Democratic Rights Movement in India

DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN INDIA
Orientation, Problems and Challenges
Democratic Rights Movement

in India
Orientation, Problems and Challenges
Papers Presented in the

Third Arvind Memorial Seminar
Arvind Memorial Trust
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Democratic Rights Movement in India : Orientation, Problems and
Challenges
PUBLISHER'S NOTE
We present this important publication in the series of collection of
papers on vital questions of Indian society and peoples liberation
movement. This is a compilation of papers presented in the Third
Arvind Memorial Seminar held in Lucknow from 2224 July
2011 on the topic Democratic Rights Movement in India:
Orientation, Problems and Challenges.
The question of democratic rights has acquired immense
importance and relevance today. The chariot of development is
moving ahead in the country, trampling ordinary people in its way.
The ruling system makes no delay in crushing every voice raised
from the hell of darkness in the foothills of the summits of
prosperity. A glance at the statistics of displacement and
dispossession gives an impression as if these were facts and
figures of a civil war like condition. Even the remaining
democratic space in the social-political life is getting shrunk.
The governments terrorist war against the people is
underway in several regions in the name of war against terror. In
Chhattisgarh, forest land spanning hundreds of square kilometers
has been handed over to the army in the name of training.
Binayak Sen was granted bail by the Supreme Court after
widespread protest in the country and abroad, but several
prisoners continue to languish in jail on similar charges.
Conspiracies are hatched to crush even peoples resistance
movements by terming them as terrorists. In recent times, there
have been several brutal incidents of repression in many industrial
areas in the vicinity of Delhi and other parts of the country
including Gorakhpur in UP, Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh,
Uttarakhand etc. The AFSPA continues to be operational in the
North-East and Jammu & Kashmir despite widespread mass
protest. There are dozens of draconian laws ranging from the
colonial era Sedition Act to the Chhattisgarh Special Public
Security Act which have been constantly questioned.
Democratic Rights Movement in India 5
The policies of economic fundamentalism have prepared a

fertile ground for religious-racial-casteist fundamentalism. Even
the remaining democratic space in the society has rapidly shrunk
in the last two decades and it has mostly impacted the weaker
sections. Numerous religious and caste-based genocides have
been witnessed in the last two and half decades. The new
misanthropic culture of capital has reinvigorated and reshaped the
caste and gender based despotic and oppressive tendencies
prevalent in the social fabric.
Perhaps it is opportune moment for the democratic rights
movement to think deeply about widening its social base and
strengthening itself. It is the time for introspection and discourse.
A fundamental question is about the need to transform the
democratic rights movement into a movement with a broad social
base? Secondly, isnt there a need that all the democratic rights
organisations throughout the country raise their voices unitedly at
least on some burning issues? Thirdly, the question of the
democratic rights is not confined to the repressive attitude of the
state machinery and the draconian laws. Issues such as the
politics of religious fundamentalism, the alienation of the religious
minorities, the oppression of Dalits and women are also linked to
the question of democratic rights and civil liberties.
The papers presented in the seminar contain thought
provoking and well-researched material on various pertinent
questions related to the democratic rights movement in the
country. Many more important issues were raised during the
intense and fruitful debates and discussions continuing from
moring till late night in the three days of the seminar. A consensus
emerged on this point that the process of thinking and discussions
should continue on these questions to build a strong and broadbased movements for democratic rights. We believe that this
collection will contribute in this direction. The Hindi version of this
collection is also being published alongside this English version.
We welcome the opinions, suggestins and reactions of
readers on this volume and we will eagerly wait for these.
25.1.2014
Board of Trustees
Arvind Memorial Trust
CONTENTS
Publisher's Note
Some Points to Ponder for the Organisers and Activists

of the Democratic Rights Movement
Katyayani
In Search of A Realistic Approach Towards the Human

Rights Movement in India
Dipankar Chakrabarti
29
How Democratic is the Indian Constitution and

Indian Democracy?
Anand Singh
51
Democratic Rights Movement and the

Working Class Prasen Singh
64
Governments War Against Terrorism or Against

the People
Rajkumar/Munish
71
Socio-Cultural Tasks of the Democratic Rights

Movement
Jai Pushp
83
Right to Health is A Fundamental Democratic

Right
Dr. Amritpal
90
Reflections on Democratic Movement of Nepal:

A Historical Perspective
Dr. Mahesh Maskey
102
Vicissitudes of Minority Rights in Sri Lanka

and Lessons for Democratic Activism in
South Asia
Kalinga Tudor Silva
110
Hunger, Displacement and the Shrinking Space of

Democracy
Sheikh Ansar
122
Indian Democracy - Story of Civil Liberties

Movements
Jaya Vindhyala
136
Displacement, Dispossesion and the Question of

Democratic Rights
Sourav Banerjee
144
SOME POINTS TO PONDER FOR THE

ORGANISERS AND ACTIVISTS OF THE
DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Katyayani
Looking from a quantitative perspective, an observer can express
satisfaction that there are more than two dozen organisations
throughout the country which raise their voice over the civil
liberties and democratic rights related issues. It is also true that a
substantial number of reports and articles get published and
petitions are filed in the High Courts and Supreme Court
regarding the incidents of the police repression and the
oppression of the political prisoners , the role of Hindutva forces
and the government machinery in the communal riots and
genocide, caste and gender atrocities, bonded labour, child labour,
incidents related to the laborers not getting their lawful rights and
more than half century old semi-fascist kind of indirect military
rule over the people of Kashmir and North Eastern India.
However, going beyond numbers, when we examine the balance
sheet as to what extent the democratic rights movement in the
last 30-35 years has impacted the fabric of state, society and
culture, to what extent it has made the masses aware and active
for securing their democratic rights by uplifting their democratic
consciousness and to what extent it has taken the form of a mass
movement by preparing its broad social base, we feel a bit
disappointed.
Common people of a particular area or a particular
profession get to know about the existence of the democratic
rights movement when a team of democratic rights activists
The author is a noted Hindi poet and social activist.
Contact: katyayani.lko@gmail.com
Some Points to Ponder for Organisers and Activists 9
approach them for some investigation. People view these

intellectuals as gentlemen or ladies coming from the capital cities
or metropolitan centres who raise voice in support of their rights
or who protest against the draconian laws and state repression
and oppression. The educated and to some extent awakened
middle class people view the democratic rights movement as a
movement of enlightened persons who publish reports, file
petitions, send investigation teams, run signature campaigns and
submit memoranda. The section of middle-class influenced by
state sponsored jingoism and the Hindutva ideology view the
democratic right movement as the second line of defense of the
so called left-wing terrorism, Islamic fundamentalist terrorism
or the so called anti-national separatists of Jammu-Kashmir
and North Eastern India.
Besides, there are those democratic right organisations
which, in a sectarian manner, function as frontal organisations of
some leftist organisation. For them, the issue of democratic rights
remains confined to the protest against the repressive actions of
state against few political organisations. It is indeed a sectarian
trend that the scope of democratic right movements is often
confined to the campaigns against the repression of political
movements, campaign to free prisoners and protest against the
slapping of various draconian laws. Such activities are
undoubtedly very important, but the task of democratic rights
movement cannot be reduced to them only. The issue here is not
just of the political right of struggle and resistance; rather it is that
of the democratic and civil rights of the masses. Unless all the
issues concerning the civil and democratic rights of the masses
are made the ground of agitation and propaganda and until people
are awakened and mobilised on these issues, the reputation and
structure of the democratic right movement will continue to be
that of a movement of urban intellectuals who undertake only
such activities as touring, issuing reports, submitting memoranda,
running signature campaigns and filing petitions.
What could be the root of the problem? Perhaps the question
of democratic right is not viewed by placing it in the socioeconomic and political structural framework; or in other words it
is often not conceptualised properly or it is viewed from an ad10 Democratic Rights Movement in India
hoc, narrow utilitarian and pragmatic outlook.

The civil rights movement of 1960s in USA, France and some
other western European countries had reached its zenith amidst
the mixed wave of the movements of blacks against the racial
discrimination, feminist movement of middle class women against
male chauvinism, students movement, anti-war movement, trade
union movement and protest music movement. It was an era of
widespread disillusionment in the west due to transformation of
economic crisis into political crisis and the shrinking of the
bourgeois democratic space. At the same time it was also the era
of rising tide of fierce national liberation wars in the countries of
Asia, Africa and Latin America which was also deeply
influencing the people in the western countries. It is a quite
different story as to how the western government machineries
co-opted these revolts later on and how they lost the momentum.
But it is a fact of history that civil rights movement in the west of
that era was an exciting mass movement in the true sense of the
term. In China, during the revolution, Civil Rights League,
under the leadership of Madam Soong Ching-Ling (wife of Sun
Yat-sen) had developed substantial support-base among the
urban population. At that time the circumstances over there were
such that the tyrant and autocratic character of the Kuomintang
government had been exposed and the task at hand was to
convince the masses that they could win the democratic rights
only under a peoples democratic governance system. The illusion
of bourgeois democracy was non-existent there.
In India, the background of the civil and democratic rights
movement was entirely different. In the 1970s, particularly the
experience of the emergency era helped to enhance the strength
and momentum of the democratic rights movement as an inevitable
necessity. Subsequently, during the later decades, the civil rights
movement engaged itself in the ritualistic activities such as
investigation reports, memoranda, petition against the repressive
state machinery and the repression of political opposition. What
was born with pragmatism got stuck in the whirlwind of routinism,
tokenism and ritualism. Therefore it is our clear and firm belief that
today the democratic rights movement needs to be conceptualised
afresh on the basis of the analysis of the structure of Indian state,
social fabric and the neo-liberal economic policies. We wish to

briefly put forward our view point in this regard.
(1) The democratic and civil rights movement will have to be

taken to the masses (the main section of which obviously consists
of the toiling population in urban and rural areas) by extending it
beyond the limited sphere of urban intellectuals and the routine
activities of memorandum-plea-petition. It will have to be
transformed into a broad mass movement. It is indeed the toiling
masses who have to face the violation and abridgement of the
democratic rights more than the educated well to do people. The
reach of the constitutional remedies is confined to the enlightened
elites (At times its crumbs reach the common people through the
public interest petition of some NGO or some individual). The
limited civil liberties and democratic rights which the constitution
provides to a common man get entangled in the cobwebs of
courts and even if a portion of it trickles down from there, it gets
lost in the pockets of and files of the officials and clerks of
government offices and the inspectors and constables of police
stations. Hence, it becomes the quintessential task of the
democratic right movement to educate, mobilise and organise the
masses on the issue of civil liberties and democratic rights through
all possible means. A prolonged phase of propaganda and
agitation on these issues needs to be carried out.
(2) It is only by educating the common people about the
functioning and structure of the state that they can be informed
about why is it that the civil liberties and democratic rights
declared loudly in the constitution bear no meaning to them! Only
a small section of even the educated population today is aware of
the fact that the constituent assembly which passed the
constitution the guiding basic treatise of the Indian
democracy was not elected on the basis of universal adult
franchise. So, the foundation itself lacked in democracy. Through
a comparative analysis any one can figure out that, to a large
extent, the constitution is nothing but a modified and enhanced
version of the colonial eras Government of India Act 1935. In
fact Nehru promised in November 1946 that after independence,
a second constituent assembly would be elected on the basis of
12 Democratic Rights Movement in India
universal adult franchise. Should we not ask as to what happened

to that promise? It also needs to be noted that whatever civil
liberties and democratic rights the constitution provides, can be
abridged (through amendment) using the provisions present in the
constitution itself. A fact of even greater importance is that in
most of the cases the constitutional rights are rendered
ineffective by the legal system whose core structure remains the
same as that in the colonial era. And even if something is
achieved from the legal system, the corrupt and incompetent
bureaucratic system and tyrant and autocratic police system eat it
out without leaving any trace. The poor in India have to bribe the
officials and clerks at every step even for basic amenities; the
police loots them on the street like thugs and pickpockets and
beats them like goons. In the prisons, the prisoners languish like
animals. Death in police custody and fake encounters on the
street are the order of the day. Under-trials spend their lifetime in
prisons. There are 30 million cases pending before the courts. Of
late the extent of corruption in the lower judiciary has matched to
that in the police and now the malaise of corruption has infected
even the top echelons of it. The leaders of electoral parties are
mostly either themselves brokers, goons and debauched criminals
or play the vote-bank politics by using such elements and fill their
coffers with black money. All these issues are connected with the
democratic rights of the people. All of them are systemic in
nature. They are related to the huge oppressive structure of the
state machinery which renders the constitutional promises of the
fundamental civil and democratic rights into almost a lollypop of
hollow words. Under these circumstances, doesnt it become an
urgent fundamental task of the democratic rights movement to
educate the masses about the tyrant and autocratic nature of the
state power, its structure and modus operandi and give them a
concrete program to organise them on the issues of democratic
rights? In our view, it is the task of a democratic movement
having broad mass base to raise the demand of the election of a
new constituent assembly on the basis of universal adult franchise
and a real democratic constitution; it must raise the demands of
reconstitution of the colonial legal system, police administration,
jail manual and the bureaucracy and ensure austere, frugal,
transparent and accountable life style of the politicians and

bureaucrats by reconstituting the extravagant and corrupt
parliamentary and government machinery. And the question is not
just of changing the colonial structure of the legal system. There
is a long history of despotic draconian laws which have been
framed one after another at both the centre and state level since
independence. There are many such laws which are still in
existence; the most notorious among them being the Chhattisgarh
Special Public Security Act. The masses will have to be
mobilised on the demand of repealing all such draconian laws.
These are the fundamental issues connected with the democratic
rights of the masses at large which can be used as launching pad
for transforming the democratic right movement into a broad
mass movement.
(3) Somebody can raise a question that this way the program
of democratic rights movement would become the program of a
revolution and its scope would be too broad and excessively
political. Our answer would be that the question of democratic
rights in itself is a political one which is often narrowed down.
Secondly, some people may hold the opinion that since the Indian
(or for that matter any other) bourgeois system can neither do its
complete structural overhauling nor can it give the people their
democratic rights, hence to raise this demand would turn the
program of the democratic rights movement into one of the
radical social revolution. But the majority of the population
ranging from common man to the intellectual community are not
yet radicalised and revolutionised to this extent. They would be
prepared to be mobilised on all the above demands but would not
agree that without transforming the existing socio-economic
structure in revolutionary manner, the people cannot win the real
democratic rights. This section of population would participate in
the democratic rights movement in the hope of achieving
democracy and civil liberties from the existing system and it has
every right to do so. If the existing system would not be able to
give them the real democratic right, its real character would stand
exposed before this section of population as well and this fight for
democracy and freedom would automatically become part of the
radical program of revolution. To summarise, the manifesto of a
democratic rights movement is not a declaration of a radical

social revolution. It does not impose the goal of revolution on the
participant populace from above. Its scope is confined to the
struggle for the demands of democratic rights and civil liberties
which were promised by the philosophers of the enlightenment
era and the classical theoreticians of democracy with the slogan
of liberty-equality-fraternity and which are accepted by the
constitutions of all the bourgeois democracies at least on paper
(or at least they do not deny them). While fighting for these rights,
organised peoples power even manages to gain some democratic
space and civil liberties by exerting pressure on the state and
thereby recognises the strength of its organised power. People
organise their struggle of the fundamental rights on even higher
plane on the basis of whatever democratic space and the advance
democratic consciousness they achieve through their organised
struggles. At the same time, if in the process they begin to see and
understand the limitations of this system through their experience
and begin to breach the barriers of the system it would be the
experience based decision of the sovereign power of the people.
But if a democratic rights organisation makes a-priori declaration
that since the bourgeois democracy cannot give the people the
real democracy, hence the struggle for democratic rights can only
mean the struggle for the revolutionary transformation of the
system, it would be tantamount to sectarianism and vanguardism
which imposes upon people something which is much ahead of
their consciousness and which ignores the possibilities of learning
through the struggle within the confines of the bourgeois legal
system. Such sectarian vanguardist tendencies would shrink the
scope of the united front of the democratic rights movement and
would prove to be immensely harmful.
(4) It is extremely important to organise resistance against
the repression of political movements and the movement to release
political prisoners and no one can deny its significance. Those who
do not have faith in this system and who wage an armed struggle
against it (be it with the broad based peoples participation or in
form of left wing terrorist deviation), cannot be considered
murderers, criminals or anti-social. They too have the right to get
constitutional remedy and legal remedy. They cannot be killed in a
fake encounter; they cannot be tried by slapping false charges and

they cannot be tortured in a torture chamber. Even the Supreme
Court has clearly stated that no case of terrorism or sedition can
be slapped on those who in principle believe in armed revolution,
who talk about it, who keep the literature of a banned organisation,
who support such an organisation or even those who are its
members. Only if someone is directly involved in a terrorist activity
or an armed struggle against the state, a case can be made. Even
in such a situation it must be remembered that those who wage
direct armed struggle against the state owing to their political
ideology or commitments are not criminals. We have to admit this
even if we disagree with their political thoughts and modus
operandi. In such a situation, instead of making them accused
under some criminal section, they must be conferred the status of
prisoners of war and the relevant provisions of the concerned
international convention must be followed. Insofar as the colonial
law of sedition (section 124 A of IPC) is concerned, its blatantly
anti-democratic nature has been a matter of discussion in recent
times. We can agree on nothing less than repeal of this provision.
While talking about the democratic rights of those who wage
armed resistance against the state, we also wish to clarify our
stand that if the innocent common people become victim of an act
of terror and if a party struggling against the state uses the killing
of a captured or kidnapped government functionary as a strategy
of resistance (killing someone in a war like situation is another
matter), any democratic rights movement will vehemently oppose
it in no uncertain terms. Though, from the perspective of the
democratic rights movement, the main and essential aspect
remains that the governments war against terror is in effect a
terrorist war of the government against the people.
Sufficient facts have been published revealing the truth that in
Chhattisgarh, the main issue is not that of crushing the Maoist
resistance but that of forcible dispossession of the local tribal
population and crushing their resistance with the aim of giving
free hand to the trans-national giants and Indian capitalist sharks
to plunder the precious and immeasurable mineral wealth. It was
under such circumstances that the Maoist resistance grew. The
views of the Supreme Court on the issue of arming a small section
of the local population in the form of Salwa Judum and as SPOs

and Koya Commandos against the larger common population, by
the government, has confirmed the reality of a war being waged
by the government against the people . The facts regarding the
funding by some leading corporate houses to Salwa Judum have
come to light earlier as well. Now the government is laying the
ground for the next round of bloody struggle. Raman Singh
government has recently allotted a 750 square kilometers area
near the Narayanpur district headquarter in the Mad region to
army where one battalion each from Assam and Bihar regiments
would be trained in counter insurgency and jungle warfare. It is
obvious that after Kashmir and North-East, the army is preparing
for a brutal war against the exploited and oppressed population of
the poorest region of the country. It would not be surprising if in
course of time the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act is
clamped in Bastar as well. But the army can wage an undeclared
war even without it which would be tantamount to a war against
the entire local tribal population and not just against the Maoist.
Be it Chhattisgarh or Lalgarh, the governments war against
people in the guise of war against terror and the state repression
have been a burning question for quite some time now. Its stretch
and intensity is set to increase in future. Our main purpose, here,
is to underline the fact that if the democratic rights movement is
not transformed into a broad mass movement through intense and
organised, sustained and prolonged activities of propaganda and
agitation, if no attempt is made to expand its social base by taking
it out of the cocoon of the enlightened intellectuals, it would not be
possible to bring to the notice of the common people, the incidents
of state repression and state terrorism taking place in one or
another part of the country, and to galvanise mass resistance on
these issues. Some portions of the reports of the democratic
rights organisations might be published here and there but the
majority of the populace would continue to comprehend the issue
in the same manner as presented by the government and the
mainstream media. Another related point we wish to put forward
is that, while it is certainly the basic and important duty of the
democratic rights organisation to protest against the repression of
the political movements, to raise the question of democratic rights
of the political opponents of the government and the political

prisoners and to protest against false cases, fake encounters,
custodial torture and draconian laws, the scope of their activities,
however, cannot be narrowed down to these issues only. Along
with the resistance of all kinds of repression and oppression of the
people, groups and organisations fighting for the rights of the
people both from within and outside the purview of this system,
the democratic rights movement will have to give the fight for
civil liberties and democratic rights of masses a central place on
their agenda. Only then it would be able to acquire the form of a
broad mass movement. So far, the democratic rights movement in
our country has been unable to do so and not surprisingly it has
been reduced to a passive kind of movement of the politically
aware urban intellectuals whose task is confined to sending
investigation teams, preparing reports, filing petitions, issuing
statements, submitting memoranda and holding ritualistic dharna
and demonstrations.
(5) There is another related aspect which needs to be
pondered. It might be a bitter truth but it cannot be rejected
outrightly. The other day I was talking to a labour activist. He was
of the opinion that, while the issues of arrest and repression and
oppression of the intellectual supporters and sympathisers having
better social status and the people of the middle class background
who are active in the political movements are raised vociferously,
when it comes to the arrest and repression and oppression of the
activists and supporters belonging to lower class background and
the repression and oppression of the common masses, it is not
made an issue with the same vigour. In much the same way when
there is a talk of democratic rights in the context of displacement
and dispossession, the demands of better compensation for the
owner farmers are raised emphatically while the voice of share
croppers, landed labourers and other rural proletariat who are
deprived of employment is pushed to sideline. Undoubtedly the
mainstream media and merchants of the electoral politics do play
the main role in this but we will have to objectively examine
whether some kind of class bias has emerged in the democratic
rights movement owing to its confinement to passive radicalism?
(6) During the last two decades, there has been a continuous
decay and disintegration in even the remaining power and

effectiveness of the democratic rights movement. Its cause can
be traced in the historical betrayal of the well-to-do Indian
middle class. The core base of the democratic rights movement
has historically been confined to the radical democratic section of
the urban middle class (which includes university professors,
advocates, media personnel and few freelance professionals). A
large section of this urban middle class has become a partner in
getting the fruits of the rapid capitalist development in the last
couple of decades, its status has gone up and its living standard
has improved, its distance from the populace which constitutes
77% of the population which lives on Rs 20 a day has increased
and it has now become part of a minority privileged consumer
class. Its own democratic rights are, to a large extent, protected
within the existing socio-political structure and it no longer has
much sympathy with the movements against price rise, for
employment and education and health etc. or on the issue of
working hours etc. These well-off intellectuals are from the
section of the Indian middle class which has turned into a defector
by breaking away from the old historical continuity of fighting
along with the masses for freedom and rights. At the most their
participation and interest is confined to the NGO brand reformist
activities and their stand is passive-radical and ritualistic even on
the issue of civil liberties and democratic rights. For many, the
democratic rights movement is either a business or a stale routine
work inspired from moral pulls. Among the intellectuals who live
the well-to-do middle class lifestyle, only a small section is active
in the democratic rights movement with a genuine concern and
commitment. Under such a situation, it is obvious that in order to
transform the democratic rights movement into a militant mass
movement, we have no other option but to repose our faith in the
new generation of radical intellectuals coming from the lower
middle class which, like the toiling masses, has been pushed to
corner of uncertainty and insecurity in the current era of neoliberalism and which is condemned to live a life much similar to
theirs. The issue of civil liberties and democratic rights is as much
a burning and living issue for them as it is for the rural and urban
masses. When the process of the organisation of the democratic
rights movement on a broad mass base will pick up, the organic
intellectual elements will come forward even from the toiling
masses and will play the leading role.
(7) The capitalist democracy evolved in theory and practice
along with the origin and development of industrial capitalism.
The boundaries of the bourgeois democracy shrank along with
the increasing dominance of the finance capitalism (during the
20 th century the century of imperialism) and totalitarian
autocratic rule surfaced in various forms. Fascism appeared as
the most reactionary representative political trend of the finance
capital and today fascist elements and tendencies are present in
various forms throughout the world. Of even greater importance
is the fact that in the current era of globalisation (which is being
termed as the era of the decisive victory of the finance capital),
the dividing line between the capitalist democracy and the fascistsemi fascist autocratic rule is often found to be completely
blurred. Even the former Indian president R. Venkatraman had
once admitted that an authoritarian regime would be required to
implement the neo-liberal economic policies in unhindered
manner. The point is abundantly clear. In the era of neo-liberalism
which prevails since last two decades, even the little remaining
space of democracy has been rapidly shrinking; the government
has been increasingly pulling its hand from its social
responsibilities and the all round grip of the market forces in
social life has deprived the common people of even the basic
necessities of life. The outcomes of the neo-liberalism which are
coming to light in the form of large scale retrenchment of
workers, increasing unemployment, rendering the labour laws
irrelevant, pushing the amenities such as education and health out
of reach of the common people by privatizing them and displacing
them from their land and settlement without providing them any
alternative livelihood etc., are bound to result into social
explosions sooner or later. The state machinery will have to
compulsorily adopt naked despotic and repressive forms in order
to deal with them. In response to this process, the democratic
rights movement will have to be organised on a wider mass
platform and all sections of people who are getting dispossessed
and who are fed up will have to be organised in the form of a
shared and broad mass movement.

