The Hindu : Facets of violence

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 23, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Facets of violence

By Kuldip Nayar

Violence, the demolition of human rights and values, is taking place all over the country.

THE SIKH community's attitude towards Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale has always been ambivalent. It has not owned him fully because his word cost Punjab many innocent lives. Yet, the community has never denounced him because the shadowy figure was able to shroud the Sikhs' sense of identity with the sentiment of independence. His rise is the story of machinations by small men for small gains that made a village preacher a near prophet, a political puppet, a political puppeteer.

By declaring Bhindranwale a martyr, the Akalis, who primarily represent the Sikhs, may have ended the ambiguity. But they have not served the community well. On the one hand, they have given recognition to such wayward forces which brought no glory to the Sikhs. On the other, they have re-sown the seed of distrust in the minds of the majority community.

Punjab may well be in for ferment again. The 1980s were the worst of times in the State. The Bhindranwale cult of violence, Operation Bluestar in the Golden Temple, the assassination of Indira Gandhi and the killing of Sikhs in Delhi — all happened in a span of five years. And they took their toll on peace and equanimity.

Punjab looked nearly beyond repair. Never before were human rights and religious sentiments so blatantly violated as was done then. Besides the loss of thousands at the hands of terrorists and the security forces, a feeling of insensitivity came to pervade the land. Today, when there is a demand to account for the missing young men since then and to punish those responsible for false encounters, there is also praise for those who "fought against terrorism".

The Akalis are not answering the real question: how did Bhindranwale come to acquire a large following among the Sikhs? He was the instigator of violence. Should he have been glorified? A former Akali leader, Balwant Singh Ramoowalia, who was till recently an MP, puts it succinctly: "The Akalis never face the truth because in their calculation two and two do not make four". Still, the Akalis have a point when they say that those who killed 3,000 Sikhs in Delhi in 1984 have gone scot-free. None has been imprisoned or hanged. They have every reason to criticise the snail speed of the Nanawati Commission conducting a fresh inquiry into the killing.

But they exasperate everyone and create doubts about their motive when they hail Bhindranwale. He came to represent terrorism which cannot be condoned in any way. Nor can violence.

It is, however, sad to see that violence, the demolition of human rights and values, is taking place all over the country. Even organisations motivated by economic considerations are behaving like the Akalis whose propelling force is religion. The naxalites, for one, should be working differently. There is no difference between them and the security forces. Both are indiscriminate.

The third report by the Committee of Concerned Citizens covering the 5-year-long effort, from 1997 to 2002, shows their fruitless intervention in the climate of social turmoil and violence in rural Andhra Pradesh, especially Telengana. The committee was disappointed to find that there was "no change at all" in the Government's approach. Nor was there any qualitative change seen in the practices of the People's War, a naxalite group.

In 2001 and 2002 alone, as many as 350 lives were lost in police "encounters" and more than 310 persons died as a result of violence by naxalites. Most of the victims were from the weaker sections — women, youth and children. This unending and spiralling violence, according to the report, tended to obscure the basic issues of people and progressively brutalised the State and the society, reducing the people to passive spectators and often victims.

"It is the considered position of the committee that law is not just a weapon in the hands of the State but also a restraint on its behaviour and unless the State itself first respects law, it is not possible for the State to expect adherence to law by people", says the report. "Likewise, the committee is equally clear that the naxalite parties must adhere to higher standards of human rights, human values and human concerns through their theory and practice and this alone can provide moral legitimacy and justification for any revolutionary or transformatory movement and every action has to be examined on the touchstone of democratic, moral and humane standards."

This takes me to another facet of violence: dowry. I am referring to dowry deaths. There are hundreds of women jumping into fire or the well for escaping the demands of their greedy in-laws. Media publicity is essentially on the incident, seldom against the evil. It is surprising that leading women journalists have not built a campaign against dowry as they have done in other fields. The recent incident of a bride in Delhi who showed the bridegroom the door and his parents is a case in point.

I also find that the law is unhelpful. By jailing the husband, you may have the satisfaction that the guilty is undergoing some punishment. But the wife's problems — maintenance, shelter for her and her children — continue. Above all, women facing the dowry problem are generally poor. They cannot undergo the rigours of the delay in our criminal justice system.

More than a decade ago, some lawyer NGOs drafted a model law on domestic violence. The National Commission for Women gave a helping hand. A bill was introduced two years ago in the Lok Sabha. But it is not a comprehensive legislation. It defines domestic violence as habitual assault. Why has the assault to be habitual? Section 4 (2) gives the man the leeway of `self-defence'. He can always make the plea of `self-defence' to justify his fights with his wife, mother-in-law or other members of the family. A woman jurist, Indira Jai Singh, while criticising the bill said: "The present law is a complete sell-out of the rights of woman."

We must demand that the state perform its most elementary duty, that of protecting the life and liberty of its citizens in an effective way, consistent with its constitutional and international obligations. Law helps no doubt. Social problems depend on the sensitivity of the society for remedy. Men have to be awakened to what women go through.

Seema Sirohi, a journalist of eminence, has tried to do that. In a book, `Sita's Curse', she has narrated the story of six dowry victims. Their tales of woe are so poignant that even the tough will melt. She says: "Dowry makes one realise that women are often treated like second class citizens. While doing research for my book, I realised that there is too much pain that women go through and there is nothing to justify it". Joining Seema, actress Nandita Das says: "Dowry, as a social issue, impacts all our lives. It is the realisation of the fact that it can happen to any of us, which will bring about a change in the social perception of dowry as an issue".

An activist, Sagari Chhabra, who has developed a distinctive style of her own, has shot a film, "Hunger in the Time of Plenty", portraying the agony of women, in the interior of Orissa and Rajasthan. It tells all about the struggle of women for a space of their own. More than anything else, it is a cry for human dignity, something similar to what Seema focusses attention on.

In the current issue of a journal released by the National Human Rights Commission, its former Chairman, Justice J. S. Verma, has made a similar plea: "Human dignity is the quintessence of human rights". Governments and political organisations need to remember this.

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