Brown Sahibs need torture to rule

The following is a statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission to mark the UN International Day in Support of Torture Victims, which falls on June 26, 2010

Two years and five months have passed after the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, promised the nation that India will soon ratify the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. While nothing is heard about the ratification of the Convention anymore in New Delhi, the Government of India, after protracted discussions in the Union Cabinet has drafted a Bill to criminalise torture. The lack of conceptual clarity and seriousness in approaching the issue is evident in the two-page and 466 worded text of the Bill, which the government proposes as a law to deal with one of the most serious issues plaguing India today.

June 26 is the International Day against torture. Torture is one of the most heinous crimes conceivable against humanity and is condemned world over. Marking the day, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has drafted a model law entitled 'Torture and Custodial Death (Prohibition) Act, 2010' for the consideration of Government of India to be debated and enacted as a law against torture and custodial death. The AHRC has sent the model law to all parliamentarians in the country and other civil society organisations for their knowledge and consideration.


The AHRC's model law attempts to address not only the defects in the Bill proposed by the government, but also provides a comprehensive legal framework to criminalise torture and custodial death, and for the effective investigations and prosecutions of the crime. The law is drafted bearing in mind the consistent and widespread patterns of torture and custodial deaths reported from the country over the past ten years; the nature and the mindset of the perpetrators; and the legislative and procedural impediments existing in the current legal framework of the country that makes it impossible an independent investigation and successful prosecution of the crime.

While the Bill proposed by the government was debated by the Union Cabinet in 2008, one of the objections raised by the ministers for enacting a comprehensive law against torture was that such a law, if enacted, will discourage the law enforcement agencies. The ministers argued that criminalizing torture will pose an obstruction to law enforcement, particularly in the context of the state agencies fighting Naxalism and other violent insurgent movements.

Such parochial view against criminalizing torture only suggests the paucity of knowledge of the Indian legislators and further the colonial mindset of India's elite. There is not a single country in the world that has effectively prevented crime or succeeded in containing armed insurgency by the sheer use of force and allowing the state agencies to engage in torture. On the contrary, polices followed by countries like Iran, Israel and Burma that allow systematic use of torture upon suspects on various excuses are criticised worldwide. India has little excuse as of now, for not being included in this list.

The outlook of condoning torture illuminates the drastic changes required in the policing policy in India. The Indian Police Act, 1861, by all means a colonial law, and its existing state law variants like the Kerala Police Act, 1960 are legislations that need to be scrapped and rewritten with a view to enable a legislative framework suitable for the police to function within a democratic setup.

Attempts are made to rewrite the law in India and the Kerala Police Bill, 2010 is an example. However, in the pretext of modernizing the law, the endeavour is to award unprecedented arbitrary powers to the police in the name of crime control. For instance, the Kerala Police Bill, 2010 if enacted into a law without drastic changes will become a statutory framework to create a police state.

The newly proposed law is draconian in nature that it awards the state police authority to infringe almost every fundamental right of a citizen with statutory impunity. The proposed law allows even a police constable to infringe personal privacy at will, arrest and detain persons arbitrarily, interfere in civil disputes and creates a statutory framework that require the perpetrator police officer to agree to investigate a complaint against him, a proposition unheard so far in the legislative history of the country or even during the colonial times.

The AHRC has sent a study with comments and recommendations concerning the Kerala Police Bill, 2010 to the Government of Kerala. The AHRC expects that its study entitled 'Kerala, a Police State in the Making Act Now!', conducted in conjunction with Nervazhi, a Kerala based human rights group to be considered by the state's legislators so that the Bill will not be enacted as it is proposed now.

Unfortunately not many human rights organizations or other civil society groups in India are concerned about police torture and the impact torture has upon the democratic norms the country decided to practice 62 years before. India has an influx of self-proclaimed policing experts who lobby for changes in Indian laws.

Short-sighted and ill-informed attempts like introducing community policing into a system that has not evolved beyond baton charging everyone in the vicinity to gain control or extra-judicially executing suspects to create a fear psychosis in the community has not benefited anyone other than those who are the proponents of cosmetic police reforms. While such shoddy reforms are referred to with marketable titles in states like Kerala, the same is used to divide the population and gain control over them based on caste and religious prejudices in some other states like Chhattisgargh.

The only difference is this civil militia in the making in Kerala is coloured as community policing whereas in Chhattisgargh it is known as Salwa Judum, in Manipur as special police officers and in Assam as Surrendered United Liberation Front of Asom (SULFA).

Even the mainstream media regularly publish articles often justifying the practice of torture. Articles like Speak up to be silent written by a self-proclaimed expert on the subject, lobbying for the relaxation of fundamental principles like the right to remain silent and the presumption of innocence of the accused will have drastic effects upon the fundamental rights of every citizen. These articles portray the impression that Indian police require more impunity to combat terrorism than their counterparts in the US or the UK.

