CONCERNING HUMAN RIGHTS
T.G. Jacob
Chapter One
DEFINING HUMAN RIGHTS
Introduction
Internationally, nationally and regionally Human Rights have become a lively topic for discussion during the last couple of decades due to a variety of factors that are social, cultural, economic and political in essence. Certain issues have emerged as focal points mainly through the interventions of the United Nations, its various instruments and agencies. At the same time in South Asia, East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa etc. controversies have also erupted which have not remained confined to countries within these regions, but have also been carried over into international forums and conventions. And within different countries themselves Human Rights enjoy differing status. On the whole the issues have evolved into a complex web with certain common strands.
Human rights have become a subject of debate and discourse with diverse angles mainly due to the large-scale violations of the very same rights. Awareness on Human Rights is on an ascending scale and one visible index is the increasing concern shown by the media, academia and the formation of large number of Human Rights organisations at different levels. Many of these organisations are international in scope and operations, while the large majority are area-specific and sometimes even issue-specific.
The discourses on Human Rights now cover a number of disciplines including Sociology, Social Anthropology, Economics, Politics, Public Administration, Jurisprudence, Science and Technology, Criminology and Military Sciences including civil war strategies. Issues of Human Rights have thus become an all-encompassing field of concern. The problematic has become deeper and broader with ever expanding frontiers and often we find dividing lines vanishing, and this itself has of late emerged as a topic of vociferous debate.
There is an imperative need to spread the message of Human Rights among all sections of people and thus liberate it from the domain of professionals like lawyers and human rights activists. It is from this viewpoint that human rights education ought to be made mandatory from a young age itself. After all, the fundamental motive of education is to mould good human beings who are capable of intervening in issues concerning the well being of society at large as well as of individuals and communities. It is in this context that a sufficient awareness on issues of human rights ought to be made part of the curriculum of schooling itself.
The United Nations and Human Rights
In the post Second World War era, after the victors of the war took the initiative in concretising the UN as a world body, with the declared objective of preventing any repetition of what had happened, the UN has done much to universalise and widely percolate the ideas of Human Rights in the world.
Even before the Second World War struggles for civil and political rights had preceded global Human Rights efforts. The Magna Carta and Bill of Rights in England, the Rights of Man declaration of the French (1798) and the American Declaration of Independence of 1776 were such precedents. And after the First World War the Versailles Treaty (1919) sought to institute at least a quasi-permanent arrangement or mechanism to ensure Human Rights. This was a mandate system linked to the League of Nations. It was a faint attempt to create accountability for Human Rights violations. But this mechanism was by nature highly tentative and fickle as was eminently proved by the subsequent occupation of Poland and Czechoslovakia by Hitler and the outbreak of a World War of unprecedented horrendous dimensions.
Though both the World Wars were fought by the advanced capitalist countries to territorially redivide the world, the second one was marked by ruthless efforts to exterminate religious groups, minorities and ethnic groups. It was the scale on which such efforts were made that traumatically shocked international consciousness. This was possibly the reason why right from its inception the UN emphasized on Human Rights. These and other inalienable rights were considered mandatory for world peace and progress.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
It was in 1945 at the San Francisco conference of the Big Four that the UN Charter was adopted, which made Human Rights as a key component of the international organisation’s work. The General Assembly was made responsible and a special commission for executing this specific purpose was recommended. Under the auspices of the UN Charter an International Bill of Human Rights was formulated with four constituent parts. These four components adopted at different points of time are: 1) Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), 2) International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 3) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and 4) Optional Protocol allowing petition rights. Subsequently, many specialised Commissions, Conventions and Covenants were added on and this process is still an ongoing one.
The UDHR proclaimed in 1948 has now become customary law. Many of the newly independent countries incorporated articles of the UDHR into their Constitutions, sometimes with modifications and conditions. Some resolutions, like the one on Torture, are yet to be ratified by many countries including India. A Secretariat called the Centre for Human Rights with its headquarters at the UN office at Geneva has been established to deal mostly with Human Rights questions. A formidable array of senior officials and rapporteurs has also been institutionalised.
Discourses on UDHR and Related Issues
It was the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights in 1993 which categorically declared that the protection of Human Rights was the priority duty of the concerned governments. It was also this declaration that emphasized the universality and indivisibility of Human Rights despite divergences in cultural, social systems and development stages.
