When John Malott refers to the need for improving human rights record, India protests violently, When Mahbub ul Haq releases a report on U.N.’s human development program showing India slipping 10 134th place in a total of 173 countries, Delhi responds critically. When Amnesty International and other human rights groups press for proper action against those found guilty of rape and murder in custody, India talks of setting up a permanent human rights commission but docs nothing in practice. When pressure mounts, India pays lip service and starts lecturing its armed forces on how to respect human rights. When the Asia Watch secks a list of armed forces personnel actually punished for the violation of human rights, India offers no response at all. It is a country where a senior central minister (Arjun Singh in this case) is not permitted to address a public function, Again, the minister com plains of his telephone being tapped by intelligence agencies. But India does not stop the practice, a former Indian prime minister (Chander Shekhar) complains that Intelligence agencies bug his telephone, the Indian government holds ritual enquiries and punishes no officer. The TamilNadu women chief minister alleges publicly that the Indian central government is hatching a conspiracy to eliminate her physically by instigating the LTTE. India’s armed forces either on their own or through hoodlums permit destruction or desecration of the holy places of Sikhs and Muslims. When these communities protest by holding public demonstrations, they are fired upon killing thousands of protestors. India is a country where blackest of black Jaws are in operation mostly against the country’s minorities. In India, again, more than half of its population has no elected state government. This population is administered directly by Delhi through bureaucracy and intelligence agencies. The trend is towards controlling state governments through governors drawn from the army or the other security agencies. First, for decades in the northeast and later in Punjab and Kashmir, India has ‘been imposing direct martial law and covered it up by claiming that the army had gone to aid the civil administration maintain “law and order.” Reports are that intelligence agencies are putting pressure on Sonia Gandhi not to enter Congress(I) politics. The lady its virtually being blackmailed by none else than the country’s prime minister. Or else, her son or daughter will be murdered. An unabashed killer like KP.S. Gillis being lionized by the Indian Press as a hero. A democratic media should have pleaded for his arrest and trial for violation of laws and human rights of Sikhs. The country’s judiciary, in the words of more than one chief justice has been on the verge of collapse. More appropriately it can be said that the judiciary from bottom to top is affected by communalism and corruption. What does this all amount to?

Can it be called a democracy? A respected Indian columnist, Iqbal Masud, feels that India’s middleclass is being pushed towards fascism. India’s powerful security forces’ apparatus is are specter of democracy. The country’s bureaucracy ejjy’s more power than its elected representatives. Passage of bills in India’s legislatures is but a ritual. The legislators have hardly any say. The bills are prefabricated and are passed most often without discussion or debate. In the technique of cunning and propaganda, India’s ruling class is a past master. It is aided effectively by the country’s media both government owned and the private. It is able to sell the country as the “largest democracy” in the world, Many opinion making institutions in the West are easily taken in by superficial studies to conclude that India’s Rao government is on the course of economic liberalization, It is forgotten that a country’s essentially fascist in content, just cannot afford to be liberal either in politics or economics. Much is being made of the current program of the so called liberalization on the economic front. What kind of liberalization this country can produce when not a little fingers raised against those who swindled billions of rupees in what is called the bank-cum-shares scam? In reality the so called liberalization isotactic rather than a strategy, In any case, it is a castle built on sand, The Indian ‘Society just is not ready to adjust itself to any kind of liberalization. A Society steeped in fascism cannot breathe democracy, liberalization, secularism and human rights which are and ought to be a part of the same transaction.

The West is committing a grave error by making a distinction between the R.S.S, family and the Congress (I), both have Hindu fundamentalism as their political agenda. There is a race between the two to prove who is more Hindu than the other. It is proved beyond any doubt that the Babri masjid was destroyed jointly by the Hindu fundamentalist R,S.S. family and the Rao government. Those like Arjun Singh who think that Congress(I) cannot win the race against extreme fundamentalist R.S.S. family and that the Indian government Should retract its course and apologize for the destruction of Babri Masjid are bound to fail in bringing round the ruling party to return to the Secular line. We predicted last week that the prime minister would not Apologize either for the destruction of Babri masjid or for Akal Takhat, The Subsequent events endorsed our view. It is clear that Rao is in no mood to relent. Instead, he has drafted a Hindu Godman to hold Hindu religious rituals at Ayodhya to carry forward from where the R.S.S, family left in December.

As such India is fast moving towards a system that will have nothing to do with any kind of liberalization  whether in the sphere of politics or economics, The intelligentsia will wake up to this reality after it is too late.

Article extracted from this publication >>  June 4, 1993