First in October 2022 and then again in October 2023, the All India Network of NGOs and Individuals Working with National and State Human Rights Institutions (AiNNI) submitted detailed civil Society reports to GANHRI.

Both these reports unequivocally stated and with irrefutable evidence that the NHRCI had failed to uphold its mandate to protect and promote human rights in India. There is absolutely nothing right’ with India’s Human Rights Commission and to say that, volumes can be written of this pathetic state of affairs, is surely an understatement! Several global indicators and even national ones, provide fool-proof data to substantiate this!

The prestigious Swedish V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy) Report 2024, finds India to be in the bottom 40-50% of the 179 countries reviewed and puts it at one of the top ten ‘autocratisers’ in recent times. India dropped down to electoral autocracy in 2018 and continues to remain there.

India’s autocratization process is well documented, including gradual but substantial deterioration of freedom of expression, compromising independence of the media, crackdowns on social media, harassments of journalists critical of the government, as well as attacks on civil society and intimidation of the opposition.

The ruling anti-pluralist, Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the helm has for example, used laws on sedition, defamation, and counterterrorism to silence critics.

The Government has undermined the Constitution’s commitment to secularism by amending the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in 2019. The Modi-led government also continues to suppress the freedom of religion rights. intimidation of political opponents and people protesting government policies, as well as silencing of dissent in academia. All this, clearly blatant violation of human rights!

A study by the research group the ‘World Inequality Lab, (mid-March 2024), found that the wealth concentrated in the richest 1% of India’s population is at its highest in six decades and the percentage share of income exceeds that of countries including Brazil and the United States.

The study highlighted the fact that by the end of 2023, India’s richest citizens owned 40.1% of the country’s wealth, the highest since 1961, and their share of total income was 22.6%, the most since 1922. The gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen with the growing impoverishment of vulnerable sections of society!

On March 20, the UN’s International Happiness Day, The World Happiness Report was published by the UNs Sustainable Development Solutions Network. The Report takes into account six variables: GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and freedom from corruption. India was ranked a pathetic 126 out of 143 countries surveyed.

Corruption has indeed become new normal: India has undoubtedly the most corrupt government since independence! The unprecedented scam of the Electoral Bonds (EB) rocks the nation- it is regarded by some as ‘the world’s biggest scam’! Fortunately, the orders of the Supreme Court have necessitated the opening of the Pandora’s box, revealing how corrupt the ruling party is. With demonetisation in 2016, the ruling regime amassed a huge amount of wealth.  The ‘PM Cares Fund’, which is shrouded in secrecy, has accumulated huge sums of money.

There is the rise of majoritarianism, best indicated in the unbridled power of a fascist ideology termed as hindutva’. Religious intolerance is mainstreamed.

The demonisation and discrimination of minorities (Muslims, Christians and Sikhs), happens with frightening regularity with hate speeches and targeted violence.

A recent report by an independent private agency has detailed 601 attacks on Christian personnel/ institutions in 2023.  Violence on the Kuki tribal population (mainly Christian) which began on May 3, 2023, still continues with obvious approval from the BJP Governments both in Manipur State and at the Centre.

On March 16,a group of International Students in the University Hostel in Ahmedabad whilst praying their namaaz, were brutally attacked by hindutva elements. The anti -conversion laws in BJP-ruled States clearly undermine Constitutional Article 25, the Freedom to preach, practice and propagate ones religion.

The World Press Freedom Index 2023 ranked India 161 out of 180 countries. Human rights defenders, dissenters and all those who stand up for truth and justice are harassed, incarcerated and even killed. The renowned Delhi University Professor G. N. Sai Baba was falsely implicated in a case, languished in jail for ten years and was finally acquitted on March 5!  There are still several Human Rights Defenders languishing in jail, among them those incarcerated in the Bhima- Koregoan conspiracy case.