(8) The question of the democratic rights is connected not
with the state machinery alone. It is closely related to the social
fabric as well. Let us have a look at this issue in the context of
Indian society. We live in a post-colonial agrarian society where
the capitalist relations, institutions and values have not come to
existence by undergoing a historical process of renaissanceenlightenment-revolution. In the two hundred years of colonial
rule and even during the subsequent period of half a century, the
capitalist development has taken place at a gradual and slow
pace. Consequently, democracy and rationality hardly exists in
the socio-cultural values-belief-institutions-relations. The precapitalist despotic autocracy exists in the entire fabric of the
society side by side with the modern capitalist barbarism.
Various forms of repression, inequality and humiliating
segregation exists not only in the state-citizen interface but also in
the relationships among the citizens. The lofty claims of the
constitution and law do not prevent the Khap, Gotra and caste
Panchayats to kill those who dare to do inter caste, inter-gotra
and inter-religious marriages. The number of various forms of
oppression of women ranging from domestic violence to the
humiliation on the street, has been on the upswing along with the
so called development. Notwithstanding the legal ban, the
incidents of female foeticide and child marriage are quite
common. Same is the case with the barbaric incidents of Dalit
oppression. Religious and caste based superstitions and
prejudices have also played an important role in providing a social
base to communal fascism along with the undemocratic social
forces. The curious bond which has come to be formed between
the new evils of the capitalist society and the pre-capitalist old
evils is a big obstacle in the path of forging broad mass unity
against the despotic repressive state machinery. Without waging
a broad and militant socio-cultural campaign against the barbaric
casteist and male chauvinistic values and institutions and religious
superstitions and prejudices, any talk of civil liberties and
democratic rights bears no meaning. The democratic rights
movement will also have to target the socio-cultural despotism
apart from state despotism. Without a process of breaking the
cultural-social-ideological hegemony, the masses cannot be

convinced about the rationale of the resistance against state
repression. From this perspective, it can be stated that the
democratic rights movement should not be reduced to only a
defensive kind of rights protection movement; rather it should be
organised as a broad militant social movement. Along with
waging a sustained campaign against the undemocratic character
of the constitution, legal system and the entire state machinery,
the democratic rights organisations will have to boldly raise their
voice against the undemocratic character of the socio-cultural
structure. Unless the peoples consciousness is aroused against
the numerous undemocratic social values and institutions, they
cannot be prepared even for the struggle against the state power.
(9) If the rulers admit that India is a democratic republic, it is
their utmost duty to provide the people the basic necessities of
life. It is a burning question as to why is it that a country where
millionaires and billionaires are increasing at the fastest rate in the
world, where about 100 million urban upper middle class
population is living at the same level as that of the upper middle
class of Europe and America, is placed at the lowest pedestal
insofar as the human development index is concerned; why is it
that half of its population is suffering from malnutrition; 18 crore
population is homeless and three fourth of the population is
deprived of even the basic health care facility? Even if we do not
go in detailed analysis, mere look at some common facts is
sufficient to prove that the neo-liberal policies on which all the
electoral parties have consensus are barbaric, anti-people
policies. When price rise, unemployment, displacement,
dispossession, starvation, farmers suicide etc. put pressure on
the boundaries of the system, some promises for ritualistic
reforms are made, the process of enactment of laws begins; but
these few so called welfare works are totally inadequate, there
are many loopholes in these laws ( governments poverty line
should better be called as starvation line) and even these limited
reforms cannot be fully implemented without bringing about
fundamental change in the bureaucratic machinery. Various
economists and political analysts have written a lot on this topic. It
is not possible, in this essay, to delve into the intricacies. In short it
can be stated that the neo-liberal policies are depriving people

even the basic necessities of life even while erecting minarets of
luxury and building islands of prosperity amid the ocean of
extreme misery of masses and are shrinking even the remaining
democratic space in the political and social life. Every citizen of
the country should get nutritious food, comfortable residence,
health care, equal education and right to livelihood as a
fundamental constitutional right. Clearly a nationwide movement
on these issues cannot be organised at the drop of a hat. To make
people realise about their basic democratic rights, itself, is a
prolonged task of propaganda and education. It is indeed a
prolonged task to convince people in the light of logic and facts
that in view of the level of development of the productive forces
and the produced social resources, it is easily possible for the
Indian government to be able to do this. It is indeed a prolonged
task to make people realise that a united population can get many
important democratic rights by putting organised pressure on the
government. But if a task requires prolonged efforts, it does not
mean that it is impossible. Even a long journey has to be started by
taking a small step. In todays time, only the democratic rights
movement can be that umbrella under which different classes of
people can fight for their basic democratic rights. Undoubtedly it
would not be possible only through general propaganda and the
activities of educating people. The democratic rights activists will
have to organise people at the grass root level on the issues of the
mismanagement of public health facilities, corruption in the public
distribution system, wages of the MNREGA labourers,
uprootment of people, forcible displacement and dispossession,
pitiable condition of the government schools and police atrocities
etc., and then the local struggles will have to be given a wider
perspective through a sustained propaganda. It is our belief that
the democratic rights movement will have to weave the fabric of
a new politics through peoples power at the grassroot level on the
basic issues of day to day life. We will have to adopt several
forms of mass movements such as mass satyagrah, encircling
and occupying premises, civil disobedience movement, no
taxation, boycott of the electoral leaders while making the basic
democratic rights of nutritious food, housing, health, education etc
into issues and taking up the issues of police repression,

displacements, forcible dispossession etc. In this process newer
public platform and institution can come into existence like Lok
Panchyat, public councils, public monitoring committees etc.
which could give expression to the collective initiative and
decision making power of the people and also the leadership of
the movement can thus be brought into the scrutiny of the people.
In this way the democratic rights movement can be transformed
into a nationwide movement of developing the democratic
institutions from below. The real democratic institutions do not
emerge from constitutions and law books; rather they are based
on the initiative of the broad masses and originate and evolve in
the process of peoples movements.
(10) While emphasizing on the need for making the
democratic rights movement effective against the communal
fascism and particularly religious fundamentalism of Hindutva
variety also, we would stress upon the fact that without peoples
mobilisation and mass initiative, such forces cannot be effectively
dealt with. The legal battle against such forces on the issues of
Ayodhya episode and the Gujarat genocide is undoubtedly an
important front but there are clear limitations of this legal front.
The effective battle against the Hindutvaites cannot be fought just
by organizing some ritualistic events such as candle light
procession, some cultural programs of Nirgun and sufi singers
etc. It is not possible here to go into the detailed analysis, but
several analysts have derived these conclusions : (1) The religious
fundamentalist stream has been existing in the Indian political
landscape for a long time and will continue to exist even after
getting defeated in elections, (2) The ruling classes would wish to
keep it alive in a controlled manner in order to digress the mass
movements and for breaking the mass unity just like a chained
wild dog, (3) In the post-colonial, agrarian Indian society having
undemocratic urban middle class, the expansion of the social base
of the religious fundamentalism was already conducive; now the
economic fundamentalism which is being imposed in the name of
neo-liberalism is strengthening the religious fundamentalism in a
spontaneous manner. Such forces are benefitting from the
shrinking democratic space. The political forces which organise
the movements of poor and workers could not give them a wider
political structural perspective and hence they failed to mobilise
them even against communalism. It is not within the scope of this
paper to present their critique. The failure of the socio-cultural
movement and the unfinished project of the bourgeois democracy
in India has also been one of the reasons which helps the
Hindutva forces to expand their social base. Confining ourselves
within the framework of the democratic rights movement, we
wish to assert that an intense action of bold propaganda against
the communal fascism needs to be carried out among the masses.
Our first hand experience reveals that while fighting against the
repressive machinery of administration and owners, when the
workers see the real character and face of the Hindutvaite
leaders, their voice against them automatically gathers pitch and
then it becomes easier to expose the politics of religious
fundamentalism. Secondly, religious fundamentalism can be
effectively tackled if sustained militant social campaigns are
organised against communalism and social prejudices along with
organizing the toiling masses on the issues of basic democratic
rights. A handful of secular intellectuals cannot effectively deal
with the Hindutva ideology merely through intellectual, cultural
and legal actions. A substantial social base of the communal
elements has been among the petty-owners of urban and rural
areas, people of lower middle class having low level of consciousness, labour elites, frustrated middle class youth and the lumpen
proletariat which can be broken only in the process of integrating
them with the wider masses.
(11) Another big question is that of brutal military repression
and oppression by central government against the peripheral
nationalities. Due to jingoistic propaganda by the government and
the mainstream media, it has been deeply entrenched into the
psyche of a large section of the educated population that all the
forces which are active in Jammu and Kashmir and the North
Eastern states are separatist in nature. But there are no
discussions on the history of North-East during colonial era. When
and how was the Macmohan Line drawn, how old is the demand
of independence of Nagas, How they were betrayed by the
government of independent India, how Manipur was treacherously
merged into India, when did the territory of Arunachal Pradesh

became part of India, how Sikkim was merged into India without
any referendum, what is the history of the revolts of Mizo and
other ethnic nationalities and their internal contradictions; all these
are neither found in the text books of history and political science
nor in print and electronic media. The Armed Forces (Special
Powers) Act which is perhaps the most draconian laws in India is
operational in the North-Eastern states right since 1958. So long
as this law is in force, there is no meaning of civil rights in the
North-East and essentially a military rule like situation prevails over
there. During the last decade, owing to the civil rights movements
and the fast by Irom Sharmila, some reports of the barbaric
atrocities of the army has managed to reach common people in
India; otherwise earlier they had no information about the real
situation. The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act is in operation
in Jammu and Kashmir since 1990. The reports of armys
atrocities on the civilians are no more a secret. Very few people
are aware that there was a contract according to which the final
decision on the merger of Jammu & Kashmir with India was to be
taken on the basis of a plebiscite. The merger which took place in
1947 was provisional. There was an agreement to give autonomy
to Kashmir on all the affairs except foreign affairs, defence and
money circulation and it was given special status as per article 370
of the constitution. The acts of central government, beginning with
breaking the promise of holding plebiscite and then dismissing the
elected government of Sheikh Abdullah in 1953 to the policies till
the 1980s, helped to increase the alienation of the people of
Kashmir. It resulted into a massive peoples uprising followed by
an armed struggle. After 1990, ever since the Armed Forces
(Special Powers) Act has been in operation, a situation akin to
military rule prevails over there. More than 60,000 people have
been killed at the hands of armed forces and 7000 are missing.
Earlier, the organisations demanding self determination and
independence were having a secular reputation, but the alienation
created due to the military repression and reaction has provided
opportunity to the religious fundamentalists and pro-Pakistan
separatist groups to deepen their roots in the last two decades. It
is not possible to go into the details of the situation in Jammu &
Kashmir and North-East, nor is it our purpose here. Here we wish

to raise two issues. The first one is the immediate demand to not
only withdraw the barbaric despotic law like Armed Forces (
Special Powers) Act from Jammu & Kashmir and North Eastern
states but to repeal all such draconian laws which give power to
the army and para-military forces to crush the civil liberties and
democratic rights of ordinary citizens. The democratic rights
movement needs to give special emphasis to this issue; the people
need to be informed about the ground realities of North-East and
Jammu-Kashmir. The second issue is of long term importance and
a bit complex and challenging as well. A democratic rights
movement cannot hesitate to boldly face the jingoistic propaganda
carried out by the rulers and particularly the right wing
fundamentalists and advocate the right of self determination of the
various nationalities emphatically. If a state power keeps the people
of a particular region under its command using force, a genuine
democratic rights movement will certainly oppose this. It is our
responsibility to inform people about the history and current reality
of North-East and Jammu-Kashmir. If we raise the issue of
democratic rights of the people of these regions, then in the short
run we may have to face the wrath of the jingoistic prejudices, but
if we raise the issues of the basic rights of the broad masses and
make them issues of mass movements in a sustained manner, it is
possible to convince people to listen and to free themselves of all
jingoistic prejudices and to take the side of truth.
(12) It would certainly be an arduous and prolonged process
to expand the scope of the program of the democratic rights
movement and to include all the rights of masses and to develop it
as a broad, militant mass movement. Along with this process, we
will have to accomplish some other immediate tasks. As we
stated in the beginning, there are dozens of small and big
democratic rights organisations. They have been raising their
voices against the state repression and oppression, draconian
laws and the activities of religious fundamentalists in a sustained
manner. These scattered voices, if raised together, at least on the
agreed issues of a common minimum agreement, are bound to
have profound impact. In the current era of the neo-liberalism, the
repressive character of the state is increasingly getting more and
more brutal. Under these circumstances, as an immediate task, it

is extremely important that all the democratic rights organisations
raise their voice in unison on the issues of repression of mass
movements, sedition law, AFSPA, Chhattisgarh Special Public
Security Act and other draconian laws, large scale displacement
and dispossession etc. There may be some principled differences
between the democratic rights organisations, the scope of their
activities might vary and there may be some local democratic
rights forums for the local issues, but there must be a countrywide
united front on the basis of a common minimum program. It is not
only extremely important but possible as well.
Concluding remarks:
Several points are sought to be covered in this paper and hence
perhaps some undue elaboration has also crept in. I apologise for
this.
To sum up, I have tried to emphasise on three central issues:
Firstly, The democratic rights movement will have to be
organised as a mass movement with a broad social base instead
of a movement of intellectuals with democratic consciousness.
The basic democratic rights of the masses will have to be brought
on the agenda of this struggle.
Secondly, Apart from resisting state repression, carrying out
the mass awareness campaigns against the social institutionsvalues-beliefs which impinge upon the democratic rights of the
people should also be one of the tasks of democratic rights
movement. So, the character of the democratic rights movement
must be a broad and militant social movement.
Thirdly, It is an urgent task today to begin the process of
uniting the scattered forces of the democratic rights movement at
the national level in order to build an effective resistance to the
increasingly repressive attitude of state. While the process of the
first two tasks would be prolonged one, the task of forging a
united front of all the democratic rights organisation in the country
based on a common minimum program should be taken up
without any delay.
(Translated from Hindi: Anand Singh)
IN SEARCH OF A REALISTIC APPROACH

TOWARDS THE HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT
IN INDIA
Dipankar Chakrabarti
I.
In this age of globalisation, the very framework in which we live
is undergoing great upheavals. While the nation-state remains the
fundamental constituent element of the international community,
its role is changing in the face of the expansion of the global
market. Market, clearly dominated and controlled by the
imperialists world-over, is assuming aggressive control over more
and more aspects of our lives. Frameworks of human rights - cast
largely in terms of the individuals relationship to the state - are
facing an unprecedented challenge.
According to the direct or indirect proponents of globalisation,
economic development, in other words, market, should precede
over every thing else in this present world. But what is this
economic development? Whose development? Whose
economy? Does it ensure peoples basic welfare and rights? The
grim reality is that the global economy is not at present working in
favour of the poor countries or of the poor people; rather the rich
countries and persons are becoming richer and the poor poorer.
There is a lot of debate about the extent to which economic
growth leads to the realisation of economic rights (such as an
The author was among the founding members of Association for
Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) and one of the most
respected and active democratic rights activists. He was also the
founder-editor of the Bengali Left journal Aneek. He left us on
27 January 2013.
A Realistic Approach Towards the Human Rights Movement 29
adequate standard of living), but what is undeniable is that in the

pursuit of economic growth, people who are defending their land,
livelihood and resources have been facing violent repression by
the state. Economic growth often comes at the expense of other
rights, with governments justifying, tacitly supporting, or even
engineering human rights violations in the name of development
and economic competitiveness
In this context it should again and again be emphasised that
quality and security of life cannot be measured solely in terms of
the market or economic development, economic growth or per
capita income. Genuine sustainable development is a more
holistic process, embracing the place of individuals in civil society,
their personal security and their capacity to determine and realise
their potential. As United Nations Development Programme
policies state: The concept of human development is much
broader than the conventional theories of economic
development... It analyses all issues in society - whether
economic growth, trade, employment, political freedom or
cultural values - from the perspective of the people. It thus
focuses on enlarging human choices.... Or as made clear in
the Declaration on the Right to Development adopted by the UN
General Assembly in 1986: the human person is the central
subject of development.
In this way, the process of development brings together the
full range of human rights civil, cultural, economic, political and
social into one indivisible and interdependent whole. Freedom
from fear and freedom from want are the two sides of the same
coin. That is why in the preamble to the International Covenant
of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, one of the
cornerstones of international human rights law, it has been clearly
and unambiguously accepted that the ideal of free human
beings enjoying freedom from fear and want can only be
achieved if conditions are created whereby everyone may
enjoy his economic, social and cultural rights, as well as his
civil and political rights. Even though the historical evolution
of international human rights law saw the artificial and misleading
separation of civil and political rights on the one hand, and
economic, social and cultural rights on the other, into separate
covenants with separate characters, in 1993, at the World

Conference of the governments of the different countries on
Human Rights in Vienna, clearly declared that : All human
rights are universal and indivisible, interdependent and
interrelated. The international community must treat human
rights globally in a fair and equal manner, on the same
footing and with the same emphasis.
At the very outset it should be remembered that the concept
of Human Rights is not an abstract idea, independent of classdivision, but basically dependant on the specific stage of the
social development of any country. There cannot be any
unchangeable and pure concept of Human Rights, independent
of a specific society, universally applicable to all countries of all
ages. The experience of the development of human society has
shown that the social and economic progress achieved through
the continuous development of productive forces helps to
develop the concept of human rights, which again plays a role in
developing human cosciousness. A primary consciousness
regarding human rights can be traced even in the early stages of
human society, but in the absence of appropriate social base, it
could not develop, not to speak of its realisation. The
revolutionisation of social productive forces in Europe under
capitalism through industrial revolution created that social basis
through the challenge thrown at the old feudal monarchial and
religious authority, and gradually thereby shaping the concept that
human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
Democratic ideas began to take shape against the national and
international autocracy, which again helped the concrete
development of the concept of human rights. Since then
gradually, through ups and downs and in the context of different
social realities and times, it has been almost universally
established that the concept of human rights is not static or
unchangeable and independent of social reality, but rather
dynamic and always developing. And in this context it must be
emphasised that though the aspiration for equality and dignity of
all human beings reflecting the essence of human rights, were
inherent in the culture and civilisation of the different stages of
human society, they have, in the final analysis, developed and
brought to reality through class-differentiation and class-struggle.

We, in West Bengal, generally try to explain this class-nature
of human rights in a class-divided society with the help of two
stories. One is a story involving Bertrand Russel, the reknowned
British pacifist philosopher, taken from his Portraits from
Memory. Once, during the first world war, Russel, the pacifist,
was trying to build up public opinion against Britains participation
in the war by publicly speaking in a park in London. Some
chauvinistic war-hysteric persons started to physically assault
him. One of his students present in the meeting, ran to the nearest
police station so as to request them to save him. The office-incharge was then picking his teeth in a leisurely manner, putting his
feet on the table. He asked: `Who is this chaff Russel? When
told that he was a world-famous philosopher of Cambridge
University, he remarked : So what! One who opposes war
should certainly be assaulted! The youngman exclaimed in an
exasperated voice : Do you know that he comes of a Lord
family? The police officer jumped up, brought his feet to the
ground, gave a salute and angrily said, Why didnt you say it
earlier?, and then ran to the park to save the Lord, Prof.
Russel.
And the second story is actually a famous realistic Bengali
story : Democracy and Gopal Kahar. A rich and influential
landowner, belonging to the ruling party, lodged a false complain
to the police against a landless poor peasant in order to evict him
from his land. The obliging police duly brought him to the police
station and tortured him mercilessly, accusing him to be a
dangerous element jeopardising democracy. The innocent and
puzzled farmer again and again declared in the name God that he
did not even know the identity of that Babu, democracy. But the
torture continued and ultimately he lost one leg for no fault of his.
The fate of the two characters - Russel and Gopal Kahar was
actually pre-determined on the basis of their class-identities. And
actually this is the real picture of democratic rights in a classdivided bourgeoise society: the whole super-structure of the
system is based on the property-relations, where there remains
the fundamental and inviolable discrimination between the haves
and the have-nots. Without this realisation we cannot actually
understand the basic class-nature of human rights in a classsociety.

