[Marxism] Human Rights in the time of Patriotism

[ramratan chatterjee <ramratanchatterjee@xxxxxxxxx>]

                        Welcome to Kashmir Times 
               Online Edition | Features                Human Rights in the 
time of Patriotism
By Surendra Mohan
  Nandita Haksar, human rights activist, who has confronted the Union and 
several State Governments in Courts of Law in cases of unspeakable atrocities, 
particularly in the northeastern parts of India, has authored an extremely 
engaging and challenging book. Although the two individuals who are its main 
objects belong to Jammu & Kashmir and were accused of taking part in the 
'Attack on Parliament' case, she has discussed human rights and civil liberties 
of the entire people in J&K State. But, in the discussion, she has commented on 
the role of the Courts, the legal fraternity, teachers of law in the 
universities, the print and electronic media including cinema and governments 
and their agencies. She has raised awkward questions and has focussed on the 
utter insensitivity of these institutions to democratic and human values. She 
has pointed out that 'patriotic' frenzy blinds our governments, the security 
networks, the academic community and the media to the basic rights of
 the common citizens of the country.
Haksar contrasts the insouciance of all the above sectors, highly influential 
and important as they are, with individuals in India as well as the United 
States of America. The attitudes of several citizens of the USA after the 'Nine 
Eleven' in 2001, that is, a few months before the Attack on Parliament in our 
country, clearly demonstrated their refusal to get swayed by either enmity with 
or fear from the so called 'terrorists', mainly the Muslims. At home, stories 
of those courageous human beings who, in the face of bereavement of a dearest 
son or daughter, expressed fortitude, tolerance and the desire to serve even 
those who were responsible in bringing tragedies in their families.
The individuals accused of joining the Attack are Prof. SAR Gilani of the Delhi 
University and Mohommad Afzal, a surrendered militant. When the case of Gilani 
came up, a prominent leader of the Peoples' Union of Civil Liberties and a 
dedicated lawyer, N.D. Pancholi, met the accused in the jail. He took up his 
brief and approached Nandita to join him in defending Gilani. They set up a 
'Prof. S.A.R. Gilani Defence Committee' with the distinguished academic and 
social intellectual Prof. Rajni Kothari as its chairperson. The two lawyers 
involved some criminal lawyers of repute, particularly the parliamentarian Ram 
Jethmalani. The Defence Committee launched a vigorous campaign of mass contact 
in some metropolises of the country and also concentrated on the people in the 
J & K State. The reason for it was that it had sensed the deep concern that the 
people there had for the accused whom they had started to identify as martyrs 
in their common cause.
The book contains several undelivered letters. They have been brought together 
in the volume under review in order to expose the larger public to the issues 
involved which are seminal to the defence of their human rights. The addressees 
range from the Prime Minister Dr. Man Mohan Singh to the director of a 
cinematic film on the great martyr Sardar Bhagat Singh. Others are Prof. 
Upendra Baxi who was Nandita's teacher of law enjoys an international 
reputation as a fighter for human rights and Prof. Bipan Chandra of the 
Jawaharlal Nehru University, JNU who was also her teacher and who specialises 
in modern Indian history. Their silence on the entire episode of the framing of 
some innocent citizens of India is the centre of her criticism of these 
scholars. Baxi explained later on the occasion of the launching of the book 
that he was out of India during those fateful years. Barkha Dutt, a socially 
aware journalist, who too was swayed by the tide of patriotism and threw herself
 in the whirling current, is also an addressee and Haksar has picked on her for 
her several failings in reporting the two cases, as typical of her tribe.
One of the accused, Gilani, who had been sentenced to execution by the Trial 
Court, was later acquitted by the High Court as well as the Supreme Court. 
Mohommad Afzal, however, has been waiting in the Tihar Jail of Delhi to be 
executed. It was an utter travesty of justice that while sentencing Afzal, the 
Supreme Court observed that the public sentiment against the accused was 
running very high and that letting him off with a lighter punishment would be 
mocking that sentiment. It was the highest court of justice in the country and 
its attitude was sufficient in blunting any meaningful response by any 
executive institution to human rights. With such a deeply ingrained prejudice 
at the level of the Supreme Court, no citizen of the country can feel secure 
against miscarriage of justice.
Nandita points out in her several letters that the High Court had observed in 
Gilani's case that there was not even a prima faci case against him. Yet, no 
lawyer was willing to come to his defence even those whom she could rely upon. 
They said that they could not swim against the current. So strong was this 
current that the authorities in New Delhi, the national capital, refused her 
permission to hold a public meeting. When the prosecution put Afzal before the 
media even though a charge sheet had not been framed against him, there was no 
outcry at all. A virulent public opinion had, nevertheless, to be conscientised 
to the requirements of natural justice for the Indian citizens. Hence, a 
persistent campaign for months together with the help of pictures, slides, 
excerpts from news reports, and the sayings of great people. The main focus was 
on the details of the case and on the thinness of the evidence. It was an 
excellent collage.
This effort was thwarted by the authorities on several occasions and in several 
places. The Delhi University was unhappy and did not allow the exhibition to be 
shown. Sadly, the Teachers' Union, DUTA, was no less opposed to it though 
Gilani was one of its members. Teachers of Gilani's own Dr. Zakir Hussian 
College were with the DUTA. It was ridiculous that the latter was then 
dominated by the Students' Federation of India, SFI, the student outfit of the 
Communist Party of India (Marxist), a party with which Nandita herself had 
