http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2013/0329/India-won-t-be-the-world-s-largest-democracy-until-it-upholds-human-rights/%28page%29/2
Twenty-five years ago, India suspended part of its Constitution and
launched a brutal campaign against Sikh separatists in its Punjab
province. Today, India must provide reparations to the victims and vow
to uphold human rights, especially in Kashmir and the northeast states.
Indian
voters wait in line to cast their ballots at a polling station near the
India-Pakistan border for the Punjab State Assembly elections in the
village of Bachiwind, India, Jan. 30, 2012. Op-ed contributor Sukhman
Dhami says India must acknowledge the brutal government crackdown that
took place in Punjab 25 years ago, 'provide reparations to those who
were wrongfully harmed, and cease all ongoing human rights violations.'
Altaf Qadri/AP
This Saturday,
India – a country that
President Obama
has proudly called “the world’s largest democracy” – will face the
anniversary of one of its darkest, most undemocratic moments.
Twenty-five years ago, on March 30, 1988, India suspended Article 21 of
its Constitution, which provides that no person shall be deprived of
life or liberty without due process of law. The suspension applied to
the northwestern state of
Punjab, home to India’s Sikh religious minority and the site of a major secessionist movement that occurred from 1984 to 1995.
Suddenly, a police officer could arrest, detain, or even summarily
execute a citizen of Punjab without judicial accountability. The promise
of due process – a guarantee that so many Indians had fought for during
the era of independence only decades earlier – had been jettisoned. The
results were disastrous.
Human Rights Watch and
Physicians for Human Rights
described the government’s counterinsurgency campaign in India as “the
most extreme example of a policy in which the end appeared to justify
any and all means, including torture and murder.” While early reports
limited the number of deaths to hundreds or the low thousands,
our research indicates that nearly 20,000 people were killed, with the peak number of deaths occurring from 1990 to 1993.
India
cannot hide from its past. It must use this anniversary to acknowledge
what took place in Punjab, provide reparations to those who were
wrongfully harmed, and cease all ongoing human rights violations.
By
most accounts, the Punjab conflict began in June 1984, when India’s
armed forces launched an assault on the Harmandir Sahib complex –
popularly known as the “Golden Temple,” the heart of Sikh religious and
political life. The attack began during an important religious holiday,
when the complex was overflowing with worshipers, and resulted in
several thousand deaths.
The government contended that the assault
was necessary to flush out militants who had allegedly taken safe
harbor inside. However, others claim that the operation was designed to
derail a peaceful protest that was expected to attract hundreds of
thousands of Sikhs. Many Sikhs believed that the Indian government was
discriminating against them and diverting precious resources away from
Punjab, and vowed to voice their dissent until the Indian government
acquiesced to their demands.
Already feeling persecuted, and now
with thousands dead, many Sikhs took up arms. India used all means at
its disposal, including police and paramilitary forces, to quell the
rebellion.
When these efforts met with limited success, India
repealed the Constitution’s due process protections for the state of
Punjab. Security forces now had the legal cover to target whomever they
suspected of participating in the rebellion. Many suspects were picked
up by the police and never seen again. In other cases, individuals
unconnected to the conflict were targeted to instill fear in the
population. And still others were targeted for political purposes,
including appeasing police and military officers emboldened by their
newfound powers.
By 1995, the movement had been crushed, and none of the political and
economic demands of the Sikhs had been met. Moreover, families in
villages throughout Punjab were still searching for relatives who were
last seen in police custody.
In December 1996, the
Indian Supreme Court, relying on an inquiry by India’s
Central Bureau of Investigation
into mass cremations in Punjab, found a “flagrant violation of human
rights on a mass scale.” The court cited evidence that police had
secretly cremated more than 2,000 people during the 10-year insurgency.
And that was in just one district. Many human rights advocates believe
that mass cremations took place in Punjab’s then 12 other districts, as
well.
That’s why nearly 10 years ago, my colleague, Jaskaran Kaur,
and I launched a nongovernmental organization called Ensaaf, which
means "justice" in a number of South Asian languages, to investigate the
human rights atrocities committed by the Indian government in Punjab.
Our findings have been presented to such forums as the
United Nations and India's National Human Rights Commission.
To
be sure, other states have promulgated special laws and extrajudicial
measures to quell insurgencies. One only has to look to the dirty wars
of
Argentina,
Chile, and
El Salvador – countries ruled by military juntas at the time – to understand the implications of such policies and practices.
What
distinguishes India’s case, however, is that it was a functioning
democracy when it adopted these measures. Its parliamentarians
introduced the amendment as a bill in both houses; the requisite
majority voted for the legislation; and the president officially enacted
it into law on March 30, 1988. “The world’s largest democracy” had
convened to strip the promise of life and liberty, not some military
dictator ruling by decree.
And it’s clear that India is continuing
its abuse of human rights. There is now considerable evidence that many
of the same measures that were used to quell dissent in Punjab are
consistently being used in
Kashmir
and the northeast states. Both these regions have sought to secede from
India, and just like Punjab, their citizens have experienced arbitrary
detention, torture, and in some cases unlawful killings and
disappearances.
There
is no doubt that India has done much to inspire the loyalty of its
people and to command the respect of the world. But it must do more. To
this day, families are waiting to learn the fate of their disappeared
loved ones, and none of the senior government officials or the
architects of the crimes have been held accountable. If India is to
cement its reputation as “the world’s largest democracy,” it must
provide truth and justice to its victims, and vow to hold due process
and human rights protections as sacrosanct.
Sukhman Dhami is a human rights attorney in New York and cofounder of Ensaaf. He has also coauthored reports on abuses in Punjab and refugee matters with Human Rights Watch and the Public International Law and Policy Group.
LEADING ON FROM THE NEWS WE POSTED ABOUT
THREATS TO JAZZY B REGARDING THE SONG BAGHI BY HINDUTVA TERROR GROUPS
THE SHIV SENA HAVE NOW ALSO STARTED TO PROTEST AGAINST THE SADDA HAQ
FILM WHICH THE SONGS ARE PART OF,THEY ARE DEMANDING THE ARREST OF SINGERS SUCH AS JAZZY B,BABBU MAAN & OTHER SINGERS FOR BEING 'ANTI NATIONAL' WE WILL BRING YOU MORE NEWS AS WE GET IT
