OPEN FORUM
New Delhi, 29 June 2006
Implement
The Commitment
DELAY IN Communal Violence
Bill
By Dr. Syed Ali Mujtaba
The Communal Violence Bill
announced by the UPA Government soon after coming to power in May 2004, seems to
be gathering dust. The Government seems to have more reasons to pilot the Office
of Profit and the Reservation bills than make efforts to stop the cancerous
growth of communalism in the country.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and
Home Minister Shivraj Patil both made separate statements in Parliament on the
communal situation in the country and took credit of keeping it under check.
However, both maintained a stoic silence over the timeframe for tabling the Communal
Violence Bill in Parliament.
Meantime, two communal riots, one
in Aligarh (UP) in April last and the other in Vadodra (Gujarat)
in May, reiterated the necessity of the
bill. The bill is supposed to give powers to the Union Government to intervene
in the wake of a breakdown of the communal situation. As of now, the Centre cannot
interfere in the affairs of the States and can only appeal it to control the
situation.
Take the Aligarh incident, where once again the
dispute centred on places of worship. Every year the matter comes to boil there
during Hindu festivals with Muslims objecting to the use of the blaring
loudspeakers in the temple that disturbs their prayers in the adjacent mosque.
As in the past, the tension this time too was building up for some time and
exploded with instances of stone throwing, looting and arson. This was
retaliated through police firing, killing eight people.
The Minorities Commission’s fact-finding team found that the police did
not comply with the rulebook and fired above the waist as all the shots hit the
victims directly on the upper parts of the body, suggesting its intention was
to kill.
The IG Police (Kanpur range) who headed the Departmental
inquiry reportedly calls it a case of police high-handedness in his report. He says, sufficient evidence is
there to prove that the situation could have been brought under control without
the police firing, if the administration acted with a little intelligence and
responsibility.
Aligarh echoed in Vadodara a month later
where five people were killed in the police firing. Here again the issue centred on a religious structure claimed as
encroachment on road by the Vadodra Municipal Corporation, even though, the
first survey carried out in 1912 by the then ruler of Baroda, Sayajirao Maharaj
mention that the Muslim shrine was in existence for at least 200 years and its
daily light (diya) and expenditure were borne by the Hindus.
Unless
motives are attributed to its act, it does not stand to reason why the Vadodra
Corporation paid scant regard to the ancient place of worship and showed unnecessary haste in its demolition. The shrine was termed
as ‘mini Babari masjid’ and was a target of attack at every communal riot that
took place in the city since 1969.
Muslim residents of the area that
resisted the demolition were hit with police bullets leaving five of them dead
and scores injured. A day after the demolition, a Muslim youth was burnt alive
in his car by a fanatical Hindu mob.
The Supreme Court injunction
ordered swift action by the Union Government to control the situation;
otherwise the Vadodra incident had all the trappings of the post-Godhra
communal genocide of 2002.
Both in Aligarh and Vadodra, it is ominous that the
fatalities could have been avoided if the local administration tactfully
handled the situation.
A cursory look at the history of
the communal riots in the country suggests that Aligarh and Vadodra are not isolated events
but part of the larger picture of the communal programme that is being carried
out intermittently.
Riots after riots have similar
story to tell. The communal violence invariably flares up around religious
centres; the State administration allows it to escalate. The extremists then go
on the prowl, unleashing an orgy of death and mayhem in connivance with the
local administration. When enough damage is done and media pressure becomes unmanageable, the authorities put
their act together to control the situation.
The naked vote bank politics of
consolidating the vote of the majority at the expense of destruction of the
minority is the pet theme for the last sixty years or so in India. This is a tried and tested
formula in Indian politics to first create a sharp division in the society and
then ride on the insecurity wave to romp home to power. The Congress or the BJP both are two sides of the same coin,
so goes the saying.
Since communalism is one of the
many tools on which politics centres in India, no political party wants to
get this eliminated altogether. Some may talk about its banishment from the
society but those who see it as a holy cow of the electoral politics, want the
communal pot to be kept boiling.
It was a revolutionary call of
many sorts when the UPA Government announced that it was going to bring the communal
Violence Bill to stop the repeat of Gujarat.
The promise held credibility because the Left which is supporting the Government
too showed keenness to put a lid
over this recurring crime. However, the UPA Government having completed two
years in office but still not keen on bringing the Communal Violence Bill, give
rise to the suspicion that it may be another case of an empty promise made for
electoral gains.
However, if the Government
sources are to be believed, it is not the real case. The Parliamentary Standing
Committee of the Home Ministry is currently discussing
the Bill. The discussions are
centering around two contentious issues;
can a communal situation in a state be dealt with by the Central Government
without encroaching upon the state’s rights of maintaining law and order?
Second, can the deployment of Central forces be done independently or at the
request of the State Government and, in any case, can such forces act
independently or act under the command of the State Government?
Notwithstanding the rights of the
States to be encroached upon, the fact remains that in the name of State
autonomy and exclusive right over 'law and order', the Central Government
cannot remain a spectator to the instances of communal violence taking place in
a State.
Irrespective, of the delay in the
Bill, the Central Government should immediately bring out a statutory order
that it would have the exclusive right to intervene in the event of communal
situation, and punish those who have been behind this heinous crime. It is time for the UPA Government to implement
the promises made. Further waste of time would be an invitation to another Aligarh or Vadodra to take
place. ---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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