The UPA Government must without delay dump the dangerous legislation proposed by `social activists' without a sense of social history, writes Hilda Raja
As a member of the minority com munity, I am shocked, to say the least, on reading the so-called Prevention of Communal and Targetted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill 2011.
I have touched only one aspect, namely, the `group' and `the others'. The proposed Bill seems to be drafted by people determined on communalising the nation and ultimately destroying it. It is just not senseless but drafted with malefic intention and purport. The very terminology is misleading, because this is not prevention of communalism but arousing and abetting communalism.
Again, why the term `targetted violence'? It should have been simply violence. It starts thus with assumptions and presumptions that violence is targetted, which means violence is directed against specific targets (read Muslims). This assumes that the perpetrators are nonMuslims. Those who drafted the Bill appear to have had preconceived notions and a hidden agenda that found its expression in it.
I would like to question the authority of the National Advisory Council to draft the Bill. Why was an extra-constitutional body engaged in this task? Do we not have the Union Cabinet and the Government advisors to have conducted the exercise? All these are paid by the tax payer’s money. Perhaps Team Anna and the likes of Baba Ramdev should join hands in opposing the Bill.
A blatant and arbitrary division of the Indian people into “group” and “others” is made by the authors of the Bill, which
reveals the mala fide intent. It goes beyond mere appeasement of the minority community and aims at the disintegration of the country. The Muslims and the other minorities are the “group” while the rest are “the others”, and ungrouped. The people, thus, are categorised into two — the victims, which is “the group” and the perpetrators, who are part of the “others”.
No civilised country would accept such a blatant miscarriage of law and justice.
The Congress has been for long sowing divisive politics in the country, on the basis of region, religion, caste and language. Now, even before any violence happens, the NAC has imagined violence that is directed against the Muslims and Minorities by the “others”. Indian history does not vouch for this assumption.
The drafters of the Bill presume that riots
and violence are perpetrated by the “others” (read Hindus). This is certainly not always true. According to Ms Zenab Banu’s Politics of Communalism: a Politicohistorical Analysis of Communal Riots in post-Independence India with Special Reference to the Gujarat and Rajasthan Riots (1989), there have been 74 communal riots between 1953 and 1977, of which 75 per cent were instigated by wayward members of the minority community.
Even today, 98 per cent of cross border and/or Indian-born terrorism is planned, instigated and perpetrated by the minority community members. Yet, the Union Minister of Home Affairs, Mr P Chidambaram, repeatedly refers to ‘saffrom terror’ .
The Communal Violence Bill is based on a hate philosophy, but even in this it
is skewed. There have been riots and communal flare-ups in which Hindus have been the victims. The Kashmiri Pundits will vouch for this. The Hindus have been massacred, their homes burned and they have been driven out of the Kashmir Valley. Till date, no justice has been done to the victims. Is it because they belong to the “others”? Violence is violence and criminality is criminality — it cannot change because of the identity of the victim and the perpetrator. These must to be snuffed out and the same penal code must apply.
Let us hypothetically envisage that this Prevention of Communal and Targetted Violence Bill is passed and becomes law. Then, several members of the Congress Government, which was in power when the anti-Sikh riots took place
in 1984, should be tried and punished because they failed to prevent the butchering of the Sikhs.
The authors of the Bill and those who are so enthusiastically promoting it must have a sense of social history. Since they do not, it is important for the Union Government to give up on the dangerous idea. There is tremendous opposition to it from parties across the political spectrum. Even several members of the Congress and its allies are uncomfortable with the draft prepared by the NAC. This was on ample display during a recent allparty meeting the Prime Minister had conveyed to discuss the issue. The draft Bill should be consigned to the dustbin without further delay.
(Hilda Raja is a former Professor of Social Sciences at Stella Maris College, Chennai.)
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