Archive for July, 2018

23 Jul

Cutting to the chase

Posted by vramani in government, human interest, political economy, public affairs, public policy. Tagged: , , , , , .

“ये दाग़ दाग़ उजाला, ये शब-गज़ीदा सहर

वो इन्तज़ार था जिस का, ये वो सहर तो नहीं  “

“This feeble blemished light, this dawn mangled by night,

This is not the morning we had all so longed for” (Faiz Ahmed Faiz)

 

Three incontrovertible facts emerge from the latest bovine related lynching in India’s lynch district of Alwar:

  • Rakbar Khan was in the dairy profession
  • Rakbar Khan was murdered on the night of 20/21 July 2018 within the boundaries of Alwar district
  • Rakbar Khan leaves behind a large family with no visible means of support.

I find it necessary to state the above facts because I am never sure nowadays when fiction will rear its Hydra-like head, especially with Twitter trolls on the prowl. There is a numbing sensation of déjà vu, as yet another bovine-related lynching enters the statistics. Notwithstanding the Supreme Court admonitions, the pious statements of union government ministers and the incessant analysis on TV and in print media, we, as a people, seem to be asserting that lynching is our birthright.

Why am I less than sanguine that things will change for the better? Six reasons inform my pessimism:

  • The role of the police is getting more and more questionable, especially in states like Rajasthan. One Gagandeep Singh in Uttarakhand does not a summer make. Sometime before the latest lynching, we were informed that the Rajasthan police have found no evidence against six of the alleged perpetrators of the Pehlu Khan lynching, although they were named by him before his death. It is also puzzling why the statement of the dying person was not recorded before a Magistrate under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code. If no evidence of actual commission of the offence is made out against the accused, there is every likelihood that they may be acquitted. Final result: one murder, zero conviction.
  • Apologists for the accused, in states from Rajasthan to Jharkhand, claim that those accused/convicted were not actually part of the lynch mob but were innocent bystanders. If the police discount both dying statements of the deceased and video evidence, there is no way anyone can be convicted. Even where the local police, as in the Kathua (Jammu) and Ramgarh (Jharkhand) cases, carries out a thorough investigation, justice is sought to be delayed by the demand for the investigation to be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
  • A mindset has been encouraged in the general public that any apprehension in their minds about the commission of an unlawful act, especially related to cattle, justifies lynching. This has been exacerbated by the mindless enactment of laws in state after state outlawing the sale of beef. Regulations on cattle trade were also sought to be stupidly enforced but withdrawn once there was public outcry and judicial intervention. My friend Harsh Mander has pointed out that the Meo Muslim community in the Mewat region of Haryana have traditionally been in the dairy trade. The virtual pogrom against members of this community when they seek to acquire and transport cattle would seem to be a vicious campaign to deny them their livelihood. Add a potent mixture of love jihad to this and murderous mobs can acquire nationwide licence to kill.
  • Any effort to painstakingly put together data on lynching incidents, relating to causes, community background of the victims and actual convictions, is immediately dismissed by apologists of the ruling establishment as partisan. The latest to face this ire has been the IndiaSpend site for its documentation of the frequency of lynchings since 2010.
  • Well-meaning advice to the government on tackling this menace suffers from the same attribution of motives. Former civil servants are allegedly supporters of the previous ruling dispensation (never mind that they suffered under them) or are peeved because they were denied the loaves and fishes of office after retirement (never mind that no evidence of any such link is given in even one individual case). The feeling is that a lie, if repeated often enough, will be deemed to be the truth by the public.
  • Finally, the actions and statements of prominent members of the ruling party over the past four years have emboldened those who feel their actions are beyond the pale of law. Bland statements by the Prime Minister and Union Ministers on the law taking its course have cut no ice with the rank and file, who continue to issue irresponsible statements without being reined in by their leaders. The latest culprits are a Minister in the Jharkhand government and a senior ruling party functionary in the same state (in the Swami Agnivesh assault case) and a Union Minister (after the latest Alwar lynching).

I am not (as yet) a subscriber to conspiracy theories or to deep, hidden motives behind the actions of politicians who are not thinking beyond the next elections. But, as a citizen of the great Indian experiment in democracy and as an active participant in public service for over three decades, I feel I must stand up for the basic values and ideals that motivated me and my colleagues in the civil services to give of our best to the people of India during our careers. After seeing how things have evolved over the recent past and how justice has more often than not been denied to those at the receiving end of violence and injustice, I am firmly of the view that we must now come to the point. Justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done. With this objective, I offer my own two bits on what needs to be done to restore faith of the families of lynch victims in the rule of law:

