[Reader-list] Fwd: [Secular Perspective] Fwd: National Meet on Status of Muslims: Recommendations- Released by ANHAD

[Venugopalan K M]

National Meet on the Status of Muslims in Contemporary India

 Delhi 3 to 5 Oct 2009



Summary of Findings and Recommendations



A national meet was organised on the theme ‘What it Means to be a
Muslim in India Today’ by Anhad in collaboration with Siasat and other
organisations Delhi from 3 to 5 Oct 09. A large number of individuals
as well as representatives of organisations participated and spoke
about their experiences and problems late into the evenings. A
detailed report is under preparation. However, this is a very brief
summary of some of the major findings and recommendations that emerged
from the hearings.



Overall



The predominant finding of the meet was that there is an intense,
almost universal sentiment of fear and growing despair among Muslim
citizens of the country. Many of those who testified in the meet went
so far as to declare that they felt reduced to second class
citizenship. They shared their mounting disillusionment with all
institutions of governance, and more so with the police and judiciary,
as well as with political parties and to some extent the media.



There is on the one hand the constant dread of being profiled as a
terrorist, or of a loved one being so profiled, with the attendant
fears of illegal and prolonged detention, denial of bail, torture,
unfair and biased investigation and trial, and extra-judicial
killings. There is on the other hand the lived experience of day to
day discrimination, in education, employment, housing and public
services, which entrap the community in hopeless conditions of poverty
and want. This is fostered in a situation of pervasive communal
prejudice in all institutions of the state, especially the police,
civil administration and judiciary; and also the political leadership
of almost all parties; large segments of the print and visual media;
and the middle classes, and the systematic manufacture of hate and
divide by communal organisations.



It was repeatedly emphasised that this is not simply a problem of
victimhood of or injustice to a particular community. It is a grave
challenge to the basic values of the Indian Constitution, including
democracy, secularism, fraternity and the rule of law.



Major Findings



1.      The pervasive sense of insecurity reported from various
corners of the country derived greatly from the prejudice, illegality
and impunity with which police forces across the country deal with the
challenges of terror. This is a regular pattern that occurs after
every terror attack, and sometimes even when there have been no actual
terror episodes but the state authorities claim that there was a
conspiracy which they detected and prevented. Testimonies from many
states in the country outline this chilling pattern, of Muslim, mostly
male youth, usually with no criminal records, being illegally picked
up by men in plain clothes, and taken blind-folded in unmarked
vehicles to illegal locations like farm houses which are not police
stations. There they are tortured to coerce them to confess to terror
crimes. Many men testified in the meet to brutal and terrifying
torture. A few are killed in extra-judicial killings or ‘encounters’.
The rest are ultimately produced after several days of illegal
detention before magistrates, who ignore injuries that suggest
torture. They are then officially remanded to extended police custody,
and ultimately charged with a range of crimes of terror and treason.
Many are charged with multiple crimes of terror, sometimes 20 or even
50, in many states, making it impossible for the youth charged with
these grave crimes to defend themselves. Even if the legal justice
system worked efficiently, it would take many years, sometimes
decades, for these cases to be heard and concluded against each of the
individuals. For all these years, the youth would continue to be held
in detention. Almost no one who bears a Muslim identity is exempt from
the fear that they, or members of their families, can be subjected to
the same allegations of terror links, and to similar processes of
detention, torture, encounter killings or prolonged, multiple and
biased trails. It was noted that completely different standards are
applied in the cases of the Hindutva terror organisations which have
come to light.



2.      The testimonies underlined the aspirations of the people of
the community to participate in economic and social development in the
country, as equal partners as people of other communities. Many women
and men who testified in the national meet spoke of the importance to
them of modern and high quality schooling and higher education, and
sought much higher levels of public investment in their education.
There was careful and thoughtful analysis of the design and
implementation of measures announced by the central government to
address the low social and economic indicators documented by the
Sachar Committee. It was pointed out that the per capita levels of
investment for the community are still low. The scheme for investment
in districts with high minority population, at best cover 30 per cent
of the total population. The programmes are for area development
rather than programmes focussed on the minorities; therefore they
prove blunt instruments as much of the expenditure is on general
infrastructure and little to directly benefit deprived people of the
community. They are not consulted about their priorities. The
scholarship programme is welcome, but also suffers from infirmities of
procedure and targets which limit its impact. Financial institutions
including nationalised banks are still reluctant to extend credit to
Muslims.



3.      There were many testimonies about open prejudice and bias of
public institutions towards Muslims, but it was confirmed that these
prejudices are equally evident outside government as well. There were
also reports of profiling against Muslims by the criminal justice
system even beyond terror crimes, reflected in disproportionately high
Muslim populations in jails. Many sensitive and senior positions in
both central and state government departments, including in the home,
education, social welfare and information departments, continue to be
held by officials with sympathies with communal ideologies and
organisations, and the UPA government has done little to identify and
replace them. In particular, sections of the media were examined for
their role in reinforcing communal stereotypes, as well as for
uncritically broadcasting the police version in terror-related arrests
and encounter killings. Textbooks often show similar bias, and this is
particularly dangerous because for millions of poor and especially
rural children, the textbook is the only source of the printed word
which they can access.



4.      People reported from many parts of India of difficulties in
getting homes on rent or on sale in non- Muslim localities, or
admissions in schools and institutions of higher education. People
spoke in many corners of the country of systematic efforts to destroy
and boycott the livelihoods of Muslims. Sustained decentralised hate
campaigns are organised which portray Muslim men as predators against
Hindu girls, and people who slaughter the cow which is sacred to the
Hindu community, and vigilante groups supported tacitly by the police
target Muslims for these alleged social violations. There were
reports, again from many corners of the country, about ejection from
cemetery and waqf lands. The latter are valued at billions of rupees,
and if managed with efficiency and integrity, could yield large
resources for education and livelihoods for the community.



