Preventing
Sectarian Violence: Role of State
Ram Puniyani
The horrific violence in Assam has once again brought
our attention to the malaise of communal violence in India. In the recent times
one has witnessed such a violence in parts of UP, (Kosi Kalan, Barailly,
Pratapgarh) and also in Gopalgargh in Rajasthan. In most of these acts of
violence one has to confront the reality that there is a lapse on the part of
state, the police and civic administration, due to which the violence sustains
itself after the initial spark has been thrown by someone. The present spate
(July, 2012) of series of acts of violence reconfirms that there is a lack of
accountability, there is state complicity and impunity due to which the
innocents are done to death and the culprits generally get away.
As such communal violence is a multilayered
phenomenon. The foundation of this phenomenon lies in the negative perceptions
about the ‘others’, the prevalence of ‘social common sense’ about the
minorities in particular. ‘They are invaders, more loyal to Pakistan, beef
eaters, they convert by force fraud or allurement, they are infiltrators etc’
are a few from list of perceptions about minorities prevalent in our society
and many firmly believe these to be true. These perceptions based on half truth
are made to become part of social common sense, through various mechanisms. Noam
Chomsky, while talking about such perceptions amongst the people shows how in
United States, state gets popular sanction for its aggression on other countries,
by ‘manufacturing the consent’ of the people all around. US state does it
particularly through media. In case of social common sense in India, it is propagated
by the dominant communal forces through the word of mouth, through media and through
school books. This negative perception of ‘others’, in turn leads to a sort of hatred
for the ‘other community’. The hate for other community is like an inflammable
mindset, which gets sparked into communal violence either due to small
accidents or due to the agenda of some political forces which get the violence orchestrated
for communal polarization which helps them strengthen their political base.
The anatomy of riots in India so for is constituted by
a complex mechanism. At the base of this mechanism is ‘hatred for others’. Then
come, the communal forces which instigate violence through various mechanisms.
At the same time the state looks the other way around or subtly or directly
helps the rioters. In the aftermath of violence state, mostly does not do any
justice to the victims. The further trajectory of the communal violence is the
communal polarization, and ghettoizarion of minorities. All this has been so far
been manifest in India, various inquiry commission reports have confirmed this observation
time and over again. It is in this light that when the UPA came to power in
2004, one of the promises which it had given was to bring in a communal
violence prevention bill to see that these irritants of our system are done
away. The focus was that the role of different players in the phenomenon of
violence is curtailed. Different players in this game leading to violence are communal
organizations-their hate speech, the acts of commission of and omission of political
leadership and the state machinery. The aim of the bill was to curb the
culprits and to give security to the targeted groups, whatever be their religion.
Finally the aim was, to give justice to the victims and to rehabilitate them as
a matter of duty not as mere charity.
The UPA I got a bill in this direction, but it seemed
that remedy it brought was worse than the disease. The proposed bill which was
drafted further empowered that section who had been acting with complicity and
impunity. When there was protest against the bill, it was stalled. Two major
consultations were held by the civic society groups to press for the demand of
a new bill to prevent communal violence. During UPA II, the Government gave the
task of drafting the bill to National Advisory Committee, NAC. The NAC group on
communal violence held consultations with the social activists working in the
area of violence mitigation and in getting justice to the victims and also with
the representatives of victim groups. They drafted the bill, ‘Prevention of Communal
and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, 2011. Initially
NAC group had asked
for declaring the violence hit areas as disturbed areas, but this provision was
withdrawn later due to the criticism of this provision. The bill identified the
minorities as the targeted groups, and called for the National authority to
oversee the proper implementation of the provisions for prevention and control
of violence. The national authority was also to look after the justice and
rehabilitation of the violence victims.
The draft bill submitted by NAC came under heavy
criticism from BJP. The other parties also criticized the draft on the ground
that it is one sided favoring the minorities. They also pointed out that the
idea of the national authority will go contrary to the federal structure of the
state, and provisions of reparations also came to be criticized as being paternalistic;
stifling the rights of survivors. Later
the UPA II tried to test the response to the bill from various quarters by
putting it on the agenda of National Integration Council where again most of
the parties criticized it, and only few members of NIC, who are working in the
area of social harmony spoke for it. All said and done it seems the Government
developed cold feet and seems to have put the draft bill in the deep freezer.
So, what will be the trajectory of communal violence
prevention bill? More violence in Assam, UP, Rajasthan has already taken place and
other new places may not be far off as the deeper causes of violence persist,
the riot mechanism is very much in place and the political leadership is what
it is, the bureaucratic and police machinery continues to be operating in the
same way. So what’s the way out?
Many a social activists met again and put an appeal to
draft and bring in a realistic law, which will address the deep and basic causes
of continuing violence. The group felt that it is necessary to ensure establishment
of command responsibility and the authorities should not get away for their
lapses by pointing the finger to political leaderships instructions. Political
leadership cannot escape its responsibility. Accountability of authorities
should be non controversial core part of the legislation. Provisions for
protection of women and children have to be given priority. After the violence
an effective victim and witness protection provisions has to be put in place
with activation of a suitable compensation-rehabilitation mechanism in the
aftermath of violence. One must add, the violence is sparked off by Hate speech
and rumors. Serious provisions are needed to punish hate speech.
So it’s time that UPA II shows its sincerity and
revives the efforts to bring a violence prevention law, after the due
procedure, letting Parliamentary committee examine it and put the modified
draft to the parliament. It’s a mammoth task, but surely we keep facing humanitarian
crisis of serious nature regularly due to the violence getting sparked time and
over again. It’s time to get the wheels of making a law, moving to
prevent-control violence and to give justice to the violence victims, which is
overdue.
