Author: Radha Rajan
Publication:
Date: November 30, 2003
(Text of talk delivered at seminar
on 'Human rights and National Security concerns', Tirupati, 29-30 November,
2003)
Let me at the outset state unambiguously
that I think the world must be prepared for increasing human rights abuses
as States and governments deal firmly with acts of terrorism. Terrorists,
be they Islamic terrorists, Naxalites, or groups with political ambitions
like the LTTE, are beginning to use arms and weapons and explosives capable
of inflicting maximum damage to property and extensive loss of innocent
lives. Some of them are also using weapons of mass destruction - chemical
and biological weapons. And when terrorists double as global drug peddlers
and arms smugglers, and as they become increasingly violent and ruthless
in attaining their objectives, the response of States and their instruments
in dealing with the terrorists and acts of terror are also going to get
increasingly more merciless and determined.
This is a disastrous prescription
for increasing human rights abuses. Now more than ever do we need human
rights activists and organizations to be watchful and active on behalf
of civil society. But having said that, let me also say that my presentation
today is meant to expose the flawed idiom of human rights organizations
and their selective understanding of what constitutes human rights abuse.
I will therefore be taking a very critical view of human rights organizations
and the judiciary in this country and their activism which is pushing democratic
institutions along the path of mutual confrontation.
The universal declaration of human
rights was proclaimed by the United Nations on the 10th of December, 1948.
Right to life, property, right not to be tortured, right to association,
right to freedom of conscience and religion, are some of the noteworthy
components of this universal declaration of human rights. Look at the timing
of the declaration, the point in history at which the world was located
at that time. This will tell us why the international community felt compelled
to proclaim the universality of human rights. The Second World War had
just ended; the wounds of fascism and Nazism were still gaping, raw and
bleeding. The determined war against the Nazis opened the eyes of the sane
and the conscientious in the western world to the evils of slavery, racism
and colonialism - no less evil than Nazism and perpetrated for far longer
than Nazism. The right to freedom of religion and conscience in the universal
declaration of human rights must therefore be seen in the light of the
destruction of cultures and peoples carried out in the name of religion,
over centuries by Islam and White Christianity.
The double standards of the western
world - strongly opposed to the Nazi genocide of Jews on the one hand but
sanguine about the genocide of the native Americans, slavery and racism
and the evils of colonialism on the other - stood naked before the rest
of the world. It was a bitter pill to swallow and the United Nations proclaiming
the universal declaration of human rights in 1948 must be seen only in
this context. This declaration was immediately followed by the beginning
of the civil rights movement in the United States and freedom movements
to end colonialism in Asia and Africa. Both movements had to battle entrenched
racist attitudes and colonial powers for another decade and more before
they yielded definitive results. And because colonialism and racism are
deep-rooted human attitudes, they never go away; they assume new forms
and new weapons for subjugation. Therefore, as long as systemic and institutional
oppression and abuse of human beings and their cultures continue to exist,
backed by money power and political power, the need for human rights activism
will also continue to be felt. The declaration of the universality and
inviolability of human rights in 1948 was truly a turning point in world
history.
But ironically, moving away from
the original spirit which proclaimed the inviolability of human rights,
human rights discourse today has become a weapon in the hands of developed
nations, their State instruments and their pan-national organizations,
to coerce their former colonies and Third World countries in matters of
domestic and foreign policy. Notwithstanding the continuing racist biases
and attitudes afflicting American and other western societies, we still
have the US, the UK and foreign human rights organizations lecturing to
India, China and Iraq on human rights. Centuries before the UN proclaimed
the universality of human rights, and when there was no Amnesty International
or Human Rights Watch, Indians welcomed the first Christians, the first
Muslims, the Jews and the Parsis into their country. They were all fleeing
religious persecution in their home countries. India therefore does not
need lectures on human rights from the rest of the world. Human rights
organizations in our country and some of our activists are no better. Their
idiom of discourse on human rights, and their attitudes are identical to
foreign human rights organizations and similar to the language employed
by western nations. Let me elaborate.