Recommendations



1.      There should be a high-powered judicial commission headed by a
former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court appointed to examine all
cases of terror across the country. Those that seem doubtful or
fabrications should be handed over to a Special Investigation Team
appointed and supervised by the high-powered judicial commission. It
should complete its task in one year, so that prolonged detention of
persons against whom there is little convincing evidence is not
prolonged further.



2.      In cases in which it is obvious that false cases were framed
and evidence fabricated, the police officers should be prosecuted
(tampering with evidence in cases which can result in capital
punishment is itself a capital crime). Victims who were detained and
ultimately found innocent should be paid compensation by the state for
the suffering and lost years of their lives.



3.      There is a perceived slowdown in investigating and prosecuting
cases of alleged terror activities by right wing Hindutva
organisations. These investigations should be resumed, and placed
under the leadership of officers of impeccable secular credentials and
integrity.



4.      There should be a concerted drive to recruit much larger
numbers of Muslims to all levels of the police, civil administration
and judiciary. For this, all the recommendations of the Sachar
Committee for affirmative action should be notified in 6 months, and
implemented in 3 years.



5.      The UPA government must immediately redeem its pledge and
enact the Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of
Victims) Bill, but not in its present form. It must incorporate the
major elements suggested by civil society groups. Communal violence,
is by its very nature, a targeted crime and a mass crime, perpetrated
on a community of persons. As such these crimes do not find themselves
reflected in the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and other extant penal laws.
Because of their nature as `targeted mass crimes’, they need to be
recognized as such, drawing upon the concepts of genocide and crimes
against humanity.



6.      When persons in positions of official power deliberately fail
to prevent the eruption of communal violence, or to stop its
continuation, the responsibility for the eruption, or continuance, in
the penal law as is stands, does not provide for prosecuting or
punishing them. ‘Command responsibility’ has to be built into the law
if the perpetrators of violence are to be drawn into a legal scheme of
punishment and deterrence. The law should explicitly recognize and
punish communal crimes that result not just from active participation
or abetment of state authorities, but also crimes of omission, or what
may be described as ‘culpable inaction’.



7.      Any proposed law on communal violence must use the concepts of
restoration, reparation and compensation, depending on the scale and
nature of mass communal violence, which includes rescue, relief
(including establishing relief camps for as long as affected people
feel insecure), compensation, restitution, rehabilitation including
assistance of soft loans and land allocations to rebuild livelihoods
and shelters to levels not less than before the violence and in
conformity with the wishes of the affected persons, and the
reconstruction of places of worship destroyed in the violence. It
should also contain internationally accepted norms for the internally
displaced. These should be inviolable, legally enforceable rights of
the victim-survivor, and extended according to national
framework/policy of entitlements for victim-survivors of communal
violence, rather than leave it to discretion at the state level.



8.      Strong action should be taken under Section 153A of the Indian
Penal Code against organisations which indulge in hate campaigns and
communal propaganda. The requirement of prior sanction of the state
government before a complaint in registered under this Act should be
waived.



9.      A law against communal discrimination on the lines of the SC
ST Act should be enacted to recognise specific crimes of
discrimination against minorities and punish these severely. Such
crimes of communal discrimination would include organising social and
economic boycott, communal propaganda, propagating communal
stereotypes in textbooks and the media, and denial of housing and
employment on communal considerations. The Act would contain
provisions for compensation, and punishment of public officials.



10.  Officials who carry communal prejudices should be identified, and
removed from sensitive positions in which their decisions have bearing
on minorities, such as in the departments of home, education, welfare,
information, and in financial institutions.



11.  The Prime Minister should nominate a 10 member committee to
undertake a nationwide campaign against the communalisation of
society, akin to the literacy campaign and temple entry campaigns of
the past. The features of discrimination in everyday life have not
been sufficiently acknowledged, let alone studied, by government, even
in the otherwise laudable Sachar Committee. This committee should also
study and document these social processes of discrimination, some of
which came to light in the national meet.



12.  The Prime Minster’s 15 point program should be given statutory
status. The government should constitute a high-level Empowered
Committee in the Prime Ministers’ Office with senior non-officials who
have worked on this issue constituting at least half the membership,
to monitor implementation of measures to improve the socio-economic
conditions of Muslims, including implementation in letter and spirit
the recommendations of the Sachar Committee.



13.  Allocations should be sufficient to cover the large deprived
population, in a Minority Sub Plan - like the Tribal Sub Plan and the
Special Component Plan – which is proportionate to the population of
the communities. The Plans should be not to simply develop districts
with high minority population, but directly benefit them with high
quality education at all levels, health care, and support for
livelihoods and employment.



14.  The Committee should be empowered also to ensure the Waqf
properties are managed in ways that their incomes are converged with
public investment to ensure further topping up of resources for the
development and benefit of the deprived members of the community, with
special focus on children, youth and women. We should build
institutional mechanisms to use Waqf property incomes also to protect
human rights.



Members of Jury: Ahmad Saeed Malihabadi, Asghar Ali Engineer, Admiral
Ramdas, Colin Gonsalves, Gagan Sethi, Ghanshyam Shah, Hanif Lakdawala,
Harsh Mander, Kavita Srivastava, Mahesh Bhatt, Prashant Bhushan, Ram
Punyani, Rooprekha Verma, Sukumar Murlidhran, Tarun Tejpal, Uma
Chakravarthy, Zafar Agha, Zahid Ali Khan, Zoya Hassan















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