Opposition leaders like Arvind Kejriwal, Hemant Soren, Rahul Gandhi, Mahua Moitra have false cases foisted on them and even jailed!  There are draconian, prejudiced policies (all designed to decimate the Constitution) which include the Citizenship Amendment Act (the rules of which have just come into force), the National Education Policy, the anti-farmer (pro-Corporate) farm laws, the four labour codes, the Forest Conservation Amendment Act. Constitutional bodies like the Election Commission, the Enforcement Directorate, the Central Bureau of Investigation, the NIA, the Income-Tax, the police and even sections of the judiciary are compromised.

The Environment Performance Index 2022, by the World Economic Forum, ranks India last among 180 countries. The UNs Human Development Report 2023-24. ranked India 134 out of 193 countries.

The tragedy is that despite all this being in the public domain and from impartial, impeccable sources, the NHRCI has not found it appropriate to take cognisance of any of the above and to come out with statements, order investigations and publish their own independent findings!

On the contrary, it has over the years, clearly been a mouth-piece of the ruling regime and has not dared to taken on the Government when it has promoted or acquiesced with/in human rights violations. Not only on the above, but on several other counts, the NHRCI has failed to comply with the Paris Principles and to address the deteriorating human rights situation in India.

In a very detailed open letter entitled ‘Review of the Accreditation Status of the National Human Rights Commission of India’ (dated March 26, 2024)  and addressed  to the Chairperson of  the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI),  nine of the world’s best known  human rights organisations including  Amnesty International stated, “The cumulative picture that emerges reflects the NHRCIs and the Indian governments clear lack of political will to act and the apparent reluctance to effectively respond to and address the deteriorating human rights violations in the country and to uphold transparency and accountability.

The failure to create a truly independent NHRCI stands to perpetuate impunity and hinder any effort to ensure that the Indian authorities respect and uphold human rights. Therefore, taking into consideration the clear defiance of the SCAs recommendations in 2006, 2011, 2016, 2017 and most recently in 2023, by the NHRCI, we strongly urge your office to evaluate the NHRCIs rating carefully during the upcoming accreditation process”

It goes without saying that the NHRCI, since it belongs to the people of India and accountable primarily, to the people of India – must make an immediate, concerted and conscientious efforts to change for the better by responding impartially and pro-actively to the growing human rights violations in the country! Whether the NHRCI will have the audacity, objectivity and honesty to do so, is anyone’s guess!  

(The author is a renowned human rights, reconciliation and peace activist/writer. He is the recipient of several international and national awards. He is also a member of AiNNI )

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The Patna High Court has expressed its “strong displeasure” over the absence of any comprehensive action plan of the State Government to tackle the ongoing pandemic. Due to this mismanagement, the court has sought the intervention of the Bihar Human Rights Commission.

Justices CS Singh and Mohit Kumar Shah have highlighted that inaction of the State in providing adequate health care to its citizens, particularly during the prevailing Covid-19 situation is violative of Right to Life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.

“At this stage we reiterate our view, as expressed in our earlier orders, to the effect that any inaction on the part of the State, within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution of India, in providing adequate health care to its citizen, particularly during the prevailing COVID-19 situation, would be violative of right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India”, said the Bench.

The Court also cautioned the State over allegations of shortage of oxygen supply. It said, “Serious issues have been raised about deaths taking place in various government and private hospitals because of lack of supply of oxygen. This Court cannot overlook such aspects if such allegations are true as it directly relates to a citizen’s fundamental right. If the Court reaches a conclusion that COVID patients have been or are being allowed to die because of lack of oxygen supply, the Court exercising its power of judicial review will surely intervene and pass appropriate orders in this regard.”

To handle the situation in the State, the court has directed the State Human Rights Commission to conduct surprise inspections of Dedicated Covid Hospitals (DCHs), Dedicated Covid Health Centers (DCH) and care centres to find out if adequate facilities are available in these centres and a desired level of sanitation and cleanliness is maintained.

