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India has been subject to communal
violence right from the first Post Partition riot of 1961 in
Jabalpur. Later one saw the intensification of this violence in
the decade of 1980, from which time it has become a major issue
disrupting peace and amity amongst religious communities. The most
disturbing of these riots have been the Anti-Sikh Pogrom of 1984
(Delhi) anti Muslim carnage of 1992-93 (Mumbai in particular) and
2002 (Gujarat). Anti Christian violence surfaced with the sporadic
acts and went on becoming worsening, the burning alive of Pastor
Graham Stains (1999) and Kandhmal violence of 2008 being the
horrific example of this.
With this concern the UPA introduced a Bill to strengthen legal
mechanism to deal with the violence. Somehow the bill as drafted
earlier turned out to be ‘a remedy worse that disease’. Though
this Bill is already in Rajya Sabha the human rights activists and
representations from affected minority communities protested and
pointed out the fallacies of the Bill. Responding to their
anguish, UPA II gave the task of drafting the bill to National
Advisory Committee. Two of whose members (Farah Naqvi and Harsh
Mander) convened the Advisory Group with social activists to
prepare a draft. After the intense efforts for over a period of
one and a half years the draft is in the final stage, and has been
put on its websites and is awaiting the final touch up before
being submitted to the Government.
A study of this draft reveals that for the first time a
significant step in communal violence control has been undertaken
in a most serious way. This Bill covers most of the points which
lead to violence, add to sustaining it, and later lead to denial
of justice. As such the most neglected areas of violence against
women, the area of rehabilitation and reparation also get a
prominent and adequate recommendation from this Bill.
One concedes that some rough edges of the Bill do need
smoothening, but still overall it is a landmark step in trying to
create an institutional mechanism to boost National integration
and Communal Harmony. Notwithstanding that, the BJP leadership,
Arun Jaitley, and a section of media has already started to oppose
the Bill and is propagating that the Bill just talks of violence
against Minorities (i.e. Muslims and Christians) and ignores the
violence against the majority community. Nothing can be farther
from truth. The attempt of the draft is to define the Minority as
the religious, linguistic groups. It also brings in the targeted
violence against SC and ST. The concept of the draft is guided by
the total experience of the society during last six decades.
The data of last six decades is very revealing. In 1991, it was
estimated that while the percentage of Muslim minorities is 12.4
in the population, amongst the riot victims Muslims were 80%. The
latest data reveals that Muslims constitute 90% of the victims of
violence. The anti Christian violence figures speak for
themselves, where one notices that not only sporadic violence has
been on the rise, there are concerted acts of violence, like the
one witnessed in Kandhmal. The violence against dalits and STs has
been occurring regularly. In that sense the focus of this draft is
well taken, as it is taking into consideration the concrete
realties of our society.
This focus is very similar to the focus of Domestic Violence bill
and the bill against atrocities on Dalits and STs. While there may
be few acts of violence against men by women, it is primarily
women who are the major victims of domestic violence. Similarly
while upper caste may be the victims of violence by dalits-STs
occasionally, the major brunt is borne by dalits and STs, so this
focus. It also does not mean that violence against men or upper
caste will go unpunished or unaddressed. Similarly those from the
majority who suffer due to violence initiated by minorities should
be suitably given justice, most of the provisions for this are
already there. Needless to say even in the anti-minority targeted
violence, some from the majority also have to suffer incidentally;
justice to them is part of the system and existing provisions.
So does this draft ignore the Hindu majority? Lets notice that the
focus of definition of Minority group, as religious, linguistic,
caste and tribe. As per that we can easily see that Hindus are a
religious minority in seven states in India, Jammu and Kashmir,
Punjab, Mizoram, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, and Andaman-Nicobar.
Hindus are linguistic minorities in many states. The bill also
talks of SCs and STs on the same ground. With such an approach the
long standing issue of Kashmiri Pundits also gets a new mechanism
which can help get them justice as they are a minority in their
state.
The argument that it does not address the violence of minority
against the majority religious community is a deliberate
propaganda on the part of BJP. One knows that this Bill is aiming
at curbing the mass violence. The mass violence has been mainly
against religious minorities. The religious minorities also suffer
from the institutional bias at the hands of the police,
bureaucracy and other state institutions. Most of the studies have
demonstrated this fact and one must recall the conclusions of the
study of Dr. Vibhuti Nariain Rai, a Police officer, who concluded
that police attitude is heavily biased against religious
minorities and that in most of the mass violence cases a situation
is created by the majoritiarian political groups, where by the
Muslims are cornered, forced against the wall; where sometimes
they throw the first stone out of sheer frustration. This Bill
deals with the mass violence and not isolated incidents here and
there. The existing clauses of IPC and Cr PC are fairly adequate
to deal with the violence against majority community.
The major highlight of this Bill is to ensure the accountability
of the officials whose act of commission and omission are at the
root of the continuation of the violence. They in turn are
sometimes being dictated by the political leadership. Again as Rai
points out no act of communal violence can go on beyond 48 hours
unless the administration is complicit in the violence. The
attempt of the Draft Bill is also to pin down the political
leadership which is behind the foot soldiers on the rampage in the
streets. The experience of most the riots and the inquiry reports
of most of the major events of communal violence show that there
is a well planned execution of the anti minority violence, so the
leadership of political group behind these perpetrators will also
come under the gambit of the bill. The most significant point is
to take action against the Hate propaganda against the vulnerable
communities and their economic and social boycott. This bill
attempts to address those delicate areas of our political reality.
With this it becomes obvious that the BJP and associates, the
progeny of RSS, attempting to create ‘Hindu Majoritarian State’
will naturally be disturbed by the Bill trying to comprehensively
deal with the issue, to ensure our effort to maintain the plural
structure of our state where we all can live the life of dignity.
The bill does recognize that communal violence is trying to shift
of our polity in a sectarian direction and it is the duty of state
to provide the atmosphere of security for all the citizens.
The strong aspects of the Bill relate to ensuring that state as
the guardian of all, vulnerable sections included, must take
responsibility of the victims of violence, their rehabilitation
and process of reparation put in place to ensure that the affected
communities are not boycotted after the violence and are able to
live the life of peace and amity.
The role of Central Government in monitoring the whole process,
and the center-state relations are the points which do need
refining so that Center is able to curb the mass violence without
stepping on the toes of the state Government. That’s a matter of
fine tuning the bill. The need is to ensure that the existing
mechanisms of justice are properly implemented and victims are
empowered. The nature of National Authority for Communal Harmony,
Justice and Reparation, as suggested by NAC, with 7 members, four
of them being from minority community is a welcome part of the
draft. One hopes this body is modeled on the functioning of
Election Commission, with adequate powers without disturbing the
existing mechanisms, just ensuring that existing power structures
and mechanisms become properly answerable. In this accountability
and command responsibility of those from the top also come under
the purview for their decisions related to commission or omission
both. One also knows that mere laws don’t solve all the problems.
The need to instill the values of amity and harmony as embodied in
our freedom movement need to be re-emphasized by the state and
social movements so that such a bill becomes a real effective
check on the divisive tendencies in the society.
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