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EDITORIAL

WRONG PRIORITIES

It continues to be the wont of successive rulers both at the State and Central apparatus for practising populism, showmanship, individual likes and dislikes and upmanship to the detriment of teeming millions of this country. Look at the newly formed State of Uttranchal. Chief Minister Dr Nityanand Swamy declares on day-one that his first priority is to enforce prohibition in the State. Without paying scant regard to the nitty-gritty of administration he is ready to make a poor and backward State lose Rs 800 crore annually. As things stand he has been thrust on Uttranchal at the cost of local MLAs who have not taken kindly to his occupation of pilot's seat. They are at virtual war against him in terms of intrigues, hush-hush campaign and non-acceptance as CM of the new State. Four of his ministers have already opposed this 'prohibition syndrome' which grips Nityanand Swamy, including Finance Minister & Tourism Minister. A paradise for tourists and tourism going to be the mainstay of Uttranchal's economy, they argue that prohibition would keep the prospective tourists at bay. Nainital, Mussoorie and other places remains the most preferred destination after insurgency in Kashmir. True, there are Holy places like Haridwar and important pilgrimage centres of Kedarnath and Joshimath. But then such holy places can be declared out of bounds for liquor .....more

India and Universal declaration of Human Rights

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EDITORIAL

WRONG PRIORITIES

It continues to be the wont of successive rulers both at the State and Central apparatus for practising populism, showmanship, individual likes and dislikes and upmanship to the detriment of teeming millions of this country. Look at the newly formed State of Uttranchal. Chief Minister Dr Nityanand Swamy declares on day-one that his first priority is to enforce prohibition in the State. Without paying scant regard to the nitty-gritty of administration he is ready to make a poor and backward State lose Rs 800 crore annually. As things stand he has been thrust on Uttranchal at the cost of local MLAs who have not taken kindly to his occupation of pilot's seat. They are at virtual war against him in terms of intrigues, hush-hush campaign and non-acceptance as CM of the new State. Four of his ministers have already opposed this 'prohibition syndrome' which grips Nityanand Swamy, including Finance Minister & Tourism Minister. A paradise for tourists and tourism going to be the mainstay of Uttranchal's economy, they argue that prohibition would keep the prospective tourists at bay. Nainital, Mussoorie and other places remains the most preferred destination after insurgency in Kashmir. True, there are Holy places like Haridwar and important pilgrimage centres of Kedarnath and Joshimath. But then such holy places can be declared out of bounds for liquor vends and boozers alike. Nityanand Swamy refuses to learn any lesson from the bitter experience of former Prime Minister Morarji Desai, former Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh and Haryana who in their overzealously to impose prohibition made the coffers empty choking development process like never before. Both Haryana and Andhra reversed the decision not only to stop rampant illicit distillation but also restore health of their respective economy. Nityanand has many problems on hand to make the new State work for the objectives for which it is created. But then it is his personal like to declare prohibition as the first priority.

Punjab likewise has been in the thick of financial crisis precisely because its rulers (Akali-BJP combine) announced free power for the farmers as a populist measure. It has been unable to reverse it for fear of losing farmers vote pockets although many a time it has been debated as very foolish measure when the password is withdrawal/reduction of subsidies. In this context one appreciates the wisdom of Haryana Chief Minister who also made more or less similar treat for farmers but wriggled out of it. He may have earned wrath of the farmers but surely economy has not gone in the red and State looks forward towards a rosy future.

There has also been that nonsense of heavily subsidised foodgrains by AP and Tamil Nadu. These schemes were subsequently withdrawn as unviable. But Centre besides commitment to liberalisation has doubled the supply of heavily subsidised grains under Targeted Public Distribution System even though there are adverse reports of not reaching this cheap grain to the targeted population. However one does appreciate quick withdrawal of the proposal for supply of free grains to about five crore poorest amongst the poor just to unload surplus stocks. This scheme would have been disastrous. Now the same surplus wheat is being exported, albeit at a cost less than the Minimum Procurement Price paid by the Government. At least some foreign exchange would be earned and godowns vacated to accept new crop arrivals.

By far the most flawed measure which is indispensable for growth of the country is free compulsory primary education which yet remains a distant dream. It is to be noted that China has logged literacy rate of 98% while India has miserably failed on this count during the last 53 years. Literacy holds the key to voluntary control of burgeoning population, better health care, acceleration in development and even controlling many evils that afflict the society. It is nice to hear from State Education Minister Mohd Shafi that a legislation is on the anvil to make elementary education compulsory. Dher ast, dhrust ast. But do we really need legislation to remove illiteracy ? It would be ideal if Rehbar-e-Talim and other measures are given boost and adequate financial back-up rather than any legislative measure.