When we speak in the idiom of 'rights'
be it women's rights, animal rights, dalit rights or whatever, we also
speak in terms of activism. We thus have women's activist, social activist,
animal activist, environmental activist and so on. Activism has unfortunately
come to be associated with confrontation, with an adversarial attitude.
So activists are all against something or the other - family or religion,
government or police, army or judiciary. Human rights organizations in
this country and activists have also become intensely confrontational in
their attitudes. The most disturbing and unhealthy confrontation taking
place now is the NHRC versus the judiciary, the NHRC versus governments,
the NHRC versus our soldiers and police, the judiciary versus governments,
the judiciary versus the police. The flawed idiom of human rights discourse
and its selective approach to what constitutes human rights abuse has brought
governments, the judiciary, the NHRC and State instruments to assume a
mutually confrontational posture and this is not healthy for any democracy.
More importantly, the thoughtlessness with which human rights activists
and irresponsible members of the media and academia have colluded to defame
our army and police both within the country and on foreign soil cannot
but have a debilitating effect on the functioning of our men in uniform.
And this will not, in the long term, serve national security interests
or human rights interests for that matter.
Let me give you specific examples
of this unhealthy trend. During the long and troubled years of armed and
violent terrorist activities in the Punjab, the judiciary had folded its
tents, abandoned its post and abdicated its responsibility. The judiciary
was not to be seen during those strife-torn years. And yet, after the Punjab
had been restored to normalcy, after the state was returned to relative
calm and peace, the judiciary returned and in collusion with human rights
activists, (who were also not around at the height of terrorism in the
Punjab), began an unrelenting and insensitive campaign against the Punjab
police for human rights violations. The campaign became a witch-hunt no
less and was literally a persecution campaign against the Punjab police.
The persecution was so bad, and so terrible the infamy that was heaped
on them, that one police officer, S.S.Sandhu, who served in Taran Taran,
one of the worst affected districts of the time, threw himself in front
of a running train and committed suicide. The judiciary must do a lot of
soul-searching to answer the question whether this kind of public defaming
of the police working under extreme stress and pressure, really serves
the cause of democracy and national security.
Human Rights activists in Tamil
Nadu have similarly mounted a campaign against the state police in their
determined efforts to deal with notorious criminals and Tamil extremist
groups. Human Rights activists, alleged victims and even the national and
state human rights commissions can seek media attention and make a public
hue and cry about human rights violations when they accuse the police or
the army or para-military forces. But our men in uniform do not enjoy such
liberties. They cannot speak to the media and give their version of the
incident. They have to abide by the rules and procedures of their establishment
and while the activists and their organizations and their patrons in the
media can mount a cacophonous campaign, those accused of violations have
to bide their time to respond appropriately. More to the point, while human
rights activists are quick to defend the human rights of criminals, terrorists
and arms-bearing extremists, they have never sought to understand the point
of view of the police or the army who are under instructions to deal with
these disturbers of law and order. They have also never granted the victims
of terrorists, insurgents and brigands and our men in uniform and their
families their human rights.
Ditto with our soldiers serving
in Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistani-Punjabi terrorists dressed in military
fatigue attack the village of Chattisnghpura, and kill the Sikhs still
living in the valley. The massacre took place on the eve of Clinton's visit
to India at the fag end of his Presidency. There was immediately a chorus
from sundry human rights organizations and secular journalists blaming
our army for the attack and casting the vilest aspersions on them. In the
plainest of language, human rights activists accused our soldiers of having
deliberately killed the Sikhs. Human rights activists rarely take the initiative
to seek the truth, rarely have the patience for the truth to be told. And
by the time the truth is established, the damage has already been done.
There is never a word of apology, not a gesture of remorse. This NGO led
by Nirmala Deshpande and Admiral Ramdas, PIPFPD (Pakistan India People's
Forum for Peace and Democracy) has this thing called the Peshawar Declaration
to its credit where it accuses our army men of rape in J&K, in Peshawar,
on Pakistani soil!