The Vienna Declaration is important because it came in the post-Cold War era after the reform process was instituted in China. The earlier one-sided emphasis on civil and political rights is given up because of colossal violations of economic, social and cultural rights widely prevalent in large chunks of the globe. It was probably for the first time that global relations of economic power were coming to the forefront in Human Rights debates. This declaration has been very controversial. The universality and indivisibility of Human Rights was questioned sharply particularly by China and Malaysia with the support of the rapidly developing Southeast and East Asian countries.
The Chinese version, which was the most articulate, in summary stated that there cannot be a single set of universal Human Rights for the whole world. Eighty per cent of the total world resources are consumed by 20 per cent of the population and to speak of universal Human Rights in the absence of economic development is simply unreal. The cultural and social differences between the East and West were also highlighted. The Asians were characterized as being more community oriented than the Westerners who are more individualistically oriented.
The essence of their criticism was that the UDHR is Eurocentric in approach and the West is trying to impose its own cultural values which are in variance with those of the East. Imposing the Western values is nothing but cultural colonialism. The question of human rights is being used as only a ploy to impose Western hegemony over the poorer parts of the globe.
The priority for poor countries is rapid economic development and this may not always be in consonance with individual freedom. This viewpoint of China and some other East Asian countries has come to be known as the statist approach to Human Rights. In effect, it was trying to counterpose political and civil freedom to cultural and economic freedom.
Criticism of the UDHR has also come from certain independent quarters averring that citizens too have strong duties towards the community. Western philosophy is based on individualism and it is individual freedom that it has traditionally emphasized. The reckless individual based consumption in the West has resulted in great environmental degradation, which is denying the basic human rights of the large majority of the world’s people, especially the poor and indigenes.
The counter position at the Vienna Conference stuck steadfastly to the various articles in the UDHR and other UN sponsored Conventions and Covenants. It forcefully stated that economic imperative do not warrant Human Rights violations; on the contrary civil and political freedom and rights facilitate economic and social development. It was also pointed out that Asia is far from being a homogenous unit. Having countries ranging from the highly advanced Japan and Singapore to starkly poor countries like India, Nepal and Bangladesh, there cannot be any uniform Asian perspective. Therefore economic development cannot be considered as mandatory to Human Rights protection. The very fact that all are human beings entitles them all to certain basic human rights. Economic development and cultural peculiarities cannot be made into an excuse for large-scale human rights violations, whether they occur in Asia, Africa, Latin America or anywhere else in the world. Human Rights are inalienable and cannot be compartmentalised into various segments. The Right to Development has to be considered as an essential component of Human Rights and this is clearly enshrined by the world body.
Another angle that emerged asserted that universalisation of Human Rights in the present era of unbridled globalisation and forcible imposition of highly advantageous global economic terms for the rich of the world, who are already monopolising the economic resources of the world, is nothing but double-dealing. According to this perspective, universal Human Rights is yet another means for hegemony over the world by the few rich countries and international capital, and speaking of universal Human Rights is only a means of strengthening this already existing hegemony. Any talk of universal Human Rights has first to address the gross economic inequalities in the world getting ever more vicious with the terms and conditions imposed through the international bodies like World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation. According to this viewpoint removing the gross inequalities becomes a precondition for strengthening universal Human Rights.
The devastating impact of centuries of colonial plunder on the present day poor countries is cited as historical proof to this logic. Looking through this prism colonialism enabled the present day rich countries to become what they are now and new forms of economic colonialism through capital, finance market and product market control is only accentuating the already existing huge disparities. To talk about universal Human Rights without looking at these concrete realities is considered as only yet another means to outrightly cheat the poor of the world.
These sometimes acrimonious but forceful arguments and counter arguments are bound to get intensified in the coming days. And often we can see that sectarianism, partisan attitudes and expansionist big brother nationalisms are seeing into such debates. At the same time it is an undeniable fact that Human Rights violations in the contemporary world are ever on the increase in spite of the increased awareness on the same. Poverty of the large majority of the world’s population is certainly a big stumbling block on the path of achieving universal Human Rights simply because poverty and starvation destroy the basic dignity of human beings and this basic human dignity is a must for effective universal Human Rights.