worked In fact, the prejudice was not confined to one party. The Hindu communal 
elements of the RSS and the Vishva Hindu Parishad were the mast obnoxious, 
administering open threats and writing the crudest possible letters to Gilani 
and Afzal.
The book details the background of Gilani's family and his own activities in 
Delhi. His father was a confirmed secular-minded person and a devout Muslim. 
But he was tortured by the police even in his old age. Gilani was an 
enthusiastic participant in the meetings of the PUCL and other human rights 
groups and moved in liberal circles. Even when he witnessed the most brutal 
torture of an urchin, he kept his balance. The leaders of the DUTA were aware 
of these facts. The USA's propaganda in the wake of 'Nine Eleven' was bought 
wholesale by the Indian elite whose Islamophobia used to be oiled every now and 
then by media reports about the extremists' activities in J & K and the 
frequent riots in the country. Then, there is Pakistan across the western 
border. In the aftermath of the attack on Parliament, a state of war was 
created by India which continued for several months on the Indian demand for 
the extradition of twenty Indian terrorists whom Pakistan had given shelter.
The book relates the prosecution of Afzal also in detail. It brings out not 
only how the judiciary functions. His harassment by the police and the jail 
authorities has angered the author so much that she has spared no words of 
contempt against them. After Gilani was acquitted by the Supreme Court, he was 
shot and wounded by some unidentified gunmen. The occasion was an intended 
visit to his lawyer Nandita Haksar. He knocked at Nandita door while bleeding 
profusely, and had to be rushed to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences 
at some distance. On such occasions, Nandita's and her husbands sense of timing 
and refusal to be overwhelmed by such gruesome tragedy has served her well This 
is the well known state of 'Sthitaprajnya'. The Government let the criminal 
incident pass without any follow up. Nandita and her husband retired to Goa in 
order to have peace of mind and to help soothe her frayed nerves. The 
intelligence agencies, however, took the fullest care of them and
 there could be no rest.
An acute confusion in Nandita's mind was why the CPI(M), the party she had 
admired, had repulsed all thought of assisting Gilani and Afzal. How could an 
international and humanist ideology become so utterly insensitive as to become 
blatantly nationalist, to the extent of justifying even a judicial murder, 
which will come about when Afzal is hanged? Her discussions with several 
persons who had thought over this perplexing phenomenon and, particularly 
Gilani's brother Bismillah, a graduate student, helped to find some answers. 
Marxists had always thought of religion as part of the 'superstructure' which 
stood above the 'structure' and was determined by it. The 'structure' consists 
of the means and the relations of production. Religion, as such, like art and 
literature, has no independent existence. Therefore, no event can be judged on 
the basis of religion shorn of the 'structure' which determines it.
This attitude was not much different in its effect from the attitude that the 
leaders of the freedom struggle had adopted then that the Hindu-Muslim problem 
which had been created by the imperialists in their policy of 'Divide and 
Rule', would evaporate after India won her freedom from them. The same was 
their approach to the caste issue, although Gandhi had suffered from an acute 
sense of shame owing to the practice of untouchability. The etiology of caste 
or religion worked out by Dr. Ambedkar was not acceptable to the Marxists or 
the nationalists. Had they delved deep into these phenomena, possibly they cold 
save India from being partitioned. Ethnic identity and pride are similarly 
dismissed by these intellectuals. Haksar cast off that attitude and decided on 
abroad-based humanistic understanding of religion, caste and ethnicity. 
Possibly, close working with the Nagas taught her all these things.
The total lack of understanding of their cultural heritage by the people of her 
generation had also started to worry Nandita. She herself knew nothing of 
Kashmir's history or its culture and traditions. Among Kashmiris, her own 
community, she looked like a stranger. She felt that the issues of an 
appropriate understanding of religion and ethnicity, and the deep insight into 
a community's culture etc. were bound together. Yet, while she grasped the need 
for developing such holistic understanding and respecting religion as such, she 
found that all religions, which propagated a noble moral code, had lost their 
way into obsolete and obscurantist ways of thought and practice. She abhorred 
these distortions in the religions, and also felt that they had stagnated 
overtime. However, it was not left to her to free these religions from such 
evils, but to leave them to the reformists in respective religious communities. 
Any attempt in this direction by an outsider would be
 interference and the State's effort as imposition from above.
The book includes a poignant letter to Bismillah in which Haksar discusses all 
these issues and bares her heart. Another letter is to the younger generation 
by which she tries to transmit her new understanding to them. While all these 
chapters show rigour of analysis, compassion is never far behind. Allusions to 
the teachings of the Upanishads, the Koran, Buddhism and the Bible can be found 
every now and then. They help the reader in going forward in the debate. 
References to literary writings from Kalidasa, Shakespeare or some Urdu poets 
will also be found which the author uses to buttress an argument or to help 
illuminate an insight. That an activist who has struggled in the defence of 
human rights for the Nagas and the Kashmiris and who is now concerned with 34 
Burmese freedom fighters locked up in a Kolkata jail since 1998 should have 
found time to study the scriptures and literary works of old and new authors 
boggles the mind.
But, in spite of a stressful life and worries of a whole world, Nandita retains 
an obsessive optimism. The book ends with a song which invites the reader to 
travel with her into a world where there are no sorrows and tears and where 
only love prevails.
-(Courtesy: Janta)

       
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