| MINORITIES
COMMISSION
State of Wilful
Amnesia
There’s a pattern to the
way the BJP buries facts injurious to itself. A stinging report on the
Dangs is but the latest instance.
"The
Keshubhai regime’s ATR is an eyewash. The wall writings in Ahmedabad
are enough to know that all isn’t well in Gujarat."
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The war of attrition between the National
Minorities Commission (NMC) and the BJP-led central government shows no signs of
abating. The NMC report for ‘99, compiled last April in the wake of communal
trouble in the Dangs, is a withering indictment of the Gujarat government’s
handling of the crisis. This, perhaps, explains why this catalogue of the
Keshubhai regime’s sins of omission is yet to be tabled in Parliament.
Predictably, the Vajpayee government has not been
kindly disposed to the NMC’s approach. The first rub came in the immediate
aftermath of the Dangs violence in December ‘98. The NMC urged the Centre to
invoke Article 256 and 355-both of which express a lack of confidence in the
state government and oblige the Centre to intervene during crises. Of course,
the suggestion never made it to Parliament.
Last year, the Maharashtra
government issued a warrant against NMC members probing the targeting of
minority educational institutions.
Sources in the NMC fear the ‘99 report-the
result of two fact-finding missions-too will meet this fate. Especially given
its unambiguous tone, as in: "Events (in Gujarat) have seriously wounded
minority sentiments and created a feeling of fear, dismay and disillusionment
with the national secular, egalitarian tradition".
| Outlook has
gained access to the report. Some of its findings are: |
 | The state home ministry is biased
and didn’t issue proper guidelines to the district officials on
how to handle a communal crisis.
| Some district police officials have
close contacts with local goons and criminals infamous for
triggering riots.
| The state government has allowed the
majority community to organise protest rallies on minority
festival days.
| Police and district officials took a
partisan stand and, in cases, even tortured minority community
members. Fear of the police made the minorities apprehensive of
even lodging FIRS. |
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| While
coming down heavily on the government, the Commission also
issued a set of 30 recommendations. The key ones are: |
| 1 |
By a policy statement, the
state government should (a) publicly disapprove of recent
unconstitutional, unlawful and penal incidents that have
offended religious sentiments, and (b) affirm its commitment
to protect the human rights, civil liberties and fundamental
freedom of all citizens. |
| 2 |
Effective and time-bound
investigation by high-level state agencies should be
promptly ordered into each incident. Pending the
investigation, police and administrative officers of
disturbed areas should be transferred to avoid possible
allegations of having influenced its impartiality. |
| 3 |
After investigations are over,
all individuals who may have committed a punishable
offence-regardless of their community or group-as also those
guilty of dereliction of official duties or negligence
should be given exemplary punishment as per the law. |
| 4 |
After an in-depth
investigation into violence against the minorities, the
state government should reprimand offenders and shouldn’t
spare officials who failed to control it. |
| 5 |
The DG of Gujarat police
should be directed to call periodical meetings of all SPs
and other officers to brief them about civil rights and
liberties of all citizens, including those of the minorities
and to guide them properly for effective protection of those
rights. |
| 6 |
In order to create and
maintain a congenial atmosphere and cordial inter-community
ties, deterrent measures should be undertaken by the state
government to curb the tirade against a particular community
and their religious practices carried on through pamphlets,
leaflets, periodicals and false or exaggerated media
reports. |
| 7 |
Regular state-level meetings
of non-political representatives of all religious
communities should be convened by the state government to
evolve ways and means to create, promote and preserve
communal harmony in the state and to make all citizens of
the state fully aware of national obligations and
responsibilities towards each other. |
| 8 |
The government should closely
scrutinise the activities of Swami Achitanand, who is noted
to have been camping in the tribal areas of Gujarat and is
stated to be the main factor behind the prevailing tension
in the area. Action should be taken against him if the
content of his speeches is found to be communal. |
| 9 |
The state government should
initiate an inquiry on why the state home department failed
to tackle the situation on a number of occasions and did not
issue proper directives to the concerned officials in the
district administration. |
| 10 |
Adequate compensation as per
the legal and judicial norms should be paid as early as
possible if property and institutions of a religious nature
were damaged in the violence (specially referring to the
churches which were burnt). |
| 11 |
The conversions record should
be properly kept to counter false propaganda. |
| 12 |
The state government should
formulate and announce all possible measures for protecting
the honour, rights and civil liberties of the minority
communities living in the state. |
| 13 |
The decision to elevate the
Gujarat minorities board to a corporation (with a larger
ambit of powers and functions rather than just being a
quasi-judicial watchdog), reversed by the present state
government, should be restored and the board made more
powerful and effective for promoting the socio-economic
development of the minorities. |
| 14 |
On the pattern of the
minorities welfare departments set up by the Andhra Pradesh,
Assam and West Bengal governments, the Gujarat government
should also set up a special department to effectively deal
with all matters and problems relating to the minorities. |
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Of the 30 recommendations, the Gujarat government
claims it’s accepted 24. But, according to Tahir Mahmood, former NMC chairman
who put together the report, this isn’t true. "The Keshubhai
government’s ‘action taken report’ became an eyewash. You need political
will to implement those recommendations. All you need is to go to Ahmedabad and
see the wall writings to be convinced that all isn’t well," he says. In
fact, it took many letters from the NMC before the state government even
acknowledged receipt of the report. Then, some recommendations were rejected
outright. The list includes setting up of a minorities commission and minority
welfare schemes.
But the Commission’s main worry is that though
the Gujarat government has agreed to implement 24 recommendations, there’s
likely to be a gap between what’s promised by Keshubhai Patel and what he
actually does. Points out Mahmood, "Politicians as a rule don’t take the
Commission seriously. They don’t follow our recommendations and don’t heed
our findings." In fact, the BJP-Sena government even issued a warrant last
year against Commission members who’d gone to Maharashtra to study the
targeting of minority educational institutions. Says a member of the Commission,
"Whenever an incident happens, state governments are quick to say they’ll
investigate it. But they don’t really mean it. And when we go to find the
truth behind a riot, politicians are the first to block us. They are also quick
to badmouth us."
Giving scant importance to NMC’s findings is
understandable given the BJP’s view. The party’s ‘98 election manifesto
clearly stated their intention of winding up the Commission-this wasn’t done
to keep NDA allies happy. But the Centre didn’t think it obligatory to table
NMC’s report in Parliament, nor was the Gujarat government pressurised to
implement recommendations. This saffron agenda, at least, is overtly
articulated.
By Suman Bhattacharyya