India and Universal declaration of Human Rights

By Balraj Puri

It has often been argued that human rights, as adopted by the United Nations on 10 December 1948, are specific to the value system of the western democracy and culture and is a luxury that developed countries of North alone can enjoy. Some even suspect that it is a ploy used by them to brow beat and interfere in the internal affairs of the developing world.

It is difficult to make a generalisation for the entire developing world as it is far from homogeneous. But as far as India is concerned, though priorities of Human Rights Institutions and activists in India must keep in view its specific socio-economic realities, they aspire to maintain the same standard of Human Rights which most advanced countries of the world might have set for themselves. They do not seek any relaxation in their rigorous application on account of poverty or backwardness of their country. For politically and intellectually India is not a poor country not it is civilisationally backward. In fact tradition of basic Human Rights can be traced to its ancient history when war was fought under certain rules which also governed the treatment of prisoners of war and diplomats of the enemy. During freedom movement, apart from Gandhi's emphasis on moral means, the civil liberties union founded by Nehru also affirmed and anticipated the principles which became universal law.

Again, Indian constitution perhaps incorporated, in letter and spirit, more provisions of the UN declaration than basic law of any other country might have done. Women in India got a right to vote earlier than Western countries like Switzerland. The executive has far less important a role in appointment of judges in India than, say, in America. Apart from an independent judiciary, institutions like Human Rights Commissions at the national level and in some States. Commissions for Minorities, Women, Scheduled Castes and Tribes, Election Commission, Auditor General and free press are as adequate means for protection of human rights as any democratic system can provide.

Further, contrary to popular belief, religion plays a far more pervasive role in most of the western countries than in India. A country like Britain has a state religion-Church of England and religious rituals are performed at a number of its official functions. In United States, Congress session begins with religious prayers. There are religious and legal sanctions against abortion in a number of countries. In the USA, abortion clinics function under heavy security and abortion doctors are often attacked and sometimes killed by Catholic zealots. In every election, different denominations of the church set up their own agenda and are wooed by political parties and candidates. The dollar note carries an inscription ''In God we Trust''. In Indian constitution, on the other hand, there is no room for God or religion. Nor religious leaders have a decisiveness say in determining political and social agenda. A distinction, however, needs to be drawn between claims of religion and religious communities.

Thus with an excellent constitutional and institutional infrastructure, excellent record of religious tolerance and liberalism and excellent moral and ideological Gandhi-Nehru heritage, India was excellently equipped to be an ideal country to safeguard and promote human rights.

In the initial years of independence India did aspire to the role of a moral leader not only of the developing world but also took advanced countries to task for their lapses. Apart from condemning Anglo French attack on Suez Canal and deploring Soviet Russia's invasion on Hungary, India did not hesitate to criticise violations of human rights within countries. Nehru described imposition of army rule in Pakistan by Field Marshal Ayub Khan as ''the most naked dictatorship in the world''. India carried on a crusade against Apartheid in South Africa and openly espoused the cause of blacks in America. It was more actively involved on the side of the king of Nepal against autocracy of Ranas and the freedom movement of Bangladesh. It also supplied arms to Tamil struggle for self determination in Sri Lanka and air dropped relief packets in Tamil areas. Indeed India's representative in the United Nations Hansa Mehta ridiculed the plea of non interference in the internal affairs of a country which violated Human Rights.

By 1991, the then Indian Foreign Minister Madhosinh Solanki argued in the UN Commission on Human Rights ''any outside intervention in a member country on humanitarian grounds constitutes abridgement on Sovereignty and is, therefore, fraught with serious implications''. Some years later India made a common cause with countries like China, Indonesia and Iran to assert Asian version of human rights. India's domestic record too is of continuous deterioration in the field of human rights.

Demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992, followed by communal riots which took a toll of 2000 human lives, current attacks on Churches and missionaries, killing of 3000 Sikhs in Delhi in 1984, continued atrocities on scheduled castes and tribes are no indications of a tolerant and a civil society. Nor attacks on theatres showing a film like Fire, shooting of a film Water, burning of paintings of an artist of the stature of Hussian, attributing motives to Noble Prize Committee for awarding a prize to Amritya Sen and threats against performance by Pakistan's artists and sportsmen in Mumbai represent, merely a lunatic fringe of Indian mind.