Certainly, more fruitful and non-sectarian debates and discourses are required to help in clarifying many important questions concerning Human Rights. There are enough examples in the world to prove that economic development by itself does not guarantee Human Rights. Contrarily, there are ample illustrations that rapid economic development has in fact polarised economic and social inequalities further resulting in more Human Rights violations, often colossal at that.
Chapter Two
HUMAN RIGHTS IN INDIA
India, subject to its tremendous geographical, religious and linguistic diversities, has a rich history of movements that called for the equality of human beings. These movements were expressed through religious reformers, poets and philosophers, and their theoretical bases have changed considerably over this long period. These movements were expressed through struggles against caste oppression and religious bigotry. The Bhakthi movements developing in different parts of the subcontinent spanning the 12th-18th centuries were popular mass upheavals driven by a sense of intrinsic justice for all human beings irrespective of caste, religious and gender differences. Sufism, a reformist movement among the Muslims preached essentially the same worldview.
Colonialism altered the circumstances and the paradigms changed.
A Short History of the Civil Rights Movement during Colonial Rule
The birth of the Indian National Congress in 1885 was itself propelled by the racist and discriminatory practices of the colonial administration. By the beginning of the 20th century educated Indians had become conscious that they ought to demand their rights as free citizens of the British Empire. This was the historical and intellectual backdrop to the 1918 Special Session of the INC in Bombay adopting a Declaration of Rights. This charter was submitted to the British Parliament and it included freedom of speech, expression and assembly and the right to be tried according to law.
The colonialists responded to the Declaration of Rights with the infamous Rowlatt Act[1], the application of which resulted in massive human rights violations in large areas of British India. This includes the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre in which an unarmed peaceful assembly of people was continuously fired upon by British soldiers resulting in thousands of deaths and many more maimed for life. The Rowlatt Act spurred the Indian intelligentsia to organise itself on the civil rights front in a more serious manner.
At the Kanpur Convention in 1925 a new Declaration was adopted. Besides reiterating the earlier demands the new Declaration proclaimed freedom of conscience and religion, sexual equality and the right to free primary education. Later, when the Nehru Report on the Indian Constitution was accepted in 1928 trade union rights became one of the clauses. All these developments were further concretised when the Indian Civil Liberties Union (ICLU) was founded in 1936 in Bombay under the presidentship of Rabindranath Tagore and the working presidentship of Sarojini Naidu. The “right to oppose the government” was accepted as the key principle of the ICLU.
The ICLU’s activities included conducting investigations on civil liberties violations and publishing the reports. The violations covered police atrocities, imprisonments and harassments, and restrictions of the rights of citizens. Of course, apart from publishing reports and complaining to the authorities the ICLU could not achieve much in concrete terms. But its activities enormously helped the freedom fighters to popularise the very idea of freedom from the colonial yoke by making the people conscious about the violations of their basic rights by the colonialists. Rammanohar Lohia’s book, “The Struggle for Civil Liberties”, published during the same period explicated the need for the struggle very forcefully.
When some provincial governments came under Congress control in 1937 the party promised extension and protection of civil liberties as enunciated in the declaration of the ICLU. However, it could not fulfil this basic promise, and as a result the ICLU suffered a serious setback. The organisation virtually became a one party affair and subsequently became totally inert. The preoccupation with the Quit India movement in 1942 also contributed to the demise of the ICLU. Thus ended one chapter of the Indian Civil Liberties Movement.
Civil, Democratic and Human Rights During the Post-Colonial Period
The attainment of freedom in 1947 brought changes in the Indian civil liberties movement. Those who had advocated the “right to oppose the government” became the government, and very soon they found that state and popular interests clash. The Communist Party of India was very soon banned. Prime Minister Nehru’s argument was that in such a nascent and fragile situation some rights of the citizens have to be sacrificed in the “broader national interests.” Accordingly, popular agitations for the basic rights of food, shelter and civil rights were also sought to be silenced with brute force. This situation once again triggered the civil liberties movement. The difference was that this time it was targeting those who had advocated strengthening and development of the civil liberties only a few years back.
