Six Parliments and Democratic Rights
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INDIA – 1947-79 SIX PARLIMENTS AND DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS PEOPLE’S UNION FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES AND DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS, DELHI 1 “Those who forget the past condemned to repeat it” - George Santayana PUBLISHED BY GOBIND MUKHOTY, CHAIRMAN, PEOPLE’S UNION FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES AND DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS, DELHI 2 WE, THE PEOPLE Of INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVERIGEN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens: JUSTICE, social, economic and political; LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief faith and worship; EQUALITY of status and of opportunity; and to promote, among them all FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the. individual and the unity and integrity o£ the. Nation; IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this,twenty-sixth day o£ November, 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION." -Preamble, Constitution of India. 3 SIX PARLIAMENTS AND DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS On the fifteenth of August, 1947, "while the rest of the world was sleeping, India awoke to freedom." The freedom promised to be the freedom of thought, of belief and worship, of association, assembly. The Indian people's dream of these freedoms was born of their long and arduous struggles. To guarantee these freedoms a system of adult franchise was introduced. Today, while the nation is going to polls to elect its seventh parliament, it is worthwhile to review the state of democratic rights all these years. In the first five parliaments, for a span of thirty years, the country was under the rule of virtually one party - the Congress - with the absence of any effective opposition. The gradual elimination of all opposition reached its climax during the sixth parliament when Indira Gandhi clamped down the Emergency in 1975, when even the nominal and legitimate opposition was subjected to repression. The tumultuous changes in 1977 in the wake of the election of the sixth parliament promised to bring about a transformation of the situation. The political parties of the Opposition, both national and regional, had sworn all these years by the Constitution, and had promised to safeguard the democratic rights once they were brought to power. But during their regime from 1977 till today, the democratic rights of the Indian people have remained as lyrical an illusion as during the earlier 30 years of Congress regime. The ordinary masses of India, toiling day in and day out with no security of food, employment and shelter, are threatened with insecurity of life when they attempt to protest. In rural India, the unquestioned rule of autocratic gentry continues unabated. Whenever people attempt to organize themselves, they are ousted from their land, beaten up and in some cases, even killed. During the last 32 years, whenever the State intervened - whether in Nehru's Telengana, Indira Gandhi's West Bengal or Janata's Bihar - it did so only on the side of the gentry. In the face of continuous onslaught from the state, the position of the other better organized groups like workers and students is no better. The minorities continue to live under economic, social and cultural subjugation. In reality, whenever the people try to assert their democratic rights, they are assaulted. Such assaults are more ruthless in the case of those who choose to disagree with the establishment. These political opponents are assaulted by the hoodlums, tortured by the police, detained by the state without trial and even killed. Caste and communal violence, extraordinary laws and regulations, in- human torture, increasing police firings, slow judicial process and abominable jail conditions are some of the form of attack on democratic rights. In the last 32 years six parliaments have come and gone, five prime ministers have changed, promises were made and assurances given. But the assault on people’s democratic rights has continued. The following account, mostly based on government reports, bring out the essential continuity of the assault. 4 CASTE AND COMUNAL VIOLENCE "In those states in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exists, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language.” Article 27, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1976 “In his book ‘Discovery of India’ Jawahar Lal Nehru wrote in 1945 … “in political matters, religion has been displace what is called communalism, a narrow group mentality basing itself on a religious community but a reality concerned with political power and patronage for the interested group.’ These words still remain true even after the passing of nearly thirty years. Report of the one-man commission of enquiry in to Sadar Bazar disturbances, 1974 India's independence came in the wake of a big communal holocaust. Since then, none of the political parties that held office at the Centre, had made any effort to put an end to Hindu-Muslim animosity. Instead, their leaders had consistently entrenched communal bias in Indian sociopolitical life by furthering the interests of their own communities and discriminating against members of other communities and by spurring fanatics to start communal riots to dislodge rival politicians from power which end up in large scale loss of life and property of the poor people; of the country. The following table is illustrative enough: Year Number of communal Riots 1960 26 1961 92 1964 1,070 1965 676 1967 198 1968 346 1969 519 1970 521 1971 321 1972 240 1973 242 1974 248 1975 to 1976 (Emergency) 374 Since April 1977 400 5 These data indicate that communal riots have become an annual feature of Indian life, although their number varies from year to year. They occur irrespective of the changes at the Centre or of the various political parties who rule in the States. The number of people killed in such riots range from 150 in 1967 to as high as 3.000 in 1969, when one of the worst communal carnages took place in Ahmedabad and other parts of Gujarat. It is also alarming that such riots are spreading to areas and places which hitherto had remained relatively free from communal tensions, like West Bengal, Bangalore and other parts of south India. Reports submitted by several inquiry commissions set up by the government to inquire into the causes of the communal riots, have often indic- ted the politicians for their involvement in such riots and the administration for their failure to prevent them. Thus, the Inquiry Commission on the Tellicherry riots of 1971 stated directly: "The chief among the parties who carried on anti-Muslim agitation in the area were undoubtedly the RSS and the Jana Sangh. " In November 1979, in West Bengal newspapers reported that communal riots spread soon after two Congress (I) leaders had delivered inflammatory speeches at a rally held to protest against the occupation of the Kaaba mosque in Mecca. Independent fact finding missions like the PUCL (Delhi) team on the Aligarh riots in 1978, discovered that even the Provincial Armed Police Constabulary of UP betrayed communal overtones. Similar charges have been brought by others against the Bihar Military Police. They indicate how deep communal passions had penetrated the administration. In spite of these findings and recommendations for punishment of the guilty, the government has consistently refused to take any steps which indicates the acquiescence of the ruling political parties in the riots. While _ political leaders - some time directly instigate communal tensions, their personal behaviour also contributes to such tensions. The case of the former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is a telling example. Although she claims to be secular, she has no compunction in seeking blessings from Hindu religious leaders, or in instigating Vinoba Bhave to go on fast against cow slaughter, knowing very well that such actions can hurt the feelings of the Muslim minorities and fan communal passions. The main objective in these irresponsible acts by the leaders seems to be to create disturbances to dislodge rival political parties which are in power. Along with the fanning of communal violence, the other major divisive development in India is the growth of assaults on 'dalits' and other weaker sections of society. Again, the following table indicates the continuity of such assaults under the different regimes: Incidence of Assault on the weaker sections 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 Scheduled Castes 6186 8860 7781 5678 8872 560 Scheduled Tribes 362 884 N.A. 1067 1138 N.A. 6 In most of the cases, it has been found that upper caste landlords persecute their labourers, who mostly belong to scheduled castes or tribes, whenever the latter try to assert their rights. Almost all the political parties have promised through legislation, to give the weaker sections their due rights, like minimum wages, land, protection from the assaults of the rich. But, while in parliaments, a host of such altruistic laws have been passed, at the village level, the landlords who invariably belong to one of other of the ruling parties throw overboard all these legal provisions and continue to persecute the lower caste people. Although Mrs Gandhi's party claimed in 1976 that it had abolished the hated system of bonded labour - which is mainly concentrated among the country's Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the National Survey on the Incidence of Bonded Labour carried out jointly by the Gandhi Peace Foundation and the National Labour Institute in 1978, identified at least two million agricultural labourers in 10 states who were still in bondage to moneylenders and landlords., During the Emergency, when Mrs Gandhi's 20- point programme for the rural poor was supposed to be in operation, in December 1976 in Palamou in Bihar, poor peasants belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Tribes were being ousted from their small plots by "two influential persons holding important political positions in the State, " according to the Commi'ssioner of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, who recommended action against these two under the Abolition of Bonded Labour System Act, the Minimum Wages Act and the Indian Penal Code.