Anhad
23, Canning Lane, New Delhi—110001, Tel.: 23070740/22
26 June 2010
While one wing of the government engaged the activists in negotiations on Communal Violence Bill (CV Bill) the other leaked out to the media that all the concerns have been incorporated in the CV Bill. It looked from the press reports on June 25 and 26, 2010 that a wonderful CV Bill is about to be passed. These are lies and unethical politics. Most of the civil society’s non negotiables are yet to be incorporated in the proposed CV Bill. Please see below the news reports of an urgent press conference that we held today. The Home Ministry is unaware of the extent of communal virus that has seeped at the ground level and it is no longer confined to Gujarat.
We are releasing to the media amendments submitted to NAC sub group on the proposed Communal Violence Bill [see PDF File enclosed below]
New Delhi, June 27, 2010
Activists upset at reports on communal violence Bill
Smita Gupta
They express shock to read news reports indicating this
Even as the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) is holding consultations with a cross section of civil society groups to evolve a consensus on The Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill, so that their suggestions can be incorporated in the final text before it is brought to Parliament in the coming monsoon session, the government appears to have finalised the Bill. Or so members of civil rights groups alleged here on Saturday.
Shabnam Hashmi of Anhad, which had organised the second National Consultation to discuss the Bill in February 2010, and John Dayal of the All India Christian Council referred to news reports which appeared a few days ago, which indicated the government had finalised the bill. The publication of these reports, Ms. Hashmi and Mr. Dayal said, virtually coincided with the meeting that they had with two members of the NAC, Harsh Mander and Farah Naqvi, who had invited them – along with representatives of several other civil society groups — for a “consensus-building discussion” on the Bill, prior to the July 15 meeting of the full NAC on the subject. Ms. Hashmi and Mr. Dayal said they assumed that discussions were still on to decide the final shape of the bill, and so they were shocked to read news reports, which they said they presumed emanated from the Ministry of Home Affairs.” It looks as though the government has made up its mind,” said Mr. Dayal.
Ms. Hashmi and Mr. Dayal also released the recommendations they had made to the NAC earlier this week, which include what they termed as “non-negotiables.” These include opposition to the preamble, which reads: “To empower the State governments and the Central government to take measures to provide for the prevention and control of communal violence…” Their view is that the government does not need to be “empowered,”, it needs to be made “accountable.” Secondly, the Bill lays down the conditions under which a communally sensitive region can be declared as a “communally disturbed area.” The civil society groups are opposed to this provision as they feel that when an area is declared “communally disturbed,” the government acquires draconian powers, which entitles them to conduct combing operations, “search and seizure” exercises, etc.
Thirdly, they want crimes of sexual assault not only to be added as offences, but the definition of sexual crimes to be broadened. “Traditionally, sexual crimes mean only rape,” Ms. Hashmi said, adding, “but what about cases of stripping of women in public, pushing iron rods into their bodies etc.” Fourthly, they want an autonomous new authority, free of the influence of the Home Ministry and the National Human Rights Commission, at the Centre, the state and the district-level to monitor the implementation of the Bill. Finally, they want both public servants and non-State actors criminally responsible for both “their acts of omission and commission.”
If these are the issues engaging civil society groups, senior government sources told The Hindu that the Bill was unlikely to be passed in its current form as it would be contested by the State governments as it gives special powers to the Centre to deal with communal violence, including declaring a region as a disturbed area. These sources added, “civil society groups are looking at everything through the prism of Gujarat. The country is not Gujarat. What is required is political will – not more laws.”
o o o
Neither Centre, nor state. A panel to deal with riots?
Manoj Mitta, TNN, Jun 27, 2010, 03.33am IST
NEW DELHI: For all the priority accorded to it by Sonia Gandhi’s National Advisory Council, home minister P Chidambaram and law minister Veerappa Moily have not been able to break the five-year deadlock over the communal violence Bill. The sticking point is who should exercise the contemplated powers in the course of communal violence: state, Centre or an autonomous body?
While the Bill, originally introduced in Parliament in 2005, envisaged that the state government would declare an area "communally disturbed", the changed version mooted by Chidamabaram and Moily for the forthcoming monsoon session entrusted that crucial power to the Centre.
The idea of shifting the real time decision-making power from states to the Centre in the event of communal violence has already been spurned by civil society. And, given the threat it poses to the existing federal arrangement, the Centre’s evidently self-serving proposal is likely to meet with stiff resistance from states as well.
The alternative suggested by campaigners of the Bill is the creation of a national commission, which will be empowered to notify the application of the communal violence law if the state concerned fails to do so. The commission is proposed to be headed by a retired Supreme Court judge and include diverse official and non-official members.
Civil society’s radical proposal of independent monitoring of the communal violence law has not found favour with Chidambaram and Moily, probably because it would amount to ceding a vital aspect of governance. The ministers would, however, be hard pressed to counter the argument put forth by activists that, given the history of communal violence in India, no government could be trusted to initiate action against officials complicit in the killings.
The need for independent oversight has been established, according to activists, by the instances over the years of abuse of state machinery during and after communal violence. Only an independent body can have the impartiality to exercise the wide range of powers provided by the Bill: notification of the application of the communal violence law, measures to protect the life and property of victims, curbing hate speech, inquiring into complaints of dereliction of duty, appointment of special public prosecutors, etc.
As a corollary, activists have also been demanding that the regular safeguard of prior sanction of the government for prosecuting officials should not be extended to those allegedly complicit in communal violence. From the viewpoint of activists, the vicious cycle of abuse and impunity can be broken only when officials guilty of negligence or complicity in communal violence are rendered liable to criminal proceedings.
The government, however, believes that it has done enough by providing that officials guilty of errors of omission will be punished with prison term up to three years and those guilty of errors of commission will get "not less than three years".
One important issue on which the draft revised by Chidambaram and Moily has incorporated civil society’s concerns is about broadening the definition of gender-based crimes to include not just rape but also sexual violence like stripping and genital mutilation.
- AMMENDMENTS SUBMITTED TO NAC ON JUNE 24, 2010
- (PDF File -213kb)
RSS 2.0