It was in these circumstances that the Civil Liberties Conference was held in Madras in 1949. In Bengal, where all-out suppression was let loose on the cadres and supporters of the Communist Party, the Civil Liberties Committee (CLC) was formed with the participation of non-partisan intellectuals. What made the ICLU defunct were mainly organisational reasons. But this demise did not give rise to debates on the rationale and theoretical basis of a civil and democratic rights movement. With the formation of CLC in Bengal, such an ideological debate took place mainly due to the active involvement of prominent non-partisan but progressive intellectuals.
The ideological questions that came to the surface in the CLC centred on the undesirability of sectarian partisanship in the civil liberties movement. it was a fact that the denial of basic rights to dissenters (in this case members of the CPI) gave rise to the CLC, and the demands and campaigns of the CLC focussed on the release of the communist cadres and sympathisers and lifting of the ban on the party. As far as the CPI was concerned this was the sole objective, and they saw the civil liberties movement only as an instrument for securing the release of their cadre. The broader and deeper meaning of any civil or democratic rights movement was not in their dictionary.
Intellectuals like Meghnad Saha sharply criticized this sectarian position of the Leftists, though they were sympathetic to the socialistic goals of the communists. Their opposition was fully vindicated when the CLC died away with the lifting of the ban on the CPI in 1951 and the release of their cadres from jail after the withdrawal of the Telengana agrarian uprising.
The main point of difference between the CPI members and others in the CLC is of great relevance to the civil liberties movements in India today also. The Communist Party position before 1951 was that it did not recognise the independence of India and believed in armed struggle to overthrow the newly established Congress government. Only after the unconditional withdrawal of the peasant armed struggle in Andhra Pradesh there was a change in this position. The pertinent question that came up for the CLC was the justification or non-justification of political violence on the part of the dissenters as well as on the part of the state. The non partisan sections within the CLC took the position that the violence unleashed by the state is authoritarian and anti-democratic to the extreme and the due process of law should be exercised by the state to counter the violence of the communists. The communists on their part held that the violence resorted to by them is only a reaction to the authoritarian and feudal relations of production and is justified because it is in the interests of the downtrodden. Hence the civil liberties movement ought to take a pro-people (read pro-Communist Party) stand. This controversy in the history of the civil liberties movement has repeated itself time and again in India.
During the late ‘60s and ‘70s India witnessed another big political turmoil when Maoist armed militancy erupted in many parts of the country and in a particularly challenging form in Bengal, Punjab, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. Again the state reacted with highly arbitrary measures including extra-judicial executions and widespread torture and killings. By labelling the Maoists as ‘brigands’ and ‘terrorists’ the state and the various mainstream political parties sought legitimisation of their arbitrary and undemocratic actions, and this time, too, the civil liberties movement came up as a response. Thus the Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights was formed in Calcutta in 1972, and the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee (APCLC) was formed in 1974. As in the case of the earlier CLC these organisations also had non-partisan intellectuals in the forefront. In Bengal, Amiya Bose and Promode Sengupta were instrumental in forming the APDR while eminent writers like Sri Sri and Cherabandu Raju took the lead in the APCLC. Punjab and Bihar remained dormant on this front.
The civil liberties organisations were at the receiving end with the declaration of emergency in June 1975. The APDR was banned and the APCLC members were put behind bars. Many of its prominent activists were either tortured and killed, or killed in what has come to be known as ‘encounters.’ The civil liberties organisations were labelled as front organisations of the Maoists and legitimacy for repression was sought thus. The 70s became the most daunting period for the civil liberties movement only to be matched by the 80s and 90s when an altogether different kind of challenge confronted the Indian state. The APDR was forced to go underground and from there it documented the atrocities and published and circulated a report called “The Real Face of Indian Democracy.”
Even before the declaration of Emergency the political trend of marginalising and making impotent the civil society had become too obvious. And civil liberties had become a broad-based issue. Now the Lohiaite socialists and radical humanists along with independent lawyers and academics took the initiative. They convened an all-India conference in 1974 in Delhi to launch the Citizens for Democracy. Thus for the first time after independence a civil liberties organisation steering clear of sectarianism was formed. But it suffered from various built-in limitations, the chief one being the one-sided reliance on legal remedies when the scope for any such action was almost nil.