Again, paranoid reactions in some quarters to allegations of human rights violations in Kashmir and North East and refusal to allow respectable international human rights organisations ton visit those areas eloquently demonstrate the weaknesses in India's human rights record.

What went wrong ? Was the earlier elan false or the present situation an aberration ? Before we answer these questions, we must take note of the fact that there is hardly any other country which has so many types of diversities as India has and is trying to maintain national unity within a democratic framework. Moreover, it is almost the only country which has embarked on the task of industrialisation within that framework.

Broadly the attempt to forge a nation out of all divergent claims and aspirations of various types of communities over one century and a half followed a assimilative-cum-coercive approach. The attempt to assimilate all religious communities into one nationhood failed in case of the Muslim community which perceived a threat to its identity in this approach. Led by the most modernised and least religious class of India, its fears were articulated in the demand for a separate homeland. Without apportioning blame on either state, the fact remains that Hindu-Muslim differences leading to subsequent tensions and violent conflicts between them culminating in creation of Pakistan can be traced to refusal of the majority of the Muslim community to merge in the dominant concept of Indian nationalism.

The movement for Pakistan and its creation, in no way, proves that religious or theological differences between Hindus and Muslims had become irreconcilable. The difference was in fact between thoroughly religious Hindu and Muslim leaders like Gandhi and Azad on one side and a liberal and westernised Muslim like Jinnah and an agnostic Hindu like Savarkar on the other. The latter pleaded for the two nations theory. The educated Muslim elite, defying the Ulema, simply asserted the identify of the community in pursuit of its secular demands like share in political power and services.

In fact it is not easy for any religion to clash with an amorphous religion like Hinduism which has a room, in one or another of its scripture, for all possible theological beliefs of any other religion. Hindus are most tolerant to beliefs and practices of other religions but far less a religious version of nationalism. It comprises ancient Indian history, Indian mythology, Indian schools of philosophy, ancient Indian epics and ancient heroes of India. Followers of Hindutva consider it as synonymous with Indian nation and not a religion.

Those who demolished Babri Masjid did so not because they were opposed to building a mosque, or right of Muslims to worship the way they liked but they wanted to demolish what tey considered to be a symbol of aggression by a foreigner, Babar, who was supposed to have built the mosque after demolishing a temple dedicated to the national hero. Those who are attacking Christian Institutions have been shouting slogans of Bharat Mata Ki Jai as according to them Christians may not be loyal sons of Bharat Mata. Those who killed 3000 Sikhs in 1984 in Delhi did so in the belief that Prime Minister of India was killed by their co-religionist Khalistanis whowere anti-national acting at the instigation of Pakistan. Nationalism can become very fanatic. But when it takes the form of a religious passion, it becomes more self-righteous also.

Indian army which in normal times and in peace keeping missions abroad has comparatively behaved better than many other armies of the world but when they have to deal with an anti-national secessionist community within India, it may not be able to maintain its standards of human rights.

Yet inherent tolerance of Hinduism, the synthesis between it and Islam brought about by Sufis and Bhakti saints and democratic process in India gradually asserted themselves to check the excesses of Hindu nationalism. Demolition of Babri Masjid back fired leading to defeat of the BJP in assembly elections in the four states that followed. The Congress has publicly apologized for failure of its government to prevent demolition. Even L K Advani had to call the demolition days as the most unfortuante day of his life. The attacks on Christian have divided the Sangh Parivar and isolated its extremist sections. The leaders of anti-Sikh riots in 1984 are being hounded in courts with full public support. The cultural and intellectual Hindu elite are more determinedly asserting against onslaughts by organisations like Shiv Sena on cultural and intellectual freedom. Indian nationalism has already conceded much ground to other pluralities of the country. Regional and linguistic identities have acqired a respectability. A number of regional parties are sharing power at the centre with a party like the BJP whcih had believed in uniform and centralied nationalism. There is a grudging recognition of caste identities also. Limits of aggressive nationalism were revealed when euphoria sought to be created over nuclear explosion in May 1998 vanished so soon.

Human rights movement in India has to work within a syndrome provided by the typical relationship between nationalism, sub-national communities and individual. On some issues individuals are more passionately aroused to fight for the rights of their community-religious, regional, linguistic, caste and in some cases class of workers and peasants- than for the rights of their individual rights.