Coming to the selective approach
of the NHRC, human rights activists and even our Supreme Court on what
constitutes human rights violation, let us begin with the Best Bakery case
and move backwards in time. Twenty-one persons (Hindus) were arrested for
burning Muslims alive inside the Best Bakery in the riots that followed
the massacre of Hindu pilgrims in the Godhra station. There were 41 witnesses
in all, one of them Zahirra Sheikh, her mother and her sister in-law. All
41 witnesses turn hostile in court and the trial court had to perforce
acquit all the accused. The very next day, in a complete turn-around, Zahirra
Sheikh alleges threat and coercion and wants to retract her statement in
court. She is triumphantly goaded by human rights activists to approach
the NHRC where Zahirra Sheikh seeks re-opening of the case outside Gujarat.
The NHRC, with little thought to the unhealthy precedent it was setting,
castigates the trial court of Gujarat for mis-carriage of justice which
released the accused and approaches the Supreme Court for re-opening the
Best Bakery case outside Gujarat, as sought by Zahirra Sheikh.
Responding to the NHRC, the Supreme
Court passes strictures against the Gujarat government for failing to file
an appeal against the ruling of the trial court and threatens to transfer
all the ten post-Godhra riot cases outside Gujarat. There have been no
news reports if the same activists visited even once the families of the
Hindus burned alive by the Muslim mob inside the train at the Godhra station.
In a similar incident involving the disproportionate assets case against
the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, key witnesses for the Prosecution turn hostile
and the Madras High Court acquitted Jayalalithaa in the case. Delivering
the judgement on the review petition filed in the Supreme Court by her
political opponent, the Supreme Court castigates the Prosecution, and transfers
the case to Karnataka. It also orders the Special Court in Karnataka to
charge, if need be, all or any of the witnesses who resiled their statements,
for perjury, for lying under oath, in the court. Now what are the implications
of these actions?
* The Chairman of the NHRC, a retired
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court expresses distrust of the courts in
Gujarat, publicly accuses the trial court of mis-carriage of justice. This
means that a retired Chief Justice of the Apex Court has no faith in the
judicial system which he, not long ago, led from the top.
* By acquiescing to the demand of
the Chairman of the NHRC and ordering the stay of all other riot cases
and threatening to transfer them outside the state, the Supreme Court too
has implied its mistrust of the Gujarat courts.
* The Supreme Court wants the witnesses
who changed their statements in the Jayalalithaa case to be charged with
perjury but Zahirra Sheikh who also changed her statement is not charged
with perjury but is made a heroine by the media.
* The NHRC, the Supreme Court and
the human rights organizations in India have a marked bias and a selective
perception of human rights abuse.
Do the NHRC, the Supreme Court and
the human rights activists in India have a bias? We can certainly come
to this conclusion if we look at other incidences of horrendous communal
riots and other pogroms in the not so distant past. In the immediate aftermath
of Indira Gandhi's assassination the Congress party instigated its supporters
and goondas to undertake a systematic campaign against the Sikhs. Over
3000 Sikhs - men, women and children were killed in the orgy of hatred
and violence. Till date, not one human being has been found guilty and
punished for this genocide. Congress leaders Jagdish Tytler and H.K.L.Bhagat,
escaped punishment and were acquitted despite overwhelming evidence provided
by family members of those killed. Why did the NHRC or Justice Anand himself
who must have been a serving member of the judicial system then not cry
foul and declare mis-carriage of justice? Why did the Supreme Court then
not order re-opening of the case and transfer all cases related to the
pogrom against the Sikhs outside Delhi? The Supreme Court then did not
pontificate to the government to quit. Nor did it ask, "how many times
must we lecture to the government?" Compare this to the kind of language
that human rights activists and the judiciary has used against Narendra
Modi. Obviously then we must come to the conclusion that for human rights
organizations, activists and the Indian judiciary, human rights abuses
are to be taken note of only when they concern the Muslims of this country.