The historical trajectory of democratic transformation of
European autocracies has hinged upon the successful assertion of
three important components of human freedom : (i) freedom of
expression; (ii) freedom from arbitrary imprisonment; (iii)
freedom from custodial violence. The legitimisation of these
freedoms as the inalienable civil and political rights of the citizens
against the state constitute historical landmarks in the evolution of
liberal democracies, initially in Europe, and subsequently in other
parts of the advanced countries. In this process of evolution of the
concept of human rights special mention should be made of the
role played by the Magna Carta (1215), Petition of Rights
(1627), and the Bill of Rights (1688) in England; the
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citisens (1791) of
France adopted after the French Revolution; and especially of the
Bill of Rights (1787) of the USA. These civil and political rights
constitute the sources of the first generation of the modern
concept of human rights. The Russian revolution under the
Bolshevik slogan of bread, land, and all power to the Soviets
inspired the Soviet Bill of Rights with its conscious primacy of
economic and social rights over civil and political rights, ultimately
leading to the most comprehensive and fundamental acceptance
of the human rights as contained in the constitution of Soviet
Union adopted in 1937. These, along with the post-war eras
concern for the right of self-determination of the colonial world,
and against racial and/or gender discrimination, have paved the
path of the unanimous adoption of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (UDHR in short) by the United Nations in its
General Assembly session on December 10, 1948, signed by our
country India amongst others.
II.
We shall now try to sketch the evolution of Civil Rights
Movement in India in the background of this brief introduction.
Quite obviously in India the civil rights movement began
during the colonial period in close association with the national
liberation movement. Though the movement did not acquire any
organisational form before 1936, its genesis can be traced from

even the early nineteenth century, when the embryo of the civil
libertian consciousness was manifested through the demand for
the freedom of expression and also for the freedom of press,
equality before law and protection against racial discrimination
etc. And the ground for an organised effort for developing the
civil liberties movement was gradually being prepared by
different significant events like the adoption of the Declaration of
Rights in a special session of the Congress(1918), the
spontaneous agitation against the Rowlatt Act (1919), the historic
meeting at Calcutta addressed by Rabindranath Tagore amongst
others to protest against police firing in Hijli Jail on the political
prisoners (1931) leading to the efforts for the formation of a
Citisens Committee for championing the cause of the release of
the political prisoners and safeguarding individual freedom etc.
The 30s of the 20th century was a significant period in the history
of Indias freedom movement. Mass movements against the
imperialist rule were gradually spreading and assuming organised
form. The All India Trade Union Congress, the Students
Federation, All India Kisan Sabha, Progressive Writers
Association etc were founded at this time. All India Trade Union
Congress was gathering strength on the basis of the muchcherished unity of the different factions. All these actually
prepared the foundation and the background for an organisation
in India for developing the civil rights movement.
Ultimately on 24 August,1936 All India Civil Liberties
Union (ICLU in short) was founded in Bombay with Jawharlal
Nehru as the main initiator. Rabindranath Tagore was elected as
the president, Sarojini Naidu as the working president, and
K.B.Menon as the general secretary and a 21-member executive
committee which included Jawharlal Nehru, Abul Kalam Azad,
Sarat Chandra Bose, Rajendra Prasad, BallavBhai Patel,
Jayprakash Narayan etc as members. The inherent spirit of the
ICLU was precisely reflected in the closing sentence of Nehrus
address at the inaugural session : The idea of civil liberties is to
have the right to oppose the government. That in a capitalist
state the civil liberties movement must, in essence, be an antistate movement in spirit was realised even then, and it obviously
had, and still now has, a serious and far-reaching impact on the
civil rights movement in our country.
ICLU was quite active in the political arena of our country till
the mass-explosion of the Quit India movement in 1942. It built
up the tradition of citizens investigations in cases of political
imprisonment and harassment, police brutalities, government bans
and autocratic restrictions etc and publishing reports on them, and
also of lodging protests and placing demands before the
government. That the activities of the movement became
considerably effective was proved by the fact that the Congress
ministries formed in many provinces after the 1937 elections were
directed by the Congress Working Committee to show respect to
civil liberties of the people. But one of the inherent weaknesses
of the movement on a national scale was that the cases of
revolutionary freedom-fighters following the path of armed
struggle were not given proper importance. And it should be noted
that even today, almost 75 years after the organised beginning of
the civil liberties movement in our country, not only the Congress,
but rather all the ruling parties, be they of left or right variety, are
virtually denying the civil rights of those political activists, who
follow the path of armed struggle to fulfill their dream of leading
the Indian people to liberation enjoying freedom from want and
hunger as postulated in the UDHR. Still the played a
commendable role in developing civil libertine cosciousness
among a significant section of the people in a colonial set-up.
III.
There must be some basic distinction in the civil rights movement
in any country between its colonial and post-colonial phases. But
at the very outset it must not be forgotten that in spite of a post2nd world war revolutionary upsurge all over India against the
imperialist domination, Indias freedom was achieved basically
through a compromise with the imperialists, thereby handing over
the power into the hands of the bougeoise in alliance with the
feudal elements. Consequently human and civil rights of the
common labouring people were not at all guaranteed, nor were
these expected to be ensured. The constitution of India, framed
after the adoption of the UDHR, of which India was a signatory,
no doubt, has ensured the inclusion of some fundamental rights

like right to life, expression, press, association, mobility etc. But
even in this rights-giving constitution, provisions have been
included to take away all the fundamental rights on one or other
excuses.
Although during the independent struggle Pandit Nehru,
supposed to be the champion of and the main spirit behind the
democratic and civil rights movement in the pre-independence
period, and also the first prime-minister of independent India, had
repeatedly assured that there will be no black law in
independent India infringing upon peoples fundamental freedom
from arbitrary imprisonment, rarely was there any prolonged
period in our country in the post-independent period when a
black law in some form or other, e.g PD Act, DIR, PVA,MISA,
COFEPOSA, ESMA, TADA, POTA, UAPA etc, (like the
different names of the mythical character SreeKrishna of the
hindus!) was not in operation. Recurrent use of the draconian
and colonial Disturbed Areas Act and the Armed Forces Special
Powers Act, etc in some areas of the country has turned the
promise of non-prevalence of black laws into a sheer mockery.
Innumerable instances can be cited in this respect.
And again rights to work and shelter have not been included
in the constitution in spite of the demand repeatedly raised by the
people as well as by the civil rights oganisations. Consequently
the unbridled persecution as well as exploitation of the common
labouring people continued, and has since been continuing.
Naturally the people fought and have been fighting during the
whole of the post-independent period for service and other means
of livelihood, land for cultivation and housing, for better wages
and living conditions, exercising their constitutional democratic
rights to fight for the demands. But the state takes recourse to
persecution and torture, imprisonment and police brutalities like
lathi-charge and firing, unashamedly suppressing all the basic
democratic and legal norms and grossly violating all the
fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution. This process is
going on and on, whatever may be the colour of the government
either at the centre or in the states green, saffron or red.
The civil and democratic movements began to develop in
post-colonial India just side by side with the process of transfer of

political power from the British imperialists to the Indian ruling
classes, in the main dependant upon them. The first organisation
that came up was in 1947, the Madras Civil Liberties Union
(bearing the same name as the erstwhile Madras branch of
ICLU). In the meantime a Bombay Civil Liberties Conference
was held on January 1 & 2 January,1949. The same year MCLU
organised an All India Civil Liberties Conference in Madras on
July 16 & 17. Significantly even then, just after Indias
independence, apprehension was expressed in the conference
that the limited-liberties enjoyed under the British rule would be
the first casualty even in independent India. In 1948 the
Communist party of India was banned and an all-out severe
repression on the members and sympathisers of the party was
unfolded. A Civil Liberties Committee was formed in West
Bengal in the same year. Eminent scientists, lawyers and
academic intellectuals like Dr.Meghnad Saha, Sarat Chandra
Bose, N.C.Chatterjee, Khitish Chattopadhyay etc joined this
movement against the Governments onslaught on the civil and
democratic rights of the political workers and persons.
In this context a particular characteristics of the initial phase
of the Indian civil liberties movement in the post-independent
period should be emphasised. At that time the members and the
supporters of the Communist Party of India (undivided) mainly
organised and took the main role in the peoples civil rights
movements at different junctures of time. This really created a
couple of problems. First, the movement used to become active
only when the communists were under state-repression and
persecution. But when this state-repression remained in low web,
the movement practically evaporated. This lack of continuity was,
no doubt, detrimental to the building up of a strong and organised
movement. Secondly, and most importantly, since the
communists main commitment and devotion were to their partyprogrammes, it was virtually impossible to frame policies and
develop and organise the civil liberties movement independently
on a broader basis beyond the boundary set forth by the party, so
that the interests of the broad section of the masses in general be
served.
A resurgence of the civil liberties movement began only in

the 70s of the last century on a new and more or less independent
plane. With the formation of APDR (Association for Protection
of Democratic Rights) in West Bengal in 1972 began the present
and undoubtedly the new and higher phase of the movement. Thus
began a new chapter in the process of evolution and development
of human rights movement in India, when the movement acquired
more or less an independent theoretical and organisational
foundation leading to continuous existence and activities. In Andhra
too, Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberty Committee (APCLC) was
formed in 1974. Gradually this movement, no doubt, began to be
a permanent feature of the Indian Society, spreading to Delhi,
Maharastra, Assam, Punjab, Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, Tamilnadu
etc. APDR was formed in West Bengal at a time when the most
heinious attack came there on democratic rights; when the state
terrorism appeared in the most barbarous form through masskillings, jail-killings, fake encounters and atrocious and continuous
attacks on the mass-movements of the labouring people.
Naturally the main demands at that time were end of all those
inhuman, illegal and undemocratic acts of the state, release of all
political prisoners and the repeal of the black acts like MISA etc.
International support came from the international civil rights
organisations like Amnesty International etc. The movement got
tremendous support from the people. But in June,1975 the most
draconian internal emergency was imposed in India, taking away
by a stroke of pen, that too in an illegal and questionable method,
all the basic civil rights of a citizen enshrined in the Constitution of
India. Taking the opportunity, the Government of West Bengal
banned APDR and arrested some leading activists including the
present writer, most of whom had to languish in jail without any
meaningful trial for the whole emergency-period, i.e.about 21
months. During this infamous emergency period an all India Civil
Rights Organisation (Peoples Union for Civil liberties &
Democratic Rights , or PUCL&DR in short) gradually took shape
in 1976,with Jayprakash Narain as its moral spirit. In the 1977
Parliament elections the repressive government was defeated, and
PUCL&DR played a significant role in mobilizing the people
against the ruling clique. After the withdrawl of emergency there
developed a high tide of mass-movement demanding the release

of all political prisoners, which had to be included in the electionmanifesto of the Left-front in West Bengal. Consequently the
newly elected Left-front Government had to release the political
prisoners, and the ban-order on APDR had to be withdrawn.
Subsequently a number of civil rights organisations have been
formed one after another in India regionally or on a national basis
in almost all the states. A few years back an All India Co-ordination
Committee, comprising of almost all the regional Civil Rights
organisations has been formed. At present this movement has, no
doubt, emerged as a permanent feature of the Indian Society.
Though a democratic atmosphere prevailed after the
withdrawl of the emergency and the installation of the new
Government in New Delhi, it was apprehended by the civil rights
workers that state-terrorism, police-atrocities as well as attacks
on mass-movements and human rights would continue in some
form or other. Experience of the next four decades confirmed
these apprehensions. All the anti-people acts of the state
continued although in a smaller scale. And APDR played its role
as before. But it was at the same time felt that public opinion as
well as movemens, as far as possible, should be built up not only
for the political and civil rights, but also for the general economic
and social rights of the people. With this contention the UDHR
was accepted as the basic aims and objectives of APDR.
Consequently the human and civil rights of even the non-political
people began to be included under the purview of APDR. At
present APDR has been fighting, as far as possible, not only
against state-terrorism, violation of political and human rights and
police-atrocities, but also against indiscriminate non-state
terrorism, and in favour of the peoples right for livelihood,
education, medical facilities, and against globalisation,
environmental pollution, communalism and fundamentalism etc.
As a result APDR has been able to penetrate among different
sections of the people. About a decade earlier a Human Rights
Commission has been formed by the Government of West
Bengal. Since its inception APDR has been aware of its
limitations and constraints, but still the Commission is being
utilised as far possible.
It will not perhaps be irrelevant to mention here that, so far

as the attitude of the state towards the human rights movement,
especially in West Bengal, is concerned, time and again, it has
gone through significant shifts and changes, reflected through
the attitudes of the state-personnel, especially the police and
those in administration. Initially they looked at the civil rights
workers with contempt, always eager to neglect, giving virtually
no importance. Then it was felt that they have some popular
support, and consequently they had to be accepted with some
grudge; and in private state-personnel began to fear them a bit.
But even when they have to aceept the human rights workers, at
the same time they try to denigrate them as far as possible.
Initially they tried to generally allege that APDR protects the
criminals and anti-socials in the name of protection of human
rights. And the just-overthrown leftist/Marxist government of
West Bengal has even viewed APDR since the 90s of the last
century virtually as a terrorist organisation, closely linked with the
Maoists. This trend has been observed in almost all the states of
India, be they led by the centrists like Congress, Hindu
fundamentalists like BJP, regional parties like DMK, AIDMK,
BSP, or self-declared Marxists like CPI(M). But time and again
the ill motives and activities of the Governments, both at the
Centre and in the states in violation of human rights, and even the
laws of our country, have been exposed publicly. And on this
specific issue of what should be the viewpoint of the civil rights
organisations to any government or a political party, a clear
difference of opinion emerged. When the Janata Party came to
power after the fall of the Congress Government at the centre,
the national leaders of PUCL&DR refused criticise or condemn
the Government even after the killing of the workers in Kanpur
and the mine-workers in Dalli-Rajhara. Consequently the Delhi
Unit of the organisation came out of the organisation and built up
a separate one : Peoples Union for Democratic Rights(PUDR).
In fact, in the context of more and more criminalisation and
corruption of the political parties and brutalisation of state-terror
evn on democratic rights, the civil liberties organisations like
APDR, PUDR etc have emerged as significant social forces in
many states, which both the Central and state Governments have
to reckon with again and again. That no doubt signals, to some

extent, the maturity of the civil rights movement.
IV.
But that does not mean that a correct and clear orientation, in the
proper sense of the term, has already been achieved. As weve
already noted, though many of the existing civil rights
organisations have begun to take note of the evil consequence of
globalisation, running amock in our country since the beginning of
the 90s of the last century, it must, no doubt, be admitted that not
yet a significant and comprehensive programme has been
formulated which can fully and properly address the onslaught of
globalisation and its consequences. In order to achieve that goal,
we must try first to redefine the very concept of human right itself
in the context of the grim reality, particularly, the globalisation. For
the very definition of the concept undoubtedly depends on the
class-character and class-interests of the human rights theorists.
Just as there is the possibility of existence of darkness under a
lamp, similarly there remains the danger of confusion, consciously
or unconsciously, behind the formulation of this definition. So long
we, the human rights theorists as well as the activists of the third
world countries like India, in the main, have been following the
concept in a narrower sense as set forth by the Western theorists
of the advanced capitalist countries.
In the conventional analysis, the Western theorists equate
human rights, in a general sense, only with the civil and political
rights, thereby basically almost negating economic, social and
cultural rights of the people of the third world, and also the right to
develop independently them ourselves and their nations. This will
naturally be conducive to the maintenance of the economic
domination of the imperialists on the third world. The UDHR of
1948 itself shows overwhelming concern for political and civil
rights and gives meagre attention to economic, social and cultural
rights. Though the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights adopted by the United Nations in
1966, largely through the insistence of the third world countries,
seeks to rectify the imbalance, human rights continue to be
equated with only political and civil rights. On the other hand,
they want to interpret human rights only in an individualistic sense,

showing no concern for the sense of collectivity, or of the
collective interests of the people, or the country itself. Its aim is to
impose their own reality-induced mentality on the third-world
people facing a completely different reality and background. The
aspiration for the freedom and development of the individual self
of the post-renaissance advanced capitalist countries, basically
liberated from the domination of feudalism and the church of the
middle ages, has almost no similarity with the fundamental
aspiration of the people of the third world, still gasping under the
bondage of imperialism(direct or indirect), feudalism and
religious fundamentalism. The spirit of the International
Covenants of 1966 and the Declaration of Development of
third-world countries of 1986, adopted by the United Nations in
spite of the stiff resistance by the advanced countries, has rightly
led to the Tehran Declaration of 1986 : The Civil and Political
Rights cannot be fully realised without fully realising the
economic, social and cultural rights.
In order to secure the most basic of all human rights the
right to life, along with the fulfillment of the ideal enshrined in the
Preamble to the UDHR (of enjoying freedom from fear and
want), conditions must be created to achieve and secure human
rights to food, to clothing, to shelter, to education, to health, to
employment etc., which are fundamental to the very survival of
the vast majority of the human race in Asia, Africa and Latin
America. Life and liberty, food and freedom, must go hand in
hand if we want to develop an integrated and real vision of
human rights for these people. That too not revolving around the
individual, but around a notion of the rights of the collectivity, the
community, the nation. It is obvious that this vision is simply
contrary, almost inimical, to the goal of achieving mainly the civil
and political rights of only the individuals, following the dictate of
the Western proponents of human rights. This follows from the
colonial experience of the third-world countries. Subjected to
alien and exploitative colonial domination for centuries, fighting
for freedom for whole generations of these people came to mean
fighting for the freedom of not merely the individual, but for their
whole people. This explains why freedom as well as the basic
economic, social and cultural rights to these people become a

composite collective ideal, interwined with the quest of the whole
communities for human dignity and social justice, free of
hunger and want. And this should be primary understanding for
redefining and developing a basic concept of human rights
relevant to the peoples of the third world, far away from the
concept as understood and propagated so long by the Western
theorists of human rights, and almost imitated by us, the human
rights activists of countries like India, shamelessly, though
perhaps unconsciously.
V.
Once we accept that for the people of the third world, the right to
live is the most important and decisive human right to realise and
secure, it also becomes evident that even in this 21st century, the
most disastrous obstacle to the realisation of that right is the
colonialism or domination of the imperialists of different hues and
colours, and their aggression and exploitation, control and
domination over the third world. This again basically encourages
and perpetuates racial discrimination, fundamentalism and
communalism as well as almost all the backward norms and
practices of the pre-capitalist society, whichever become helpful
to the continuation of that domination. It grotesquely tramples upon
national independence and sovereignty of the third-world countries,
controls and captures their natural resources and wealth, raw
materials and produced goods, thereby depriving them of their
legitimate incomes. During the post-2nd world war period, most of
the 150 major localised wars took place in the third world, with the
direct or indirect backing of imperialist countries, and obviously
the people of these countries became the cannon-fodders of those
wars. In the last 100 years, at least 6 million (i.e.60 lakhs) people
have been killed by imperialists, directly or indirectly.
Economically too, due to the exploitation and manipulation of
imperialism and their stooges, the living conditions in these
countries for most of the people are becoming more and more
precarious. This process has actually been evident for the last
few centuries with the emergence of capitalism, and especially its
highest phase, imperialism. It has been tremendously accentuated
in the last few decades with the emergence of the economics of

Globalisation, based on neo-liberal economic doctrine. Perhaps it
would be better to take the help of Lewis Carrolls famous
allegory Through the Looking Glass to understand the
phenomenon of Globalisation.
In that allegory, Alice and the Queen were running hand in
hand in the Red Queens Garden, and the Queen was running so
fast that it was very difficult for Alice to keep pace with her. But
still the Queen kept crying Faster! Faster! The most curious part
of the thing to Alice was that the trees and the other things round
them never changed their places at all; however fast they went,
they never seemed to pass anything . An astonished Alice
exclaimed : Well, in our country, youd generally get to
somewhere else - if you ran for a long time as weve been
doing. But the Queen retorted : A slow sort of country! Now,
here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the
same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at
least twice as fast as that! . . .
Think of the Red Queens Garden as capitalism. The
relentless search for markets and profits brings about faster and
faster changes in production and space, industry and commerce,
occupation and locale, with profound effects on the organisation
of classes and states. It is through this ferocious process of
extension and change that capitalism preserves itself, remains
capitalistic, and perpetuates basically the same system. This
paradox, or rather this dialectic, can only properly be grasped if
we understand that the bourgeoisie cannot exist without
constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and
thereby relations of production, and with them the whole
relations of society (Karl Marx).This was not an understanding
merely appropriate to what happened to the world in the first half
of the 19th century: it is no less appropriate to understanding what
has happened over the second half of the 20th and also in the first
decade of the present century, and to what is taking place in the
world today in the context of globalisation. Now think of Alice,
frantically running alongside the Red Queen, as the peoples and
the countries of the third world. You will begin to grasp the real
significance of globalisation to this people. They must run on and
on to keep pace in the face of deprivity and poverty, brought about

by the fierce plunder of the imperialists for more and more profit,
but still basically unable to satisfy their basic needs of life for
food and shelter, for health and education and culture.
And from the point of view of imperialism, historically
speaking, its most severe crisis burst out towards the end of the
1920s, ultimately resulting in the 2nd world war. After a brief
respite consequent to the huge reconstruction possiblities of the
devastations of the war, the crisis again came to the fore in the
1970s through the oil crisis. Since then the capitalist world has
been continuously ridden with crises after crises, leading to the
next most severe major crisis in 2008, which has not yet been
overcome. The ferocity of this continuous period of crises forced
the imperialists to give more acute attention to the third world for
plundering more fiercely its natural resources land, minerals,
water, and even air. Globalisation process is nothing but the
programmatic manifestation of this more acute phase of
imperialist plunder based on the hydra-headed doctrine of neoliberalism. Indian ruling classes began to traverse this path of
globalisation since 1991.
The advocates of globalisation described it as the panacea
for all economic woes, and that the only path to prosperity is to
adhere to free-market principles. The nations of the third world, in
particular, are being urged to deregulate and open up their
economies to free trade and foreign investment, to ensure their
speedy transition to the status of developed economies. But it has
already been proved that globalisation has brought, in its wake,
great inequities, mass impoverishment and despair; that it has
fractured society more acutely along the existing fault lines of class,
gender and community, while almost irreversibly widening the gap
between the rich and the poor, both in terms of individuals and
nations; that it has caused the flow of currencies across
international borders, which has been responsible for financial and
economic crises in many countries and regions; that it has enriched
a small minority of persons and corporations within nations and
within the international system, marginalizing and violating the basic
human rights of millions of workers, peasants and farmers and
indigenous communities. Though globalisation has been portrayed
as turning the whole world into one global village, leading to

unprecedented enjoyment of human rights for every one together
with the spread of the highly cherished values of democracy,
freedom and justice, in reality it turned the world into a global
market for goods and services, dominated and steered by the
powerful gigantic transnational corporations and governed by the
rule of profit, thereby trampling upon the basic human rights of the
people in the world, particularly in the third world countries. The
governments of these third world countries are abiding by the
globalisation agreements, violating the basic human rights of the
people. These globalisation agreements and policies had its adverse
effects on the right to work, the right to food , the right to health,
the right to education and the right to development. Globalisation
resulted in the violation of the fundamental right to work. In their
drive for profits , companies, in particular TNCs, have been
restructuring their operations on a global scale. The result has been
massive unemployment . In 1995 , the ILO announced that onethird of the worlds willing to work population was either
unemployed or underemployed. In India, only 8% of the labor force
is in the formal economy while 90% work in the informal economy
with no legal protection or security, and are subject to ruthless
exploitation The state of workers in developing countries after
globalisation is a race to the bottom, and the bottom means slavelike conditions. Consequently, the calorie intake of the poor
declined. The Trade Related Intellectual Property Agreement of
the World Trade Organisation prevents countries from producing
low cost generic drugs, robbing the poor patients of their rights to
health. Globalisation polices by introducing the market mechanism
into the provision of health care obviously makes services less
available to the poor . The privatisation of health and hospital
services also makes the poor suffer as services become more
oriented towards those who can pay . The lives of at least 1 to 2
million children on average are lost every year. The right to
education has also been adversely affected by the privatisation
policies and the turning of education into a profit- generating
enterprises in the developing countries . Due to the reduced
governmental expenditure on education the quality of public free
education has been suffering.
The Consequences of violations of human rights is