Comparatively, community rights are more important in India than in any Western country. Individuals seek protection in a community from the threats of the State or from other communities as also satisfaction for their psychological and sociological needs. But it can be oppressive also. Thus while protecting the rights of a community within the nation, rights of individuals within a community also need protection. Many identities cut across each other. Most rational, but in most cases less emotional, is the identity of class which can protect the intra-community exploitation.

Most conspicuous focus of human rights in India- as against that of the West and the North-which it shares with the developing world is on economic rights. Right to food, right to work, right to education, right to equal opportunities with compensatory discrimination, right to health, right to housing and other elementary human needs, right to gender equality and above all right to an equitable system of distribution should be fundamental rights in a country like India. Democracy, a more meaningful and real democracy, where money power and muscle power do not matter, is a sine quo non for securing these rights.

Prof. Amritya Sen has succeeded in highlighting the most pressing human rights in economic field in a developing and democratic country like India. Nothing more need be added to that. The theory, popularised by many western scholars and leaders of the developing world, that development should precede democracy and human rights was exposed by the economic crisis in late nineties that swept the South Eastern countries, which were being developed with the aid of a American and international monetary institutions as showpieces of capitalism against Chinese communism.

In short human rights, Indian democracy and national unity are not threatened so much by religious bigotry as by insecure and uniform standard of nationalism and inegalitarian socio-economic system. Thus moderation in uniform nationalism to ensure recognition and respect for growing plurality and appropriate reorientation in political and economic policies can enable India to be in the front rank of the countries with highest standard of human rights. Conversely, pursuit of highest standard of human rights can best ensure national unity, enrich Indian culture, improve political standards and strengthen Indian economy.

Changing political scene in Kashmir
Tales of Travesty

By Dr. Jitendra Singh

With the Vajpayee Government's cease-fire initiative having received a universal applause and with the turn of events having compelled Pakistan to announce observance of maximum restraint by its armed forces, all eyes are now set on the emerging scene in Kashmir.

There is a visible stirring in the Hurriyat camp. And significantly, there is a distinct attempt by the Hurriyat leadership to get rid of its earlier reputation of being nothing more than Pakistan's mouth-piece. The frontline Hurriyat leaders are now heard speaking more in the phraseology of peace and normalcy rather than harping on the earlier jargon of "Jehaad" and "Azaadi". The Hurriyat Chairman Abdul Gani Bhat has been noticed making significant moves in Delhi. Top Hurriyat contender Abdul Gani Lone is issuing statements which are heavily loaded with political considerations. Influential Hurriyat frontliner Moulvi Umar Farooq is exercising characteristic discretion while tacticly inching ahead on the political chess-board. Indeed, none of them wants to miss the opportunity to come out of the wings and step into the centre-stage.

George Bernard Shaw had once remarked, men sometimes grow too old to quarrel. Perhaps the same adage is operating in the Hurriyat hierarchy. Most of the ageing leaders in the Hurriyat Conference do not appear inclined to spend the remaining few years of their lives in political strife and wilderness. And, to quote another adage from one of the George Bernard Shaw's compatriots, "It is better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven". Certainly, it is better to be installed as the ruler of the existing State of Jammu and Kashmir than to serve as a prisoner waiting to be the ruler of a yet-to-be-born "Independent Kashmir". Incidentally, the cue has been promptly picked up also by the non-Hurriyat non-National Conference leaders. Or else, why would Mufti Mohd Sayed and daughter Mehbooba appear calling the press so often to applaud Vajpayee's cease-fire move.

The changing attitudes among the Kashmir's political class have a lot much to do with the changing public mood as well. On the one hand, the people of Kashmir are feeling the pinch of having fallen back by atleast ten years due to relentless spate of militancy and now they honestly yearn for peace, prosperity and progress. On the other hand, the common masses earnestly wish to usher in an era of participatory democracy where they are not constrained to vote in a poll which is contested virtually only by the single political party and boycotted by the rest of political oufits. At the same time, the changed stance of western powers particularly the United States also favours an end to the Pak sponsored terrorism coupled with political rehabilitation of Kashmir's alienated leaders.

As for the common man, he would be gratified only when his rulers can deliver him justice, and fair-deal. Whoever happens to be the ultimate victor in this ongoing war of political wits, Umapathy would continue to look forward for deliverance from the "masters" who preside over his destiny. To use the bard's expression "Yeh Jo Pamaal-e-Zamaana Hain--- Mere Takht-Nasheen Dekh To! Kaisi Hasrat Se Tujhko Dekhte Hain!"

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