Being A Minority In ‘Secular’ India
By Syed Zafar Mehdi
25 March, 2012
Countercurrents.org
The controversial arrest of Delhi-based journalist Mohammad Ahmad Kazmi by Delhi Police’s notorious Special Cell in connection with the recent attack on Israeli diplomat’s car in New Delhi has again brought to fore the issue of mindless witch-hunts and prosecutions of innocent Muslims in so-called ‘secular democratic republic’ of India. It has also re-ignited the debate about the freedom of expression and fundamental human rights, exposing the dubious nature of such arrests and persecutions made on flimsy grounds.
If his friends and family are to be believed, the case against him has been manufactured on bundle of lies, dubious charges and unsubstantiated evidence, simply because police wanted a scapegoat. It is not the first time such a case has come to light and it certainly won’t be the last time. We have seen journalists, academics and even the man on street being abused, vilified, and targeted by state and its agencies. Imagine the horror of walking out of jail after 14 long years after police fails to ‘manufacture’ sufficient evidence against the accused. It happened with four Kashmiri men, who were arrested in connection with bomb blasts in Lajpat Nagar many years back and were released from jail in 2010 after 14 years.
We saw how Delhi University Professor SAR Geelani was framed in the Parliament attack case few years back, just because he had a beard, was a Muslim, was a Kashmiri and taught Arabic. I still have serious doubts about Afzal Guru case, who has been sentenced to death, to satisfy the ‘collective conscience of the society’. What makes the ‘death sentence’ totally gross and disproportionate is the fact that Guru’s case is riddled with many loopholes and he was not defended at the trail court. Even legal luminaries like Ram Jethmalani, Praful Bidwai and A G Noorani agree to that.
The case of another Kashmiri, journalist Iftikhar Gilani is more peculiar. He was accused of being a Pakistani spy, after police found some documents from his possession, which anybody could have downloaded from net. It was not mere co-incidence that he happened to be the son-in-law of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the veteran Hurriyat hawk.
The ghosts of Batla House encounter still haunt the Muslims in Delhi. Those who have gone through the report prepared by Jamia Teachers Solidarity Group will understand the modus operandi of Delhi Police’s Special Cell, and the art of making fake look real.
Ishrat Jahan, a young college girl was mowed down in cold blood and dubbed as the Lashkar Toiba operative on a mission to kill the mass murderer Narendra Modi. She was later declared to be innocent posthumously. A large number of youth from the minority community were arrested after the Mecca Masjid blast in 2004 and were subjected to ruthless torture until last year when some RSS mugger voluntarily owned up the responsibility for the blasts.
The magnitude and scale of communal violence in the 2002 Gujrat riots and the abysmally low number of convictions bears eloquent testimony to the fact that minorities in India have always got a raw deal. Take for instance Mumbai riots case. While the 100 accused for the heinous massacre of 257 innocent people in the Mumbai blasts are languishing behind bars since many years now; the riots accused, all Hindus, have gotten away with it. It's pertinent to note that over 900 people, mostly Muslim minority, were ruthlessly mowed down in cold-blood on the streets of Mumbai, after the demolition of Babri Masjid in Dec 1992- Jan 1993.
By the definition provided by UN Convention on Prevention and Punishment for the Crimes of Genocide, India is the only democracy in world which has treated its minorities to not one but four genocide killings in the time span of 18 years. Delhi (84), Bhagalpur (87), Bombay (92), Gujarat (02).
It’s horrendous that even after 50 years of United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR, in the largest democracy, there is still widespread discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity, religious beliefs, etc. Worse, the members of minority community here continue to be targeted and implicated on dubious charges. It is heart-rending to note that every other day we come across the reports about blood-curtailing incidents of police brutality and barbarism, committed in utter disregard of humanitarian law and universal human rights as well as total negation of the constitutional guarantees and human decency.
Police in India has always been unruly and turbulent, carrying the dreadful image of terror and torture. The violence by police seems to be institutionalised in the set-up. They routinely abuse human rights with impunity, especially in so-called “disturbed” zones. The blatant mischief and ill-treatment towards civilians are among the most glaring abrasions and there is a tendency in them to indulge in “barking” of crimes which mainly pertains to non-registration of minor and major crimes. Without policing the police, it’s near impossible to expect protection and promotion of human rights.
Writer is a New Delhi based journalist, working with Hindustan Times. He can be reached at [email protected]
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