The declaration and withdrawal of internal emergency in the late ‘70s was a turning point in the history of the civil liberties movement also. In 1976, when the emergency situation had become lax, Jayaprakash Narayan organised an all-India forum, and later the same year an all-India organisation called the People’s Union for Civil Liberties was formed in Delhi. This was the first all-India civil liberties organisation having branches in the majority of Indian States. Its membership was not restricted as in the case of CFD and it networked with other State-based organisations like Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights in Bombay and the rejuvenated APDR and APCLC.
Once again the civil liberties movement faced a crisis. The newly formed government at the Centre had a close relationship with many of the leading luminaries of the PUCL, and it showed some hesitancy in tackling the civil liberties violations. Again the problem in essence was sectarianism and undue fixation on legalism. The term ‘democratic rights’ was counterposed to ‘civil rights’ by the radicals in PUCL (particularly in Delhi) finally leading to a split in the Delhi unit of the PUCL, and another organisation called the People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) came into being. The split was on the approach to the ruling governments at the Centre and the States’ level. A debate on similar lines occurred in Bengal, too, on the approach to the Left Front government.
Nevertheless, the debates over the terms democratic rights and civil rights have remained vague to date mainly due to the absence of any real difference. Sectarianism actually remained the core of the issue. As defined during the split in PUCL the term ‘democratic rights’ also encompasses even those rights of the citizens which are outside legal limits as codified in law texts applicable to the country. But in practice the distinction remained blurred and overlapping became the rule rather than the exception.
Emergence of Secessionism as a Political Demand and its Implications for the Human Rights Movement
It was during the ‘80s that secessionism emerged as a major threat to the very existence of the Indian state. Secessionist militancy was already there in the North-Eastern parts of India even during the ‘60s and large-scale violations of human rights were also rampant. No doubt these violations were committed from both the opposing sides. But as long as it was happening in Nagaland or Manipur it was not paid much attention by the rest of India. The militants were simply dubbed as ‘anti-national’ and ‘foreign agents,’ and hence their rights as citizens were discounted. Military actions including aerial bombings took place in Nagaland as early as 1966 but there was not much hue and cry over the issue. In this process the Naga People’s Movement for Human Rights was formed.
Present-day India is a land of tremendous geographical, linguistic, ethnic, religious and caste diversity, and the aspirations of several groups are rooted in these diversities. These factors rooted in history and structural factors cannot just be wished away. At present these grievances do not enjoy any effective legal remedies. When Sikh militancy burst over Punjab in the early 1980s the reaction was drastic. The labelling of the militants changed to ‘anti-nationals,’ while retaining the earlier ones lie ‘terrorists’ and ‘brigands.’ Preservation of ‘national integrity’ became the legitimisation slogan of the state. Subsequently, when the movement for secession picked up in Jammu and Kashmir the situation became truly precarious. The logic that when national security is threatened the dissenters have to be eliminated using all means at the disposal of the state was projected relentlessly, and accordingly the army, navy and air force were let loose on Punjab. ‘Encounters’, ‘disappearances’, mass torture including rape became commonplace and are still a regular feature in J&K also.
The secessionist movements in Punjab, J&K and the North-East threw forth formidable challenges to the civil rights, democratic rights and human rights movements. Amnesty International, Asia Watch, CFD, PUCL, PUDR, Punjab Human Rights Organisation, Movement Against State Repression, Committee for Information and Initiative on Punjab, All-India Federation of Organisations for Democratic Rights and individuals like Justice Ajit Singh Bains and D.S. Canadian have all compiled reports and articles on the massive human rights violations that have been going on in Punjab since the emergence of Sikh militancy. Similar is the case of J&K. Amnesty International has paid particular attention to the situation in Kashmir probably because it has already become an international issue.
As in the case of A.P. and Bengal during a previous period the human rights activists in Punjab and J&K were also dubbed as ‘anti-national’ and front organisations of the ‘terrorists.’ Activists, who attempted to document the mass graves and similar such human rights violations by the army and paramilitary were done away with. Several of them (some with their families) simply disappeared. Amnesty International has documented some of these disappearances along with several other persons who have ‘disappeared’ or are ‘missing.’ In this phase of human rights violations in modern India the most gruesome is certainly the large-scale massacre of Sikhs in North India, especially in Delhi, in the wake of the assassination of Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, in 1984.
