An official of the UN Human Rights Commission for the first time scheduled his visit to Punjab last week. The official, Jose Ayala Lasso, communicated to Punjab government his desire to meet human rights activists as well as the affected persons at Chandigarh on May 4. The Punjab government issued public advertisements asking people to meet the official at Chandigarh on May 5. Lasso later publicly stated that there was never any doubt about the date. He expressed his surprise at the wrong date given to the public by the Punjab government. There were media reports that hundreds of people reached Chandigarh on the wrong day to meet the U.N. official while he had left the town a day earlier. In effect, the Indian authorities by sheer trickery succeeded in preventing the UN official from meeting the public aggrieved by that country’s highhanded policies.
The low tactics used by the Indian officials should be sufficient proof of the fact that New Delhi’s claimed policy of transparency is nothing but a fraud played on the world public opinion. India has a great deal to council from the U.N. and the world public opinion.
This attitude should be seen in the context of reports that chief ministers of Punjab and Haryana met the Indian prime ministers about certain orders made by the Indian supreme. court which, according to the chief minister, tended to lower the police morale in these states. The prime minister, according to Indian media reports “sympathized” with the views expressed by the two chief ministers. What were the court orders to which Beant Singh and Bhajan Lal took exception? The court ordered prosecution of five police officials of Punjab for killing a Sikh couple in cold blood at Calcutta two years ago. Similarly, the highest Indian court jailed three Haryana police officials for abducting an employee of a Private house with which the chief minister’s son-in-law had a monetary dispute. These two are not the only cases in which the Indian Supreme Court found the police at fault.
Not a day passes when one or the other Indian court does not condemn the police highhandedness. It seems an intense struggle has been on between the Indian judiciary and the country’s executive, which supports and encourages the police. A debate on the future of TADA, should also be seen in this / context. While the Indian prime minister and the home minister are: in favor of amending TADA to bypass the demand for I repeal, several political parties and the mainstream media groups are in favor of doing away with this black law. The Indian prime minister is supported by the extreme right wing, BJP and the police forces, in retaining the substantial provisions of the draconian law.
In effect, Indian developments clearly show that the state is in the hands of fascist elements. The future of TADA will indicate which way the Indian state is moving. In the meanwhile, the U.N. secretariat and its agencies and commissions will have to apprise the world about the human rights situation in that country, the visit of its official to India and the shabby treatment given to him by the Indian state.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 12, 1995