revealed by the widening gap between the rich and the poor, both
on the global and on the local levels, as reflected in International
Statistics (http://www.global issues.org/article/26/povertyfacts-and-stats): (1) Half the world nearly three billion people
live on less than two dollars a day; (2) The wealthiest nation on
earth has the widest gap between rich and poor of any
industrialised nation; (3) The top fifth of the worlds people in the
richest countries enjoy 82% of the expanding export trade and
68% of foreign direct investment while the bottom fifth , barely
more than 1%; (4) In 1960, the 20 % of the worlds people in the
richest countries had 30 times the income of the poorest 20%; in
1997 , 74 times as much; and in 2015 it is estimated to be just 100
times ; (5) A few hundred millionaires now own as much wealth
as the worlds poorest 2.5 billon people ; (6) The combined wealth
of the worlds 200 richest people hit $ 1 trillion in 1999; the
combined incomes of the 582 million people living in the 43 least
developed countries is $ 146 billion; and (7) as globalisation
matures, the rate of the rich peoples and countries becoming
richer and richer competes and becomes directly proportional to
the poor peoples and poor countries rate of becoming poorer and
poorer. It is simply unnecessary to fill up hundreds of pages with
relevant statistics to prove how globalisation has been affecting
human lives most disastrously in the countries of the third world.
We are much more interested to the irrevocable fact that
emerges from these figures that capitalism has already been
proved to be detrimental to the interests of the labouring people;
and that globalisation is even more so, simply inimical to the
realisation of basic human rights of the vast majority of peoples of
the third world. This leads to the basic tasks of the human rights
movement in the countries like India to raise the peoples level of
consciousness so that they come forward to thwart this inhuman
process of globalisation.
VI.
The aspiration for achieving the civil and political rights which has
primarily motivated the movement so long definitely remains, but
since, even according to the UN-sponsored Tehran Declaration,
as we noted earlier, without fully achieving economic, social and

cultural rights, the above rights cannot be really achieved,
henceforth the main emphasis should be given on these basic
rights, i.e. economic, social and cultural rights. Consequently the
human rights movement should now build up a direct bridge with
the peoples movements that have been going on, and will surely
arise more and more in near-future, defending the basic interests
of the labouring people, though not directly connected with the
conventional human rights demands. The implementation of
globalisation policies led to the emergence of many such
movements, like Narmada Bachao Movement of lakhs of evicted
people, anti-Posco movement of the indegeneous people of
Orissa, the farmers movement in Noida, Uttar Pradesh etc, for
safeguarding the living conditions of the down-trodden people.
We, in West Bengal, have already acquired some experiences in
such type of movements. Our organisation APDR has actively
supported the Singur and Nandigram movements of the peasants
against eviction by the state at the dictate of multi-nationals and
big capital, and also the Lalgarh movement of the adibasis
against state-terror and deprivation sponsored by the
Government, by building up public opinion and extending
necessary help and co-operation. Its noteworthy that SEZ
projects, a direct outcome of the globalisation policies, are being
opposed by the people everywhere in India, and we are proud to
be a part of the Nandigram movement, which in India for the first
time won victory in their fight against such a SEZ project.
. We, the human rights activists of India, must frame up a new
orientation and programme of action so as to serve such peoples
movements, which are sure to be organised in large numbers and
with broader perspectives in near future.
VIII.
In this context it is necessary to bring into discussion once more
the question of the relation between political movements and
human rights movements in a country like ours. It should be made
clear at the very outset that there cannot be any Chinese wall
between the two, so long as a particular political movement
seeking to uphold the economic and political interests of the poor,
not in words but in reality, and is not under the domination of any
particular political party or group. Otherwise there will arise the
question of dual loyalty. But that does not mean that a political
worker cannot participate in the human rights movement.
Obviously he must be allowed to do so, so long he is conscious of
the limits and constraints of the human rights movement, and is
ready to work in that situation. Please note in this connection that
I can declare without hesitation that in the present circumstances
of our country, a human rights organisation cannot and should not
limit itself only to filing writ petitions, organising signature
campaigns, publishing reports by sending fact-finding teams and
holding symbolic protest demonstrations. We in West Bengal did
more than that, remaining within the framework of democratic
methods and norms, when the movement in question is not led and
dominated by a particular political party or group, but under the
collective leadership of numerous democratic organisations and
persons of different political view-points during the massstruggles in Singur and Nandigram, and at present in the context
of a renewed movement for Release of all Political Prisoners in
West Bengal. And we shall not hesitate to repeat the same.
But if we accept the leadership of one particular political
organisation, there will always remain the danger of abandonment
of human rights ideals to serve the interest of that poltical force.
There are ample examples before us. We have already noted the
caser of PUCL, which played such a vital role in mobilising public
opinion against the Indira autocracy during the emergency period
of 1975-77, refused to condemn police atrocities under the Janata
Party rule in 1978 against the struggling workers of Swadeshi Mill
in Kanpur, or mining workers in Dalli-Rajhara in Madhya Pradesh
(now in Chhattisgarh), so as not to disturb the new (Janata)
Government. They repeated the same in 1959, when they
refused to condemn the CPI(M)-controlled Left Front
Government of West Bengal in 1959 for their inhuman atrocity on
the poor refugees in Marichjhapi.
And just now in West Bengal we have been passing through a
similar experience. A section of the civil liberties activists, who
were most vocal and active in demanding the unconditional
release of all political prisoners, just one month before the
assumption of power by TMC and Congress block defeating the

Left Front, is now virtually opposing the movement that is
brewing up there against the new Government for refusing to
release them unconditionally and imposing insaulting conditions on
the political prisoners. I am happy to state that the vast majority of
civil liberties activists are eager to depend not on the
Governments good will, but on the peoples movements.
Hence, our lesson is to join the political movement for the
achievement of the basic economic and social rights of the people
keeping aloft the flag of human rights, not sacrtificing it, to the
pedastal of any other force.
I want to sum up my deliberations with the earnest and
sincere hope that a new orientation as well as programme of
action suitable for a third world country like ours to achieve and
secure the basic economic, social and cultural rights paving the
way for the achievment, too, of the civil and political rights of
three people.
.
HOW DEMOCRATIC IS THE INDIAN CONSTITUTION

AND INDIAN DEMOCRACY?
Anand Singh
In the discourses on the failures of Indian democracy in
safeguarding the democratic rights of citizens, one often
encounters the argument that there is no lacuna in the Indian
constitution, rather the fault lies with those who implement it.
Following quotation of Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar the chairman
of the drafting committee of the constituent assembly is often
quoted in support of this argument:
howsoever good a constitution is made, it can turn out to
be bad if those who follow it are bad.
Howsoever bad a constitution may be, it can turn out to be
good if those who implement it prove to be good.1
Those who follow this line of argument hold the generation
which implements the constitution as solely responsible for the
many failures of Indian democracy and treat the constitution as
sacred and beyond any inquiry. But they forget that the
generation which implements the constitution is actually the
product of a socio-economic and political structure in whose
formation the constitution plays a significant role.
Even the former president K.R. Narayanan once mentioned
in a speech that it was not the constitution which has failed us but
we who have failed the constitution. Mr. Narayanan said this in
the backdrop of the formation of a commission to review the
working of the constitution by the then government of National
The author is associated with theNaujawan Bharat Sabha and Wall
Magazine Aagaz (Noida). Contact: anand.banaras@gmail.com
How Democratic is the Indian Constitution and Democracy? 51
Democratic Alliance (NDA). Undoubtedly, NDA governments

decision was motivated by the communal politics of BJP. It was
indeed an undemocratic step to confer the responsibility of doing
the review of the working of the constitution to few constitutional
experts and intellectuals and not to a body elected by people.
There is no question of supporting such an undemocratic step
under any circumstance. However, to treat the constitution as a
sacred scripture and shield it from any inquiry is also an
undemocratic approach. A democratic approach calls for an open
debate not only about the decay in the various institutions of
Indian democracy in the last six decades but also about how
democratic the process of the making the constitution was and to
what extent the Indian democracy guarantees the rights of
citizens.
For a constitution to express the aspirations of people, it is
extremely important that the process of the making of the
constitution is carried out by a constituent assembly elected on the
basis of universal adult franchise. In India, the Congress party
had been demanding for one and half decade prior to
independence that a constituent assembly on the basis of
universal adult franchise be convened to make Indian
constitution. In the Lucknow and Faizpur sessions of Congress in
1936, Jawahar Lal Nehru even advocated to make this demand
as the central slogan of the Congress. But, the constituent
assembly which ultimately made the constitution was not elected
directly by people on the basis of universal adult franchise but
indirectly as per the British Cabinet Missions plan by the
members of the provincial assemblies who were themselves
elected by merely 11.5 percent of the population of the country.
The elections for these provincial assemblies were held under the
Government of India Act 1935 through extremely limited
electorates determined on the basis of property and education.
Furthermore there was a provision of separate electorates on the
grounds of religion and caste. There were 296 members in the
constituent assembly out of which 96 were nominated by the
rajas and nawabs of the feudal princely states. In the Meerut
session of Congress in 1946, Nehru had promised to the people of
India that a new constituent assembly would be convened after
independence on the basis of universal adult franchise. But after

getting the independence this promised was forgotten.
The constituent assembly was totally boycotted by Muslim
League due to which it essentially became a single party body.
Whatever differences emerged in it were because of the
contradiction between the left-wing and the right-wing of the
Congress. The drafting committee which was bestowed with the
task of framing the constitution started its functioning from
October 27, 1946. Two bureaucrats of Indian Civil Services Sir
B. N. Rau and S.N.Mukherji had already prepared a draft of
the Constitution. This fact was acknowledged even by
Ambedkar in his speech as the chairman of the Drafting
Committee on November 25, 1947. The task of the drafting
committee was to examine the already prepared draft and to
suggest the amendments if needed. This fact was acknowledged
by Satyanarayan Sinha, a member of the Constituent Assembly.
The meetings of the committee commenced on October 1947 and
lasted till February 13, 1948 in which not all members used to be
present on regular basis but the quorum used to be fulfilled. Some
amendments were recommended in these meetings which were
incorporated in the original draft. On November 26, 1949 the final
draft of the constitution was passed by the constituent assembly
and the constitution came into being on January 26, 1950.
After discussing about the process of making of the
constitution, let us turn our attention to the substantive content of
the constitution. Out of 395 articles of the original constitution,
250 were borrowed from the colonial Government of India Act
1935 either in Toto or with some minor modifications. It is to be
noted that it was the same act which Nehru had termed as the
charter of slavery. On the main skeleton made out of the
articles of this act, some provisions borrowed from the
constitutions and the political traditions of countries ranging from
Britain, USA, Ireland to Canada and Australia were
superimposed and after giving a populist finishing touch over it, a
gigantic constitution consisting of 90000 words came into being.
Often people take pride in the fact that the Indian constitution is
the biggest constitution in the world. But there is no direct
correlation between the size of the constitution and its ability to
safeguard the rights of the citizens. The truth is that the scope of
the provisions in the Indian constitution is so wide that the state
does not even need to violate the constitution in order to encroach
upon the rights of the citizens. The blatantly undemocratic steps
such as the emergency of 1975, the situation of virtual military
rule in Jammu and Kashmir and North Eastern states, the war
against the people of the tribal dominated citizens of central India
in the name of fight against Maoists, numerous draconian laws
etc. are all well within the ambit of the constitution. In this
respect, the Indian constitution has a semblance of the
jurisprudence of the notorious German Reich.
An attempt to create a fusion of the preamble of the
American constitution and the ideals of enlightenment era is
discernible in the wordings of the preamble of the constitution.
The provisions related to fundamental rights, judicial review and
the independence of judiciary are inspired from the American
Constitution. The concept of the Directive Principles of State
Policy is borrowed from the Irish Constitution. The centralised
federal structure is taken from the constitution of Canada. The
concept of concurrent list is inspired from the Australian
Constitution. The parliamentary form and the separation between
legislature, executive and judiciary have been borrowed from
British tradition.
Indian Constitution begins with the following words:
WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to
constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens:
JUSTICE, social, economic and political;
LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;
EQUALITY of status and of opportunity;
and to promote among them all
FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the
unity and integrity of the Nation;
IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty-sixth
day of November, 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND
GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.
The American constitution also begins with the similar words
We the people of United States. Actually both the
American constitution and Indian constitution begin with a fraud.

There was no representation of the black slaves in the
Philadelphia convention which made the American constitution.
Likewise, since Indian constituent assembly was not elected on
the basis of universal adult franchise, it did not represent the
people of India in the true sense of the term.
At the time when the constitution came into being, India was
an extremely backward agrarian country shattered by two
centuries of colonial slavery. In such a society, peoples capabilities
of collective initiative and collective decision making could not have
been developed without implementing land reforms in
revolutionary manner and without this it was impossible to escape
from the pressure and interference of imperialism. Even though
the bourgeois state became sovereign (although not totally), looking
from the perspective of the peoples sovereignty, the sovereign
term in the preamble appears to be hollow. In the current era of
globalisation this word is increasingly losing its meaning.
Socialism and secularism, these terms were not present
in the original constitution; rather they were inserted through the
42nd amendment of the Constitution. The purpose of force fitting
these terms into the preamble during the emergency era was to
conceal the fascist and blatantly anti-people acts of the Indira
Gandhi government at that time with the populist jargons and it had
least bearing with the lofty ideals of socialism and secularism. In
the era of privatisation, liberalisation and globalisation, when the
state is washing off its hands from its responsibility of fulfilling even
the basic needs of the citizens, the presence of socialism in the
constitution is a sort of tragic farce. As regards secularism, in
Indian democracy secularism has evolved not in the classical
bourgeois democratic sense of complete separation of religious
institutions and rituals from the political arena and confining the
religious beliefs to the realm of personal life which was a product
of European renaissance and enlightenment era, but as Sarva
Dharm Sambhav(equal respect to all religions). In this backdrop,
it is not at all surprising that along with the passage of time the
interference of religion into politics has increased and the
communal and religious fundamentalist forces are flourishing
throughout the country.
The enthusiastic supporters of Indian democracy who glorify

it by terming it as the biggest democratic republic cite the free
and fair elections held on the basis of universal adult franchise as
an evidence of their claim. The term political justice in the
preamble bears the same meaning. In this context, it is natural to
ask whether the criterion for judging the freeness and fairness of
elections is merely to successfully conduct the elections in
presence of heavy police machinery and para-military forces.
Doesnt the clout of money power and muscle power in the
electoral process raise a question mark over its independence,
impartiality and the democratic nature? According to a report, in
the Loksabha elections held in 2009, on an average the big parties
spent Rs 30 crore per candidate and smaller parties spent Rs 9
crore per candidate.2 Although none of the political parties could
get the absolute majority in the 15th Loksabha, there is one group
which has got the absolute majority and it is that of crorepatis
(people having declared assets worth more than Rs 10 million). In
the 545 member Loksabha, number of crorepatis exceeds 300.
Besides, 150 members are having criminal antecedents. 3
Condition of the state legislative assemblies is even worse. Under
such a situation, it is clear that the representation of people in the
government is increasingly on the wane. Hence the common
people of India are deprived of their right to be elected and and
even their right to elect is mainly and essentially formal. Besides,
they have no right to recall their representatives due to which the
people find themselves helpless before an authoritarian and
unaccountable government.
One of the ideals proclaimed in the preamble is economic
justice. But the constitution does not guarantee to the citizens
the important rights such as right to work, right to minimum
wages, right to humane condition of work, right to get equal wage
for equal work, right to get nutritional food, right to get social
security etc. Although there is a passing reference to some of
these rights in the fourth part of the constitution in form of
directive principles of state policies but these principles are not
justiciable. At the time of framing of the constitution, it was
argued that the state, at that point of time, did not have the
requisite resources to guarantee these rights to the citizens. Six
decades after coming into being of the constitution, it is pertinent

to ask: why is it that at a time when the Indian economy is
growing by leaps and bound, the state is going back on its
promises instead of fulfilling them? In the era the neo-liberal
policies, the words like economic justice are conveniently laid to
rest in the thick volume of the constitution.
In order to achieve the ideal of social justice and equality,
some fundamental rights have been conferred to the citizens in
the part three of the constitution towards ending the
discrimination based upon caste, race, religion, sex etc. But six
decades after the constitution was adopted, we are witnessing the
increasing structural oppression based on gender and caste. The
frequent incidents of dalit atrocity, domestic violence, female
foeticide, rape, honour killing appear to make mockery of the
fundamental rights contained in the constitution.
As has been discussed above, the constitution does not even
guarantee to the citizens the basic rights necessary for living a
human life. Whatever fundamental rights are mentioned in the
part three of the constitution are extremely narrow in scope. Even
for the extremely limited fundamental rights conferred through
the constitution, the provisions for numerous conditions and
restrictions are present in the constitution itself which can be
easily used by the state to encroach upon the rights of the citizens
without violating the constitution.
Take for instance Article 19 of the Constitution which confers
upon some fundamental rights to the citizens, viz. freedom of
speech and expression (article 19(1)(a)), freedom to assemble
and hold meeting anywhere in the country(article 19(1)(b)),
freedom of forming associations (article 19(1)(c)), freedom of
residing and settling in any part of India(article 19(1)(d)) and
freedom of choosing a vocation(article 19(1)(e)). Article 19 also
contains the provision that all these freedoms are subject to
reasonable restrictions. The bases of these reasonable
restrictions can be national security, public order, morality and
decency etc. It is this provision of reasonable restrictions which
has been blatantly misused by the state in the last six decades to
curb the citizens fundamental rights of freedom of press,
freedom of assembly and holding meeting and of travelling and
forming a union. Apart from the reasonable restrictions, the

provisions of imposing restrictions on the fundamental rights are
present in the part eighteen of the constitution in the form of
emergency provisions. In the event of the proclamation of
national emergency, all fundamental rights, except for the rights
of life and personal liberty as contained in the article 20 and article
21, can be suspended through a presidential order. Since even the
fundamental right of constitutional remedy as per article 32 can
be suspended, the rights provided under articles 20 and article 21
also become essentially ineffective. So far, national emergency
has been declared four times - thrice for external reasons and
once for internal reason. The emergency which was effective
from June 1975 to March 1977 is notorious for widespread
violation of the fundamental rights of the citizens when a virtual
dictatorship prevailed through constitutional means.
Another provision which makes a mockery of the citizens
fundamental rights is present in article 22 of the constitution
which authorises the state to make laws related to preventive
detention. This provision of the constitution has been grossly
exploited by the parliament and the state legislatures in the last six
decades to make numerous draconian laws which have been
used by the state not only to violate the civil liberties but also to
crush the peoples movements. The ink of the original
Constitution had not even dried up when the Preventive Detention
Act 1950 was passed which remained in force till 1969.
Subsequently, Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) was
brought in 1971 which became the symbol of the naked
dictatorship of the state during emergency. In 1980 National
Security Act was brought which remains in force till date. In 1985
Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) was brought
which was grossly misused in the name of fighting terrorism. In
2002, the then NDA government, in an unprecedented manner,
hurriedly passed a new anti-terror law, first as an ordinance and
then by passing Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) by
convening a joint session of the parliament. As expected, it too
was misused. In 2004, in order to showcase its progressive image,
the UPA government repealed POTA, but cleverly inserted its
draconian provisions into the Unlawful Activities (Prevention)
Act. Besides, there are several such draconian laws in different

states, e.g. MCOCA in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh Special
Security Act in Chhattisgarh.
In a recent PUCLs seminar in Delhi on the topic of state
repression, the civil liberties and democratic rights activists from
different parts of the country shared their experiences as to how
the state machinery is using the draconian laws as a weapon to
crush the peoples movement. In different parts of the country,
the draconian laws are being used against the peasant and labour
leaders and media activists and intellectuals sympathetic to the
peoples movements. Special reference was made in this seminar
to the Sedition Act (section 124 A of Indian Penal Code) under
which several intellectuals and activists are being tried including
Binyak Sen. It is to be noted that this section has been in
existence since the colonial times and even Gandhi and Tilak
were tried under this section.
Besides, the situation of a virtual military rule which prevails
in the north-eastern states and Jammu & Kashmir has been
approved by another draconian act called Armed Forces Special
Powers Act. In the north eastern states, this draconian law is in
force since 1958 and in Jammu & Kashmir since 1990. It has
been grossly misused to abridge the fundamental rights of the
people of these peripheral nationalities. It is to be noted that the
virtual military rule in these regions is well within the ambit of the
Constitution. In case of Jammu & Kashmir, betraying the promise
of holding a referendum, the Indian state cleverly merged it within
India using the constitutional weapon of article 370 against the
will of its people.
The dark shadow of the colonial past hovers not only around
the constitution and statutes but across the entire edifice of
governance and administration. Last year, flaunting a radical
gesture, ex-environment minister Jairam Ramesh threw off the
traditional gown in the convocation program of an institute by
terming it as a barbaric colonial relic. Perhaps Mr. Minister forgot
that the barbaric colonial relic is present not only in the form of
traditional gown but it is embedded in the structure of the
governance and administration of the central and state
governments at all levels from the ministries and secretariat to the
district and Tehsil. All the major laws governing the Indian
administration were enacted during the colonial era in order to
govern a colonial regime. They were adopted either ditto or with
some minor adjustments after independence. For instance, Indian
Penal Code was made in 1860, Indian Evidence Act was enacted
in 1872, Civil Procedure Code in 1908 and the Transfer of
Properties Act in 1882. Besides, overly centralised, nontransparent and hierarchical administrative structure, its modusoperandi, the designations of bureaucrats and their distance from
people all are reminiscent of the colonial past. Two top All India
Services - IAS and IPS (which find mention even in the
Constitution) - are also a gift of colonialism. The ICS, the
predecessor of IAS, was considered as the steel frame of the
British Raj as the entire colonial rule rested on it. Even after
independence, the IAS has been more effective in maintaining the
continuity of the tyrant rule of the rulers. So far as the
responsibilities related to public welfare and development are
concerned, it has proved to be anti-people and utterly
incompetent. The shadow of colonial past can be clearly felt in
the attitude of the bureaucrats and their behaviour with the
people. The Y K Alag Committee, formed in 2001 to examine the
condition of civil services, had correctly pointed out in its report
that the members of civil services exhibit ruler mindset.
India is a signatory to The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and the International Covenant of Human Rights. But
ironically, the incidents of the violation of the human rights by the
different organs of central and state governments are very
common in India. Indian police force is notorious for illegal
custody, custodial deaths and rapes, fake encounters etc. Justice
A.N. Mulla of the Allahabad High Court had made a pertinent
remark in a verdict that there is not a single lawless group in the
whole country whose record of crime is anywhere near the
record of that organised unit which is known as the Indian Police
Force. According to a report, 1,184 people were killed in the
police custody in India between 2001 and 2009.4 According to a
report of a RTI activist, every second police encounter is fake
one.5 The National Human Rights Commission formed to stop the
violation of human rights has proved to be utterly ineffective.
While the reputation of the legislature and executive had been

tarnished in the peoples psyche long ago, that of the judiciary was
relatively better till a few decades ago. The judiciary was
considered to be the last ray of hope in so far as the democratic
rights of the citizens are concerned. But even this last ray of hope
is losing sheen with the passage of time. The judicial process is
getting costlier, longer and tiresome with each passing day. The
constitutional remedy had already gone out of reach of the
common people, the process of the legal remedies which are
within their reach are increasingly getting so complex and
tiresome that to go through this process is itself a punishment.
More than 30 million cases are pending in the different courts in
the country. According to an estimate, if the Indian courts will
continue to deliver justice with the current rate, it would take
more than 320 years to clear the backlog of cases.6 Around 70
percent of the prisoners in Indian prisons are under-trials which in
itself is a living testimony of the violation of citizens right by the
state. Indian judiciary has proved to be utterly incapable to secure
the rights of labourers by implementing labour laws. There is so
much delay in the process of getting justice through the labour
courts and industrial tribunals that most of poor and workers do
not even think of approaching them. In the current era of
globalisation, the higher judiciary has taken largely anti-labour
stand.
As per a nationwide survey conducted by the Centre for
Media Studies, 77 percent of the participants held the opinion that
the Indian judicial system was corrupt. The scope of corruption is
no more confined to the lower judiciary alone. Former Chief
Justice of India S.P. Bharucha said in the year 2002 that among
the judges of higher judiciary, 20 percent are corrupt. Much water
has flown in the Ganges since then. Now the virus of corruption
has infected even the office of chief justice of the Supreme
Court. Under such a circumstance a big question mark is raised
on the capacity of the judiciary to safeguard the democratic rights
of the citizens.
Its not that no thought has been given to make the Indian
system of governance and administration people oriented by
freeing it from the burden of colonial past. So far, numerous
commissions have been formed including the Commission to

