Secular Perspective
July 16-31, 2004
ON COMPREHENSIVE LAW ON COMMUNAL RIOTS
by Asghar Ali Engineer
The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government has promised,
in its Common Minimum Programme that a law will be enacted to
prevent communal riots but what is stated therein seems post-riot
measures like special courts to punish the guilty, to pay uniform
compensation to the victims etc. However, it is silent on the
preventive measures which are more important than the follow up
measures. Needless to say the comprehensive law should lay
emphasis on preventive measures so that communal violence can
be prevented in this country.
The most important players in any communal violence are
politicians. No communal riot can take place without the direct or
indirect role of politicians, much less Gujarat like carnage. I have
been investigating communal riots since last four decades and I
have yet to see any communal riot in which politicians have not
played direct or indirect role. There are very few riots in which
politicians have played even indirect role; in most cases they play
direct role. Only politicians of the left are an exception to this game.
Thus it should be said with all emphasis here that without tackling
political problem one can hardly check communal violence in this
country. The most obvious role among politicians is that of
communal politicians i.e. Jan Sangh-BJP-Shiv Sena. These
communal parties are not only motivated by their communal and
fascistic ideologies by also by immediate political gains to be made
in terms of increasing their vote base. The whole Ram
Janambhoomi movement was motivated by their desire to widen
their vote base among low caste and backward caste Hindus
besides upper caste Hindus to multiply their seats in Parliament
and they greatly succeeded in that project. To achieve this
objective Mr. Advani took out Rathyatra from Somnath to Ayodhya
which, of course, he could not complete.
It was this movement coupled with rathyatra, which polarised the
Hindus and Muslims as never before in history. The BJP politicians
like Uma Bharti and Sadhvi Rithambara were making highly
provocative speeches against Muslims publicly. Bal Thackaray and
other Shiv Sena politicians too were not far behind. In fact they
were outdoing each other. If the Narsimha Rao Government had
taken strong action against such provocative speeches and
arrested concerned BJP opticians whatever their stature, Babri
Masjid would not have been demolished and so much blood would
not have been shed in riots which followed the demolition.
Thus first of all political will is needed to tackle communal violence.
The law is there but it is never implemented sincerely. If section
153, 153(A), 295 and 505 of the Indian Penal Code which deal with
promotion of religious animosity are used against any one making
such provocative speeches, the whole trouble can be nipped in the
bud. It is hardly ever done. Even elections are fought on such
provocative campaigns. Modi's speeches during Gujarat elections
of December 2002 were patently communal and he won two-third
majority from precisely those areas where anti-Muslim violence
broke out after the Godhra incident of February 27, 2002.
It is also strange that the parties which take oath for secularism at
the time of registration of their parties with the Election Commission
and also swear by the Constitution adopt 'Hindutva' as their parties
programme? How Hindutva or Islamitva can be reconciled with the
Constitutional secularism? The two are quite contradictory. An
observation by a Supreme Court judge that Hindutva is a way of life
cannot certainly reconcile it with secular spirit of our Constitution.
Hindutva is a political doctrine of a Hindu communal party. It can
under no circumstances be equated with secularism.
It is fine if a politician is intensely religious (either Hindu, or Muslim
or Christian). It certainly does not conflict with our concept of
secularism. But it is one thing to be intensely religious and quite
different to spouse political Hindutva based on hatred of minorities.
Our electoral laws also need to be stringently looked into to uphold
our secularism and to consolidate it. The Hindutva forces are
eroding secular values and replacing it with hatred and conflict. Any
law against communal violence has to keep this political dimension
in view. The UPA Government would need strong political will to
achieve this. It should ask the Election Commission to keep strict
vigilance on communal campaign and disqualify candidates using
communal or sectarian appeal.
It is only politicians who prepare atmosphere for communal
violence through provocative speeches and newspaper articles.
The second stage is to spread rumour through a well planned
manner and third stage is to start violence using some spark here
and there. Any law has to tackle the problem at all these stages.