Each failure by the police affects mostly the poor, who form more than 70 percent of the country's population. Most of the so called experts on policing in India have thus far failed to communicate to the poor with a view to understand what they think as the change that need to be brought into a state institution, the police, that influences the life of millions of Indians.

As of now, the country's worst enemy is its own police. The continuing practice of torture and the possibilities that exist in India for a torturer police officer to carry on committing the offense with relative impunity is the central deficit in realising the true standards of democracy in the country.

So far no attempt has been made to change this unacceptable status quo. Unless the government changes its policies on policing, India will continue to remain a pseudo democracy ruled by the whims of its elite. This, for millions of Indians means only that the British were replaced by brown skinned Sahibs.

About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organization monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

Forest people’s movements call for end of militarization of forests

The following is a joint statement issued by forest people's movements on May 12:

Today, the police have killed one person in Kalinganagar and critically injured at least 30 more; at the proposed POSCO plant site in Jagatsinghpur, Orissa. Twenty-five platoons of police have been deployed to crush the people defending their land. They expect another attack tomorrow or the day after.

As national platforms of democratic forest movements, with more than 200 organizational members spread across the country, we unequivocally condemn this brutality. But such atrocities are not occurring in isolation. Operation Green Hunt and the increasing militarization of the conflict in central India is wreaking devastation in our homelands and closing the space for democratic struggles. We first reiterate the following facts, to expose the myths being promoted by the government:

• In all the areas where Operation Green Hunt is underway, aside from individual atrocities, security forces are now preventing people from entering the forest, cultivating their lands or collecting minor forest produce. The numbers that are threatened with starvation or disease as a result is not even known. These facts have been ignored even as the tragic loss of lives in Maoist attacks has received a lot of attention. How can an offensive with such results be justified?

• An offensive in the name of the “rule of law” has been launched in areas where the government has never shown the slightest respect for the law. Under the law, land acquisition in Scheduled Areas is subject to consultation with the gram sabha (village assembly); diversion of forest land in all forests is subject to the consent of the gram sabha; and people have rights over village common lands, forests, water bodies and grazing areas. Can the government name a single place in the country where the rights of people over forests and lands have been fully recognised and respected? Can it name a single “development” project in the forest areas that has complied with the requirements of law? Rather, in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh alone, after 2006 the government has illegally granted in principle or final clearances for the use of 15,411 hectares of forest land to various “projects”.

• The government's true intentions are revealed by their response to democratic movements in the majority of forest areas, where the CPI(Maoist) does not exist. As an indicator, in just the few weeks between March 20 and April 20, activists in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Assam and West Bengal were arrested or attacked by police for the crime of standing up for the law and demanding legal rights. The protesters at POSCO and many other places, who have no link whatsoever with the Maoists, are being attacked.
These are examples of a trend that has become far worse with Operation Green Hunt, under which the label “Maoist” is used to justify all kinds of brutality. The Home Minister's latest statement threatening anyone “supporting Maoism” with jail is clearly aimed at justifying yet more such brutality.

• The conflicts in forest areas, whether with the CPI(Maoist) or with other movements, have nothing to do with “security” or “development”. What is at stake is the right of people to control their ecology, their production systems and their lives. Can a community lead a life of dignity when they are harassed, beaten or killed every time they cultivate forest land, collect minor forest produce or protest evictions? People are not demanding welfare; they are struggling for the right to live with freedom and dignity. This is the true meaning of security, development and the rule of justice.

• It is clear that the government's offensive is driven by more obvious interests – resource grabs (in water, minerals and land) have become a key source of profits. As the Maheshwar Dam, Vedanta or POSCO projects were found to break the law, the government has scrambled to bend or break the law itself to favour the corporates. When the Forest Department promotes illegal policies in international negotiations on climate change (i.e. the REDD agreement), these are not just condoned but promoted as a point of pride.

Meanwhile, people's rights over minor forest produce, forest land and common lands are frustrated at every turn by official violations of the Forest Rights Act. Clearly this is why the government now wants to crush all resistance, whether it is organised by the CPI(Maoist) or not.

Beyond Green Hunt: A Call for Democratic Space

We believe in and stand for the mass democratic struggle of the working people for social transformation. From this perspective, the damage is not limited to this offensive and the devastation it is wreaking. More insidious but much longer lasting is the destructive impact this militarization is having on the democratic space for people's struggles. This militarisation is not limited to Operation Green Hunt.

Even outside this offensive, the government has consistently used its force against all democratic formations and those who speak the language of people's rights; it has thrown the Constitution to the winds. The CPI(Maoist) has also engaged in indiscriminate physical attacks against those who are of a different political allegiance, and has often shown little tolerance for those who are engaged in other movements or who are critical of them. The turning of vast areas of the country into war zones, where all else is subordinated to the perceived military needs of the government or the CPI(Maoist), is unacceptable. It constitutes a betrayal of the values that both the CPI(Maoist) and the government claim to believe in. For this reason above all, there is an urgent need at this moment to restore basic democratic norms in the conflict zones.

