Essays on Human Rights and the Law.Indd

KALIYUG The Decline of Human Rights Law in the Period of Globalisation KALIYUG The Decline of Human Rights Law in the Period of COLIN GONSALVES Human Rights Law Network New Delhi, India August 2011 KALIYUG: The Decline of Human Rights Law in the Period of Globalisation August 2011 © Socio Legal Information Centre* ISBN 81-89479-71-7 Author Colin Gonsalves Editor Suresh Nautiyal Assistance in text editing Ashima Kanwar, Rosannagh Rogers, Neha Bhatnagar Assistance in research Abida Khatoon, Anupama Chaturvedi Design Mahendra S Bora Printed at Shivam Sundaram Green Park, New Delhi, India Published by Human Rights Law Network (A division of Socio Legal Information Centre) 576, Masjid Road, Jangpura New Delhi – 110014, India Ph: +91-11-24379855/56 E-mail: [email protected] Supported by European Union Dan Church Aid Disclaimer The views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily views of the HRLN. Every effort has been made to avoid errors, omissions, and inaccuracies. However, for inadvertent errors or discrepancies that may remain nonetheless, the HRLN takes the sole responsibility. *Any section of this volume may be reproduced without prior permission of the Human Rights Law Network/Socio Legal Information Centre for public interest purposes with ap- propriate acknowledgement. INTRODUCTION he articles that appear in this book have been written over a period of time and cover all the human rights law issues that have caught the nation’s attention generating much debate. I Tintervened in many of these controversies trying to maintain a true and consistent human rights perspective seeing issues always through the eyes of the working people. All these articles were written during the height of globalisation. This started in the early 90s and its merciless effects on the poor were clearly discernible at least from 2000 onwards. The globalisation can be summed up in three words: “subsidies are bad” or with another formulation of four words “the markets will provide.” By the early 90s, the shift from a social democratic or trickle down model to globalisation was well on its way. In the social democratic model, governments try to take all sections of society along in some compromised capitalists fashion. A certain part of the gross domestic product is, therefore, diverted towards the poor for public education, public healthcare, food, public housing and public transportation. The underlying notion, in this system of governance is that there ought to be education and public healthcare for all, that public housing should be constructed by the State for those living in the slums, the subsidised food should be given to the poor and public transportation ought to be subsidised so that the poor can travel. These principles are jettisoned in the globalisation period of capitalism. State interventions that subsidised services for the poor were replaced by the market forces. The market competition was expected to depress the prices of the medicines and food, making them affordable for the poor in India. The privatisation of education would likewise see services being provided cheaply. This economic theory and political perspective was a cruel joke on the working class. If, as all national statistics showed, 80% of the Indian population was below a monthly expenditure of Rs. 20 per capita per day (at 2004 prices), then it was incomprehensible as to how the poor would purchase medicines, send their children to school, buy their homes and feed their families. The Planning Commission of India that has pushed India’s GDP rate to 8% today and has globalised the Indian economy, pegs the poverty line at Rs. 15 per capita per day expenditure, meaning thereby that if the per capita expenditure is Rs. 16 per day that person would not be considered poor and would not be entitled to the subsidised food. The minimum bus fare for an employee to reach her offi ce and return would come to that amount let alone expenditures on other items. The shift in the political mindset of politicians running the country was palpable. Whereas during the decades post-independence, nation building was the main concern, during the globalisation period profi ts became the sole obsession. Taken to its logical conclusion, governance developed a cruel attitude towards ordinary people. Whereas earlier, the Public Distribution System and the subsidised grain were critical to combat malnutrition and starvation, now the policy was “either you buy or you die!” The policy of giving subsidised grain to the poor was condemned from the Prime Minister downwards as being wasteful and unproductive. When the Supreme Court of India recently requested the government repeatedly to give grain to the poor free, particularly in view of the fact that 65 million tons of grain were lying rotting in the godowns of India while the mal- v INTRODUCTION nutrition, anaemia and low body weight of the Indian population remained obstinately upwards of 50%, the Prime Minister of India called a