Review the Functioning of the Constitution, Administrative
Reforms Commission, Police Commission, Law Commission etc.
It is another thing that numerous recommendations of such
commissions and committees are eating the dust of the files
which themselves are are in use since the colonial era. The
burden of the colonial past has become so heavy that it is no
longer possible to get rid of it through commissions and
committees. Nor is there any willingness among the ruling elite in
this direction. The people are left with no other choice but to
launch movements for safeguarding their democratic rights. The
democratic rights movement needs to internalise this reality and
set its agenda accordingly.
The democratic rights activists will have to educate the broad
masses about the meaning and significance of the democratic
rights through mass movements. They will have to be united,
mobilised and organised around the issues of the democratic
rights. Nationwide mass movements need to be carried out
against all the colonial and draconian laws and the anti-people
acts of the governments and administrations. It is to be recalled
that even during the freedom struggle, the nationwide mass
movements began with the large scale mobilisation of people
against Rowllet Act which was the ancestor of all the draconian
laws in the true sense of the term. Alternatives of the existing
centralised, non-transparent and anti-people institutions will also
have to be explored during the mass movements only. Serious
attention needs to be paid to the multi-tier electoral system on the
basis of small constituencies and also to the right to recall the
elected members. Sincere thought needs to be spared to evolve
numerous forms of peoples committees and peoples councils In
order to tighten the hold on the bureaucracy by increasing the
direct participation and involvement of the masses. Clearly, in
order to prepare the mass base for such a large scale
transformation in the constitutional, legal and administrative
system, the democratic rights movement will have to put the
demand of calling a new constituent assembly on the basis of
universal adult franchise into its agenda.
References
1 Ambedkars speech before the constituent assembly
on 25 November 1947
2 Amit Bhaduris article in EPW, November 2010
3 National Election Watch (http://ionalelectionwatch.org)
4 Report of Asian Centre of Human Rights (http://
hrweb.org/countries/india.htm)
5 Two Circles (http://www.achrweb.org/countries/
india.htm)
6 http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-03-06/ india/
28143242_1_high-court-judges-literacy-rate-backlog
DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS MOVEMENT AND THE

WORKING CLASS
Prasen Singh
We would like to briefly put forward some points as to what
should be the general stand of the working class in a backward
capitalist countries like India in the current era of imperialism with
respect to the fight for democracy or the democratic rights even
while preparing for a fresh struggle towards the goal of socialism.
In the era of the national liberation struggles, the working
class was participating in the general political mass movements
against the colonial rule alongside its fight against the foreign
capitalists as well as the native capitalists in the factories. The
labourers in the villages were waging a democratic fight for
freedom from bonded and forced labour and they naturally
formed a common front with the peasants against the feudal
landlords.
The colonial rule ended in 1947 and a constitution of
bourgeois democratic republic came into being in 1950. But the
project of bourgeois democracy was not only incomplete but
skewed as well. Not only did the feudal remnants linger for a long
time, capitalism to a large extent maintained the old medieval
values and institutions with some minor adjustments. The
skeleton of the constitution was erected from a colonial act of
1935 and even the structure of law and order, police force and
bureaucracy was essentially the same as earlier. The national
movement was a peoples movement but not a peoples
revolution because even though its bourgeois leadership had
The author is a social activist and associated with Shaheed Bhagat
Singh Vichar Manch, Allahabad. Contact: prasen.all@gmail.com
managed to acquire power by creating the pressure of mass

movements, it hampered the mass initiative on all occasions and
betrayed the mass aspirations at each decisive point.
Consequently, the national movement, though it became the cause
of the transfer of power in the form of a partial, gradual and
passive political revolution, the lack of democratic values and
institutions in the social life and the democratic consciousness in
the people remained a grave problem. The project of bourgeois
democracy was incomplete and distorted in the sense that it had
neither made a decisive rupture from the imperialist world nor did
it bring about the capitalist land relations in a revolutionary
manner. It was incomplete and distorted also in the sense that
there was a lack of democratic consciousness in the society as
well and the nature of bureaucracy, police, general laws and
labour laws was democratic only nominally and formally.
Although the bourgeoisie of America and Europe which carried
out bourgeois democratic revolutions had also made the
democratic ideals of the bourgeois philosophers of enlightenment
era narrow and formal by distorting them in the interest of capital,
but the Indian rulers did the same thing in hundred times more
brazen and fraudulent manner. Some democratic institutions and
aspirations have surely emerged as a natural culmination of the
gradual development of capitalism in the last six decades, but its
opposite move has been the sustained repression of the
democratic rights and aspirations by the ruling classes and their
senior global partners. The expansion of industry has led to the
emergence of democratic institutions and aspirations, but the all
round grip of the unproductive and parasitic financial system has
strengthened the foundation of totalitarianism and tyrannical
despotism. The second move has been more dominant in the last
two decades of neo-liberalism. It is in this context that we are
pondering over the fight for the democratic rights of the working
class or over the role of the working class in the fight for the
democratic rights.
It is true that seen from the viewpoint of the productionrelations, the capitalist production-relation has established its
hegemony in the Indian society today and particularly in the last
twenty years the contradiction between labour and capital has
Democratic Rights Movement and the Working Class 65
increasingly sharpened. On the economic plane, all the clashes of

the working class are with the capitalist plunder and the capitalist
rule, though it does not fight for uprooting the capitalist rule but for
its immediate interest and to protect itself from the all-round
onslaught of capital. Looking from the viewpoint of political
superstructure we find that the working class needs to fight for its
democratic rights on daily basis and at every step.
This fight for the democratic rights has become extremely
important today for the working class also because in the era of
reversal and scattering of the labour movement, it has lost even
the rights which it won after the prolonged struggles. In the era of
the neo-liberal policies, 93 percent of workers belong to
contractual, daily wage, casual and piece-rate category. The
traditional unions have stopped fighting for the interest of such
workers and owing to their dispersal, the bargaining capacity of
the informal workers has gone down considerably. There is a
need, in the new circumstances, to devise ways and means to
organise this working population afresh and new forms of
struggles are needed to proceed further.
Undoubtedly the workers will have to fight against the rule of
capital and capitalist economic relations, but if they fail to fight for
their democratic rights, they would not be able to wage political
and economic struggle against capitalism as well. In the Russian
communist movement, during 1894-1902, the economists had
taken a stand that after the establishment of capitalism in Russia,
the working class need not engage in the political struggle i.e.
the struggle for democracy. When the first World War was going
on, some economists and semi-anarchists had maintained
that in the stage of monopoly capitalism, there was no need to
struggle for democracy (It was this viewpoint which was adopted
by Pyatakov and Bukharin when they were opposing the right
of self determination of the nations). Lenin had given a reply to
such people and some general formulations of this reply are of
great importance even for us in todays conditions.
Lenin had written: Democracy is converted to a mirage by
capitalism in general and imperialism in particular, though
capitalism also inculcates democratic aspirations, creates
democratic institutions and sharpens the contradiction between
imperialism which defies democracy and the people aspiring for

democracy. The rule of capitalism and imperialism can be
overthrown not by extremely ideal democratic changes but only
by an economic revolution. But a working class which is not
educated in the struggle for democracy cannot be expected to
accomplish an economic revolution
Further clarifying his point he writes: The Marxist solution to
the problem of democracy is that a working class which wages its
class struggle must use all the democratic institutions and
aspirations against the bourgeoisie in order to overthrow the
latters rule and ensure its victory. Such a use is not an easy thing
to do. To the economists and Tolstoyists etc. it appears as an
unacceptable concession to the bourgeois and opportunistic
thoughts in the same manner the advocacy of national selfdetermination in the era of finance capital is considered by P.
Keyevsky as unacceptable concession to the bourgeois class.
Marxism teaches us that to fight against opportunism by giving
up the use of the democratic institutions created and distorted by
bourgeois class is akin to completely surrendering to
opportunism! ( Lenin: reply to P. Keyevsky ( U. Pyatakov).
Against dogmatism and sectarianism in the labour
movement collection, Moscow ,1986, Hindi Ed., page 81-82)
In a post-colonial agrarian and backward capitalist society
like India where the project of capitalist democracy has remained
incomplete and distorted from the beginning, it becomes all the
more important for the Indian working class to fight for its
democratic rights, to pressurise the bourgeois class to fulfill its
promises of democracy, constitutional declarations and legal
provisions and to struggle for expanding the shrinking (and
continuously shrinking) space of bourgeois democracy. It is of
utmost importance because even in the past, the economist and
trade-unionist leadership either kept the workers busy in only the
economic struggles or even if they raised some democratic
demands they were of such nature (like the working hours,
overtime, leave etc.) that there was nothing in common between
them and the demands of other classes of people. It is important
also because mere use of the bourgeois democratic institutions
and space has been rejected outrightly and being termed as
rightwing by the semi-anarchist proletarian revolutionary

streams. It is important also because in the era of liberlisation
and privatisation, even the remaining bourgeois democratic space
has been rapidly shrinking. The rights, which were won by the
workers through struggle and for which there are several laws on
paper till this day, have been rendered meaningless in practice.
When the working class demands eight hours working day,
weekly holiday, minimum wages sufficient for fulfilling the basic
needs of family ( such as nutritious food, comfortable housing,
clothing, education and health), safety at workplace and the
adequate compensation in case of accident, these demands are
not those of ending the wage system or the exploitation of labour.
These demands are within the scope of the bourgeois democracy
these are such demands which are promised by the bourgeois
democracy. These are the demands of the civil liberties and
democratic right of the working class. When the worker raises
the demand of implementing the labour laws and their expansion
and the democratisation of the labour departments and labour
courts, even these are the struggles within the confines of
bourgeois democracy during which the worker gets organised
and learns to fight against state power on its demands.
When the working class goes a step further and demands the
declaration of the right to work as fundamental right, when it
raises the demand of compulsory provision by the state of the
basic amenities like nutritious food for the entire population,
comfortable housing, health care and uniform education, even
these demands are well within the scope of bourgeois democracy.
These demands are not those of ending the capitalist exploitation
and inequality. Even the bourgeois democracy admits in principle
that the responsibility of fulfilling the basic needs of the citizens
rests with the government. These demands are bourgeois
democratic demands of advance level in the sense that as soon as
the working class raises these demands, the disgusted small
peasants, general middle class population and even other sections
of the populace come forward to stand beside it. A ground is thus
prepared for a widespread mass movement and a broad strategic
joint forum. Even though these demands pertain to the democratic
rights but the struggle which is waged on these demands is of
higher plane because even the advance bourgeois democracy

cannot fulfill them (at best it can give some partial concessions).
Hence, when a widespread movement on these demands
advances, the people see the limits of capitalist democracy on
their own. The collective initiative and collective creativeness of
the people gets unleashed during such mass movements; newer
forms of democratic institutions are born and even the social
values and beliefs get democratised in radical manner.
Looking at the hell like darkness which prevails at the foothills
below the summits of prosperity in Indian life, it is clear that the
forms of movements such as peoples satyagrah and civil
disobedience movement on the issues such as food security,
housing, health care, education and universal right for livelihood
can be re-popularised among the masses. The manner in which
the neo-liberal policies are making the lives of ordinary people
difficult and the ever yawning gap between rich and poor which
dazzles our eyes, is clearly paving a new ground for social
explosion. The time is ripe for giving the democratic rights
movement the form of a widespread mass movement and the
working class needs to be given the leading role in organizing this
fight for democracy afresh.
Once the working class gets educated in the struggle of the
democratic rights till this point, it would be ready on its own to
fight for the more advance democratic demands such as calling a
new constituent assembly, establishing an inexpensive,
transparent and accountable system of peoples representation,
transforming the colonial legal, police and bureaucratic system
and bringing every level of bureaucracy under scope of public
supervision and it would also take other class of people along with
it. At that point, it would be prepared to form a militant front
against the religious fundamentalists and by freeing itself from the
influence of jingoistic propaganda it would even extend vocal
support to the right to self determination of the nationalities.
It is not a schematic thinking but a practical plan of action
which is the need of the hour for the working class as well as of
the democratic rights movement. Reiterating the Lenins thought
it can be said that a working class which is not educated in the
fight for democracy cannot accomplish the task of transforming
the capitalist production relations and the political system in a

revolutionary manner. In other words, in order to make the
democratic rights movement as a widespread mass movement,
there is a need to make the demands of the democratic rights of
the working class of the cities and villages as an issue and it is
important for the working class to arouse, mobilise and organise
itself for waging a struggle on these demands.
GOVERNMENTS WAR AGAINST TERRORISM OR

AGAINST THE PEOPLE
Rajkumar, Munish
1.
In a recent verdict on July 5, 2011, the Supreme Court, while
declaring the Salwa Judum movement run by the Chhattisgarh
government as unconstitutional, held that Salwa Judum was a war
declared against people. The apex court also held that what has
been described as development by the prime-minister and the
government is in fact rape of the people. ( Tehlka, June 16 2011)
While holding the recruitment of S.P.O. (Special Police
Officer) along with Salwa Judum as unconstutional, the apex
court has asked the Chhattisgarh government to reply and while
criticizing the central government for providing help, it has ordered
to disband Salwa Judum with immediate effect. Raising a question
mark over the neo-liberal policies of the government, the apex
court in its judgment pronounced that the real cause behind the
growth of the Maoist terrorism is the socio-economic policies
being implemented by the government which are causing extreme
inequality in the society. Further, the verdict mentions that the war
against Maoism being declared by the moral, constitutional and
legal regime, is actually a war being carried out against the
feelings and soul of the people. (The Hindu, July 6, 2011)
The point to note here is that several democratic rights activists
and organisations had clearly mentioned in their reports even
before this verdict as to how in the name of combating Maoism, a
section of the population of Bastar district has been armed under
Salwa Judum and by pitting them against the broad population, a
The authors are associated with the Jagrook Nagrik Manch, Gurgaon.
Contact: raj86kumar@gmail.com; tarkvaageesh.80@gmail.com
Governments War Against Terrorism or Against the People 71
civil war like situation has been created (Tehelka June 16, 2011).
According to a report published in the Mainstream magazine on
the current situation, the state sponsored anti-Maoist Salwa Judum
movement has so far caused the death of more than 1500 innocent
people in the 700 villages since 2005, thousands of tribal women
have been raped, numerous incidents of arson and destruction of
the standing crops in the several farms have taken place.
(Mainstream, 17-23 June 2011). Thus, the tribal population of the
entire area has been divided into two camps and a civil war like
situation prevails over there.
The truth about Salwa Judum which had been denied by
Chidambaram and Digvijay Singh has come out in public after the
Supreme Courts verdict and it is now clear that at the behest of
domestic and foreign companies, the government is uprooting the
tribals of Chhattisgarh from their land and it is trying to divide
them to create a civil war like situation in order to occupy the
immeasurable wealth of the region and to set up industries there.
According to a report of Times of India, in the period between
2001 and 2010, the Chhattisgarh government has signed 102
memoranda of Understandings (MoUs) with the the native and
foreign industrialists in which around Rs 1 lac 65 thousand crore
has been invested. All these MoUs are mainly with the mining
related companies (Times of India, June 7 2010,
lite.epaper.timesofindia.com). After the signing of MoU with Tata
Essar in 2005, the manner in which the government, in its pursuit
of implementing the MoUs, has been waging a campaign to uproot
the tribals of Chhattisgarh from their land in the name of fighting
Maoism has now been thoroughly exposed before the world.
The question here is not just of questioning the economic
policies of Chhattisgarh alone. What is happening in Chhattisgarh
is the logical culmination of the neo-liberal policies. Besides these
overt anti-people actions, a look at the neo-liberal socio-economic
and political policies which have been implemented in the last 20
years would reveal that the manner in which land and other
commodities are being sold to the top corporates on pittance in the
name of development, the manner in which they are being given
concessions by making the labour laws more and more flexible
and the manner in which the scope of all the services being
received by workers have been continuously shrinking, has made

adverse impact on the lives of people to no less extent than a war
by government. It is like a covert war which has been going on
perpetually.
The Supreme court has stated in its verdict that the modern
neo-liberal policies have led to the rise of the culture of greed and
desperation in some people who are engaged in the rivalry of
earning windfall profits at any cost (Tehlka June 16 2011). During
the implementation of these policies, the character of
bureaucracy has also become more despotic and repressive.
A look at the government policies related to social
development and social security would clarify the issue further.
The Supreme court recently ordered the central government to
distribute the foodgrains which is being rotting for want of proper
storage facilities, to the poor (The Hindu, New Delhi, May 15,
2011). But the government expressed its disagreement over the
distribution of foodgrains to the poor( NDTV, September 6, 2010).
Even while thousands of children die of hunger, malnutrition and
lack of food every day (www.guardian.co.uk, October 4,2009) ,
lacs of farmers commit suicide because of poverty and destitution
( The Hindu, May 13, 2010) , millions of tones of foodgrain rots in
the warehouses. In the aftermath of the Supreme courts verdict,
despite the popular mood throughout the country, the government
turned deaf ear after expressing its disagreement over making the
foodgrain available to the needy. Six decades after independence,
while the huge malls, highways and railway tracks have been
constructed and are underway in the name of development,
proper arrangement for the storage of foodgrains still eludes
despite the fact that 30 percent of the total foodgrain is destroyed
for want of warehouses to store it ( The Hindu, New Delhi, June
13, 2011). It is a pity that the governments which give away
concessions to the capitalists in the order of crores in the name of
development and which spend hundreds of crores of rupees in the
armed actions against people have not been able to construct
warehouses to store foodgrains in the last six decades.
Not just this, the policies adopted by the successive
governments in the last 60 years and particularly in the last 20
years under the aegis of neoliberal socio-economic and political
policies which have been responsible for the displacement and

eviction of a huge population from its land and sources of
livelihood, are nothing less than a civil war waged by the
government against the people. According to a small news item
published in the corner in Hindustan Times on October 31, 2009
and an article on November 13, 2009, a government appointed
committee on state agrarian relations and unfinished task of land
reforms had termed the industrialisation drive in the iron-ore rich
regions of Chhattisgarh Bastar, Dantewada and Bijapur as the
biggest incident of land grabbing of the indigenous people after
Columbus.
Besides the big incidents, the state repression of people in the
day to day social life has also become more pronounced. Apart
from the open direct violence of the entire state machinery, its
structural violence in the day to day life has been intensified and
well organised. This topic in itself requires a separate write up
and hence we will not go into the details of this discussion.
2.
Lets return to the discussion of the overt armed repression of
people by the government. After the apparent failure of Salwa
Judum, SPO and Koya Commandos to fulfill their objectives in
Chhattisgarh, the government commenced an intensive campaign
in areas stretching from Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh,
Jharkhand upto Orissa in 2009 with a code name Operation
Green Hunt. Under this military campaign, the government
buildings including schools were converted into the military
cantonments. Around two lacs police force from CRPF, Cobra
Battalion and BSF armed with the state of art weapons and
training was deployed under Operation Green Hunt in order to
crush the peoples movements. Under the counter insurgency,
the kind of atrocities committed against the people in the name of
Maoists in Operation Green Hunt has been hardly covered in the
reports and newspapers. The ground reality can be assessed by
having a look at the statements and reports of some democratic
rights organisations (www.antiimperialista.org, 13 May 2011).
The government has been continuously denying these
charges, but now the truth has come out in the open; after the
Supreme Court verdict, it is evident that the outline of this entire

military action has been prepared under the pressure of the
contracts signed with indigenous and foreign companies for
evicting the tribals from the mines and land having immeasurable
resources and for displacing them. Around Rs 6.6 Lac crore has
so far been invested in the Naxal affected areas by the indigenous
and foreign firms ( Outlook, 26 November 2009); an estimated
bauxite deposit worth of 2.7 billion dollar is present in Orissa alone
( Outlook, Novermber 9, 2009). Also 7.4 billion ton of iron ore
deposit is available in the Raoghat hills ( Mainstream, 17-23 June
2011). All the firms eye on this natural resource.
Owing to the neo-liberal policies of the government, many
tribal communities in the tribal belt of Chhattisgarh and adjoining
region are mercilessly being evicted from their land without any
social security and rehabilitation in order to grab the natural
wealth. The government is brutally crushing all kinds of peoples
movements against this entire process of dispossession. The
tribals who are fighting for their survival against the pressure of
the governments economic policies have got the support of the
Maoist political stream and the Maoists are extending their
assistance in the struggle of the tribals. One can have a
difference of opinion with the Maoist political stream with regard
to the general orientation and strategy of the Indian revolution;
one can even have disagreement with many of their activities; but
considering the ground reality of the entire region where the
government is repressing all kinds of peoples movements of
tribals for their demands by branding them as Maoist, it is indeed
an overt war which is being waged against the tribal population
and not against the Maoist political stream.
Now that the scope of this war against people has expanded,
whoever opposes the eviction of the tribals is being declared as
Maoist. In 2005, the Chhattisgarh government enacted
Chhattisgarh Special peoples security Act 2005 under which any
individual can be arrested anywhere on the ground of being
sympathetic to the Maoists. It was under this act that Dr. Binayak
Sen and Piyush Guha along with another person were arrested in
2007 and in 2010, the district court had awarded life sentence to
the three on the charges of sedition and later in April 2011 in a
petition filed against this sentence in the Supreme Court, justice

