Need for Civil Raights Movement in India

Posted on September 22, 2007

The civil rights movement in the United States was a watershed in the relationship between the whites and blacks. It opened up the American society for justice and equality. Much of the ugly racial violence substantially subsided because of it. Equal opportunity took roots in the aftermath of the movement in the 1960s. The result is there for anyone to see. More blacks have got education and jobs and come in the mainstream as one can see them in the armed forces, in the state department or the defence department, in the judiciary as well as in the legislature. The front-runner of Democratic Party for the presidential election Barak Obama, Secretary of States Dr Condoleeza Rice and her predecessor Colin Powell are all blacks. The great writers and musicians and sports persons from that community make a much bigger list. The nation enjoys greater sense of togetherness. Civil rights marches in the streets of Washington and elsewhere included whites and blacks alike. Martin Luther King Jr and his fellow workers across the racial divide bridged the gulf that was a cause of disaffection and violence.

India has not seen such civil rights movement although the communal violence has risen in a crescendo and threatens to make haywire of the society if it has not done so already. The bomb blasts in Hyderabad on May 18 and August 25 of this year crystallize how two different sets of reactions were witnessed. This fissiparous attitude calls for the civil rights movement that would bring back sanity to the people as the people themselves suffer irrespective of their religion. Similarly the judgment in the serial bomb blasts of March 1993 is not followed by equally prompt registration of crimes of rioting and fair investigation and conviction. The Chief Minister Mr Deshmuckh and his party succeeded in persuading the Muslim to call off their rally on August 20, 2007. That rally was meant to put pressure for speedy justice to the victims of the communal riots of December 1992 and January 1993. However, what happened after that is not only dragging feet in the matter of inquiry and prosecution but self-justification on the part of the police. Instead of good will there is deepening of the stagnancy of ill will, which does not augur well.

On Thursday September 20, 2007 thousands of blacks and human rights activists descended on the town of Jena in Louisiana to launch a second civil rights movement in America. Exactly a year ago six black boys had attacked a fellow white schoolmate who became unconscious. The victim Justin Barker had his face badly swollen but attended school later that night. The six were arrested and tried for attempted murder. They were released on bail except Michal Bell, 16. He remained in prison for a whole year and could not get $90,000 for bail. The civil rights groups point out that the police have selectively used the criminal laws.

A year ago in September a black boy sat under a tree in the recess. The tree was called “white tree”, not that the bark was white but because it was preserved for the whites. Three white boys hung three nooses from the tree later that day. This was reminiscent of lynching of the blacks in the pre 1960s civil rights time and also a warning to the coloured students to avoid the tree. The three whites were suspended from school but were not prosecuted. The tree was cut down. Racial tension increased and then the six attacked Justin. The police did not register a case of hate crime against the whites but not only arrested the six blacks but booked them for adult crime while they should have been booked under juvenile court laws.

Addressing the rally Rev Al Sharpton remarked that he would work with others and have the district magistrate explain to the American Congress his indiscriminate use of law. Martin Luther King III (son of the legendary father who addressed the famous 1960s’ march and delivered “I have a dream” speech) told the gathering that punishment of some sort may be in order for the six defendants, but “the justice system isn’t applied the same to all crimes and all people.”
"It's not just about Jena, but about inequalities and disparities around the country," said Stephanie Brown, 26, national youth director for the NAACP. "Every year at Jena High School there's a black-and-white fight," said Casa Compton, 26, a Jena native, who is African-American. "It's always been tense. There's always been prejudice and bigotry here. Every day they're throwing away a black man's life down here.'' "I think a lot of people recognize that the criminal justice system grinds down people of colour everyday," said J. Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group based in Montgomery, Ala. Rev Jesse Jackson said of the district magistrate prosecuting the case and who threatened the blacks that he would "ruin" their lives, "That is persecution, not prosecution. That is prosecutorial misconduct." "Nobody has taken our side. The only white people who have are from out of town," said Tina Jones, the mother of 18-year-old Bryant Purvis, the only defendant still facing attempted-murder charges. "I don't know if it's racism. But blacks and whites are not treated equal. That's what I call it."
With this kind of another civil rights movement underway in the US, the situation in India is far more aggravated but there is no civil rights movement to take up the cause for the greater good of the nation. In the third week of September 2007 the government of Maharashtra submitted two affidavits in Bombay high court regarding the Hari masjid, Sewri, firing case of January 10, 1993, in which six people were killed and among the injured was Farooq Mapkar. Justice Srikrishna had found sub inspector Nikhil Kapse “guilty of unjustified firing and inhuman and brutal behaviour” However, police deputy commissioner Dattatrya Shinde and senior inspector Namdeo Wayal in their affidavits now assert that Kapse did his duty when a mob attacked the police. Farooq Mapkar was one of the 40 arrested. Except him the others cooperated with the police and were released. Mapkar had appealed the court to book Kapse for murder. In response to this the police now charge Mapkar with murder and have produced an “eyewitness”, Arun Ghadge. But the same Arun Ghadge had in his deposition to the court last year said that he was not in the locality at the time of the incident. How differently would have the civil rights movement activists handled this case if it were in America!
Sacchar committee report and the follow up recommendations of Mr Antulay to improve the backwardness in Muslim minority should have created some kind of affirmative action acceptable to all. This is what the Americans did Instead we have the signed statement of Bal Thackeray containing ominous warning and repudiation of Muslims. It does not acknowledge the backwardness of the minority rather ascribes to them that they have more landed property than the Hindus of India, and where they are less in number and are considered poor then where they are in larger numbers they must be deemed rich, they enjoy a Haj committee, their literacy rate is higher than that of the Hindus, if the ajlaf in their community are backward the ashraf have shored them up, they have financial corporation of their own (so, the Hindus have none?). In this letter to the Prime Minister he questions the need to appoint Sachar commission, and ironically points out that the dalits have already their quotas and are numerically more than the Muslims. Therefore giving concessions to Muslims will harm their interest. He ends the letter with warning that it is sowing of seed of another partition.

Thus the lot of the Muslims must remain what it is. They must remain where they are and doing anything to them would be paving way for another partition of the country. This trend of thinking shows that the sense of civil society has not taken roots in the country yet. Civil society involves an equal regard for all others who share life and amenities with us. Whereas the need of the hour is to involve all others and reach out to all others within the country in a spirit of affirmative action Thackeray’s line and that of the BJP would create negative action. Deprive more the deprived rather than redress.