In this UN Hu­man Rights Day spe­cial, World Sikh News takes stock of the global hu­man rights sit­u­a­tion, ques­tions non-com­pli­ance of UN treaties and con­ven­tions by In­dia and urges Sikhs to stand up for hu­man rights for all.

70 years ago, na­tions as mem­bers of the United Na­tions adopted the Uni­ver­sal De­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights on 10 De­cem­ber 1948, which day is ob­served world­wide as UN Hu­man Rights Day.

The adop­tion of the Uni­ver­sal de­c­la­ra­tion was a land­mark achieve­ment in na­tions de­clar­ing com­mit­ment to­wards com­pli­ance of fun­da­men­tal rights of in­di­vid­u­als with­out any kind of re­stric­tion what­so­ever.

Un­doubt­edly, the de­c­la­ra­tion and many other con­ven­tions and covenants have pro­vided the frame­work to mon­i­tor and re­view com­pli­ance of erring coun­tries. The thoughts that strike on this Hu­man Rights Day are dis­turb­ing and in some cases scary.

UN mem­ber na­tions do not of­fi­cially cel­e­brate the day, it is left to non-gov­ern­men­tal bod­ies who are en­gaged in some kind of dis­pute, de­bate or dis­sent with their re­spec­tive coun­tries ob­serve the day.

Each mem­ber coun­try, ex­cept maybe Eu­ro­pean and Scan­di­na­vian coun­tries can eas­ily be held ac­count­able on more than 70 counts of vi­o­la­tion of the let­ter and spirit of the his­toric UN de­c­la­ra­tion. The stan­dards of crim­i­nal ju­rispru­dence and adop­tion, ac­cep­tance and rat­i­fi­ca­tion of UN con­ven­tions and covenants flow­ing from the UN de­c­la­ra­tion in Eu­ro­pean and Scan­di­na­vian coun­tries are ex­am­ples to be em­u­lated.

“In In­dia, tor­ture is ram­pant in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and the le­gal aid sys­tem is un­sat­is­fac­tory.”

60 judges re­port en­ti­tled, “Mat­ter of Judge­ment”

South Asian and African coun­tries ob­serve the day more in its breach than in com­pli­ance. Their vi­o­la­tions are not only be­yond 70 in num­ber but each coun­try can be ac­cused of gross, sys­tem­atic and con­tin­u­ous abuse of ba­sic hu­man rights, mock­ing hu­man rights de­fend­ers, ig­nor­ing the vic­tims and be­lit­tling the United Na­tions.

The war mon­ger­ing by mighty pow­ers -the US and Rus­sia, the un­nec­es­sary in­ter­ven­tion in other coun­tries by Gulf coun­tries, the cross-bor­der in­ter­ven­tion by com­mu­ni­ties and na­tions, the to­tal den­i­gra­tion and de­bunk­ing of the UN Right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion of strug­gling na­tion­al­i­ties both­ers civil rights ac­tivists, hu­man­i­tar­ian aid agen­cies and af­fects the lives of mil­lions.

How does the UN or any of its mem­bers in­clud­ing those claim­ing to be the biggest democ­ra­cies in the world, re­main silent to eth­nic cleans­ing of Ro­hingya Mus­lims by Ang San Sui Ky­i’s Myan­mar? How am­a­teur­ish it is for Don­ald Trump to uni­lat­er­ally de­clare Jerusalem to the cap­i­tal of Is­rael, fu­elling fur­ther ha­tred and at­tacks against the al­ready be­lea­guered Pales­tini­ans? Why are many African coun­tries, like So­ma­lia, still strug­gling for two square meals a day for their pop­u­la­tion, re­sult­ing in de­vel­oped coun­tries tak­ing sides and jeop­ar­dis­ing peace in the re­gion?

“The shock­ing pub­lic hate mur­ders of Mus­lims and Dal­its, with videos cir­cu­lat­ing prime time in In­dia on var­i­ous so­cial me­dia plat­forms, with the lead­er­ship of the coun­try silent in ac­qui­es­cent will take the In­dian so­cial fab­ric into an un­end­ing labyrinth of dark­ness, com­ing out of which may take decades.”

Sri Lanka, Pak­istan, Nepal and Bangladesh look to In­dia. Like In­dia, the malaise of in­jus­tice and im­punity con­tin­ues in these coun­tries too at var­i­ous lev­els and for var­i­ous sec­tions of their pop­u­la­tions.

Nearer home, In­dia is at its clas­sic best. On 8 De­cem­ber 2017, 60 for­mer judges in their re­port “Mat­ter of Judge­ment” said, “Tor­ture is ram­pant in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and the le­gal aid sys­tem is un­sat­is­fac­tory.” In its lat­est re­port sub­mit­ted in Oc­to­ber 2017, In­di­a’s Law Com­mis­sion rec­om­mended, “con­sid­er­a­tion of the Con­ven­tion Against Tor­ture for rat­i­fi­ca­tion” to curb the men­ace of tor­ture and to have a de­ter­rent ef­fect on acts of tor­ture. When asked about tor­ture of British na­tion­als Jag­tar Singh Jaggi and Jimmy Singh, In­di­a’s of­fi­cial re­sponse was a staid generic state­ment given out every time it is laid on the mat, “We do not tor­ture.” Need one say more.

