The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) welcomes the call by the President of India, Mr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam to the nation that the country should be self-sustaining within a period of 25 years in regards to its energy requirements. The President however, does not speak about achieving self sustenance for all citizens in issues of food and other basic requirements. Will in twenty five years the draconian forms of discrimination existing in the country be brought to an end? A few more questions left unanswered are will the judiciary of the country have enough energy after twenty five years to ensure speedy justice to the ordinary Indian? Will the Indian Police have enough energy to change its current image of brutality and ineptitude and become a modern policing system fitting for a democratic society? Will the Indian Parliament have enough strength to eradicate corruption?
Even after 59 years, since the country first received its independence, India is still under the clutches of feudal lords, caste based discrimination, starvation deaths and brutal custodial torture. Such a situation is the result of the absolute failure of rule of law that has gripped the country today.
The same 17% of the world population, who the President called upon to work for self-sustainability, will likely have no physical and psychological energy left to survive on given the existing system within the country; this system is draining the life from its ordinary populace. When feudal lords decide that the daliths and the backward community in India should not be allowed to participate in the democratic process (as reported from Belwa Village of Varanasi, Utter Pradesh), when human rights activists who help the lower caste and the backward community to fight against their servitude are faced with death threats, and when the police and the district administration concede to this slave practice by their muteness, what meaning does freedom and independence bring for the millions who live in conditions that would shame the slave traders?
In the past year horrifying cases of starvation deaths were reported from various parts of India, particularly in the states of Orisa and West Bengal. In the Murshidabad District of West Bengal people die from starvation while in the central government granary, the Food Corporation of India is unable to find sufficient space for its stock and the country is once again declared food rich. In spite of repeated demands and calls for urgent intervention by local and international human rights organisations including the AHRC, the state as well as central government neither responded nor admitted that there are places in the country where people die out of acute starvation.
The President of India was eager to moot his idea of developing energy from city waste. However, the President failed to recognise that the people, the Balmikis and the other “safai karmacharis” might not have enough energy left to bring the dirt from the city to the energy plants, due to acute starvation and death from diseases caused from manual scavenging.
Cases of custodial death and acute forms of torture are reported from India in an ever alarming rate, indicating that the rule of law in the country has collapsed. However, such cases of custodial brutality is not limitted to members of the lower caste, but to anyone who is not able to ensure ‘policing’ by paying off the law enforcement officers. Mr. Rajendran of Kollam District in Kerala State lost his life due to custodial torture after he was taken into custody by Kollam East Police Station for protesting at the gate of a private hospital in Kollam. Mr. Manishbhai Motibhai Vasava from Katiskuva village in Uchchhal Thaluka of Surat District, Gujarat was shot point blank in the face by a State Forest Department officer merely because the officer was drunk. These are two glaring incidents among hundreds that are reported from India where the government authorities have failed to bring the perpetrators to justice, demonstrating the absolute failure of the rule of law in the country.
In cases were uniformed officers flouted the law of the country, neither did the courts come to the rescue of the victims. The case of Ms. Hasna Mondal is one such example. Ms. Mondal who was gang raped by her fellow villagers and tortured in police custody is still waiting for her case to be taken up at the court. However, the court in question does not have a presiding judge since the former serving judge was transferred a year ago. Ms. Mondal’s case has been pending for the past nine years.
When all elements of the rule of law in a country have collapsed and there is a conscious avoidance to address these basic issues, neither could any state continue to claim itself of discharging its constitutional duties, nor could it expect its citizen to be proud of being a citizen of that country. Of course energy is a vital requirement for any state. But if the state itself lacks the energy and the basic honesty to admit its defects, and if the representatives of the sate continuously deny and further ignore the immediate need of the people, where life and security is made meaningless by these denials what meaning does freedom and independence mean to the ordinary citizen?
The AHRC expects that Government of India will be bold enough to accept its pitfalls in governance and will immediately improve up its machinery to address the basic minimum needs of its citizen by establishing the rule of law in the country. This will only be achieved through enhanced and torture free policing where uniformed officers are no more considered as criminals in uniform but responsible government officers who no more enjoy impunity. The eradication of caste based discrimination and starvation deaths are also paramount if this is to occur. Until then the term independence will have no meaning for ordinary Indian citizens.
