The Need For the Communal Violence Prevention Bill (Teesta Setalvad) vs Hindutva Rant Against the Bill (Sheshadri Chari) | Asian Age

From: Asian Age

Special: Anti-riots Bill, bill of contention

Oct 27, 2013

Sure remedy for biased institutions

[bu Teesta Setalvad]

Six days into 2013, about a 1,000 km away from the nation’s capital, in the faraway north Maharashtrian town of Dhule, a brutal police action, videographed in evidence, has documented the killing of six innocent Muslims by men in uniform. These deaths amounted to crimes but have hardly registered on the nation’s psyche.

Months before, in September 2012, four Gujarat police officers shot dead three Dalits, including a 17-year-old, using AK 47s on the night of September 22-23, 2012 at Thangadh in Surendranagar district, not far from Ahmedabad.

In early September 2013, the violence in the four districts of Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Shamli and Meerut, once again, documented even more crude cases of police complicity.

The script that was being played out in western UP, Dhule and Thangadh is a familiar rerun of what the country has witnessed since the late 1980s.Courts and judicial commissions have strongly indicted the police for harbouring a distinct anti-minority bias.

In Gujarat, the violence that lasted from February 27 to early May 2002 saw institutional resistance to vile political diktats from about 11 districts and commissionerates, who refused to bend to the criminal intent of their superiors. And they paid for it.

If, as repeated bouts of targeted violence have shown, regardless of who casts the first stone, the logic of identity-driven majoritarian institutional functioning is that the minority (linguistic or religious, Dalit, or Adivasi) suffers most.

Judicial commissions that have gone into communal carnages over the years reveal two common threads: one, the criminal role of Hindutva organisations in masterminding the violence and two, the partisan, anti-minority conduct of the police. An obvious exception to the above was the 1984 massacre of Sikhs in Delhi, spearheaded by Congress leaders.

Which is not to argue that none from the minority, be he or she a Muslim, Sikh, Bihari, Christian, Dalit or Tamilian, is incapable of the first act of violence. They are. When such acts take place, however as they have done, in Malegaon and Malapuram among others, the police and administration have acted firmly.

When minorities — linguistic or religious, Adivasis or Dalits — have been the specific target, however, the functioning of the police has been observed to have turned partisan. It is this that the Bill 2011 seeks to remedy.

Perpetrators live secure in the knowledge that the law will not act against them. The PCTV Bill has broadened the definition of dereliction of duty — which is already a crime — and, for the first time, added offences by public servants for breach of command responsibility.

With 10 years imprisonment prescribed for this offence, superiors will be deterred from allowing a Delhi 1984 or Gujarat 2002 to happen.

Section 197 of the CrPC is a law bestowed by the British, through which errant governments have refused to give sanction to prosecute offenders. The absence of sanction has prevented a Thackeray, Togadia and Modi, equally, from being hauled to court for spewing hatred.

The proposed law removes the barrier of sanction when officials are to be charged with offences which broadly fall under the category of dereliction of duty.

For other offences, sanction to prosecute is required to be given or denied within 30 days, failing which it is deemed to have been given. Fortunately political players like the Left, the JD (U), the NC and the SP have greeted the tabling of the Bill.
Once it is tabled in Rajya Sabha it will be closer to becoming law. No wonder then it is the very forces that have been the political beneficiaries of communal violence that are preventing Indian lawmakers from taking this quantum leap.
(The writer is an activist, educationist and journalist, who was associated with the drafting of the Bill)

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Patently anti-hindu, aims political mileage

Sheshadri Chari

The Prevention of Communal & Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill 2011 smacks of a sinister agenda to divide society on the basis of religion. UPA-2’s Bill violates the Constitution.
The Bill will create a group of ‘more equal’ citizens, rubbishing the Constitutional guarantee of “equality.”
The creators of this Bill have not concealed their hatred for anything Hindu. Their target is Narendra Modi, all BJP governments, and BJP supporters.
Targeting Hindus
The very first offensive definition in the Bill is the expression ‘group.’ A ‘group’ is a religious or linguistic minority and may include the SCs and STs. Without any deception, Clause 3 (e) makes it clear that the bill seeks to protect only “minorities.”
The Bill assumes that no member of the majority community can be a victim. It is a unilateral declaration by the NAC that Hindus are habitual offenders. The discrimination is so evident in the Bill that no member of the minority community can be punished under this Act for commiting the (same) offence against the majority community.
Surreptitious ban on RSS, VHP & BJP?
The definition of ‘association’ in Clause 3 (b) reminds one of the Emergency. An “accused” need not be an enlisted member of any association ‘whether or not registered or incorporated under any law’.
For, if the ‘association’ need not be legally constituted to be accused of an offence, where is the question of ‘enlisted’ membership? If you are ipso facto deemed to be a member of an ‘association’, it is enough for the act to take cognisance. The entire top brass of the RSS and VHP can be sent to jail on the basis of one complaint by a nondescript individual bearing a minority name.
Clause 15 expands the principle of vicarious liability. An offence is deemed to be committed by an office-bearer of an association for failing to exercise control over subordinates. He is vicariously liable for an offence which is committed by some other person elsewhere in the country.
The bill creates a whole set of new offences in Chapter II. Clause 6 clarifies that the offences under this bill are in addition to offences under the SC & ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. Can a person be punished twice for the same offence?
The most extraordinary thing is that no statement shall be recorded under section 161 of the CrPC. Victim’s statements shall be only under section 164 (before courts). The government will have power to block messages of the “accused” under this law
Probably the most vicious attack on the Hindu community and the parties and groups opposed to the Congress comes at the far end of the Bill in Clause 129 (Non-applicability of limitation). According to the clause, the statute of limitations shall not apply to offences cognisable under the Act. Implications of this clause are far-reaching.
For instance, cases being investigated by the SIT and other Commissions in Gujarat may fail to convict the alleged accused. Any one of the ‘victims’ can anytime reopen the cases against ‘culprits’ and drag the case on till “death do us apart”.
Karsevaks on the train were charred to death in Godhra in a fire set probably by a terror group. Anywhere else in the world the culprits would be brought to book. But here the Centre drags its feet and with this Bill, criminals, who fought the police, will not only get away but be able to slap cases on the police.
It is nobody’s argument to go soft on riots or rioters. The CrPC is good enough to tackle even the worst offender in riots. It would have been ideal for the NAC to suggest means to bring about social harmony. The present draft is the antithesis of harmony. It needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history.
(Author is Hindutva ideologue and former editor of RSS mouthpiece, Organiser)