The central and state governments of India ruling 1.2 billion people in the world’s largest democracy boasts of economic and industrial growth, surpassing almost all nations except China. Ideally, this growth should trickle down to every citizen of the country both rich and poor, so all could reap the benefits.
However, it is the deeper understanding of these two catchwords ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ as understood in India that gives an insight into the contradiction between what India actually is and what its government wishes to be projected outside. That is, India’s democratically elected government would go to almost any extent to ‘promote’ economic growth, even at the cost of the life and livelihood of its people. Nandigram and the killing of dozens of people (and probably many more) in police firing is the latest episode.
It is said, Indians have most of what they need. Food, access to information, some of the most modern communication infrastructure, transportation facilities, rich housing estates, deeper pockets and an ever increasing appetite to spend and earn. But if this is what India is all about, the discussion is limited to less than 20 percent of its population.
If one cares to look around even within city limits or travel out of the metros and towards the villages the picture becomes clearer, but one of stark contrast. People living in slums, without clean drinking water and even basic sanitation facilities. They are illiterate to such an extent that even reading a movie poster is not possible. Money is such a problem that they are unable to afford a meal a day costing not more than 20 cents, thus they habitually suffer from starvation and malnourishment. This is the story of the ‘rest’ of India. As years pass by little consideration is given to bridge the gap between the classical haves and have-nots and as a result the gap is widening rapidly.
The million dollar question is how such a massive population in a politically active environment could be restrained in conditions that pose fair competition to conditions found in some Sub-Saharan Africa countries? Maybe a deeper look into the justice system in India could provide a credible answer.
Unfortunately, the justice dispensation system in India is in an equally pathetic situation as the poor in India. The justice mechanisms in India are lacking in practically all aspects including an inadequate number of judges in courts, to enable courts to function properly. This situation is not limited to the courts, but also to the police and prosecution.
For example what is going on in Nandigram? Ideally, the state ruled by the world’s longest-running democratically elected communist government must be a heaven for everyone, but for an exploiting capitalist. Unfortunately the government in that state is murdering its own people who hinder the setting up of exclusive business zones for multinational business concerns.
But why does the government kill its people? It is because they decided to exercise their democratic right and protest against extortion and injustice. In Nandigram they were protesting the forceful eviction from their lands without adequate compensation and sensible alternatives. Then again, incidents in Narmada, Assam and other North-Eastern states, the Muthanga incident in Kerala as well as in Singur in West Bengal are all recent examples of a similar nature.
But why should people protest? After all there are adequate laws in India that would ensure the evictees receive adequate compensation. For anyone who wants to complain about the quantum of compensation, there are courts in India that could adjudicate upon the fairness of compensation in a land acquisition reference. So why this big noise?
It is said, experience is the best teacher. In practice land acquisition works as follows. The acquiring officer — often a revenue officer — sits in his office and uses his authority to award compensation in proportion to the ‘compensation’ he receives from the affected party. How is this possible? Accepting and offering bribe is an offence in India. But who investigates an allegation of bribery but the local police who themselves demand bribes even to answer a telephone call or register a complaint.
So are there no alternatives? Of course a person could approach the courts. But the situation in Indian courts is that it takes decades for a case to be decided. This is not merely an opinion of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC). This is an acknowledged fact by even senior judges in India including former Chief Justices.
Therefore, there is little alternative available to the people but to take to the streets. This is what happened in Nandigram. But exercising one’s right to peaceful protest could be deadly because one could get shot at and killed. By whom? The police of course, who are supposed to be the guardians of the people. The current trend of the courts including the Supreme Court is to justify evictions by the use of force. Such interpretations are often exploited by political parties whose one aim is to get back into power or remain in power and governments.
If such incidents — like the indiscriminate firing in Nandigram — happen in a reasonably functioning state, serious inquiries would immediately be conducted as to why such a firing took place and also every possible measures would be taken to preserve the evidence in the scene of the crime. In India however the police is employed with the support of political party activists to remove ‘obstructions’ and to ‘clean-up’ the scene. This has been witnessed in a much higher proportion in Gujarat during the communal riots. When it happened in Gujarat the blame was that the communal carnage was promoted by a fundamentalist government, but then if the same is possible in West Bengal, one need to rethink about the defining rationales of fundamentalism and communism as it is experienced in West Bengal today.
If only one hundredth of the effort put in to create special economic zones that cater to the greed of multinational industries was channelled to modernising the justice dispensation mechanism it would go a long way to establish rule of law in India — made available equally to both the rich and poor. The government of India headed by Mr. Manmohan Singh, a world renowned economist, must know this if not anything else.
Another pertinent question that requires to be asked is, how many of the police officers responsible for the firing will be inquired into and brought to justice? Will there be an independent inquiry into the entire incident and will the findings of such an inquiry be published in any recent future? Will there be any evidence remaining to help the investigation? It is alleged that the CPI (M) activists are cleaning up the ‘mess’ in Nandigram to remove all evidences from the scene. In these circumstances it is quite legitimate to wonder whether India is a democracy or a dictatorship.
Who benefits from this mess? The 20 percent that was mentioned above. When things get so bad that a safe living in India is no more possible this 20 percent will have enough resources to leave the country and settle elsewhere. This has already started.
Some 60 years before the slogan was ‘quit India’. The slogan still is the same. The only difference however is that at the first instance it was used against the British but now this is what all Indians say to themselves.