We have already dealt with the question of provocation. Spreading
rumour is done very stealthily and is not easy to deal with. It needs
help from the people and an alert administration can take effective
steps through people's committees to squash such rumours.
Thirdly, the sparking incident, unlike Godhra in case of Gujarat, are
usually insignificant like teasing a girl of the other community, or
quarrel between two groups belonging to two different communities,
or someone knocking down a pedestrian etc. and in a surcharged
atmosphere this is enough to start major conflagration. And if the
police is also communalised, which is often the case, it can turn into
a disaster. The Biharsharif riots of 1981 started with a brawl
between a Muslim and a Yadav on the question of payment and
turned into a major disaster thanks to the role of RSS and the
police under its influence.
In communal violence after politicians another important factor is
police. If police wants it can curb communal violence in no time.
There are two conditions: (1) the police should be strictly
professional and handle communal disturbances strictly as law and
order situation and (2) it should be allowed to function without
political interference as long as they do their job professionally.
The role of police has been increasingly politicised and
communalised as I have been observing since the Jabalpur riots of
1961. In many riots lower level officers lead the mobs and take part
in looting, burning and killing. Bhagalpur riots of 1989 and Gujarat
riots of 2002 are flagrant examples of direct police participation with
of course, honourable exceptions. The police is also becoming part
of communal polarisation. Also, with communal parties coming to
power they tend to oblige their political bosses by adding and
abetting their communal misdeeds. In case of situations like Gujarat
honest officers were punished by being immediately transferred.
The shocking thing is that all those police officers who were
indicted by the judicial inquiry commissions were never penalised;
instead they were rewarded by promotions. There were
innumerable examples. Mr. Ram Dev Tyagi, who fired on Suleman
Bakery people and killed innocent boys during January 1993 riots
in Mumbai was severely indicted by the Justice Srikrishna
Commission. Hardly any action was taken against him. Instead he
was promoted as Commissioner of Police during the Shiv Sena-
BJP rule in Maharashtra in 1995. Mr. P.C.Pande, Police
Commissioner Ahmedabad during Gujarat carnage of 2002 was
promoted and sent to CBI.
Any law to prevent communal violence has to tackle police problem
and see that it behaves strictly professionally, as pointed out
above. The Left Government in West Bengal can become a better
model in this respect. It is well known that a communally sensitive
state like West Bengal until seventies became a totally riot-free
model state after the Left Front Government took over. There are
two reasons for this: (1) it does not mix religion with politics and
does not indulge in any form of communal rhetoric and (2) it has
warned the police force that any lack of action to stop communal
violence within 24 hours will attract strong action. The result is for
anyone to see in West Bengal.
Bihar was also communal hotbed for long but since Laloo Prasad
Yadav came to power the communal scenario changed. Bihar is
also now almost riot-free state. Not that communal forces are lying
low but do not succeed in engineering communal violence as the
state machinery is ever vigilant. It should not, therefore, be difficult
to have riot-free India under UPA though few states like Gujarat,
Rajasthan and M.P. are presently ruled by the BJP. But UPA
Government can send right signal to all communal mischief
makers. No tempering with secular values and communal rhetoric
will be tolerated.
And in case communal violence does break out the guilty, which
should include politicians as much as ordinary citizens, provoking
or taking law in their own hands and the police officers failing to
control within a specified time period, should all be punished
according to law through fast track courts specially set up for the
purpose. If necessary, there should be a separate autonomous
police commission to professionalise the police force and to make it
independent of political interference.
Of course the law should see to it that the victims of communal
violence get speedy justice and are uniformly compensated. Today
it all depends on the chief minister concerned to announce the
quantum of compensation. For every person killed at least Rs.5
lakhs should be given by way of compensation and if a bread
earner is killed, a job should be ensured to a member of the family.
Often those killed happen to be poor.
I would again like to emphasise that the law should deal more
stringently with pre-violence than post-violence situation.
Prevention will prove far more effective.
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