Skewed ‘war on terror’ and human rights on skewer

(Apropos Bangalore Public Discussion Human Rights in the context of Terrorism and Communalism, October 11, 2008)

What is transpiring in Dhule in Mahrashtra calls for serious thinking over how the ‘war on terror’ is going on. On September 29 2008 a bomb blast at a chowk in Malegaon killed five and injured more than a hundred. All the victims were Muslims. Fifty kilometers away in Dhulia Hindu raksha samiti put up digital banners on October 3 inviting Hindus to gather at Ram mandir on October 5 in protest against terrorism. The district police administration gave them permission for the banners as well as the rally even when the images on the banners and the writing were very offensive to Muslims as a community. Human rights activists like the local unit of Movement for Peace and Justice and some well meaning citizens were filled with dreadful premonition of things to come and hence they approached the district administration on October 4 to intervene in the affair to maintain peace and harmony.

It was distressing to see that a banner of Hindu rakshak samiti was found in the morning of October 5 to be torn but much more distressing was to see the trail of violence and arson and loot in the aftermath of it. The catastrophe that left two hundred and fifty people injured and nine dead and as many as fifteen thousand houses destroyed and the residents of many areas turned into internal refugees in their own town and innumerable commercial establishments looted and burnt. This is the saga of suffering of people when their human rights are deliberately and systematically trampled in the name of religion.

In Orissa this has been going on for quite sometimes on a larger scale.

The most fundamental right is right to life. Even if it is the bounden duty of the government to protect the life of the citizens irrespective of their caste and religion there is complete failure of governance all around. The premium on the life of the victims in riots is the government figure of compensation that is announced in a jejune manner by ministers of state and central governments. The government figures only in this regard after having abdicated its duty to stop riots from breaking or prevent riots from spreading. The religious outfits which do the murder and mayhem and the communal parties behind them never take the responsibility and the governments fail to prosecute them and the national election commission never bothers to derecognize the parties. This is how the erosion of the credibility of the state has played havoc with the country and resulted in the violation of the human rights of the minority mostly.

In a case study of Dhule we see how communalism and terrorism go in tandem in India today. The police and investigating agencies go public with every arrest of Muslim youths who are generally dubbed as terrorists without any judicial finding. This media trial and conviction creates the indelible impression in the minds of the people that Muslims are terrorists. While at the same time Bajrang Dal activists have blown up themselves in assembling or making bombs but no television channel focuses on them or calls them terrorists. As a result the fear psychosis created against the bearded and cap and tunic-wearing Muslims deepens in the minds of the unsuspecting ordinary citizens. The prejudice against the Muslims spreads like a poison.

It poisons the minds of the people against them in general. They are all perceived as terrorists even before they have a chance to have their case heard in the court of justice. In the last three months Muslims youths detained by police have been exposed to the camera wearing Palestinian scarf and thus terrorism is made out to be the outcome of their faith. In contrast the vermilion mark [tika] on the forehead of the Bajrang Dal activists, with their red headbands and trishul in hands are patently Hindu in implication and are loudly proclaiming just that but the media has not worked out for that nor has the police worked over any detained Hindu for that and hence they are not viewed as terrorists. Even the central government staves off the pressure to ban that outfit of RSS. Deliberately or inadvertently the media and the government have played in the hands of the right wing extremists who have hijacked the mammoth majority of the citizens of the country for their nefarious electoral end. A Muslim dubbed as terrorist even before trial starts in the court of law has no chance of redeeming himself or his community. Even when some Muslims youths were acquitted of charge of terrorism the media did not carry the report let alone apologize for maligning them. Thus right to live life of dignity is trampled as well. It finds expressions in well-qualified and decent people from Muslim community denied accommodation in the middle class housing societies.

Excepting the already decided cases of the bomb blasts of Bombay 1993 and Coimbatore 1998 no other case of terrorism has been adjudged so far. But thousands of Muslim youths have been incarcerated without trial. The only thing against them is their confession under duress. This self-incrimination of the so-called alleged terrorists is disturbing, excruciating as well as polarizing the society vertically. Their right to fair trial is denied to them as they are brutalized under detention for the confession extracted from them under torturous situation. Some of them like Khwaja Yunus were killed in fake encounter—a deadly weapon against the innocent Muslims. Scores of youths from Muslim ghettoes of Hyderabad as well as Malegaon were arrested. Some of them appear to have simply disappeared, either dead, killed or hiding because of fear of arrest for no fault of their own. Many of them were the sole breadwinners of their necessitous families. Where would the deprived families get the means to meet both the ends? Imagine their suffering if the young ones are ultimately proved innocent after a decade. Their youth as well as livelihood are lost to this so-called ‘war on terrorism’. Anti terrorism should not make self-incrimination as the fulcrum on which our judicial system should move or else it would perpetuate denial of right to justice.

Muslims, it seems, have no objection to even harsher laws then the dreaded Pota. But there should be a trade off between the rights they forgo and the security the state should give them in return. Instead of prevaricating LKAdvani should see that the life of the Muslims is most insecure whether there are bomb blasts or not, or whether they are involved or not in any such incident. And what is more much of their insecurity and threat to their life is on account of his rathyatra of yore. As a refugee from Pakistan he must take time to read partition literature like Praful Roy’s story “Where there is No Frontier.” Lajpat Singh’s an agnorisis or realization of past mistake is truly cathartic and can do for him [the prime ministerial candidate] good in this fight against terrorism and communalism.