  • Lynching, that is mob violence directed against a person or persons, needs to be codified in the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The issue is too grave and urgent to leave it to states to pass their own legislations. It needs to be specified that all persons comprising the crowd at a lynching site will be deemed to have acted with a common intention (as defined in Section 34 of the IPC) and will, as abettors, be liable for the same punishment as the actual perpetrators (presuming that culpability of the latter can be established in a mob situation). All such persons should be liable for the same punishment as prescribed in the IPC for causing death, grievous hurt, etc.
  • Sections 217 to 223 of the IPC must be rigorously invoked against police personnel who try to save perpetrators of lynching offences by doctoring/falsifying First Information Reports, deliberately destroying evidence, etc. Needless to say, police personnel who are present at the site of a lynching and do not use all the resources at their disposal for prevention of the lynching (which they are authorised to by law) should, in addition to the punishment for public servants mentioned above, also be culpable for the offence committed and punished accordingly. Removal of such elements from the police force would also send out a very strong message.
  • Section 51 of the Bombay Police Act, 1951 empowers the District Magistrate to fix compensation payable to affected parties in cases where unlawful assemblies result in death/serious injuries to persons. The compensation amount can be recovered from all inhabitants in a particular area or from specific classes of persons. Forcible recovery methods, as in case of land revenue arrears, can be employed to realise this compensation amount. Such a measure will not only discourage public participation in such offences but may also help in advance intimation being given to the police by parties who do not wish to be held liable. In the present case in Alwar, such compensation would provide much needed succour to a poor family which has lost its breadwinner.
  • Administrative responsibility must be fixed for such acts, especially where they recur in a particular area. In the present case, there are good grounds for seeking the resignation of the Rajasthan Home Minister under whose watch a series of incidents, which have shocked the conscience of all right-thinking citizens, have taken place over the past couple of years and whose police have not been able to convincingly bring to a final conclusion even one case of lynching thus far. More than just administrative responsibility, a case is also made out for the ruling party to take action against its Union Minister who has tried to draw a parallel between the spate of lynchings and attempts to defame the Prime Minister. The utterances of the Jharkhand Minister, who sought to deflect the seriousness of the assault on Swami Agnivesh by commenting on his character and antecedents, are equally reprehensible. Such statements by responsible state functionaries, who have sworn to function in accordance with the Constitution of India, reduce the sanctity of the rule of law.

Democracy is always a tender plant that needs to be nurtured carefully. The responsibility for its nurture falls most on those entrusted by the people of this country with ensuring their safety and security. The time is past for delivering homilies. Justice, in accordance with the rule of law, has to be delivered speedily and efficiently. Let not the present ruling dispensation go down in history as one which destroyed the people’s faith in democracy and the rule of law.

 

20 Jul

Promote Unity, Not Divisiveness

Posted by vramani in government, political economy, public affairs, public policy. Tagged: , , , , , .

India, the world’s largest democracy, is fast imitating the century-old experience of the world’s oldest democracy, the USA, where lynchings are concerned. The spokesmen and apologists of the political party which is in power at the centre and in most of the states (‘the ruling party’) where these reprehensible, horrifying incidents have taken place in the past few years, will no doubt insist that this phenomenon predates their accession to power, notwithstanding the growing frequency of these incidents since the accession to power of the ruling party, as clearly brought out in the IndiaSpend Report. They will blame social media for the spreading of rumours and disown responsibility of any group patronised by them. What gives the lie to such protestations of innocence are the statements made by members of the ruling party in the electronic and social media when such incidents take place. The most recent case of vigilante extralegal violence involves the assault on Swami Agnivesh, the social crusader, at Pakur in Jharkhand, a state known for its peaceable residents but now bidding for top place in Lynchistan’s Hall of Shame. Who can foretell what unfortunate consequences could have arisen from one or two more ill-directed blows at a man in his eighth decade of life? And yet, two members of the ruling party had the gall to openly comment on how the Swami had it coming to him, apart from trotting out false reasons for his visit to Jharkhand. But then, consistency in speech and action has never been the forte of the ruling party.

Nor have the ruling party spokespersons distinguished themselves in panel discussions on national television programmes. After fifty former civil servants (including yours truly) issued a public statement condemning the felicitation by a Union Minister of convicts out on bail in a lynching-murder case, his party apologist (an advocate to boot) sought to justify the act by harping on the need to honour public sentiments, however vile they might be. After the Swami Agnivesh episode, another advocate-apologist for the ruling party sought to highlight “provocation” as an extenuating circumstance. Even in the surreal atmosphere we exist in today, their arguments strain the bounds of one’s credulity. As a law graduate and a former civil servant who has decided innumerable quasi-judicial cases, I have to take recourse to the self-defence provisions in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) to rebut their fatuous contentions.

Since they are not claiming (hopefully) that the lynchers are under twelve years of age, of unsound mind or have been intoxicated against their will, the only protection from punishment for causing death or serious injury under the IPC arises where the right of self-defence is exercised against offences aimed at causing harm to body (one’s own or others) or property. Even here, Section 100 of the IPC qualifies the use of force in self-defence, restricting it to instances where death, grievous hurt, rape, kidnapping, etc. are reasonably apprehended by the one who exercises the right of self-defence. In no case of lynching reported over the past four years have any of these provisions of the IPC been satisfied. Even if there has been any violation of any other law of the land, no legal provision allows one human to cause death/injury to another, except in the very limited instances mentioned above.