If this were not so, how does one
explain the activism of human rights organizations about human rights violations
by our army against the people of J&K, ( against the Muslims, please
note), while they are all deafeningly silent about the genocide and the
ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus and Sikhs from the valley, and the
organized killing of Hindus in Jammu. The Kashmiri Pandit community, the
original inhabitants of the Kashmir valley, was threatened with death and
asked to leave the valley. Several hundreds were brutally killed in the
valley in acts of terror intended to coerce the Hindus to leave their homes.
The Pandits now live as refugees in their own country in terrible camps
in Jammu and Delhi. The J&K state government has made no effort to
rehabilitate them safely back in their homes in the Kashmir valley. The
NHRC passed strictures on the Gujarat government and the Election Commission
too took the Narendra Modi government to task for not doing enough to rehabilitate
the Muslims displaced from their homes during the riots following the Godhra
massacre. And these Muslims were displaced only for a few months and only
from their homes, not from Guajart itself, while the Kashmiri Hindus were
driven not just from their homes but from the valley itself and have been
living in refugee camps for nearly 15 years now and the NHRC and the Indian
judiciary and the J&K state government have not shown any interest
or concern about their plight. This indeed does reveal a selective approach
to what they all think is human rights violations.
Lastly, the Radhabhai chawl case
in Jogeswari, in Mumbai during the Mumbai riots of 1993. Hindu residences
of a chawl, four women and a man and their neighbours were locked from
inside and burned alive by a mob. 11 Muslims were arrested and tried for
the murder of these Hindus by the designated court under TADA and were
convicted of the crime under eight different sections of the Indian Penal
Code. The Muslims appealed to the Supreme Court against the conviction
and the Supreme Court freed all of them by ruling that the convictions
were "without any legally admissible trustworthy evidence". When the Muslims
accused of murdering Hindus in the Mumbai communal riots in 1993 were set
free by the Supreme Court itself, human rights activists and the NHRC did
not blame the Supreme Court for mis-carriage of justice and did not demand
retrial. But when Hindus accused of murder in the Gujarat communal riots
were set free by the special court in Gujarat, the Supreme Court and the
NHRC both cry "mis-carriage of justice" and have decided to re-open the
case.
And that is why at the very outset
I told you all that my presentation would focus on the double standards
and the selective approach of our judiciary and our human rights organizations
on what constitutes human rights abuse. The selective approach of the most
vocal and rabid human rights organizations is understandable. Many of them
receive very large amounts of foreign money and they are supposed to uphold
the foreign agenda as far as human rights discourse in India goes. But
the NHRC is a national statutory body constituted to look into human rights
abuses wherever it may take place in India without prejudice or discrimination.
This organization cannot have a communal approach to abuse or rights violations.
If the state and national human rights commissions, if the judiciary, government
and state institutions adopt a confrontational attitude towards each other,
they must realise they are eroding each others' dignity, efficacy and legitimacy.
And this will not serve the interests of human rights.
I therefore plead with human rights
organizations to make every effort to seek the co-operation of our police
and army whenever they get to know of human rights violations. The army
is in fact, quite ruthless with men found guilty of human rights violations.
While the officer concerned may screen the guilty man from public gaze
in the interests of protecting the dignity of the army as a whole, the
army will set up a court of inquiry which will deal with the case within
a specified time and award exemplary punishment if the soldier is found
guilty. But human rights organizations and activists have never made the
effort to seek participation of the army in bringing the criminal to roost.
They have always rushed to the media first even before establishing the
truth. Soon after the Tehelka scandal implicated army men, the army set
up a court of inquiry, pursued the cases against those accused of bribe,
and also punished those found guilty as charged. Politicians accused in
the case are yet to be charged or punished.
It is my case therefore that we
are in troubled times as anti-social and anti-national forces become more
and more powerful and as they arm themselves with more and more sophisticated
arms and weapons. The concerned governments and law enforcing agencies
will be called upon to deal with them ruthlessly, to protect the law-abiding
and the innocent in civil society. Now more than ever do we need human
rights activists to be vigilant and proactive in their functioning. But
they must change their idiom and shed their selective approach to victims
of human rights abuses. Thank you all for giving me this opportunity to
present my case. Namaste.
