State violation of Hindu rights in India-I

V SUNDARAM

On 11 September, 2007, I presented a paper titled ‘Gross Violation of Hindu Human Rights in India’ at a Seminar organized by the Patriots Forum in New Delhi. At that Seminar I had the good fortune of having a detailed discussion with Shri B P Singhal, IPS (Retd), former Director General of Police, UP and former Member of the Rajya Sabha. He gave me a copy of a brilliant monograph written by him under the title 'MINORITIES AND SOCIAL JUSTICE: PROBLEMS & POLICY OPTIONS'.

Shri Singhal had written the above monograph for being presented at a proposed Workshop at the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA), New Delhi, in the backdrop of the raging national level controversy caused by the anti-national directive of the Justice Sachar Commission on Minorities, demanding from the Chiefs of Army, Navy and the Air Force, a complete head count of the number of Muslims employed in their respective Forces. The Chief of the Army Staff, showing great patriotism and character, declined to oblige the Commission. When the Army Chief's principled refusal became public, the entire media and opinion makers of the country went up in arms in support of the tough stand taken by the Army Chief. The public opinion veered round the view that the Sachar Commission had embarked upon a very dangerous and divisive exercise that could infect the country's Defence Forces with the communal virus, being openly sponsored and supported by the UPA Government (Sonia Congress and its allies) in New Delhi. It was during the period of this controversy that ‘The Indian Institute of Public Administration’ (IIPA), perhaps as a damage control exercise, proposed to organize a workshop on the subject of 'Minorities and Social Justice: Problems & Policy Options', in March, 2006.

Without assigning any reasons, the Sachar Commission hurriedly back tracked in the same way in which the Government of India back tracked in the Ram Setu case in the Supreme Court on September 14, 2007, and soon the controversy relating to the head count of the number of Muslims in the Armed Forces of India died down. Along with the Sachar Commission, the IIPA also apparently lost its interest in the whole affair and shelved the idea of holding the planned workshop.

Shri B P Singhal's brilliant monograph deals with the problem of Muslim Minorities against the insidious backdrop of the Sachar Commission exercise promoted by the Government of India as a plank of its petty 'minority vote bank politics'. He has focussed on facts/problems relating to the Muslim community alone under the following heads: i) Minorities; ii) Social Justice; iii) Problems; and iv) Policy Options. I have never seen a more categorical and convincing presentation of the problems relating to the Muslim Community in India. Anyone can see that Shri Singhal's penetrating analysis leading to sensible and balanced policy options stems from his own rich and varied experience in the Indian Police Service and later as a Member of the Rajya Sabha.

Anyone can clearly deduce and derive from the presentation of Shri B P Singhal that there has been a State-sponsored gross violation of human rights of Hindus in India after Independence. What are Human Rights? 'Human Rights' mean 'the basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled, often held to include the right to life and liberty, freedom of thought and expression, and equality before the law.’ The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, 'All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.'

Hindu Human Rights must commonly include the following Cluster of Rights:

* Security rights that prohibit crimes such as murder/’enforced’ involuntary suicide, massacre, torture and rape

* Liberty rights that protect freedoms in areas such as belief and religion, association, assembling and movement

* Political rights that protect the liberty to participate in politics by expressing themselves, protesting, participating in a republic

* Due process rights that protect against abuses of the legal system such as imprisonment without trial, secret trials and excessive punishments

* Equality rights that guarantee equal citizenship, equality before the law and nondiscrimination

* Welfare rights (also known as economic rights) that require the provision of, eg, education, paid holidays, and protections against severe poverty and starvation

* Group rights

B.P. Singhal I.P.S (Reld)

& Ex MP

We can see from B.P. Singhal's monograph that there is an organized denial of Hindu Security Rights by the Government and the State. Liberty Rights are being abridged by the anti-Hindu Government on the one hand and denied by the pseudo-secular (in effect anti-Hindu) political parties on the other. Political Rights are being denied by the Government, State and all the political parties acting under the ideological umbrella of ‘Perverted Secularism’. Due process rights are being denied by the Judiciary at all levels, acting as self-proclaiming cultural and legal spokesmen for upholding only ‘Minority Rights’. Equality rights are being denied by the Government, the State and the Judiciary, diabolically acting together in concert, apart from all the political parties directly involved in a collective conspiracy against the Hindus of India. Welfare rights and Group rights of only the minorities - The Muslims and the Christians - are the concern of the Government and the State. Those of Hindus are irrelevant, anti-national and anti-social - in short, 'Communal'. Thus the Vicious Circle of Denial of Hindu Human Rights is comprehensive, universal, total and all-pervasive. All these rights are being denied to the Hindus who are in absolute numerical majority in India.

B P Singhal argues that ever since the 9th century AD, when the Muslim invaders expanded their domination over Indian territory and till the advent of the British the MUSLIMS WERE THE RULERS OF THIS COUNTRY. After 1857, the British decided to divide the two major communities and swung their policies in favour of the Muslims. This was done by bringing in the Urdu language in which business was transacted by them in Police Stations, and Courts in addition to English. Against this background Singhal has asked the most pertinent question: “Could, a Community that ruled India for over 900 years and belonged to a privileged class even during British Raj, become socially handicapped?” He says that the answer has to be a categorical 'NO'.

As a proof of his thesis, he has given some historical excerpts in Annexure 'A' to his book. Even a cursory reading of these excerpts gives us an insight into the then Muslim psyche and the bonhomie that existed between the Muslims and the British. I am giving below a few excerpts to illustrate this point:

Our critics regarded the Indian National Congress as Hindu Congress and the opposition papers described it as such. We are straining every nerve to secure the cooperation of our Mohammedan fellow countrymen in this great national work. We sometimes paid the fares of the Mohammedan delegates and offered them other facilities. (Surendranath Bannerjee: A Nation in Making 1857-1905, 1925 p. 108).

Another attraction that was offered to Muslims was the rule that no resolution affecting a particular community, even if they were in a minority, could be passed if that community objected to it. In this way a Resolution urging the prohibition of cow slaughter suggested by a Hindu landlord of Bengal was disallowed at a Congress Session held in Madras in 1887.(Khalid Bin Sayeed: Pakistan-The Formative Phase 1857-1948, OUP, Karachi).

In any event be assured, Gentlemen, that I highly value these remarks of sympathy and approbation which you have been pleased to express in this regard to the general administration of the country. Descended as you are from those who formerly occupied such a commanding position in India, you are exceptionally able to understand the responsibility attaching to those who rule. (Lord Dufferin, the Viceroy of India replying to a farewell address from Mohammedan National Association of Calcutta in 1888).

32 years later, Mahatma Gandhi, whom I call 'The Maulana of Muslim Appeasement', declared most irresponsibly and shamelessly at the time of Khilafat agitation in 1920-21: “I will gladly ask for the postponement of Swaraj Activity, if thereby we would advance the interests of Khilafat. We Hindus should befriend all Muslims and hold them fast as prisoners of our love. It would be a pleasant possibility, if Hindus in their lakhs offered themselves cut to pieces without retaliation or anger in their heart.” (Quoted by M M Kothari in his 'Critique of Gandhi', Critique Publications, Jodhpur p148).

(To be contd...)

(The writer is a retired IAS officer)