Which is why the Supreme Court came down heavily on the union and state governments for their failure to curb the growing incidents of lynching, ironically on the very day Swami Agnivesh was attacked. But the problem is that, in this case, it requires three (not two) hands to clap. The Supreme Court has clapped, but there are two more hands which must join in if any sound is to be heard. Parliament has to find time, aside from its internecine wranglings, to pass legislation that effectively tackles the menace of lynching, whether by adding sections to the IPC or by enacting a separate Act. But it is the third hand that will determine if the clap is heard loud and clear. This is the thoroughgoing implementation of anti-lynching provisions by the criminal justice system in the various states of India. Notwithstanding the confidence being exuded by our Union Law Minister, only one lynch case seems to have concluded so far (in Jharkhand) but other cases like the Dadri and Alwar cases are still going on. That cases have been lodged against the victims is testimony to the perversity of state action and to its lack of will in checking murderous mobs. Given shoddy police investigations, interminable trial processes and innumerable appeals, there is every reason to apprehend that future lynchers are unlikely to be deterred, more so when they see the support they are likely to get from the state and political formations.

The saddest consequence of state apathy, if not connivance, in condoning lynching incidents is the licence it gives to any group to resort to assault and murder. The recipients of this vigilante “justice” are innocent persons, often from minority and disadvantaged groups. The mob has been brainwashed to see their victims as the dreaded “other”, fed by the poison of irresponsible media reporting and cynical political manipulation. It started with alleged beef-eaters/cow-smugglers (Dadri, Alwar, etc.), moved on to alleged child-lifters (Dhule, Bidar, etc.) and now extends to critics of the present dispensation (Pakur). That there exists a poisonous streak in Indian society is borne out by the reports of the Karwan-e-Mohabbat, spearheaded by that tireless crusader, Harsh Mander. This poison has been fanned and spread by the intemperate, deliberate use of language to deepen public insecurity. When politics ceases to be a mission (as it was for the first generation of independent India’s politicians) and becomes an amoral business, power and pelf dictate all actions and the devil take the hindmost.

Drawing on American experience of nearly a century ago, three responses are crucial if India is to stop its descent down the slippery path of private vengeance. Firstly, the moral authority of the state (which has suffered grievously in recent decades) needs to be reasserted. As a former district magistrate, I can safely assert that where the District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police (or Commissioner of Police in metropolitan areas) were determined not to let anyone take the law into their hands and where they enjoyed public respect because of their honest, impartial conduct, riots rarely happened, or, if they did, were promptly nipped in the bud. I have personally observed how the no-nonsense conduct of a Chief Minister like Vasantdada Patil in Maharashtra ensured almost no violence against the sizeable population of Sikhs in Maharashtra in the aftermath of the Indira Gandhi assassination, even while Delhi burnt. The pogroms in 1984 (Delhi), 1993 (Mumbai) and 2002 (Ahmedabad) are illustrative of what happens when the state is complicit, covertly or overtly, in the commission of violence by one section of society against another. Firm administrative actions, followed by quick convictions of the guilty, reassure the victims that justice has been done while sending a message to hate-filled groups that extralegal violence will not be tolerated.

The second effort has to focus on the expression of revulsion at such acts in a way that discourages those who encourage, silently or openly, their commission, while pontificating on their commitment to the rule of law. The mass media has an important role to play, by highlighting the violation of law by lynch mobs rather than indulging in whataboutery or “victim fault finding”. Opinion makers and, indeed, civil society has a role to play as well. Channels and publications that seek to justify or whitewash such horrendous incidents should be exposed and patronage to them should be withdrawn. Society should clearly indicate to certain of its influential members that their condonation of such illegitimate violence will lead to their exclusion from public fora and social gatherings. Election campaigns should highlight the track record of prospective candidates with regard to their encouragement of criminality in sections of society.

But the final, and most important, step lies in the change in attitudes in those who govern. The phrase यथा राजा तथा प्रजा has never had a greater resonance than today. Unless those chosen to govern model their thoughts, words and actions on the Constitution they have sworn by, they will never be able to set an example to society. Let us not forget that the Preamble to the Constitution seeks to secure justice, liberty, equality and fraternity for all citizens aimed at assuring individual dignity and the unity and integrity of the nation. At every step, those in power must measure their actions against the touchstone of the values enshrined in the Preamble. They must take their cue from the Vedas and Upanishads which stress the oneness of the universe and the priceless verse of Sant Kabir:

 

कस्तूरी कुंडल बसे, मृग ढूँढत बन माहि |

ज्यो घट घट राम है, दुनिया देखे नाही |

(The musk is in the deer, but it seeks it not within itself; it runs through the forest in its quest. Similarly, God (humanity) is everywhere but the world is not able to see this)