Estimates vary, but the minimum is considered to be above 3,500 killings in Delhi alone. Hundreds of women were kidnapped, gang raped and killed and tens of thousands were left without a roof over their heads. Reports have conclusively proved that all this was done by rampaging mobs organised by the ruling party with the able aid of the Delhi police. Moreover, when investigative reports on these riots were published by the civil and democratic organisations there were hysteric demands to ban them and arrest the ‘anti-national’ authors. The norms of civil society hit the rock bottom.
Taking an overview, we can see that the scope of civil, democratic and human rights organisations has tremendously broadened during the post-’47 years and the challenges and issues to be covered have changed significantly and become much more formidable. The movement has passed through many phases, both in organisational form and theoretical discourses. The political reasons behind gross civil rights violations during the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s still remain but newer issues, often not directly political in nature have been added onto the agenda of human rights activism. From 1991 onwards, with the opening up of the all-India economy, issues are cropping up and this continuing process is showing an unmistakable tendency to multiply.
The National Human Rights Commission
Internal and external pressures prevailed on the Government of India resulting in the Parliament of India enacting The Protection of Human Rights Act (PHRA) in 1993, and thus forming the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). NHRC, with a high profile composition, has been in operation since then. The PHRA also provided for the formation of State Human Rights Commissions (SHRCs) and Human Rights Courts.
Since it was constituted the NHRC has raised a broad range of human rights issues in the country including custodial deaths, custodial violence, prison conditions, starvation deaths, child labour, basic health, working conditions, conditions in psychiatric asylums, environmental issues, human rights education and the training of police and security officials on human rights. This shows that the NHRC has tried to raise the civil and political rights issues as well as social, cultural and economic ones. NHRC is also playing a role in international fora like the UN Commission on Human Rights and the Asia-Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Organisations.
By definition the PHRA states that ‘human rights’ means the rights relating to life, liberty, equality and dignity of the individual guaranteed by the Constitution of India or embodied by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and enforceable by the Indian courts. In its 1993-94 annual report to the Parliament the NHRC sought to amend the definition of human rights to mean “the rights relating to life, liberty, equality and dignity of the individual guaranteed by the Constitution or embodied in the international covenants, conventions and treaties to which India is a party” thereby widening the definition still further. The government ignored this proposal and instead formed an advisory committee to propose any possible amendments.
Though the NHRC has succeeded in highlighting many vital human rights issues it remains a very handicapped commission. Its powers are limited and it has very little legal authority. It does not have explicit powers to refer cases in which it has found sufficient evidence to merit prosecution for a human rights violation so that appropriate action can be taken against individuals concerned. In the words of Amnesty International, NHRC’s one hand is tied behind. It has only recommendatory ‘power.’
Another important factor hindering NHRC is that it does not have jurisdiction over the armed forces personnel. This makes the whole idea of constituting the Commission meaningless in our context. This has been time and again raised by the NHRC itself to the government. Yet another limiting factor is that a time limit of one year has been fixed for NHRC to take up cases, i.e., the violation has to be within the period of one year before the complaint is made. In conditions of civil strife like in J&K and the North-East or Punjab the victims, their friends or relatives will find it certainly very risky to rush to the NHRC as soon as a violation is committed by the armed forces or police. The dangers are real and sometimes it will take years for even civil liberties organisations to raise the issue of violations openly.
The formation of the NHRC by itself is a good beginning and it can certainly play an important role in enhancing awareness about human rights issues. And to a certain extent it has already done so. A few States have constituted SHRCs, but it is still in a nascent stage. The contradictions plaguing the PHRA articles have already stalled the activities of the SHRC formed in Tamil Nadu. A comprehensive review of the PHRA is what is needed.
Chapter 3
RATIONALE AND NEED FOR CONSTRUCTIVE INTERVENTIONS –
A GENERAL PERCEPTION
On the international level India is a signatory to the various UN sponsored human rights Declarations, Covenants, Treaties and Conventions. More recently, it has even signed CAT (though not yet ratified) which aims at abolishing torture in any form. Along with the NHRC the process is on to form State Human Rights Commissions and Human Rights Courts. Apart from these there also already exist commissions on women, children, Dalits other backward communities and religious minorities. It is, however, only on an institutional level that the human rights infrastructure looks formidable and comprehensive and seems to show evidence about increasing awareness and protection of human rights.