H.S. Bedi and Justice C.K. Prasad freed Dr. Binayak Sen from
the charges of sedition. The Supreme Court stated in the verdict
that we are a citizen of a democracy and any individual can be
sympathetic to any ideology. If Mahatma Gandhis autobiography
is found at anyones place, it does not prove that he is a Gandhian.
It is in no way a violation of constitution or sedition to carry the
books related to any ideology or even being sympathetic to a
banned organisation or even being a member of such organisation
provided the person is not directly involved in a terrorist activity or
in a war against the state (Frontline, April 15, 2011). The capitalist
democracy has been thoroughly exposed before the world and it
has been publicly discredited.
Here we are mainly discussing about Chhattisgarh in a
specific context, but similar campaigns are being waged in
regions spanning from Jangal Mahal in Bengal to Orissa,
Jharkhand and some areas of Bihar. Under a similar anti-people
act, Azad, a central committee member of the CPI (Maoist) was
killed in a fake encounter in 2010 along with a journalist named
Hemchandra Pandey. According to another report, PCPA
members from West Bengal Lal Mohan Tudu, Umakant Mahto
and Sidhu Soren were killed by CRPF in a fake encounter and
peoples democratic rights were curtailed by imposing section 144
(www.antiimperialista.org, 13 May 2011).
In all these incidents the peoples movements are being
repressed and the activists and democratic organisations who are
leading the people are being targeted. In these areas, even those
who are arrested merely on the basis of suspicion are not provided
any of the rights which political prisoners are entitled to; even now
thousands of innocent poor tribals, peasants, workers and social
activists are languishing in jail for years on false charges without
any hearing (The Hindu, March 5, 2011, Economic Times, March
12, 2011). Even though bail has been granted to Binayak Sen and
Piyush Guha, several left intellectuals, writers and journalists such
as Seema Azad, Prasant Rahi, Sudhir Dhawale etc. are in jail on
charges of sedition and terrorism. Veteran leaders such as Naraan
Sanyal and Kobad Gandhi may be Maoist leaders, but there is no
proof of them being involved in any terrorist act. They should be
released without any delay even according to the benchmark of

democratic rights approved by the Supreme Court.
All this reveals that the colonial laws which are being used
against people by branding them as Maoist or traitors, have
become despotic instrument to suppress every demand raised for
justice and to throttle every voice raised against the oppression of
people. Numerous public interest litigations are pending for years
in the judiciary which works under the constitutional laws. The
situation of the judiciary resembles that of Bhishma of
Mahabharat which finds itself helpless despite being fully aware
of the anti-people nature of capitalism.
3.
The failure of operation Green Hunt earlier and now the banning
of Salwa Judum by the Supreme Court is not of grave concern for
the capitalists and the government because as per the MoUs
signed between the capitalists and governments, the government
action to implement the scheme of grabbing the land and evicting
the people has already begun. The truth behind such actions is
exposed by a report of a 15 member committee (committee for
state agrarian relations and incomplete land reforms related acts)
of union rural development minister headed by C P Joshi which
mentions that the private firms had provided financial assistance
to the government for Salwa Judum and it was started
immediately after the agreement between the government and
the Tata to set up a plant in Bastar. According to a report in
Frontline, it was Tata which first extended financial assistance to
the government for Salwa Judum ( Frontline 27 February- 12
March 2010).
According to a report by Aman Sethi about the current
situation in Chhattisgarh which was published in The Hindu, the
army has begun the ground inspection for acquiring land for the
training of counter insurgency and jungle warfare in Chhattisgarh.
According to a report in Mainstream, the iron ore mines in the
Raoghat area are merely 25 kilometer away from Narayanpur
(Mad area) where the Chhattisgarh government has approved
the acquisition of 750 square kilometer land to the army ( The
Hindu, January 10, 2011). Under this entire project, army training
camp is being set up in Raigarh in Chhattisgarh which is situated

at the Orissa border in the north-west area and the other training
camp is being set up in the south-west area in Narayanpur at
Maharashtra border. Also a small army headquarter is also being
set up in Narayanpur. ( Mainstream, 17-23 June, 2011).
But the government, by invoking the reference of training, is
trying to befool people with this nave and crude logic. There are
several areas in the country having shooting ranges which were
set up during the second world war, the army already has several
vast deserted forests, desert and plateau area for war exercise,
yet why is it that the army chose the tribal area of Raigad (Mad
region) which is the storehouse of enormous mineral wealth due
to which the contracts have been signed between the government
and native and foreign firms as discussed earlier? What could be
the reason behind the governments decision to allocate vast
stretch of land to the army for the purpose of coutner-insurgency
training in the area where it has been waging a destructive war
and eviction campaign against the entire tribal population in the
name of Maoism?
In order to begin the mining operation in Raoghat, the
government is spreading the propaganda that if mining is not
started here, the iron-ore supply to the Bhilai Steel Plant would be
stopped and the plant would need to be shut down which could
jeopardise the future of thousands of workers. But strangely, the
point to note here is that if the iron-ore supply is not being met
from the existing mines then why is it that the government is
exporting the ores from Bailadila mines to the Japanese, Chinese
and Korean companies?
According to Mainstream, the government is selling not only
the mines of Raoghat at the behest of the big companies like Tata,
Essar, Jindal and Nikko but it is also preparing the plan for selling
SAIL and B.S.P. to the private companies. (Mainstream, 17-23
June 2011). In this context it would not be wrong to say that the
question here is not that of decline in the ore in the B.S.P but it is
that of the contract which the government has signed with the
native and foreign firms for whose accomplishment the army
camps are being set up as part of a plan of armed campaign in
Raoghat. In order to acquire mines and land in the region, it is
necessary to uproot the local population and the government is

preparing itself in advance for repressing all the peoples
movements which could arise in its opposition and it wants to
prepare itself fully for an armed war against people. Considering
the manner in which the industrialists are eyeing on the natural
resources of the entire region and the manner in which it is
involved in systematically uprooting people, the government could
anytime impose AFSPA in this region as well following the
precedent of the North-East and Jammu & Kashmir.
4.
When we look back into history, we find that there is no novelty in
the acts of repression and oppression which are being carried out
by the Indian state today in the central parts of India. Even
earlier, governments have been tackling the peoples movements
with the power of gun and sticks in India, the so called biggest
democracy of the world and the beginning was in fact made at the
time of independence itself. Immediately after getting
independence, the Nehru government had brutally crushed the
peasant struggle in Telengana by sending army. In 1958, Armed
Forces (Special Protection) Act 1958 ( AFSPA) was enacted
especially for the North Eastern states of Assam and Manipur
and it was amended in 1972 when an announcement was made to
include all the seven states of North-Eastern India viz. Asam,
Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and
Nagaland within the ambit of this law. Later in 1990, it was
imposed in Jammu & Kashmir as well through an amendment.
If this was not enough, after the Naxalbari peasant uprising in
1966-67, a historic cycle of repression was carried out for ten
years and nearly ten thousands of youth were murdered in fake
encounters. The movement which began from Naxalbari was, in
fact, one among several forms of social discontent which
surfaced on the political-social horizon owing to the environment
of general disillusionment and despair among people as a result of
the faulty economic policies of the congress government after
independence. The magnificent rail strike of 1974 was in the
same continuum and it too had to face the wrath of the state. Who
on earth can forget the fascist crimes of the horrific and dark
years of emergency when the entire Indian state had turned into a
police state. Besides, there is a long list of the state sponsored
genocides such as Belachhi, Beladila, Pantnagar, Narayanpur,
Sherpur, Swadeshi Cotton Mill, Dala Churk, Muzaffarnagar etc.
These sporadic and scattered struggles of people, after
passing through various twists and turns and milestones, have
begun to acquire new shape after the commencement of the
disastrous neo-liberal policies since 1990-91 and what is
happening in Bastar is just an indication of this. The
transformation of the ongoing battle at socio-economic front into
a military war is very well a consequence of the natural internal
motion which proves the fact that politics is a concentrated
expression of economic policies and war is an extension of
politics.
A close look at the history of Kashmir and North-East would
reveal that people over there have been fighting for their
legitimate demands right since independence and the issue was
that of the right of self-determination and that of oppression of
nationalities and these struggles were mainly confined to the
peripheries of the country. But what is happening in Chhattisgarh,
Jharkhand and other states is different in the sense that the centre
of the struggle has now shifted to the heart of the country where
the state has waged a war against the entire tribal population in
order to benefit few native and foreign corporates.
Finally we wish to discuss the challenges and tasks which
confront the democratic rights activists today. It is our clear
opinion that the tyranny of state machinery and a totalitarian state
can be countered only by arousing and mobilizing the broad
masses. The herculean responsibility which rests with the
democratic rights activists is to make people aware of their
democratic rights through various means and to teach them how
to fight and struggle to achieve them. They must teach the people
that the question is not only that of Abujhmad or Dandkarnya but
today it is that of the policies of liberlisation-privatisationglobalisation which have resulted into a situation wherein a major
portion of the toiling people is being destroyed and pauperised and
people are living a hellish life. It is the policies of the same
government which, acting as a managing committee of the
capitalists, is hell bent on uprooting the lacs of tribals at any cost

for the plunder of the immeasurable social wealth of
Chhattisgarh, which are also responsible for uprooting millions of
small farmers every year and are forcing the millions of toiling
people to live hellish life by making the already inadequate labour
laws totally ineffective. It is these neo-liberal policies which are
creating the glittering paradise amidst the darkness of hell. The
direct violence of the state power needs to be looked as an
extension of the structural violence which is carried out in a
sustained basis. The military repression will have to be looked as
an extension of politics and the politics as a concentrated
expression of economic policies.
The democratic rights movement has made an important
contribution in revealing the truth behind Salwa Judum, Operation
Green Hunt and the upcoming armed repression campaigns. The
tasks at the legal front and at the media propaganda front are
indeed important; but they are not sufficient. The public opinion
needs to be created at the national level against the draconian
laws. The preparations of the armed repression in Chhattisgarh
will have to be brought at the centre-stage of the nation-wide
discourse and resistance. The development policies of the
government (rather, the destruction policies for people) and the
fraudulent rehabilitation policies also will have to be taken out of
the local confines and sincere thinking is required for making
them as an agenda of broad mass movement. To effectively
counter the increasingly repressive character of the state
machinery, there is no better way than arousing the masses. It is
our humble thought that we are faced with the tough challenge of
building the democratic rights movement in India afresh on this
foundation.
References
Tehelka, 16 June 2011
The Hindu, 6 July 2011, p. 1 & 13
Mainstream, 17-23 June 2010
The Hindu, New Delhi, 15 May 2011
NDTV, 6 September 2010
The Hindu, 13 May 2010

The Hindu, 13 June 2011
Hindustan Times, 31 October 2009
Hindustan Times, 13 November 2009
Outlook, 26 October 2009
Frontline, 15 April 2011
The Times of India, 30 January 2011
The Hindu, 5 March 2011
Frontline, 27 February-12 March 2011
Committee on State Agrarian Relations and Unfinished Task of
Land. Reforms
lite.epaper.timesofindia.com
www.guardian.co.uk, 4 October 2009
www.antiimperialista.org, 13 May 2011
SOCIO-CULTURAL TASKS OF THE DEMOCRATIC

RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Jai Pushp
Carrying out struggle against the repression of the democratic
rights by the state remains an important and immediate task of the
democratic rights movement. As the spontaneous motion of neoliberal economic policies makes the state more and more
autocratic, repressive and totalitarian, the onslaughts on the civil
liberties and the democratic rights of the people through various
draconian laws are getting more intense and aggressive. The
repression of the democratic rights by the state machinery and
raising voice against is indeed our shared concern. However,
there is another fundamental aspect towards which I wish to
draw the attention of the democratic rights activists, intellectuals
and esteemed citizens who have gathered here to deliberate upon
the problems and challenges before the democratic rights
movement in India.
In reality, it is not only the state which represses and
encroaches upon the democratic rights in a democratic society
but also the pre-capitalist values, beliefs and institutions which are
rooted in irrationality, inequality, superstitions-, prejudices and the
medieval practices. These structures which remain outside the
direct control of the political structure and which exist from an
earlier era not only build the support base of undemocratic
character of the state but they themselves encroach upon the
democratic rights of the citizens. In the broader context of the
The author is a social activist. Contact: jai.jaipushp@gmail.com
Socio-Cultural Tasks of the Democratic Rights Movement 83
democratic rights, we will have to examine the relationship not

only between the state and the citizen but also between the
citizens themselves as also the one that exists between the social
institutions and an individual.
It is clear that in a class society, all the citizens do not have
uniform democratic rights. The scope of the democratic right of
every individual expands or shrinks depending upon his status in
the social hierarchy. Even if the state confers uniform rights to all
the citizens through legislation, the social stereotypes and customs
act as a material force to encroach upon the rights of the people.
The social values-customs-institutions not only curtail the rights of
the ordinary citizens directly or indirectly in a spontaneous
manner, they also control and direct their social activity and
participation through numerous hidden hands. The hegemony of
the irrational superstitions, prejudices, norms and institutions in the
day to day social life of the broader populace prepares the
mindset of accepting the autocracy and despotism of the state or
that of not opposing it.
Another aspect of the same phenomenon is that the social
structures infected with the medieval age inertia act as the social
props of the state, they spontaneously maintain a symbiotic
relationship with the state and they also manufacture the consent
for the structural violence inbuilt in the day-to-day behavior of the
state. In such a situation, organising mass resistance in the event
of the autocratic repressive activities of the state becomes even
more challenging. The state easily manages to use the tyranny
and oppression prevalent in the social life in its interest and the
people who are habitual of living with the undemocratic values
and institutions in a way accept even the undemocratic and
repressive behavior of the state with the relative ease.
So, owing to the absence of democratic consciousness and a
sense of modernity in the social milieu, an ordinary citizen fails to
realize the lack of democratic space even in the political milieu
and thus he fails to put up an organised resistance against the
autocratic and despotic behavior of the state.
The current era is marked by increasing shrinkage of the
democratic space all over the world, but the problems of the postcolonial agrarian societies like India are much deeper and
widespread. There are many such institutions and customs in the

social fabric of our country even today which subject a substantial
population to repression, injustice, oppression and insult in all
walks of life. For numerous citizens of India, the ideals of
freedom, equality and fraternity bear no meaning in the day to day
life due to their social status and background. The Khap
Panchayats carry out cold blooded murder of the rights of two
adults to spend life together. Women have to face insult and
discrimination many times in a single day from home to the
workplace. Along with the growth of literacy, the incidents of
domestic violence, dowry related oppression, female infanticide
and the recent phenomenon of sex change have also increased.
Despite the constitutional and legal prohibition, caste-based
oppression and discrimination is rampant in the day-to-day life of
masses. Many among us might possibly think that these issues are
not related to the democratic rights movement. But we need to
deeply realize that such an inequality and the customs and
institutions based upon it erect a wall of segregation which
precludes the democratic rights movement to become a broad
based mass movement. Under such a situation it becomes
important for all of us concerned about the democratic rights
movements in India to develop the correct understanding of the
role of undemocratic tendencies and institutions in the Indian
society in the context of democratic rights movement and to
deliberate upon the long-term strategy of dealing with this
challenge.
Before we proceed, let us examine the causes for the
prevalence of the undemocratic values and medieval institutions
and customs in the Indian society even till this day. Comparing
against the western societies we find that there has been utter
lack of a complete historical process of renaissance and
enlightenment in India. For sure, some voices of resistance and
rationality did emerge from time to time which could disseminate
rationality and a sense of modernity in Indian society if their
subsequent editions could develop. In Nirgun Bhakti movement,
we could discern the voices in different forms against the castebased discrimination. Today it is difficult to guess what shape the
successor movement of the Nirgun Bhakti movement could
have adopted had India not been colonised, but there was a strong
possibility that such a social reform movement arriving as it was
through an internal spontaneous motion, could disseminate
rationality, sense of modernity and the democratic values by
breaking the medieval era stagnation in some novel forms if not
exactly like that in the west.
Although it is applicable to all post-colonial agrarian societies,
in case of Indian society this socio-cultural deprivation is much
deeper and widespread. The 200 year long colonial slavery and
economic plunder has impeded the healthy internal development
of the Indian society and consequently the growth of social
consciousness as well. After independence, even though
capitalism developed in a gradual manner from the top, the
medieval feudal values and customs remained intact in the social
fabric. The Indian constitution itself was not made in a
democratic manner and as a result this constitution was at best a
modified and enhanced version of the Government of India Act
1935. About 80 percent laws were made by the British regime in
order to enslave the Indian people. The Indian ruling class even
now uses the colonial laws such as Sedition Act and Land
Acquisition Act to attack the civil and democratic rights of the
people. The CrPC, IPC, Jail Manual, Police Manual all have their
roots in the colonial era legislations. It goes without saying that
instead of making a radical rupture from the heritage of colonial
political and intellectual structure, the native rulers who took the
reins of country after independence found them suitable to their
interest.
This aspect of continuity is not just confined to the politics and
governance and administration, rather to a large extent there
exists a continuity of colonial and medieval era values in the social
life throughout the country even after independence when looked
in totality. Some attempts for social-reform are discernible during
the national independence movement after the complete
colonisation and some militant social movement were indeed
organised against the religious superstitions, caste-based
discrimination and the pathetic condition of women. However,
this stream was very feeble to begin with and often past was
invoked to inspire the people against the colonial regime during
the national liberation movement, instead of developing modernity

and militant materialistic world outlook, religious symbols were
resorted to and the religious values were idealised.
The political streams talking about revolutionary change
prevailed in the backdrop both before and after independence but
even they did not lay adequate emphasis on the importance of
social and cultural reform movement and it would not be an
exaggeration to say that they were unsuccessful in organising
such a movement. As a consequence of the above
circumstances, the ground for democratic values, materialistic
consciousness and rationality remained weak in Indian society
during and after the national movement.
After 1947, the capitalist development which took place in
India with a gradual and slow pace in-fact adopted the precapitalist, medieval, autocratic and despotic social institutions and
values with some modification rather than stamping them out.
Newer forms of the caste-based and gender-based segregation
and oppression and irrationality emerged apart from the old forms
of the tyranny of the medieval era. The feeble streams of radical
democratic consciousness and radical social reforms which
existed during the national movement also started disintegrating
and decomposing after the independence. Even though the
independent dynamics of the capitalist development did, to some
extent, produce a sense of modernity, it has failed to make a
decisive blow to the old social institutions, particularly the
medieval Indian classical form of cast-based and gender-based
oppressions.
The autocratic and semi-fascist tendencies prevail in every
joint of the social fabric of India till this day. The degeneration of
the bourgeois politics has on the one hand given rise to the new
forms of destructive ghosts of the caste, religion and language
based sectarianism and on the other hand the onslaught of the
consumerist culture has spread and propagated the orthodoxy and
irrationality among the people. In a society where ordinary people
live their day to day life under highly undemocratic and irrational
social values, not only does the social base of the repressive state
machinery gets strengthened but even the fascist tendencies get
conducive environment for flourishing in the form of religious
fundamentalism. The religious fundamentalist fascism represents

the most reactionary political stream of the finance capital and the
undemocratic institutions and medieval values and beliefs
prevalent in the backward societies act as their social base.
It is clear that the democratic rights movement, today, will
have to carry out an intense analysis of the social content and
social structure. In the post-colonial and agrarian societies like
India, one aspect of the democratic rights movement will be that
of radical social movements. It is a backlog of history which will
have to be completed within the scope of the democratic rights
movement itself. If it has to wage a struggle against the
despotism and tyranny of the state, it will also have to open a front
against the social and cultural despotism and tyranny.
The undemocratic social institutions act as a social prop of
the tyranny of the state and they themselves encroach upon the
democratic rights of the people. Without freeing themselves from
the shackles of the despotic social values and customs, the
ordinary people cannot carry out organised resistance against the
state repression. An intensive and prolonged campaign needs to
be waged against the social institutions and values which help to
establish the socio-cultural and ideological hegemony of the state.
It is important, today, to extend the democratic rights movement
to the people by taking it out of the intellectual circle. Instead of
being confined to the activities of petition-plea-prayer on some
incidents or issues, it must be a broad based peoples movement
against the violation of the democratic rights at every step in the
day-to-day life of masses. It should not only be a political
movement but a broad based socio-cultural movement as well.
The democratic rights movement will have to make a longterm plan and strategy for awakening and educating people apart
from extremely important tasks such as raising voice against the
repressive acts of state and the draconian laws. It will have to go
to the grass-root level and uplift the ideological and cultural level
of the people and at the same time it will also have to boldly
organise the masses at the basic level against the varied forms of
undemocratic social institutions and social oppression. It calls for
a protracted and multidimensional socio-cultural and political
work of agitation and propaganda. Without building a broad based
mass movement against the undemocratic tendencies prevalent in

the social life, the battle of the democratic rights of the masses
against the state cannot be taken to its logical conclusion.
RIGHT TO HEALTH IS A FUNDAMENTAL

DEMOCRATIC RIGHT
Health should find a prime place. No one has the right to
commodify it.
Dr. Amritpal
We have gathered here to discuss the issue of democratic rights
movements. Democratic rights or Human rights, the basic human
rights to life, liberty, freedom of thought and speech and others ,
as we know, came to the frame of human life and thinking with
the age of Enlightenment. The constitution of almost every state
since then recognises the democratic rights of its citizens, at least
on paper if not in practice. The Constitution of India is no
exception; state of India also recognises democratic rights of its
citizens, though mostly on paper, not in practice like all other
bourgeois states. Different dimensions of this issue have been or
will be discussed in this seminar, in my presentation I will focus on
the right to health as the democratic right of people.
Right to the Health was first formally recognised as basic
human rights in the declaration of UN in late 1940s. If one
examines the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the
United Nations, one can see that there are two kinds of rights that
are discussed. Although any right can be stated in either negative
or positive terms, it still makes some sense to refer to these two
types of rights as negative and positive.
The negative rights basically have to do with the right to be
left alone by the government. The idea here is that so long as I am
not infringing on the rights of others, what I do or say is not the
The author is a medical practitioner and runs the Shaheed Bhagat
Singh Clinic in Ludhiana. Contact: doctorjeond@yahoo.com
governments business. The negative rights are put in place to

protect individuals from the unwarranted intrusion of the
government.
Positive rights, on the other hand, have to do with what the
government is expected to provide to the citizens under its
jurisdiction. The right to at least an elementary education is
perhaps the most universally agreed upon positive right, similarly
a right to health, to a clean environment and to all the physical
necessities for a tolerable life is the fundamental positive right of
the people and the people are in full capacity and fully justified in
demanding this right of theirs from the state. So there should be
no confusion regarding the status of right to health as fundamental
right.
Indian constitution on the Right to health

Part IV of the Indian constitution through articles 36-51 of the
Indian constitution covers the directive principles for the state.
Article 37 declares that the directive principles are the prime
basis of the governance and during law making & planning, these
principles must be followed by the state, it will be the obligation of
the government.
Article 47, Duty of the State to raise the level of
nutrition and the standard of living and to improve public
health - The State shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition
and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of
public health as among its primary duties and, in particular, the
State shall endeavor to bring about prohibition of the consumption,
except for medicinal purposes, of intoxicating drinks and of drugs
which are injurious to health1
Article 21 of the Indian Constitution states the
Fundamental right of life, guarantees to the individual her/his
life or personal liberty except by a procedure established by law.
Later on different occasions, Indian judiciary has clearly
stated that:
It is now a settled law that right to health is integral to right to
life. Government has a constitutional obligation to provide health
facilities.2
The State and its machineries (in the instant case, the
Right to Health is A Fundamental Democratic Right 91
Municipal Corporation) are bound to assure hygienic conditions of

living and therefore, health.3
Many more examples can be given to assert that the right to
health is firmly recognised by the Indian constitution and its the
obligations of government to provide the healthcare to its people.
But, from the directive principles, there dont arise any legal rights
from these directive principles, so non-compliance with these
directive principles give no option of availing any legal remedy
and nor they provide the legislature any powers. More than this,
no law can be overruled if it does not show compliance to the
directive principles.
Indias Public Health Scenario

