BERKELEY: Justice Ajit Singh Bains Chairman of the Punjab Human Rights Organization (PHRO) gave a talk at the University of California, Berkeley, and August 28 on the human rights situation in Kashmir, Punjab, and other areas of India. The talk was sponsored and hosted by the South Asia Studies Department of the University. In his talk Justice Bains detailed the continually worsening human rights situation of the minorities in India, such as the Sikhs, Muslims, Dalits and the Kashmiris. He gave a thorough historical background of the problem by tracing its roots back to the time of India’s freedom from the British rule. He explained how Pandit Nehru and the rest of Congress leadership of the time insisted on a centrally strong parliamentary system of government for India, while, due to its composition of various nationalities, a confederation was deemed by many to be more appropriate. Fearing such a makeup of a united India, Muslim League started to demand a separate nation.
He described to the audience, which consisted of members of faculty, students, alumni and general public of various backgrounds, how police repression has been let loose first in Punjab and now in Kashmir. He pointed out that the change of government in Delhi has meant nothing to the populace that has been suppressed forcefully by police and paramilitary forces for several years, The inability of the government to take even a token action against the criminal police force has turned the public opinion to one of desperation as well as extreme anger. Detailing his group’s investigative visit to Kashmir, he reported that almost complete alienation between the Kashmiris and India has set in. It is a popular and widespread uprising against the repressive and manipulative Indian government and not against the Hindu community as the government propaganda will have the world believe. He asserted that no government can rule by bullet for too long and by doing so the Indian government is only acting to disintegrate the country.
In July Justice Bains participated in discussions on human rights at the United Nations Human Rights Centre at Geneva and also attended a Congressional hearing on Capitol Hill, Washington, on the subject of human rights excesses in South Asia where a statement by him was included in the hearing’s transcripts.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 7, 1990
