Hu­man Rights Day Spe­cial: As the world ob­serves In­ter­na­tional Hu­man Rights Day to­day, dur­ing the last week the In­dian state and a large por­tion of the pop­u­la­tion, swathed in hate and re­venge, did a leapfrog to turn the coun­try into a ba­nana re­pub­lic. From the pass­ing of the ret­ro­grade Cit­i­zen­ship Amend­ment Bill in the Lower House of the In­dian Par­lia­ment to the deathly si­lence on pub­lic-ori­ented ex­tra­ju­di­cial mur­der of four ac­cused in Hy­der­abad, In­dia turned into a coun­try to be care­ful about the free and un­fet­tered move­ment of women in cities, towns and vil­lages and a clear de­mar­ca­tion of the pop­u­la­tion on re­li­gious lines. 

I N THE LAST ONE WEEK, In­dia has shown all the trap­pings of a po­lice state and its con­tin­ued de­gen­er­a­tion into a ba­nana re­pub­lic.  Po­lice kill with im­punity, law-mak­ers seek in­stant re­venge, the state is silent, me­dia joins the fun, ju­di­ciary re­luc­tantly ques­tions, Pres­i­dent says no mercy, peo­ple re­joice and san­ity is the do­main of only a hand­ful.

Not able to han­dle the in­creas­ing num­ber of crimes against women, es­pe­cially rape of women of all age groups, the In­dian so­ci­ety has gone into a tizzy of in­hu­man, un­civilised and can­ni­bal­is­tic be­hav­iour, talk­ing eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Notwith­stand­ing the sever­ity of the crime, the civ­i­lized world has to ac­cept that it is pos­si­ble to con­demn rapists and at the same time af­ford them jus­tice through a fair trial lead­ing to life im­pris­on­ment and not seek the death penalty.

Civ­i­lized men and women and voices of san­ity have had to with­stand shock­ing sights of un­civil, il­le­gal and un­law­ful be­hav­iour and ac­tions of the po­lice, the pub­lic and the law-mak­ers en­joy­ing the re­venge­ful killing of four ac­cused of the das­tardly crime of rape.

Notwith­stand­ing the sever­ity of the crime, the civ­i­lized world has to ac­cept that it is pos­si­ble to con­demn rapists and at the same time af­ford them jus­tice through a fair trial lead­ing to life im­pris­on­ment and not seek the death penalty.

Lest you got lost in the “cel­e­bra­tion” and con­do­na­tion of the pa­thetic, shame­ful cel­e­bra­tions of killing of the four ac­cused in Hy­der­abad, apart from in­di­vid­ual cases of bru­tal­ity, the Nirb­haya Kaurs of Delhi 1984, the Nirb­haya Banos of Gu­jarat 2002, the Nirb­haya Bhats of Kash­mir 1991, the Nirb­haya Meenas of Dal­its since the 70 years through­out the coun­try and the Nirb­hayas of Tamil Ee­lam are ask­ing us all,  “when will we get jus­tice?”

The in­stant jus­tice meted out to four young men ac­cused of the crime of rape and mur­der is con­demnable in the harsh­est words pos­si­ble, in ex­actly the same man­ner in which the ac­tual sick­en­ing crime was com­mit­ted.

The Chief Jus­tice of In­dia has had the good sense to come out with a pub­lic state­ment con­demn­ing re­venge. This is not enough. The po­lice com­mis­sioner of Cy­ber­abad and the en­tire en­tourage which was re­spon­si­ble for the killing of the four ac­cused should be ar­rested and tried for pre-med­i­tated mur­der. The Na­tional Hu­man Rights Com­mis­sion must ask the right ques­tions and come out with an im­par­tial re­port.

The in­stant jus­tice meted out to four young men ac­cused of the crime of rape and mur­der is con­demnable in the harsh­est words pos­si­ble, in ex­actly the same man­ner in which the ac­tual sick­en­ing crime was com­mit­ted.

Lis­ten­ing to the Po­lice com­mis­sioner of Hy­der­abad nar­rat­ing the ridicu­lous film-script of the fake en­counter, I could not help but rec­ol­lect that my jour­ney into hu­man rights ac­tivism through the Com­mit­tee for Pro­tec­tion of De­mo­c­ra­tic Rights in Mum­bai started with voic­ing con­cern and protest against the ex­tra­ju­di­cial en­counter killings of poor­est of the poor farm­ers in the name of Nax­al­ism in erst­while Andhra Pradesh.  The whole scene un­folded in front of my eyes while try­ing to di­gest the events of the last week.

