On Comprehensive
Law On
Communal Riots
By Asghar Ali
Engineer
30 July, 2004
Centre For Study Of Society And
Secularism
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.