India was the member of Alma Ata declaration which envisioned
the global goal of Health for All in 1978. But leave apart some
progress towards these inflated and pompous declarations;
conditions have even worsened. There remains nothing much to
say about the scandalous public health care situation of India if
we look at the different healthcare indices of India.
Infant Mortality rate (per 1000 live births) 54
Under 5 Mortality rate (per 1000 live births) - 72
Adult Mortality rate (per 1000 live births) 215
Maternal Mortality rate (per 100,000 live births) - 450
(Source World Health Statistics, 2009)
And much more is there to say, prevalence of Tuberculosis is
312.2 in India which is less than 10 in developed countries, 15
million Indians are blind of which most could have been seeing
this world like us if timely care could have given, there are still
more than one lakh cases of Leprosy in India, 58% of under 2
years age children receive incomplete vaccination 24% of whom
dont receive no vaccination at all.
No. of Physicians (per 10,000 population) 6
No. of Nursing and Midwifery staff (per 10,000 population) 13
No. of hospital beds (per 10,000 population) 7
No. of Dentistry personnel (per 10,000 population) 1
(Source World Health Statistics, 2009)
According to CEHAT (Centre for Enquiry into Health and
Allied themes) only 38% PHCs have critical staff, 80% have no
obstetric care kit, only 34% of them offer delivery services, 80%
have no child specialist and 70% have no obstetrician. In another
survey, it has come out that 31% PHCs have no bed, only 20%
have telephone and worse, only 12% enjoy regular
maintenance.
Even assuming these figures as such, these are one of the
worst in the world including poorest countries of the world and
sub-Saharan countries, still these are only tip of the iceberg.
But what is more glaring is that these figures are just
national averages, these do not show the complete picture.
There is vast gap between low income population and high
income population, rural-urban areas and further divide within the
urban areas where on one side are the avenues, model towns,
urban estates whereas on the other side are slums, ghettos. Still
further there are gaps between different communities, castes,
tribes, states. If we take into consideration these differences then
emerges the real motion picture. The IMR among the poorest
20% population is 20 times higher than the richest 20%
population, similar differences exist in other health indices.
Similarly in case of healthcare infrastructure, 75% of it is
concentrated in urban areas. 80% doctors and 75% hospitals are
in urban areas and hospitals with advanced facilities are only in
urban areas, ratio of hospital beds to population is 15 times lower
in rural areas than urban areas, and despite this governments
health expenditure is seven times lower in rural than urban areas.
One more thing, having an eye on these data one can feel that at
least in urban areas everything is green, but its not the case. In
urban areas, only few areas are green with lush green health
palaces (hospitals), majority of population there too lives in
horrible conditions of healthcare which does not need any data,
though if one is interested can collect.
All this is happening when India is facing another gruesome
reality. According to National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau, BMI
(Body Mass Index) of 37% males and 39% females is less than
18.5. Further, 50% ST, 60% SC & >40% people in state of Orissa
have BMI equal or less than 18.5. According to WHO criteria, if
40% or more population of country or community is equal or less
than 18.5 is equivalent to a chronic famine.
Health Expenditure in India

Looking at the above figures, one can easily assume that the
government of such country will set its topmost agenda as
improvement of healthcare services and improving public health
as a whole. But this is not the case with Indian state, like all other
states promoting neo-liberalism, its bulwarks are busy in
increasing the profits of capitalists and nurturing of top 10-15%
of the population.
Total expenditure on the healthcare in India is only 5%
of the GDP, of which 75% comes from the pockets of people
directly making it one of the highest proportions of private health
spending found anywhere in the world. Centre and state govts
combined share is only 20% of total expenses. Now if we keep
this figure in front of another horrendous fact that 77% of Indias
population lives on either on Rs. 20/day or less, then one can
realise what is happening with the lives of the majority of the
population. In the recent Union budget, health sector found only a
meager amount of 26,760 crores out of total budgetary estimate
of 89.90 lakh crore rupees making it only 0.29% of total budget.
In the same budget, tax exemptions of worth 5.12 lakh crore were
given directly or indirectly to the capitalists whose profits passed
above 8 lakh crores in year 2010. It is not a isolated year, rather it
is trend now, of decreased share for health sector by centre and
state govts, 1.3% in 1990, 0.9% in 1999 and 0.8% in 2005.
The conditions are further worsening because of dominance
of private sector in healthcare and rising medicine prices.
At the time of independence, private sector accounted for 5-10%
of total patient care, but it has already touched 80% in year 2010.
70% hospitals are owned by private players and it accounts for
82% of OPD visits. Even for population of BPL, the private
sector accounts for 40% hospital days. Private sectors success
is less attributable to its own efficiency but more to the failure of
government
According to WHO World Medicine Situation Report of
2004, India has the largest number of people, an estimate of
639 million i.e. nearly two-third of population who are
without regular access to essential medicines. This is
because of poor availability in public sector and poor affordability

in private sector. And according to 55th round of NSS, two-third
of outpatients expenses is towards medicines. In yet another
study, it came out that in developing countries like India, 80-90%
expenditure by people for getting healthcare goes towards
procuring medicines. So it simply means that whether a person
can or cant avail health facility, purely depends upon the fact that
whether he can or cant purchase medicines. If we see the
figures of income and poverty in India, then it is easy to see how
much big proportion of the population is practically not in position
of having any health care facility, that such a larger portion of
people are denied their basic human right.
Because of the just mentioned fact, I think we need to discuss
the issue of pharmaceutics in little more detail to know how
systematically the govts and profit-hungry companies are denying
the people their rights.
Medicines, another Arena of Profit-hunting

Madness
At the time of independence, India was completely dependent on
imports for medicines. First public sector Medicine Company was
developed in Pimpri in 1954 with the help of WHO & UNICEF.
Later with the help of Soviets, larger public sector units were
established under Indian Drug and Pharmaceutical Company
(IDPL) in Rishikesh, Hyderabad and Chennai. Plant at Rishikesh
was biggest at that time in Asia. In 1970, Indian Patent Act was
implemented which stressed that any chemical entity used as
medicine was not allowed to be patented. In 1978, Drug Policy
was announced stressing the priority to public sector production
and compelling the MNCs to produce medicines in bulk. This
resulted in lowering of prices of Medicines in 1980s as compared
to 70s. In 1979, by Drug Price Control Order, Govt. put 378
medicines under price control measure.
MNCs opposed these measures vehemently. Domestic
capitalism also proliferated much and it started rolling out its
wings to reap the rich profits from the manufacture of drugs.
Neo-liberal policies of 1991 were almost victory for them. The
small gains of 70-80s were diluted systematically in favor of

national and international capital. By the time of declaration of
Drug policy of 2002, public sector companies were almost sealed.
IDPL remain closed since 1996 and the other one named HAL
(Hindustan Antibiotics Ltd.) is in dire condition. Number of drugs
under price control was slashed down to 74 in 1995 from 378 in
1979 which was further reduced to only 30 in 2002. With these
anti-people and pro-capital measures, the field of medicine
production has been left open for corporate grab on poor peoples
pocket which was further enhanced by the signing of TRIPS
agreement which led to total control of medicine production in
hands of few monopolies. This resulted in dramatic rise in prices
of medicines. The portion of world population not having regular
access to medicines was less than half of total in 1975 which has
gone up to more than two-third now. India is also no exception to
this worldwide phenomenon.
Corporate monopoly has not only affected the prices of
medicines but has also made the field of research profit oriented
instead of human need oriented. The research has shifted its
attention from essential drugs to lifestyle drugs which target
illusory ailments of riches; instead of orphan drugs, the new
mantra of corporates is Blockbuster drugs like Paxil and
Neurotin. Less than 10% of $56 billion spent globally on medical
research is aimed at the health problems of 90% of the world
population. Some drugs developed earlier for diseases of tropical
areas of world have started to disappear because they are seldom
or never needed by those who have the capacity to pay.
Attitude of Medical Profession towards People

Capitalism has not only turned upside down the policies of govts
and given rise to blood sucking leeches in form of MNCs, it has
made deep inroads in the medical education and attitude of
medical professionals especially doctors. Now a day, talk of
ethics can earn you a tag of eccentric, psycho and many more like
these. Instead of ideas of ensuring equity and justice during the
provision of heath services, now fashioned words are marketised
healthcare, medical tourism, evidence-based medicine etc. Much
more is happening that can make a sensitive person feel ashamed

like tariff wars in doctors e.g. in Association of Medical
Consultants in Maharashtra leave apart the commonly known
cut practice in medical profession.
Above it is the net of pharma companies which can break any
taboo of medical professionals to maximise their sales. Gifts
ranging from the pen, diaries, mobile sets, laptops, costly dinners
to luxury cars & holiday packs for families are there to take care
of needs of doctors. So doctors are dancing to tune of
companies. Diseases which are mostly due to lifestyle like obesity
are now subjected to obesity surgeries and more & more human
intellect is being drained to refine these surgeries to perfection.
Psychiatry has now become a chemotherapy based medical
branch and common behavioral variations have been labeled
illnesses amenable only to drugs.
Poor people are getting their loved ones discharged from
hospitals, both government and private, as LAMA (Left against
medical Advice) because they are not able to bear the expenses
towards the treatment. But what is more shameful, is that poor
people are asked to sign or give thumb-prints for their willingness
and consent in taking their patients to home for which they are not
at all willing, after all who wants to lose his or her dear ones. But
capitalism has made this possible, poor people are now signing the
consents for deaths of their own fathers, mothers, brothers,
sisters, children, wives and husbands. This is the height of
insensitivity and violation of human rights. And corporate houses
are reaping profits and doctors are purchasing Audis, Mercedes,
building villas. Result is popular dissatisfaction and anger towards
medical professionals leading to attacks on doctors and
ransacking of hospitals. Doctors instead of looking in there own
house, are staging & celebrating major victories like Violence
against doctors bill of Maharashtra.
But yet there is another dimension to this commoditisation of
health services, a large section of health workers is also being
thrown before the bloody crabs of market. This section includes
mainly paramedics like nursing staff & technicians and less
qualified doctors who can be thrown out of the hospitals at any
time and are made to work on meager amounts.
Right to Health as centre of mass Democratic

Movements
With this plagued condition of Right to health it is clear that
there is gross violation of vast majority of peoples basic right to
live. So if any movement for democratic rights with broad mass
base and support is being envisioned, then the fight for Right to
health with mass education & involvement can play and will play
a central role in building such a movement.
Right to health has a special character which connects it
directly to many other basic democratic human rights. Right to
health immediately brings into fore the right to food as right to
health is meaningless without adequate balanced food. It brings
into the arena the right for proper housing and right for healthy
& humane conditions at workplace. It also connects to the Right
to minimum basic education.
For making people to participate in fight for health as a Right
and in more broad movements for democratic rights, there needs
to be the recognition of peoples potential which may be
underdeveloped at present but can become an invincible force in
reckoning if they are properly educated about their rights. This
needs a closely knit network of interaction between intellectuals,
democratic rights activists & organisations and masses. There is
need of building mechanisms to ignite the public consciousness
and involve & mobilise the masses.
They need to learn why their governments spend so much on
military hardware and so little on human needs. They need to
know why the leaders they elect systematically roll back socially
progressive policies, and why they deregulate the practices of
giant corporations at the peoples expense. They need to
question why the newspapers proclaim economic prosperity,
when daily wages buy less and less. People should let know that
there is no scarcity of resources. A recent study4 by Gupta et al
has shown that providing free essential medicines to all citizens of
India will cost central and state govts nearly Rs.30,000 crore,
which will be there if the central government increases the share
of health allocation in union budget from 0.29% to nearly 0.7%
i.e. raising health sector allocation in absolute amounts from Rs.
26,760 crore of present allocation to Rs. 56,760 crore. So people

should be educated that it is not matter of availability of resources
but what is missing is the political will of the countrys ruling class:
that relatively small, elite minority who control most of the
resources and decision-making power.
Here are some suggestions in form of demands that can be
raised and taken to the people to fight for as part of struggle for
Right to Health. These are unfinished thoughts that can be
further refined or modified.
1. State should make arrangements for provision of free
primary healthcare services to every citizen immediately. The
services should not only be free but also easily available and near
the doorsteps of the people.
In the long run, the state should build a healthcare system that
will be able to give comprehensive healthcare services free of
cost to the people. The state should also fix a timeframe for doing
this.
2. State should immediate act to fulfill the requirements of
medical personnel and equipments & infrastructure, and also stop
privatisation of healthcare services. Existing private healthcare
should be nationalized and future entry of private players in
healthcare should be banned constitutionally.
3. State should take the production and distribution of
medicines and other healthcare related equipments, instruments
under its own control, every form of profit-making and private
production should be ousted from pharmaceutics.
4. As the Alma Ata declaration made clear (of which India
is a part), people not only have the right to health, but have the
right to participate in the planning and implementation of the
health care system. This is an important aspect of the larger right
to participate meaningfully in all the decision making patterns. It is
even more important when there is striking inequalities in terms of
economic & social parameters and rural-urban divide.
5. Bureaucracy of healthcare department and doctors
should be made directly answerable to people and brought under
direct control of the people. This control should include periodic
evaluation of their work towards the concerned section of people

by the people themselves and even suspend or terminate their
services by popular vote of the area concerned.
6. Medical research, similar to the planning and
implementation of healthcare should be brought under public eye.
People should know where and for what research the money is
going, is it being spent taking into account the particular population
group or not?
7. Medical education should be brought exclusively under
govt control and should be designed, enhanced depending upon
the needs of population.
8. Right to Health is meaningless if the people dont get
enough of balanced diet, proper housing, and minimum basic
education, proper and humane conditions at workplace. The state
should make sure to provide these basic amenities to all citizens.
9. State should make special provisions for looking after of
the health of children and of persons in old age so that children
can grow up as healthy adults and elderly can lead their life with
human dignity.
10. Right to Health along with other rights like Right to food,
Right to Education, Right to proper housing and healthy &
humane conditions at workplace should be made a fundamental
right of all citizens of India instead of just a directive principle by
an Amendment in the constitution. Constitution should provide
provision for the citizens to sue the state and its machinery &
concerned persons including the head of state in the court of Law
and have criminal proceeding started if neglect & violation of
these rights is done.
Conclusion: Health is not for sale!

In summary, it can be stressed that if health is ever to be a
human right, it must cease to be a commercial product,
bought and sold in the market-place. Medical research and
development should be guided not by the profit motive, but by
what ails or endangers the largest number of people. It is
unethical for pharmaceutical companies to reap huge profits
through legalised price-fixing of life-saving drugs. In last analysis,

to assure health as a human right, the whole market system with
its byproduct of increased poverty and ill-health needs to be
reexamined and eventually replaced with a better one, so that
well-being of the people and the planet becomes a top priority.
References:
1 . Part IV, Constitution of India adopted on 26th November

1949
2 . State of Punjab and Others v. Mohinder Singh, AIR 1997
SC 1225
3 . In Mahendra Pratap Singh v. State of Orissa, AIR 1997
Ori 37
4 . Narendra Gupta (2010-11): What It Costs to Provide
Medicines to All Sick Persons in India, MFC Bulletin,
August-January, Issue 342-43.
REFLECTIONS ON DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT OF

NEPAL: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Dr. Mahesh Maskey
Nepal is now a Federal Democratic Republic, and it is time we
reflect at the genesis as well as the class character of a
democratic movement that ultimately culminated into this
republic. We have little doubt that Nepali society is in a bourgeois
democratic phase of a long revolution, but how will it changes its
bourgeois character to a proletarian one is not clear. It appears
that twists and turns of bourgeois democracy creates several
overlapping sub-stages which demand conscious proletarian
democratic practices, initiatives and interventions, expanding the
bourgeois space to run its own course in Nepal.
Such speculation immediately pose formidable challenge
when we keep in mind the backward productive forces and
socio-economic relations, numerically small size of industrial
proletariat, a large mass of petty bourgeoisie, an economy which
has not yet effectively transformed its feudal social relations and
which is bordered on either side by two giant country of fast
growing economy under the shadows of globalisation.
I thank the organisers of this conference not only to invite me
here to share my thoughts with you, but also for providing an
opportunity to reflect upon this process, and make some bold
conjectures about the future of Nepals democratic movement.
The republic of Nepal is younger to that of India by more than 60
years, and while we in Nepal are engaged in drafting a pro-people
constitution ensuring democratic rights shaped by the fierce
The author is one of the leading democratic rights activists of Nepal
and a renowned public health expert. Contact: maskeymk@yahoo.com
struggles soaked in blood and sweat of Nepali toiling masses, the

issues that are debated in this room are very much relevant to
Nepals own destiny in a futuristic sense. Having fought against
Monarchy, it is not unlikely that a new dominant class would try to
distort the letter and spirit of the new constitution and exercise its
hegemony to ensure its class interest no matter what is written in
the constitution. It could be that the laboring masses feel
betrayed by the very constitution they had endorsed and come to
regard it as a piece of paper which has no relevance to effect
change and ensure protection in their daily life. But then, it can
also be stated with certain degree of certainty that Nepal will
again witness a movement where the upcoming working class
will wrest these rights from the clutches of the dominant classes,
reclaiming the constitution and reinvigorating with rights that can
address the challenge of contemporary time. As in other aspects
of social life, in constitution too, class struggle is waged
unceasingly. As was stated by one of the participants in the first
day of this seminar, the ultimate question would be whose
hegemony will prevail: of haves or have-nots?
Historical background:
In Nepal, the democratic movement has primarily been political,
and the struggle of democratic rights had been mainly fought by
the political parties. The civil society emerged as a force to
reckon with only from 1990, and more strongly since 2006. At
same time Nepals democratic movement is also intimately
associated with movement for its national identity. The first
concrete expression of democratic movement of Nepal can be
traced back to the prelude of the revolution of 1950-51. Although
unsuccessful in bringing a radical rupture from the Rana Regime,
the revolution initiated a process that brought to an end of the
Rana rule. It established and consolidated Shah Rule in its place,
but it also heralded the beginning of the bourgeois-democratic
revolution in Nepal. The nascent bourgeoisie of Nepal, who tried
to lead the popular revolt against Ranas in alliance with Shah
kings, compromised and withdrew the movement when a promise
of constitutional assembly election and new constitution was
made to its leaders. In 1960 they abandoned the struggle for a
Reflections on Democratic Movement of Nepal 103
constituent assembly in favour of the constitution given by the

then monarch, won an election with overwhelming majority under
that constitution, but were soon stripped of state power by
enforcement of a clause of that same constitution.
This stance of the Nepali bourgeoisie can be viewed as a
local manifestation of a worldwide phenomenon in predominantly
feudal states surviving under the grip of transnational capital. The
character and attitude of the bourgeoisie was also changing under
such influences; over time they developed a character that gained
more by compromising with feudal and imperialist elements than
by standing against them. They found a comfortable perch under
the protective wing of a bourgeois monarchist party which while
proclaiming democratic socialist principles, in practice
preferred to forge alliances with monarchist forces rather than
with the left, viewing itself and the monarchy as Siamese twins
with a single body and intertwined heads even though the
monarchy kept on pushing them out of political power and
whenever possible out of the state political apparatus all together.
It would take another 46 years for this class to make a transition
from bourgeoisie monarchist to half-hearted bourgeoisie
republicans.
As the bourgeoisie recoiled from its historic tasks,
responsibility to complete the democratic revolution and hold a
constituent assembly election fell to the fledgling revolutionary
left, representing predominantly rural proletarian class. Realizing
that they could not step outside or past the bourgeois-democratic
boundaries of the Nepali revolution as it was currently
constituted, the revolutionary left made every effort to extend
those boundaries. Alliances made with the peasantry, expressed
in rural class struggle, have been the main means to expand those
boundaries and to pressure the bourgeoisie.
In this context, the Peoples Movement of 1990, or the
Janandolan-I, and more recently the Peoples movement of
2006, or Janandolan-II, stands as an important turning point in
Nepali history. The first one successfully ousted partyless
panchayat democracy, established a multiparty parliamentary
system, and replaced absolute monarchy with constitutional
monarchy. The second replaced the monarchy itself with
democratic republic.
From a long-term perspective, the greatest importance of
Janandolan-I and the period that followed may lie in the fact that
several long-held political hypotheses were put to the test and got
refuted. The first to be refuted was the hypothesis of the viability
of constitutional monarchy itself. For decades this theoretical
concept had been presented by the national and international
powers as a political panacea for many of the socio-economic ills
of Nepals semi-feudal society. When put to the test however,
actual constitutional monarchy proved neither to be prepared to
respect constitutional restrictions, nor to be ready to make a break
from the feudal base that had sustained it over centuries. Failing
to better the condition of the masses, the bourgeois-monarchist
political position weakened considerably. In this context, two
strong tendencies emerged which played a dominant role in
preparing the groundwork for the 2006 movement, or Janandolan2 another landmark of great historical importance.
Revolutionary and Reformist Left