Our Call:

1. The paramilitary forces must be withdrawn and the Salwa Judum, as well as other similar private militias in other states, must be disbanded. Public facilities – schools, clinics, etc. - must be treated as out of bounds for the conflict.

2. The government must respect the rights of people over their lands, forest produce and community forest resources as provided by the Constitution, the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, the Forest Rights Act and other such laws. It must comply with the requirements under these Acts relating to the consent of the community prior to diversion or acquisition of land.

3. The security forces must stop interfering with the rights of people to cultivate their fields, go to markets and engage in their livelihood activities.

4. Illegal arrests, fake encounters and police murders must be halted immediately.

5. The CPI (Maoist) should make clear its position on the activities of other political forces in the conflict areas. It should respect the right of the people to be members of other parties, including opposing parties, or other movements and to otherwise exercise their democratic rights.

6. The right of refugees and the displaced to return home, especially in Dantewada, must be respected by the security forces and their private militias.

The following are signatories to the joint statement:

Campaign for Survival and Dignity:
Madhya Pradesh Jangal Adhikar Bachao Andolan
Jangal Adhikar Sangharsh Samiti (Maharashtra)
Bharat Jan Andolan (Jharkhand)
Campaign for Survival and Dignity - Orissa
Jan Shakti Sanghatan (Chhattisgarh)
Adivasi Mahasabha (Gujarat)
Jangal Jameen Jan Andolan (Rajasthan)
Orissa Jan Adhikar Morcha
Campaign for Survival and Dignity - Tamil Nadu
Adivasi Jangal Janjeevan Andolan (Dadra and Nagar Haveli)
National Forum of Forest Peoples and Forest Workers:
Adivasi Banihar Shakti Sangathana (Chhattisgarh)
Nadi Ghati Morcha (Chattisgarh)
Jharkhand Jangal Bachao Andolan (Jharkhand)
Chattisgarh Jan-ban Adhikar Manch
Birsa Munda Vu-adhikar Manch (Madhya Pradesh)
Patta Dalit Adhikar Manch (Uttar Pradesh)
Kaimnoor KShettra Majdoor Sangharsh Samittee,Sonebhadra,UP
Ghad Kshettra Majdoor Sangharsh Samittee,Uttarakhand
National Forum of Forest People and Forest Workers (North Bengal Regional
Committee)

Courtesy: Countercurrents

Satyagraha for Binayak Sen’s release: Send free fax to support demand

Would you like to send a FREE FAX to the Chhattisgarh government to demand? If the answer is Yes, please visit http://petitions.aidindia.org/binayaksen09/

A timeline of Binayak Sen’s case is available at
http://www.binayaksen.net/2009/01/timeline-of-events-in-the-strange-case-of-dr-binayak-sen/

The following is a message received from the Rights Support Centre
(humanrights.movement@gmail.com):

The Raipur Satyagraha, a mass
civil disobedience movement, was launched on Monday, March 16, to press the demand for immediate release of Dr. Binayak Sen.

Every Monday, batches of 50 to 100 people are courting arrest in front of the Raipur jail where Dr. Sen in incarcerated.

It is now 22 months since Dr Binayak Sen, the well-known public health and human rights activist, was imprisoned by the Chhattisgarh government on false charges of abetting activities of an
outlawed organization.

In the days and months following his incarceration, Dr. Binayak Sen has received tremendous support from within India and outside. More than 20 Nobel Laureates signed a letter in support of Dr Binayak Sen.

International and national media, through news stories and editorials, have consistently pointed to the unjustified nature of Dr. Binayak Sen's imprisonment.

Even though the state has been unable to produce any evidence against him, Dr. Binayak Sen’s pleas for bail have been repeatedly refused by courts at all levels.
We oppose the use of bail as a punitive measure to intimidate human rights defenders and demand the immediate release of Dr. Binayak Sen.

The *Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005 (CSPSA), under which Dr.Binayak Sen has been arrested, allows the state to bypass many routine forms of due process through the law's unreasonably broad definition of unlawful activity, and acceptance of vague and unreliable evidence, all in the name of national security. The unclear provisions of this law have been used unfairly by the state to silence government critics such as Dr. Binayak Sen, Ajay TG , a film maker and PUCL activist, and Sai Reddy, a journalist. We demand that draconian laws which have been used unfairly to harass human rights activists be immediately repealed.

Salwa Judum, the State-sponsored militia set up in 2005, has been responsible for killing, looting and rapes and forced transfer of more than 100,000 indigenous people from their homes to camps with inhuman conditions. Common concern for many is that the arrest and detention of Dr. Sen was directly related to his activities in defending the rights of the indigenous communities in Chhattisgarh state, and to his open criticism of the Salwa Judum. We condemn the state government for arming Salwa Judum and abetting terror against innocent civilians and tribals, and demand that it be immediately disbanded.

You can add your support to these demands by sending a free fax.