The government of India’s latest report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) repeatedly emphasizes that the Indian approach to human rights is a holistic one, meaning that economic, social and cultural justice is indivisible from civil and political rights. In theory, this is a progressive and correct position.
But what is the reality on the ground level?
The Dimensions of Human Rights Violations
Up to the declaration of internal emergency and its subsequent withdrawal it was mainly the political rights of citizens that was the prime component of civil and democratic rights groups. But this has undergone significant changes of late. And these changes are related to political and economic developments, both nationally and globally. There is growing awareness among human rights activists that community rights are as important sometimes even more important than political rights of individuals and politically dissenting groups. The old as well as the new organisations are paying increasing attention to collective issues. The formation of the Indian People’s Tribunal for Environment and Human Rights (1993) is an interesting development symbolising this new awareness about collective rights.
The human rights of women, children, Adivasis, Dalits and minorities are also being perceived to come within the ambit of the Human Rights movement. Also the older civil and democratic rights organisations have incorporated these new issues into their agenda. This broadening of the concerns of human rights organisations is a global one and there are global causative factors also. The fast increasing process of globalisation and economic liberalisation is resulting in the large-scale displacement of the common people. Environmental degradation and the total lack of concern by industry and business with economic muscle and political patronage are posing human rights problems not only to the present victims but also to the coming generations.
The very fact that human rights organisations and movements are coming up everywhere and many of them are targets of repression by the state, big business, industry and upper caste landowners shows that violations are increasing instead of abating in spite of the large infrastructure created to protect human rights. This is equally applicable to political and civil rights as well as cultural, social and political rights. The ‘holistic’ approach of the Government of India is proved in reality to be a negative approach; the sheer magnitude and varieties of human rights abuses rampant across the whole country shows this in stark light.
Mega projects are coming up in a number of places as globalisation is getting unbridled. The Dabhol (Enron) power project in Maharashtra and the Sardar Sarovar Project in Gujarat are classic illustrations. In both these cases the people agitating against them and the activists who are part of these agitations are denied their fundamental rights including the right to livelihood. Many similar projects are at the execution stage in other places and many more are on the anvil. Conglomerates with enormous economic and political clout are determined to take root here, and the state is in full cahoots with them. These projects uproot people from their centuries old habitats, kill the environment and convert the victims into the dregs of society. As shown in the case of the Enron project any hesitation from the side of the State government was met by the TNCs by plain arm twisting and unconcealed threats. Impunity is the word for big business. The mega projects (whether in the power sector, international tourism, mining or infrastructure building) are mainly sponsored by the TNCs and World Bank and the people are considered as nothing but fodder for the maximisation of their profits. And those who are contented with the crumbs from their tables are the policy-makers internally.
These projects which are displacing hundreds of thousands of common people are resulting in the proliferation of slums in the mega cities and their suburbs with utterly dehumanised conditions of living. Every city and town in the country has sprawling slums. It is difficult to ascertain with accuracy the number of slum dwellers but some estimates even put their number at 50 per cent of the total urban population. Their lot is an eternal struggle for a sub human existence and they are always at the mercy of the city or town authorities and goondas. The predominant section of the slum dwellers is Dalits and other socially and economically oppressed castes, and the real estate barons very often brutally demolish or burn their huts to grab the land. And this is done with the help of the forces of the State and private goonda armies.
Biotechnology is the latest assault. TNCs earlier producing chemical weapons are now trying to monopolise agricultural production based on biotechnology. Food is now openly acknowledged as a weapon and hectic moves are on to monopolise the seed and production processes in agriculture. Monsanto is an example. The biodiversity destruction involved is incalculable and millions and millions of farmers are going to be at the total mercy of a handful of TNCs when biotechnology takes over agriculture.
Communal and caste violence has become endemic. Child labour is rampant and child workers are very low paid, perform hazardous labour and are freely abused both verbally and physically. India is classified as one of the countries with the largest proportion of child labour in the total work force. Out of the estimated 500,000 prostitutes in Bombay city alone at least 30 per cent are considered to be below the age of sixteen. This trend is fast catching up all over the country. Mafias trafficking in women and children of both sexes for flesh trade for the various urban centres in India, operate in the neighbouring countries of Bangladesh and Nepal too.