To­day, I re­call the work of stal­wart hu­man rights de­fend­ers like world-renowned math­e­mati­cian Prof. Bal­go­pal, who quit his ca­reer to work as the sheet-an­chor of the Andhra Pradesh Civil Lib­er­ties Com­mit­tee.  Supreme Court ad­vo­cate-ac­tivist Kannabi­ran spent his en­tire life de­fend­ing the civil lib­er­ties of the so-called Nax­als. Waran­gal in Andhra Pradesh was the first dis­turbed area of In­dia af­ter in­de­pen­dence in 1948.

The story of the pre­sent Po­lice Com­mis­sioner of Cy­ber­abad-V. C. Saj­ja­nar, on whom peo­ple show­ered rose petals is no dif­fer­ent from the days of yore. In 2012 too, he was hailed as a hero for a fake en­counter.  The glee on his face dur­ing the me­dia brief­ing is mock­ing the In­dian jus­tice sys­tem.

No­body is ask­ing sim­ple ques­tions:

• Why were the ac­cused taken to the crime scene, which is, in any case, a se­cluded area in the dead of night?
• What was the grand hurry to recre­ate the scene in just a few days of the ar­rest of the ac­cused?
• Why were the ac­cused not hand­cuffed?
• Why were only ten po­lice per­sons ac­com­pa­ny­ing four ‘diehard crim­i­nals’?
• Have the po­lice taken ac­tion against the po­lice­men for dere­lic­tion of duty from whom the ac­cused al­legedly ran away af­ter snatch­ing their weapons?

At a larger level, we have even stopped feel­ing ashamed of such crimes. Law­mak­ers in par­lia­ment talk of rape based on party lines and de­pend­ing upon which gov­ern­ment is run­ning which state of the coun­try. Un­com­fort­able ques­tions are no asked. If this is their line of thought, it is fool­hardy to ex­pect any rea­son­able opin­ion on hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions in Kash­mir, Na­ga­land and Pun­jab.

It is not just dis­gust­ing but fright­en­ing to see women -young and old, falling into the trap of seek­ing ret­ribu­tive jus­tice. Death by ston­ing or street jus­tice of any kind has not re­duced crimes in coun­tries where such pun­ish­ments are meted out. Some­one needs to tell women in In­dia that there are women across the world who stand up to those who vi­o­lated their daugh­ters and killed them but do not seek the death penalty. To say that only the ‘wearer knows where the shoe pinch­es’ is crim­i­nal­is­ing a civilised ar­gu­ment. The logic of sub­vert­ing the morale of the po­lice force will lead to more crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of po­lice man­age­ment of crime in In­dia.

To­day, I re­call the work of stal­wart hu­man rights de­fend­ers like world-renowned math­e­mati­cian Prof. Bal­go­pal, who quit his ca­reer to work as the sheet-an­chor of the Andhra Pradesh Civil Lib­er­ties Com­mit­tee.  Supreme Court ad­vo­cate-ac­tivist Kannabi­ran spent his en­tire life de­fend­ing the civil lib­er­ties of the so-called Nax­als. Waran­gal in Andhra Pradesh was the first dis­turbed area of In­dia af­ter in­de­pen­dence in 1948.

Every few years, the rape and mur­der of some­one’s daugh­ter be­come a spec­ta­cle to be talked about and de­bated, vent­ing of our frus­tra­tion and then mov­ing on. Af­ter Nirb­haya in Delhi, now af­ter a gap of 7 years, it is an­other Nirb­haya in Hy­der­abad. No­body is ask­ing the gov­ern­ment as to why the Nirb­haya fund has not been utilised? Why are more judges not ap­pointed by the sys­tem to en­sure prompt and proper jus­tice? Is there a nexus of de­lay be­tween the ex­ec­u­tive and the ju­di­ciary?

Lest you got lost in the “cel­e­bra­tion” and con­do­na­tion of the pa­thetic, shame­ful cel­e­bra­tions of killing of the four ac­cused in Hy­der­abad, apart from in­di­vid­ual cases of bru­tal­ity, the Nirb­haya Kaurs of Delhi 1984, the Nirb­haya Banos of Gu­jarat 2002, the Nirb­haya Bhats of Kash­mir 1991, the Nirb­hyas of Na­ga­land and Ma­nipur raped by the In­dian army in 2004 and be­yond, the Nirb­haya Meenas of Dal­its since the 70 years through­out the coun­try and the Nirb­hayas of Tamil Ee­lam are ask­ing us all,  “when will we get jus­tice?”