When it comes to Pun­jab and Kash­mir, the good cross-sec­tion of the In­dian me­dia par­rots In­dian gov­ern­men­t’s ver­sion per­pet­u­at­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion and mis­in­for­ma­tion, makes videos or bor­rows po­lice videos of any of the ac­cused in po­lice cus­tody and broad­casts these as ex­clu­sive sto­ries, jus­ti­fy­ing the il­le­gal­ity and un­law­ful work­ing of the po­lice, the in­ves­ti­gat­ing agen­cies, in­clud­ing the new block on the hori­zon -In­di­a’s Na­tional In­ves­ti­ga­tion Agency in the eyes of a dull pub­lic. Will the main­stream me­dia ever stand up for hu­man rights?

Jun­kets of In­dian judges and politi­cians go to mon­i­tor polls in other coun­tries, but In­dia stead­fastly re­fuses to al­low of­fi­cial del­e­ga­tions of Amnesty In­ter­na­tional and Hu­man Rights Watch to visit Pun­jab, Kash­mir and the North­east. Too many skele­tons in the cup­board?

The shock­ing pub­lic hate mur­ders of Mus­lims and Dal­its, with videos cir­cu­lat­ing prime time in In­dia on var­i­ous so­cial me­dia plat­forms, with the lead­er­ship of the coun­try silent in ac­qui­es­cent will take the In­dian so­cial fab­ric into an un­end­ing labyrinth of dark­ness, com­ing out of which may take decades.

“To the Sikhs in Pun­jab and Di­as­pora, Sar­bat da Bhala does not stop at hu­man­i­tar­ian work alone, it is time to go be­yond. Hu­man Rights is not just Sikh rights. It is time to stand up for the rights of the African stu­dents in Pun­jab, time to reach out to Dal­its in Pun­jab.”

It is time to catch the bull by its horns. The UN should give more teeth to it­self, ac­tion­able and ad­vi­sory. The No­bel Prize of Ang San Sui Kyi must be with­drawn in view of her to­tal fail­ure to pro­tect the Ro­hingya Mus­lims in Myan­mar and her in­abil­ity to an­swer le­git­i­mate en­quiries of the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity. All coun­tries, in­clud­ing In­dia that al­low and tol­er­ate tor­ture must face UN op­pro­brium. 

On this Hu­man Rights Day, World Sikh News ac­knowl­edges the role of hu­man rights de­fend­ers. A big thank you to Amnesty In­ter­na­tional for con­tin­u­ing the cam­paign for jus­tice for vic­tims of No­vem­ber 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom. Pun­jabis are grate­ful to Japan­ese pro­fes­sor, Dr. Tomio Mi­zokami and Kar­nakata born Pun­jabi lover Dr. Prof. Pan­dit Rao Daren­navar for pop­u­lar­is­ing Pun­jabi, Ad­vo­cate Jas­pal Singh Man­jh­pur for boldly tak­ing up cases of in­di­vid­u­als whose rights are vi­o­lated, Ad­vo­cate Navki­ran Singh and his as­so­ci­ates for ob­tain­ing de­tails of the Sirsa dera, Ad­vo­cate Bha­gat Singh in Madu­rai for lead­ing the cam­paign for Tamil as of­fi­cial lan­guage of the Tamil Nadu High Court and var­i­ous or­gan­i­sa­tions who are boldly doc­u­ment­ing hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions in Pun­jab, Kash­mir, North­east and var­i­ous other parts of In­dia

To the Sikhs in Pun­jab and Di­as­pora, Sar­bat da Bhala does not stop at hu­man­i­tar­ian work alone, it is time to go be­yond. Hu­man Rights is not just Sikh rights. It is time to stand up for the rights of the African stu­dents in Pun­jab, time to reach out to Dal­its in Pun­jab. Stu­dents bod­ies need to take up so­cial and civil rights of women, labour­ers, en­vi­ron­ment and other causes.  

On the oc­ca­sion of 70 years of the Uni­ver­sal De­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights, let us take 70 steps dur­ing the course of the year for cre­at­ing more aware­ness of hu­man rights pro­tec­tion world­wide as part of our role and com­mit­ment in do­ing our bit for ho­n­our­ing and up­hold­ing hu­man rights in the world. Join the UN move­ment, speak about and stand up for rights of peo­ple with whom you dis­agree. Re­call the work of the Ninth Mas­ter Guru Tegh Ba­hadur who stood up for pro­tec­tion of a re­li­gion he did not prac­tice.

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World Sikh News says, Ho­n­our Hu­man Be­ings, Ho­n­our Hu­man Rights. Are you ready, Take the first step, to­day!