Discrimination against the girl child is rampant. Foeticide and female infanticide are not uncommon, especially in some States like Rajasthan, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh and it shows up in skewed sex ratios. Discrimination against the girl child starts from the womb itself and ends only with death.
Civil and political rights and their violations have received the maximum attention from the media and human rights organisations in India and abroad. These violations can be broadly classified into two types. Foremost are the ethnic, nationality centred human rights abuses which have been documented to some extent. Over the last ten to fifteen years thousands of people were killed in the so-called encounters with the police, paramilitary and army in the Northeast, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir. Many other thousands have ‘disappeared.’ Tens of thousands are maimed for life through torture under custody.
Human rights violations from armed militant groups are also on the increase. Inter ethnic clashes have become endemic in the Northeast. A relatively new form of human rights violations is the use of the so-called renegades (those militants who surrender to the security forces) to conduct assassinations of militants still active. And under the cover of fighting armed militancy the innocent people who are not a party to the conflict are often targeted by the security forces, partly out of sadism and partly as a reprisal. Relatives of militants are no longer safe.
Outside the mainstream parties the Maoists also take recourse to killings of members of rival groups/fractions. Actually this phenomenon is deliberately engineered by the party leaderships to prevent any sort of erosion of their respective cadre base and is nothing short of human sacrifice.
Torture under custody is normal and custodial deaths not very uncommon. Custodial rapes are also not uncommon. Whenever the policemen on night duty feel like it they go and arrest a couple of street walkers, bring them to the police station and sexually and physically abuse them. Every police station has to show a minimum number of cases solved by the month end, and the policemen regularly go on a rampage during the last days of every month to fulfil the quota. In most cases it is the innocent people who become the victims.
Draconian laws like Terrorists and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, the National Security Act (NSA) and others are in operation. These Acts aim at giving unbridled power to the security organs of the State and lead to the collapse of civil and judicial administration. Apart from all these Acts there are a number of other draconian laws on the States’ level. Under all these anti-democratic laws and Acts tens of thousands are languishing in jails.
The second type of civil and political rights violations are class related often mixed up with caste politics. This is especially so in the States of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, parts of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. The land question is at the core of the problem, and it is in Bihar that class overlaps with caste. In this case also kidnappings, ‘encounter’ killings, disappearances and brutal torture and long periods of incarcerations are the rule. The state is also involved in perpetrating such atrocities.
In both the types of human rights violations the human rights activists who try to document and intervene for the protection of human rights are targeted by the State. Many killings have occurred and further killings cannot be ruled out. Human rights activists are labelled as anti-national and accessibility to information is extremely difficult. Many areas are notified as ‘Disturbed Areas’ and the security forces are given a free hand in such areas. Mass rapes and torture of the inhabitants of entire villages in Punjab, Kashmir and the Northeast are reported. Extortions are usual from both sides. In many such areas the innocent common people are situated between the devil and deep sea, and often this results in internal displacement of people. It is also a common practice in many Northeastern States like Manipur and Nagaland that whole villages are relocated and displaced to places convenient for the security forces so as to prevent any sort of contact with the militants. This process is generally called ‘hamletisation.’ All this is being done in the name of protecting national security.
Even this sketchy overview of the magnitude of human rights violations belonging to the civil, political and social, cultural and economic categories proves that ratifying the UDHR is one thing and implementing it is a totally different thing. Human rights violations on all counts are terrible and it is this ground reality that makes effective interventions on many platforms a necessity.
Note:
[1] The Rowlatt Act was a law passed by the British in colonial India in March 1919, indefinitely extending "emergency measures" (of the Defence of India Regulations Act) enacted during the First World War in order to control public unrest and root out conspiracy. Passed on the recommendations of the Rowlatt Committee, named for its president, British judge Sir Sidney Rowlatt, this act effectively authorized the government to imprison for a maximum period of two years, without trial, any person suspected of terrorism living in the Raj. The Rowlatt Act gave British imperial authorities power to deal with revolutionary activities.