National consultation on The Communal Violence Bill, 2005 - A Concept Note

NATIONAL CONSULTATION
ON
The Communal Violence
(Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill, 2005

Conference Room, 1st Floor, India International Centre
New Delhi
June 16, 2007


A Concept Note

Three years of the UPA government is an opportune moment to take stock of just what the government has achieved in terms of justice for communal crimes. The demand for a law on communal violence emerged from a brutal record of recurring violence in our country, the increasing occurrence of gender-based crimes in communal conflagrations, and complete impunity for mass crimes. The Common Minimum Programme (CMP) had thus promised the citizens of this country a ‘comprehensive legislation’ that would finally challenge the decades of impunity for communal crimes; which would strengthen our hands in the struggle against communalism; which would allow us to prosecute for mass crimes committed with political will and intent. Unfortunately what we have been offered is a cynical, shoddy, and dangerous piece of legislation, whose first version was The Communal Violence (Suppression) Bill, 2005. This was then replaced but not vastly improved by The Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill, 2005.

The Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill, 2005 (hereafter referred to as the Bill) has been drafted in bad faith and represents nothing less than a complete betrayal of the promise of the CMP. Indeed the very process, which the Bill has followed, indicates bad faith. If the new statute was sincere about addressing gaps in criminal jurisprudence, it should have based itself on the documented experiences of victims over the last two decades. There is no dearth in India of eminent jurists, civil society activists, academics and legal experts who have engaged on the ground and in court rooms with communal violence and communal crimes; they could and should have been actively consulted to ensure that any bill purporting to deal with communal violence would first and foremost strengthen the ordinary citizens of India in seeking justice. Yet, a Bill of such fundamental importance in addressing the challenges posed to the secular character of our society and polity was drafted without any real consultative process (barring a few seminars which were hurriedly called with less than 48 hours notice to civil society activists).

The Bill introduced in Parliament on December 5, 2005, was then sent to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs for its review and recommendations. The Standing Committee called in those experts it saw fit, but again did not open its doors wide in what should have been a public, transparent and inclusive process. Except for one group of women’s rights activists who managed to seek time for a formal deposition before the Standing Committee, few civil society activists were invited to give comments.

The report of the Standing Committee tabled in Parliament on December 13, 2006 fails to make any correctives which would retrieve the Bill; it does not make any structural changes in the framework of the Bill towards strengthening citizens as opposed to further strengthening the hands of (communally motivated) state governments; it fails to address impunity for mass crimes; it does not take on board any substantive recommendations related to gender-based crimes; nor does it address the severe lacunae in terms of seeking accountability for the inaction and complicity of state officials in communal violence. The response of the Government of India, contained in the Standing Committee’s report, indicating complete satisfaction with the basic structure of the existing Bill, is truly a betrayal of people’s faith.

There is every danger that the UPA government will reintroduce some version of the Communal Violence Bill, 2005 in the coming monsoon session of parliament and usher it through. Before that happens, a daylong national consultation is being organized in Delhi to evolve a consensus and plan ahead. The foundation of the Bill is so flawed that it cannot be remedied by improvements in specific components. The government must be urged to begin afresh the process of drafting a new Bill on communal violence. They must be urged to give the citizens of this country a law which can finally deliver justice for communal crimes; which can hold the State accountable for acts of omission and commission; a law which for once strengthens the hands of the citizens and not the State.


NATIONAL CONSULTATION ORGANISED BY ANHAD, DELHI
With inputs from
Justice Ahmadi, Farah Naqvi & Gagan Sethi (Centre for Social Justice)
Partial resource support provided by BMMA (a project of Action Aid)
Contact details: anhad.delhi@gmail.com/ 011 23070740