press conference the very next day and criticised the Supreme Court for interfering with the government’s policy. In the healthcare, government began the privatisation of public hospitals by selling many institutions to the private sector and by forcing the poor to pay for services in the guise of a World Bank suggested “user fee system.” This practice of charging the poor for services effectively resulted in turning the poor away from public hospitals to leave them to die. The privatisation of education began from an unexpected quarter with the Supreme Court in TMA Pai’s case vigorously promoting the privatisation of higher education. The governments took the cue and carried out the whole-scale privatisation of education. In the last decade, fees quadrupled that even the middleclass were unable to educate their children. In the kindergarten classes, the newspapers often reported long lines of middle class parents struggling to get their little babies admitted even after paying huge bribes to the schools in the form of donations. The development on housing rights was as cruel. Though the UPA manifesto proudly claimed that forced evictions of slum dwellers would be stopped and in-situ upgradation would be done, in reality hundreds of bulldozers were dispatched to the slums in Delhi, Bombay and all other major cities of India and the homes of the poor were crushed without notice. The newspapers reported demolition after demolition, some of them while children were studying for their examinations. Not a minutes’ notice was given to enable the occupants to save their belongings by taking them elsewhere. The pathetic possessions of the poor were crushed under the bulldozers. Many people lost their lives, particularly the aged, the sick and little children. It is in this way that urban lands were cleared for the establishment of malls, fi ve-star hotels and commercial establishments. The fi nal blow came when the Urban Lands Ceiling Act, which was passed by Parliament to acquire excess urban land for housing the poor and indeed thousands of hectares were acquired, was repealed and the lands returned to the landlords. The catastrophic collapse of economic rights was mirrored by the dramatic decline of civil and political rights. Torture, which was in any case, widespread, skyrocketed. The Judicial control over the police declined. The upper middle class mindset and morality which stigmatised the poor as criminals, prevailed. Yesterday’s constitutional experts now parroted the cliché that the legal system was too soft on criminals. Certain judges set out to dilute criminal law protection. They even called into question the criminal law standard of “beyond reasonable doubt.” Death sentence after death sentence were awarded. Then it was argued by eminent jurists that judges ought to be permitted to convict even if the evidence was not satisfactory “provided they believe the accused to be guilty.” The institutions of democracy were also transformed. Parliament and the Assemblies were often centres of physical clashes between warring parties. Studies showed that many of the elected representatives had criminal backgrounds. Corporate infl uence over these representatives grew to such an extent that when it was proposed that Parliament enact a law enforcing visual repre- sentations on cigarette packets to dissuade persons from smoking, hundreds of elected representatives wrote to the minister against the proposed legislation. Such was the infl uence of just the tobacco lobby in respect of an innocuous step. Today, the hold of corporations over elections and the elected representatives is nigh complete. The corporations control the Statute drafting vi KALIYUG: The decline of human rights law in the period of globalisation INTRODUCTION processes and the content of legislations. Corporations decide the education, health, nutrition and other social policies as well. In short, government and Parliament are well in truly privatised. It is said that India has a free Press. But over two decades of globalisation, corporate control of the media is absolute. Like, Fox News in America, news in India is manufactured according to the corporate dictates. Accurate, fearless and unbiased reporting is a thing of the past. Two recent events indicate how deep the rot has set in. An enquiry conducted recently showed many newspapers were collecting money from vested interests in order to print news and then a prominent media journalist was caught up in an embarrassing controversy maneuvering between corporate houses. Compared to the media in India the unethical practices in the news of the world seemed so insipid. Though the Judiciary remained to some extent above the rot as the last bastion of democracy, it too suffered from the onslaught of the globalisation. The criminal law standards were diluted. Anti-labour judgements decimated labour law protection and led to the contractualisation and casualisation of labour throughout the country.

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