaders were found
leading mobs and policemen to attack and kill over 3,000 Sikhs
following the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi, simply
because her assassin belonged to the same religious community. It
happened in Mumbai in 1992-93 too.
But let’s not forget that the signals
were also there, the same patterns were also emerging especially in
the Meerut-Malliana massacres in Uttar Pradesh in 1987 ( when the UP
state Provincial Armed Constabulary cold-bloodedly gunned down 17
Muslim youths) and thereafter in Bhagalpur a few years later. Here,
corpses of over 100 Muslim bodies were hurriedly buried and
cauliflower planted over them to obliterate the crime!
It is interesting to see, how, in every
single post-Independence (and therefore post-Partition) communal riot
on Indian soil as mentioned before, the pattern has been clear.
Despite the clear-cut evidence through
this analysis that exposes that most often, these perpetrators of
violence and hatred belonged largely to majority communal outfits, the
Indian executive ruled by a “secular” Congress has also shown a
singular reluctance to act against them or those men in uniform found
prime facie guilty of biased conduct. The laxity of the state involves
a reluctance to:
a) putting down the violence;
b) punishing those guilty of blatantly
communal activity that prepares fertile ground for the spark to ignite
and
c) punishing those guilty men in uniform
with proven criminal and biased conduct and
d) rewarding the rarer examples of brave
and exemplary conduct.
A sorry record for any society or polity
interested in strengthening or deepening the values of justice,
equality and fairplay in its midst.
Before I conclude, I would like to
express my gratitude to the Champa Foundation . I was privileged to be
invited as the participant from India. I was happier still when the
topic was broadly formulated for me, “Communalism and human rights”.
But my delight was truly complete when I saw the genuine attempt made
to formulate this in a sub-continental context. Communalism and human
rights in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. This focus or perspective is
vital friends if we are genuinely looking towards reconciling these
three edgy neighbours and slaying our individual communal demons.
The lead up to Partition and the brutal
trauma itself was a powerful play of how different communalisms fuel
each others’ tendencies. Muslim communalism, Hindu communalism,
others. Partition cost us hundreds of thousands of lives. Over 800,000
were forced to migrate.
The trauma and memories still gnaw
within the collective psyche, non-catharsised. That is why each and
every post-partition on the Indian side witnesses this subterranean
dialogue tacitly played out by many , even if they are not in the
majority – “that since it was the Muslim who was responsible for the
Partition, it is the Indian Muslims who have stayed behind ‘must pay
the price’.”
Similar cynical re-runs have played
themselves out in the brutal acts against Pakistan’s and Bangladesh’s
minorities. (Remember the temples being attacked and homes of Hindus
being attacked in these countries after December 6, 1992 took place in
India?)
Therefore it becomes all the more
imperative that through for a such as these, other linkages, between
groups here and in Pakistan and Bangladesh – also struggling for the
fundamental rights of their religious minorities – we need to urgently
join hands. Not only in keeping with the general maxim so beautifully
articulated by Martin Luther King that “ Injustice anywhere is a
threat to justice everywhere.” But, because, in the contexts of all of
our three countries, chained to shackles of brutalised memories, such
linkages are vital strategy. To win over and convince large sections
of each of our populations that there are individuals in Pakistan, in
Bangladesh and in India struggling for the fundamental rights of each
of their minorities. Because that is the only path for real,
breathing democracies to take.
Thank You.
(The writer is a human rights
activist and writer, editor of Communalism Combat).
(This lecture was delivered at the
Champa Foundation Annual Lecture, Constitutional Club, New Delhi on
December 12, 1998)
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