The court further directed, “The Secretary, BHRC shall be required to submit his report of inspection of NMCH by Wednesday (21.04.2021). He is further directed to join the Court proceedings on 21.04.2021 at 4.30 p.m., a link of which shall be sent to him by the Registry.”

The High Court also observed that some extra medical staff will be deployed in hospitals in Patna for better management. It said, “In our previous orders, we had noticed acute shortage of beds in and around Patna in various hospitals, with adequate facilities, for treating serious COVID patients. We had directed the state respondents to ensure that ESIC Hospital at Bihta starts functioning immediately. We have been informed by Dr. K.N. Singh, learned Additional Solicitor General for India that five doctors, fifteen nursing staff have reached ESIC Hospital at Bihta and more doctors and nursing staff from Armed Forces are likely to be deputed in the said hospital soon.”

The Bench has also asked the Executive Director, State Health Society to inform the Court about the process of disposal of Covid testing kits in private labs, syringes used for vaccination, PPE Kits and masks.

The High Court noted that an officer of the Patna High Court died of Covid because oxygen was not available in the hospitals. Intending to take this matter as an example to examine whether Court’s intervention is needed or not, the Bench has directed the Registrar General, Patna High Court to submit an “exhaustive report to this Court explaining in detail the circumstances in which the said officer of the High Court died.”

Earlier, the High Court had held that the government failed “to keep the people of Bihar informed about availability/ non-availability of health care facilities in the State.” It noted that the State had failed to conduct sufficient tests and that the data provided by it were contradictory. Although the Bihar government’s data provides that huge numbers of beds are available with oxygen, the court observed that there is a critical shortage of medical oxygen in the State. It remarked, “This contradiction has remained unexplained”, reported SabrangIndia.

The order may be read here:

Related:

Gov’t data about available Covid beds, oxygen, medicines contradictory: Patna HC
Unregistered hospitals allowed to function as Covid hospitals, Patna HC questions move
Oxygen tanker leak kills 22 patients in Nashik
Article 21 casts duty on state to provide life saving means such as oxygen and drugs: MP High Court

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Representation Image

The order was passed in response to a petition filed by the Association of Parent of Disappeared Persons (APDP) regarding the presence of 3,844 [Poonch with 2,717 Graves and Rajouri with 1,127] unmarked graves in twin districts of Pir Panjal region in J&K.

The Commission, after examining a 2012 report of J&K Government’s Home Department has observed that the government in its report has accepted that there are 2080 unmarked graves in Poonch [1486 graves] and in Rajouri [594 graves] Districts. The Commission has directed the government for a comprehensive forensic examination, including DNA testing into all these graves and said that the direction shall comply within six months.

The recent order is in line with the SHRC’s 2011 judgment in which the Commission had found that in the 38 graveyards, which they have investigated, have documented 2,730 graves, out of which 2,156 graves are still unidentified graves, and 574 persons were later after being buried as foreign militants, identified as local residents of Jammu and Kashmir.

The then enquiry was conducted after taking suo-moto cognizance of the research report of IPTK/APDP, documenting the discovery of 2700 unknown, unmarked, and mass graves, containing 2943 bodies, out of which 2373 were unmarked graves, in 62 graveyards spread across some areas of north Kashmir’s Kupwara, Baramulla, and Bandipora Districts.

Since 2011, instead of complying with the directions and recommendation of the SHRC for investigation into all the unmarked graves, the government continued to avoid undertaking any such investigations on the pretext that the investigation would lead to a law and order problem in J&K and also argued government’s inability in terms of expertise and infrastructure for such investigation.

The Home Department’s action taken report stated that the DNA testing would be done only when the complainant [relative of the disappeared] could locate the graveyard and the grave in which their relatives might be buried with a fair amount of certainty.

APDP has termed government’s response as the utter mockery to the principles of truth and justice.

Pertinently, the European Parliament adopted a resolution in July 2008 [RC B6-0349/2008] and called on the Government of India to urgently ensure independent and impartial investigations into all suspected sites of mass graves and as an immediate first step to secure the grave sites in order to preserve the evidence.

