When Famine Stalks the Land and Farmers Are Treated as ‘Threat to National Security’
ON December 10, 2004 the world observed the fifty-sixth anniversary of the International Human Rights Day. India is a signatory to the Universal Human Rights Charter and there was no dearth of official celebration on that day. Since the passage of Human Rights Act and formation of Human Rights Commissions, the phrase ‘human rights’ has become a customary component of India’s official discourse.
Repeal POTA with retrospective effect, No Backdoor Rehabilitation of POTA:Nationwide Protests against New ‘Avatar’ of POTACPI(ML) observed a nation-wide Protest Day on Dec 10, International Human Rights Day, against the passing of the Unlawful Activities (Amendment) Bill by the Lok Sabha and demanded withdrawal of this amendment, which contains many draconian provisions of POTA, as well as withdrawal of all cases framed under TADA and POTA and release of all political activists convicted under these black laws. CPI(ML) has reiterated its demand to repeal POTA in toto and with retrospective effect. Copies of the UAPA were burnt at Patna, the capital of Bihar; Lucknow, Gazipur, Sitapur, Sonbhadra, Jalaun, Mau and Varanasi in UP; Kakinada and Vissanapeta in Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh; Karnal in Haryana as well as all district headquarters and urban centers of Jharkhand. Students of AISA also burnt copies of the UAPA at Parliament Street in Delhi. The People’s Union for Human Rights also held a District Conference in Sonebhadra District on the same day, in which several lawyers, intellectuals and human rights activists participated. |
Crackdown on Students Observing December 6 in FaizabadOn December 6, anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, 200 students from all over Uttar Pradesh, under the banner of AISA, held a March in Faizabad, demanding that the Mulayam Government pursue charges against L K Advani in the Babri Demolition case. In return, the students were all arrested by the UP Police, and detained for several hours. The March was held following AISA’s State Conference in UP. |
It has become quite fashionable these days for the top brass of the Army, Police and various paramilitary forces to wax eloquent about human rights. According to a newspaper report, on this year’s Human Rights day the police in West Bengal organized a debate among police officers on the subject, and officials rejecting human rights as an ‘unacceptable excuse’ for a police force pitted against ‘extremists’ won the debate!
The winter session of Parliament itself provided another eloquent commentary on the real state of human rights in India when the UPA government came up with a bill to rehabilitate POTA in another name. In the name of ‘scrapping’ POTA, the government has not only decided to keep all ongoing POTA cases alive, but it has smuggled several draconian clauses of POTA into the proposed Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
In Rajasthan farmers are now being booked under National Security Act. This news of farmers being persecuted by the state follows the shocking incident of police firing in which three farmers demanding water were gunned down by the trigger-happy state police. Now farmers questioning this police repression are being viewed as a threat to the nation’s security and put behind bars under the draconian NSA. And in Manipur, where the people are waging a valiant battle for a total repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, the UPA government is trying to hoodwink them with ‘promises’ of a ‘humane version’ of the AFSPA.
Advocates of human rights tell us that the notion of rights must also include the crucial question of livelihood. The Constitution of India defines ‘right to life’ as a fundamental right. But the ever-expanding empire of hunger in globalized India makes a mockery of this lofty notion. Almost every India province now has its own Kalahandi. Under the impact of a deepening agrarian crisis and recurring crop failures caused by either drought of flood, vast areas of the country are now in the grip of a near-famine situation.
The Common Minimum Programme of the UPA had promised to legislate an employment guarantee for the rural unemployed. So far the government has only introduced a food-for-work scheme which is confined to only 150 districts and backed by a paltry allocation of only Rs. 2020 crore. There are also talks of a Bill being tabled soon in Parliament. But according to reports, the Bill will also remain limited in scope to only one unemployed per BPL family in 150 districts. There is virtually no provision for effective unemployment allowance in the absence of ‘assured employment’. Nor is there any definite time-frame for enforcement of the act. An Employment Lottery Act will be a more honest title for such a fraudulent piece of legislation.
The human rights agenda of the UPA government thus boils down to a combination of ‘humane’ acts of repression and employment lottery schemes. Real champions of human rights in India must move on to expose and defeat this mockery and win real rights for every oppressed and deprived Indian.