India’s human rights commission headed by Ranganath Mishra visited Chandigarh and three major towns of Punjab last week to hear the affected public and the authorities, Who ever organized the visit seems to have done it more for international consumption than to Satisfy the thousands of victims of Indian police brutalities. For, the commission members came without an announcement of the date, place and time of their visit. Evidently, the commission was aware of the enormity of the violations and was keen to avoid u big political drama. Such a drama would have been a public relations disaster for India, world-wide. The visit was aimed at addressing the international gallery to mark the commission’s presence in Punjab. Nevertheless, hundreds of persons turned up at Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar to tell their tale of woes to the commission. Most people were not allowed to meet the commission members. Some of them staged protest demonstrations against the commission and the authorities. A common complaint voiced at all the four places by the public was that the commission’s time was monopolized by members of the Indian ruling party, the Congress(I), and the police.
However, the commission allowed certain human rights activists at Chandigarh to meet it although no one had prior invitation or intimation. The activists met the commission reluctantly because, otherwise, there would have been international propaganda against the local groups for their “Jack of interest” in human rights. The commission also agreed to meet representatives of major pro-India political parties. Most of these representatives confirmed in their presentations the widespread violations of the rights by the Indian police authorities. Even some of the ardent pro-police parties such as the C.P.I., he C.P. (M) and the B.J.P. complained against the police at Ludhiana, the C.P. (M) staged a protest demonstration to highlight the fact that one of their legislators had been eaten up by men of the political secretary of chief Minister Beant Singh. The incident was presented ‘to Show the absence of human rights in Punjab.
The C.P. (M) men headed by Harkishen Singh Surjeet act as drummers boys of the police. Their sudden protestations about the absence of human rights in Punjab Serve to expose the party’s pathetic role. The same is true of the C.P.I, whose leaders at Amritsar talked of police excesses against the public. A significant feature of the commission’s visit was the absence of Indian police Chief K.P.S. Gill who was assigned a low-profile role this time. This could be due to the intervention from India’s external affairs ministry which is anxious to take diplomatic mileage out of the commission’s visit to Punjab. It is also likely that India would enact a similar drama in Kashmir. Not many leaders of public opinion in the west are aware of the fact that the India) human rights commission is merely a preform an organization with no powers even to investigate about the role of the army or other security forces in the violations. Far less are the powers to punish the guilty. The commission can merely make recommendations to the Indian government. It is not binding on the government to accept the commission’s recommendations. It cannot investigate any incident which is more than one year old. Moreover, the commission does not inspire confidence of the public because it has been calculatedly headed by a person who earned notoriety during his investigations of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi and white-washed all the crimes of the Congress(I ) mafias, against the Sikhs.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 29, 1994