The EU Parliament resolution also offered financial and technical assistance to the Indian Government for such a thorough inquiry.

“Under the UN Convention on Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearances, the Government of India is obliged to fully investigate the discovery of unmarked and mass graves. Despite the widespread international call for an investigation into unmarked graves, the Indian state continues to decline any investigation into unmarked and mass graves of Jammu and Kashmir and managed to hoodwink the international community regarding the alarming issue of enforced disappearances and mass graves in Jammu and Kashmir,” said Tahira Begum, APDP spokesperson.

“The families of disappeared amid constant agony and distress have continuously been struggling for knowing the truth behind enforced disappearances in Jammu and Kashmir,” she added.

APDP has reiterated that the Government of India, a claimant of the permanent seat in the UN Security Council, must initiate a comprehensive investigation into all the unknown, unmarked and mass graves discovered across Jammu and Kashmir, to ascertain the truth behind the enforced disappearance of more than 8,000 people of Jammu and Kashmir.
It has further asked the global civil society to urge India to respect international humanitarian and human rights principles by extending comprehensive investigation into all the alleged cases of enforced disappearance as well as existence of unmarked and mass graves in Jammu and Kashmir, so that there will be a way forward for providing truth, justice and reparation to the thousands of victimized families.

Courtesy: Two Circles
 

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The Dilli–Lahore goodwill  bus had been cruising  along comfortably — in the right direction if not at the desired speed. The reception which the most important passenger on that peace route — Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee — received in February during his brief journey across the Wagah, and the response the visiting Pakistani cricket team got from spectators in India a little earlier — both when they won (Chennai) and when they lost (New Delhi) — made it evident that the Jamaat–e–Islami and the Bal Thackerays notwithstanding, amity was the prevailing mood on both sides of the divide. Who then is to be blamed for hijacking the peace process to the chilling Kargil heights?

When investigating a murder case, the first thing any crime investigation agency looks for is motive: Who stands to benefit? An analysis of how things have so quickly, and apparently inexplicably, degenerated from friendship talks to a ‘war–like’ situation can similarly benefit from asking the elementary question: Who benefits from the ominous developments on the border?

From the Indian ‘nationalistic’ perspective, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is the obvious villain of the piece. Why should Sharif invite Vajpayee to Lahore in February and then up the ante in less than 100 days? The explanation is that the Pakistani Prime Minister, embroiled into an increasing number of difficulties on the domestic front, badly needed a scapegoat to divert public attention. 

In early 1997, Nawaz Sharif was returned to power with a massive mandate. Barely two years later, his popularity is on a nosedive. Economically, Pakistan is in a shambles, forex reserves are down to a mere one billion dollars (as against India’s reserves of over 33 billion) and the Karachi Stock Exchange in an acute state of depression. 

Politically, there is increasing talk within the country today of Pakistan being a “failed state”. Sharif’s only response to the deepening crisis has been to damage or dismantle any institution that could act as a forum for the articulation of censure, dissent or mass discontent. The Pakistani Prime Minister has ensured that a person of his choice heads the army, the courts have virtually been turned into “handmaidens to the executive”, the free press is under constant assault, the country’s independent Human Rights Commission has been ordered to cease publishing its newsletter and a witch–hunt is now being conducted against all “anti–state” non–governmental organisations (NGOs). Not surprisingly, the highly influential Economist published from London has recently advised the World Bank not to bail out Pakistan since, with the institutions of democracy being attacked and undermined one after another, there will be little accountability left in Pakistani society.

In the face of mounting problems and criticism, inside Pakistan and globally, one option before the beleaguered Sharif was to do what U.S. President Bill Clinton, the former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and many other international leaders did to lift their sagging political fortune — raise the bogey of the external enemy, rouse nationalist fervour and rally people behind yourself. Fortuitously for Sharif, with only a caretaker government in charge in neighbouring New Delhi and with snow melting in the Himalayas, the political and natural climate was just right to play the Kashmir card.

In short, the easy answer to whodunnit question is, Nawaz Sharif.
But from the Pakistani ‘nationalistic’ perspective, the blame is to be heaped entirely on India’s door. Faced with a fresh challenge from ‘freedom fighters’, the Indian state has chosen to pretend it is dealing with Pakistani army–backed infiltrators. Besides, with elections round the corner, the BJP hopes to reap in extra votes by raising the Pakistan bogey. 

Until a few weeks ago, indications were that the outcome of the polls due in the next few months will not be very different from the results of the last Lok Sabha elections in held in early 1998. The BJP–led alliance was hoping to score over its main political rival, the Congress, by raising a hue and cry over the fact that the latter’s prime ministerial candidate is a foreigner by origin. However, there are two problems with the ‘foreigner card’: firstly, the result of recent opinion polls indicate that the electorate is not particularly perturbed with Sonia’s Italian origin; secondly, with Sharad Pawar having revolted on the same issue and with other potential constituents of the new Third Front in–the–making — Mulayam Singh Yadav (U.P.), Chandrababu Naidu (Andhra), Karnataka’s chief minister, J. H. Patel, segments of the Left Front — also bent on playing the same card, the BJP and its allies are unsure about how much dividend the ‘foreign card’ will yield. 

But an Italian–born Prime Minister at a time when the country faces a grave threat from across the border? Surely, the ‘nation in danger’ and ‘foreigner as PM’ mix makes for a much more potent cocktail?

Thus, theoretically speaking, irrespective of their present posturing, continued tension on the Kargil front suits the political needs of both Nawaz Sharif and Atal Behari Vajpayee. Factually speaking, the U.S. and the British response to the Kargil crisis, as also reports in The New York Times and The Independent (London), indicate that they agree with India that Pakistan is the guilty party. Besides, India also claims to have conclusive proof, in the form of dead bodies of Pakistani soldiers, that what it is dealing with in the Himalayan heights is not ‘freedom fighters’ from Kashmir but infiltrators from across the border backed with equipment and personnel of the Pakistani armed forces. But nothing debunks the ‘freedom fighters’ thesis more than the fact that after a gap of nearly 10 years, Kashmir is overflowing with tourists from the rest of India. Surely, it is not guns in the hands of the Indian jawans that are keeping the houseboat owners on the Dal Lake from reaching for the tourists’ throats? 
Even if one assumes this to be the facts of the case, there remains a mystery on the Indian side on what is presently being passed off by different analysts and opposition parties as ‘intelligence failure’, ‘lack of co–ordination between the intelligence and the Indian armed forces’, ‘failure of the defence ministry and the Indian government’ to respond with alacrity to the security threat. Should not a more specific clarification be sought on the timing of the action initiated at Kargil, an action that (coincidentally?) suits the caretaker government facing an election better than resting on the laurels of a newly–initiated peace process? A point being made, in private, by several senior retired army personnel would support this contention: Pakistan’s crossing of the LOC in the Kargil heights is nothing new; what is new is the decision of the caretaker government to challenge the intrusion. 

The question, in other words, is: had the Vajpayee government not fallen in April leading to the imperative of fresh elections, would India and Pakistan still be talking peace, never mind the violations 18,000 feet above sea level?

We reproduce in the following pages an article by a senior journalist from Pakistan (See page 13) who argues that the need for an external enemy — India — is written into the very logic of the direction in which the Pakistani state is moving. On the Indian side, what the caretaker government’s game–plan is for now will become clearer as we get closer to the polls. But beyond the immediate, Teesta Setalvad’s article (see page 16) highlights the fact that in the continuing battle between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, the people of Kashmir barely figure in the discourse on either side.     

Archived from Communalism Combat, June 1999, Year 6  No. 54, Cover Story 1

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