The first of these tendencies was the radicalisation of the
revolutionary left. Immediately after Janandolan-1 the
revolutionary left stream organised itself into the Nepal
Communist Party (CPN) (Unity Centre) with the objective of
accomplishing the new democratic revolution. At the same time,
the reformist left current concentrated itself in the Nepal
Communist Party (United Marxist-Leninist or UML), organised
around the slogan of peoples multiparty democracy. This latter
current which drew its inspiration mainly from Euro-communism,
kept vacillating between social democracy, and a revised form of
new democracy. The reformist left was keen to beat the
bourgeois-monarchist forces at their own game. In order to
occupy the political space created by the shrinking of bourgeois
influence, it made peace with the palace and the Indian ruling
class, and immersed itself in capturing state power through
elections. The CPN (UML) hypothesis that peoples power can
be won and executed through elections without uprooting the
feudal structures and socio-economic relations was also refuted
by the events of the post-1990 period. The negligible
achievements even during occasional periods of possession of

partial state power made this clear. Even clearer was the extent
to which their reformist philosophy led to their co-optation within
the system.
The revolutionary left was faced with the challenge of
reconciling with multiparty democracy which they jointly fought
for in 1990, and continuing the revolution through to the end. They
also adopted two tactics: participating in parliament to expose its
reactionary class nature, and underground preparation for mass
agitation, general strikes and peasant revolts. However, as the
crisis in the bourgeois camp deepened, the revolutionary left
divided over the nature of peoples war and appropriate timing for
its launching, the question of united front, the importance of mass
movement, integration of urban and rural class struggle, and
integration of peoples war with popular uprising. That stream
which opted to begin peoples war immediately renamed itself as
Nepal Communist Party (Maoist), while the other stream
continued as CPN (Unity Centre).
What began almost as a repetition of the Peruvian Maoists
Peoples War developed its own character as the Nepali Maoists
achieved victories in battle, learned to minimise losses and
preserve themselves with flexibility and tenacity, and to change
course as and when needed. These changes were influenced by
the intense debate that continued between the two streams of the
revolutionary left within the general context of grasping the reality
and course of events around them.
Democratic republic
The second tendency that emerged to take advantage of the
political chaos and dissatisfaction of the people was the extreme
rights attempt to re-establish absolute monarchy. The gruesome
palace massacre of 2001 was followed by the royal takeover that
began in 2002 and culminated on February 1, 2005. This period
saw a succession of ruthless events designed to intimidate the
Nepali people into accepting the rule of absolute monarchy. This
oppression was answered by staunch resistance by people from
all walks of life. Civil society activism forced political parties to
stand up to the challenge posed by monarchist forces. Political
initiatives successfully brought the CPN (Maoist) and seven other

major political parties to the negotiating table, resulting in a 12point agreement that created a supportive environment for nonviolent popular uprising. The slogan of constituent assembly
began to capture the popular imagination as a peaceful means to
settle the issues underlying the decade-long violent conflict
between the state and the CPN (Maoist). In this charged
environment, the slogan of end of monarchy and establishment of
democratic republic emerged as the embodiment of the
aspirations of the peasantry, proletariat and all conscious citizens
bent on breaking the fetters of the old feudal state.
It must be noted in the present context that both the slogans
and agenda of constituent assembly and democratic republic
were articulated and argued by the revolutionary left. Half a
century ago the bourgeois forces agreed to halt the 1950
revolution when an offer of constituent assembly was made at the
negotiating table. The question of a constituent assembly
remained a demand of bourgeois monarchists for a decade, but
was abandoned when they accepted a constitution given by the
Monarch. The left continued with it as its own agenda. But later,
the reformist left also dropped it. From that time forward it was
the revolutionary left with a wide section of masses who carried
on with the slogan and agenda of a democratic republic and a
constituent assembly for which they rightfully deserve the
credit.
The recent course of events in Nepal not only revived the
agenda of constituent assembly, it also forced the agenda of
democratic republic upon the ranks of the bourgeoisie. Hesitantly
and cautiously they began making the transition from bourgeoismonarchist to bourgeois-republican, weaning themselves away
from the theory of the monarchy and the bourgeoisie as Siamese
twins and dropping the agenda of constitutional monarchy. This
transition was in part made possible by the sharpening
contradiction and power contestation between these two forces,
pushing the bourgeoisie toward collaboration with the left. Nepali
history has more than once demonstrated that when the
bourgeoisie and the left collaborate, as in 1990 and 2006, they can
win key battles against monarchist forces. The tremendous
efforts of transnational powers to prevent the bourgeois-left

alliances that created the peace process , restoration of civil
government, and the election of constituent assembly based on
universal suffrage, raises a question about their motives.
The second major adaptation in their attitude was the
transition from insistence on a majority rule system to reluctant
consideration of inclusive and proportionate democratic rule. For
more than two centuries, the ethnic, linguistic and regional
diversity of Nepal has been deliberately suppressed by the
centralised feudal state. The struggle for identity and equal rights
along these lines, together with the struggles of women, dalits and
marginalised communities is carving out a new system of political
rule. Federalism, autonomy, right to self-determination,
proportional representation, and inclusive democracy are but a
few of the concepts now shaping the consciousness of the Nepali
people. The left, as always, is more open and sensitive to these
newer concepts. The bourgeoisie, in keeping with its own
character, is taking them cautiously and hesitantly, even though
they are familiar bourgeois-democratic concepts established by
their own predecessors in other parts of the globe. Although the
Nepali bourgeoisie has collaborated with the left against
monarchical rule, by its very nature it is reluctant to complete the
democratic revolution. It rather opts not to sweep away all
remnants of the past. It is not unlikely that the Nepali bourgeoisie
may betray its own self the cause of liberty as it is becoming
more evident that the bourgeoisie cling desperately to the
remnants of the pasts, transforming its character once again
towards retrogression.
Now that Nepal is a democratic republic the question looms
large as to what kind of democratic republic it will be. Bourgeoisie
are making every effort to preserve its capitalistic character
embedded in the matrix of globalisation. The revolutionary left, on
the other hand, is bent on to give it a transitional character to
usher in the phase of socialist revolution. The reformist left
vacillate between the two courses as it continues to make its own
transition to social democracy.
It cannot be ruled out, however, that in the process of preand post-constituent assembly polarisation and realignments,
some bourgeois-democratic forces would opt to stand against the

forces of globalisation and militarisation, upholding the values of
social justice and democracy as the revolutionary republicans do.
Likewise from within the ranks of the reformist left many have
refused to adopt social democratic revisionism, opting instead to
work more closely with the masses. Such possibilities have the
potential of building new alliances which can only be speculated
now.
Just one month left for Nepali political parties to come out
with a consensus draft of Constituent assembly. It is an uphill task
as the same national and international alliances who tried to
preserve monarchical force are also trying to prevent its
completion. Two issues are paramount: first is about modalities of
the integration of two armed forces. Second is consensus on
several points in the draft constitution. The draft need to be
discussed by the people of Nepal and then finally ratified by the
CA. Nepali people are hoping that if not a completely consensus
draft the constituent assembly would at least be able to bring out a
draft which will show to the people what points they agreed and
what they could not with their own different suggestions. Feed
back from the people and popular pressure generated from
national debate may help bring consensus in the political rank, and
Nepal may yet one more time cross the hurdle with consensus
towards the cherished goal of ensuring democracy rights,
particularly to the have-nots. However, just as the issues debated
in this seminar imply, we are aware that the journey is going to be
a long one with its turns and twists and ups and downs before we
reach that goal.
VICISSITUDES OF MINORITY RIGHTS IN

SRI LANKA AND LESSONS FOR
DEMOCRATIC ACTIVISM IN SOUTH ASIA
Kalinga Tudor Silva
Background
Alex de Tocqueville mentioned in Democracy in America
(1835) that the tendency for the emergence of a tyranny of the
majority is an inherent danger in democratic forms of
government. This leads to a situation where minorities are
overlooked, discriminated against or even ruthlessly oppressed by
a dominant majority in whatever way majority and minority
statuses are determined. It can be racist, ethnic, religious,
demographic, political or nationalist in character. Empowering
minorities and addressing minority rights through legislative and
other means is a key challenge faced by all South Asian states.
Unresolved minority grievances have often led to social and
political resistance in the form of democratic struggles as well as
violent armed struggles against the state in various countries in
South Asia. In this context the minority rights movements must
be seen as an important forum within the larger democratic
movement in South Asia.
Sri Lanka presents a classic example of the formation of a
tyranny of the majority within the state in ways that seriously
violate minority rights and the resulting development of minority
rights movements in opposition to the majoritarian state towards
The author is Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of
Peradeniya, Sri Lanka and associated with the International Centre for
Ethnic Studies. Contact: ktsilva@slt.lk
the end of colonial era and in the subsequent post-independence

era. While there has been strong resistance against the
majoritarian state within the political system throughout the past
several decades, in the end the majoritarian state has prevailed
over minority campaigns including a two and half decades of
armed struggle for the liberation of the Tamils, pointing to a
serious need for reflection about the minority rights within a
broader democratic rights framework in South Asia.
Who are the minorities in Sri Lanka?

Sri Lanka society is essentially multi-ethnic and multi-religious in
character. According to the last island-wide Census in 1981, the
population of Sri Lanka consisted of 6 different ethnic groups
leaving aside the smallest of groups such as the Veddas,
reportedly nearing extinction1.
Table I
Population of Sri Lanka by Ethnicity, 1981
Ethnic Group
Number
Percent
Sinhalese
10,979,561
74.0
Sri Lanka Tamil
1,886,872
12.7
Indian Tamil
818,656
5.5
Sri Lanka Moore 1,046,926
7.0
Burgher
39,374
03
Malay
46,963
0.3
Other
28,398
0.2
Total
14,846,750
100.0
Source: Census of Population and Housing, 1981:
General Report
Thus the 1981 Census classified the Sri Lankan population
into six different ethnic groups with the majority ethnic group, the
Sinhalese, comprising 74 percent of the population followed by Sri
Lanka Tamils (12.7%), Sri Lanka Moors (7.0%), Indian Tamils
(5.5%), Malays and the Burghers (0.3%). Since 1963 Europeans
1
The results of 2001 census are not considered in this paper as it

excluded a number of census blocks in Northern and Eastern Provinces
in Sri Lanka with a preponderance of minority ethnic groups.
Vicissitudes of Minority Rights in Sri Lanka 111
and Veddas were included among the others as their numbers

had become increasingly smaller due to emigration in the case of
the Europeans and possibly due to increased identification with
the larger ethnic groups in the case of the Veddas. In determining
the ethnicity of people, the census enumerators were guided by
the self-identification of the people themselves. This procedure
may have encouraged marginal groups such as Veddas to
underreport their separate identity and identify themselves with
nationally or regionally significant larger ethnic groups. The
census report also noted that following the granting of citizenship
rights many Indian Tamils declared themselves as Sri Lanka
Tamils giving rise to some confusion about the relative
significance of Sri Lanka Tamils and Indian Tamils as historically
evolved and socially significant ethnic categories. In the case of
individuals having mixed parentage, they were identified as of the
same ethnic group as ones father further restricting reported
ethnic diversity in the country.
With the possible exception of Burghers and Malays, the
members of different ethnic groups in Sri Lanka are hard to
identify by physical appearances. The differences between
ethnic groups are manifested in differences in names of
individuals, language spoken, religious practices, dress in which
they appear in public and some minor variations in diet. While the
Sinhalese are largely Sinhala speaking, Tamils and Muslims were
typically Tamil speaking and Burghers are English speaking. It is
important to stress that each of these differences is culturally
transmitted and socially determined.
In terms of religious diversity, the Sri Lanka population
consists of Buddhists (69.3%), Hindus (15.5%), Islamists (7.5%),
Roman Catholics (6.9%) and other Christians (0.7%). The bulk
of Sinhalese (over 90%) are Buddhists, Sri Lanka and Indian
Tamils (over 80%) Hindus, Muslims and Malays (over 95%)
Islamists and Burghers Christians. This has resulted in ethnoreligious formations that can turn to both native language and
religion in asserting their separate identities. It is important to
point out however that a significant numbers of Tamils (over
10%) and Sinhalese (over 6%) are Catholic or Anglican by
religion. Thus one can talk of both ethnic and religious minorities
in Sri Lanka. Sinhala and Tamil societies are further subdivided

into castes which are hierarchically ordered with the highest
caste in each ethnic group, comprising the bulk of the population
in each ethnic group, with the result that lower castes within each
ethnic group constituting caste minorities with limited political
power and limited electoral influence (Silva, Sivapragasam &
Thanges 2009). There are also important class differences in
society, with an English-speaking elite in control of the economy,
bureaucracy and professions, a lower middle class, peasants and
workers who comprise the bulk of population, ethnic polarisation
often serving to divide up each class along ethnic and religious
lines. Gender differences add another dimension to the
complexities in social stratification and minority formations.
Gradual Establishment of a Tyranny of the Majority in Sri Lankan
Polity
Since 19th century the British colonial regime in Sri Lanka
introduced a system of communal representation in the
legislature with 6 unofficial members made up of 3 nominees
representing Europeans and another 3 representing Sinhalese,
Tamils and Burghers respectively. Elected representation on a
limited franchise was introduced in 1912 but communal
representation continued with each ethnic community electing its
own representative. With the establishment of universal
franchise and self-rule under the Donomore Constitution in 1931,
the minorities gradually became anxious about their rights within a
Sinhala dominated polity (Uyangoda 2003). Various ethnic and
caste communities demanded separate constituencies in order to
protect their rights during constitutional reforms in 1931 and 1948.
Communal representation, however, was abandoned in favour of
territorial representation due to possible development of political
competition along communal lines to the neglect of common
issues and nation building as such. After listening to many groups
that demanded representation along communal lines, the
Donoughmore Commission noted,
In surveying the situation in Ceylon, we have come
unhesitatingly to the conclusion that communal representation
is, as it were, a canker on the body politic, eating deeper and
deeper into the vital energies of the people, breeding selfVicissitudes of Minority Rights in Sri Lanka 113
interest, suspicion and preventing the development of a national

or corporate spirit (Donoughmore Commission 1945: 39).
The Soulbury Commission which granted political
independence to Sri Lanka in 1948 continued the principle of
territorial representation but having listened to many minority
grievances during its deliberations it introduced some safeguards
for ethnic, religious and caste minorities in the form of a nonelected Upper House and multi-member constituencies in
electoral divisions where social diversity justified it.
The establishment of a tyranny of majority in Sri Lankan
polity was a gradual development with a resulting removal of
whatever safeguards that had been initiated for the protection of
minority rights. The design of a new flag for independent Sri
Lanka led to a heated debate between Sinhala and minority
politicians as the first design submitted to the legislature showing
a lion displaying a sword appeared to be a purely Sinhala flag with
no symbolic representation of minorities. Two small stripes one in
orange and the other in green was later added to the national flag
to represent the ethnic minorities, in a compromise solution not
accepted as significant enough by some minority parties and
leftists. The leading political parties contesting the General
Election of 1948 were mostly multiethnic in composition. For
instance, the United National Party and each of the leftist parties
involved a coalition of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim politicians. The
All Ceylon Tamil Congress established in the 1940s supported the
UNP in the first national election. The newly elected UNP
regime, however, quickly introduced citizenship legislation that
disenfranchised the Indian Tamil plantation community,
foreshadowing many attacks on minority rights in years to come.
In 1949 one section of ACTU broke away from the party and
formed the Federal Party which campaigned for a Federal
constitution as a remedy for the minority problem in the country.
The more Sinhala nationalist Mahajana Eksath Peramuna came
to power unseating the pro-western UNP in 1956 and the new
regime immediately introduced official language policies that
sought to elevate Sinhala language to the status of the official
language making it difficult for the Tamil speaking population to
have equal access to the services of and employment

opportunities in the state. This, in turn, prompted Tamil opposition
to the official language policy leading to Sinhala-Tamil ethnic riots
in 1958.
The new constitution prepared by a leftist minister in the
government in 1972 made Buddhism the foremost religion of the
country, confirmed official language policy adopted earlier, did
away with the minority protection clause in the Soulbury
constitution and finally abolished the second chamber removing
many of the protections for minorities in the previous constitution.
In 1977 parliamentary election, the demand for political autonomy
for Tamils gathered momentum with newly formed Tamil United
Liberation Front (TULF) employing the election as a referendum
for self rule among the Tamil constituencies in Northern and
Eastern Sri Lanka, following the Vadukkoddai resolution of May
14, 1976 (Nithyanandan 2007). After the landslide victory of the
UNP in 1977 in the Sinhala predominant areas and the emergence
of TULF as the second largest party in the parliament with a
landslide victory in Tamil speaking areas, the Second Republican
Constitution was passed in 1978 established an executive
presidency with wide powers further centralizing state power in
the hands of the president. The TULF withdrew from this
constitution making process early claiming that the new
constitution would further marginalise the ethnic minorities due to
centralisation of power in an elected executive president. As
TULF MPs refused to take a new oath under the new
constitution which they say as discriminatory, they lost their
parliamentary presence further adding to minority grievances.
Even though Tamil nationalism became the ideological
weapon of the Tamil minority in particular in response to the
growing tendency for a tyranny of the majority in Sri Lanka there
were some dissenting voices particularly from the Marxist
intellectuals in the Tamil community. For instance, V.
Karalasingham attacked the Federal Party and the ACTU for their
failure to defend the minority rights (Uyangoda 2003). He claimed
that the fundamental flow in the political strategy of the Federal
Party is their conception that the fight for the rights of the tamil
speaking people is the responsibility solely of the Tamil-speaking
people themselves and that it is only Tamils who can wage this
fight and that they must do so as Tamils (Quoted in Uynagoda :
312). He described this as politics of primitive tribalism which in
turn fueled similar communalist feelings among the Sinhalese
majority community, further endangering the Tamil minority in the
process. He argued that the democratic struggles of the Tamil
masses must be essentially linked up with similar struggles among
the Sinhalese and other communities in order to bring about a
radical change in society. Karalasinghams message has a great
deal of relevance for understanding the plight of the Tamil minority
in the aftermath of the war that ended in May 2009.
It is in this context that various Tamil militant groups sprang
up in the North demanding secession from the Sinhala state. They
resorted to armed violence as the means of fighting the Sinhala
state. Their recruitment drive was vastly facilitated by the 1983
July ethnic pogrom where Tamils in the south were brutally
attacked by Sinhala mobs who directly or indirectly received
support from the security forces as well as some sections of the
ruling party who saw this as a justified retaliation on the part of
the Sinhala masses against Tamil separatists. After a period of
brutal warfare among the various militant groups the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) with greater access to military
hardware, funds and diasporic support emerged as the sole voice
of the Tamils with TULF more or less eliminated and Tamil
National Army (TNA) a pro LTTE Tamil front established as a
democratic face of the Tamil liberation struggle. The LTTE had
closer links with the Catholic Church in the Tamil areas than with
the Hindu establishments per se given the conservative and
apolitical nature of the Hindu establishments. Depending on the
circumstances the LTTE presented itself as a liberator of Tamil
speaking people in Sri Lanka, including Sri Lanka Tamils, Indian
Tamils and Muslims, and the architect of Tamil homeland (eelam)
specifically referring to Tamils living in Northern and Eastern
Provinces. Even though the LTTE had a Muslim youth following
initially, its relations with Muslims gradually turned antagonistic
and violent with sporadic attacks on Muslim villages and mosques
as well as ethnic cleancing of Muslims by the LTTE in the
Northern Province in 1990. While the role of the army and the
Special Task Force (STF) in creating a rift between the LTTE

and the Muslims as well as the refusal of the Muslims to be part
of a proposed Tamil ethnic homeland where Muslims will become
a minority within a minority cannot be ruled out, this is a clear
instance where those representing one ethnic minority turned
against another ethnic minority with whom it has had many
cultural and ties (McGilvray 1997).
Politics and the Role of Civil Society

A number of civil society organisations in Sri Lanka, among them
the International Centre for Ethnic Studies formed in 1982, Social
Scientists Association formed in 1977, University Teachers for
Human Rights formed in Jaffna University established in 1988 ,
Centre for Policy Analysis formed in 1989 and the National
Peace Council formed in 1994, the Centre for Society and
Religion set up in the early 1970s and the Movement for
Interracial Justice and Equality formed in 1978 tried to bring about
peace among parties to the conflict and introduce devolution of
power as a remedy for the ethnic problem in the country
(Goodhand & Lewer 1999). They identified Sri Lanka as an
essentially multicultural society where people co-existed
peacefully and interacted with each other socially, culturally and
politically for centuries in spite of dynastic warfare which broke
out from time to time. They firmly supported the Indo-Lanka
Accord of 1987 and the resulting constitutional including the
introduction of the 13th amendment to the constitution and the
establishment of Provincial Councils as a means to provide a
degree of regional autonomy for the benefit of minorities (ICES
1996). It also proposed a possible merger of the Northern and
Eastern Provinces following a referendum in the affected areas
in order to create a predominantly Tamil speaking political unit
where minority rights could be ensured. This solution, of course,
was not acceptable to the LTTE and some of the extreme Sinhala
nationalist forces in the South as it did not satisfy their ideas about
an exclusive ethnic homeland more or less limited to themselves.
Civil society actors paid dearly for the liberal views and dissent
they expressed vis--vis militant nationalists as evident from the
assassination of Rajani Tiranagama from UTHR in 1994 and
Nelam Tiruchelvam from ICES in 1999, assassinations of these

Tamil intellectuals being widely attributed to the LTTE.
The emergence of the Rajapaksa regime into power with
effect from 2005 was in many ways a climax in the rise of the
tyranny of the majority. He put together an alliance of militant
Sinhala nationalists, including Jatika Hela Urumaya, Janatha
Vimukthi Peramuna on the one hand, and moderate Sinhala groups
including leftist parties. He took advantage of the global campaign
for the war against terror and the increased disenchantment with
the LTTE among the population at large, including some sections
of the Tamil speaking population. He built the military using Sinhala
nationalism as a rallying point and overpowered and totally
eliminated the LTTE leadership also using a breakaway group
from the LTTE (Karuna faction) as a useful complement to his
military campaign. As a political leader from the South, Rajapaksa
was deeply sensitive to the needs of the Sinhala South, but there
were times when he stated that the Tamil minority have some
legitimate grievances. Nevertheless partly under the influence of
Sinhala nationalist groups and military leaders who were close to
him, he has increasingly identified the LTTE as a merely terrorist
problem that need to be dealt with militarily. He has initiated some
political processes such as the All Party Representative
Committee (APRC) in order to bring about a political solution to
minority grievances, but he has not followed up the outcome of
this process including completing the activities initiated under the
13th amendment. Following the military victory over the LTTE
celebration of this victory has taken precedence over addressing
serious minority grievances that led to the rise of the LTTE in the
first place. He has also taken a distinctly anti-NGO stance,
characterizing and labeling them as agents of western capitalist
forces and castigating the criticisms made by civil society
organisations against the non-democratic turn of political
developments including suppression of independent media,
interference in judiciary and increased militarisation of society.
While the Rajapaksa regime is under increased international
pressure from the UN, Tamil diaspora and bilateral players
including India to recognise and respect minority rights, so far the
regime has only resorted to window dressing and tactical moves
rather than addressing the real problems of rights violations.

In order to secure an element of support from minority groups
the Rajapaksa regime has resorted to a form of clientalistic
politics whereby Sri Lanka Tamil, Indian Tamil and Muslim
politicians have been accepted into the ruling regime by offering
them ministerial posts and other rewards, just as much as he has
attracted sections of the political opposition in UNP, JVP and
minority parties including Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, Ceylon
Workers Congress and the Upcountry Peoples Front. While he
may be expecting to address minority grievances through this
approach, he has had limited success so far in appeasing and
attracting TNA through this method. He has also shown some
commitment to multiculturalism through patronizing various
religions and learning to speak Tamil himself. However, aside
from these symbolic gestures, the actual problems of minorities
with regard to official language policy of the state, access to state
controlled land resources, access to state employment, heavy
military presence in predominantly Tamil areas in the North and
East and the need for increased devolution of power from the
centre have not been addressed or even identified as problems.
As a recent Minority Rights Group report noted.
What appears to be missing from the state agenda is: an
acknowledgement of legitimate minority grievances that led to the
conflict; the promotion and protection of minority rights and
freedoms; a serious and credible effort towards justice,
accountability and reconciliation; and a genuine attempt to
present a political solution that would satisfy the minorities
(MRGI 2011: 7)
Concluding Remarks
Recent political developments in Sri Lanka clearly illustrate that
the minority groups in majoritarian states in South Asia cannot win
their rights if they work in isolation from one another. One of the
main mistakes made by the LTTE was to avoid linkages with
oppressed groups in Sinhala society itself including caste
minorities and oppressed class formations. It appears that the
LTTE relied too much on ethnic purity and ethnic identity alone to
the neglect of other dimensions of oppression including social
class, gender, caste and regional disparities. It tried to essentialise

ethnic identity and sought liberation along ethnic and nationalist
lines alone. It does reveal the limitations of ethno-nationalism as
an ideology of liberation of minority groups. As Tamil leftist
intellectual Karalasingham predicted five decades ago, in many
ways the LTTE has left the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka far more
vulnerable and far more exposed to the rights violations of a
majoritarian state than they were at the beginning of their political
campaign and armed struggle.
The analysis of minority politics within a majoritarian state in
Sri Lanka also highlights the need to place the minority rights
movement within a larger democratic movement. Where
fundamental rights of the people are violated with impunity, and
violence is frequently resorted to in politics, the minority rights
themselves are often in danger of violation. Development of a
democratic political culture where issues are openly discussed
and differences are negotiated through public debate and policy
analysis, minorities may be in a better position to air their
grievances and bring them to mainstream politics. Where other
rights are not ensured satisfactorily protecting minority rights may
be difficult to achieve.
As regards, the role of civil society in addressing minority
rights, the Sri Lankan evidence clearly shows that civil society
agencies can do very little to address the onslaught of the state in
an anti-democratic social and political setting, if there is no mass
movement for promotion of democratic rights within the society
at large. The NGOs have often caught in the middle of the
confrontation between two rival nationalisms, one Sinhala and
one Tamil, with NGOs not having successfully mobilised masses
around their campaigns (Goodhand & Lewer 1999). Often NGOs
are seen as implants from outside with no grass root foundations
in a large enough constituency of its own. This, in turn, point to
the need to reorient civil society organisations as mass
movements opposed to dictatorial trends, political corruption and
rights violations affecting disadvantaged population groups in
general. Better coordination among civil society organisations
within and outside national boundaries will be a prerequisite for
making them nucleus of mass movements.
Finally the rising tide of ethno-nationalisms and

fundamentalisms must be seen as a major threat to democratic
activism and rights movements in South Asia. While these
ideological formations over exaggerate anxieties and threats to
ones own group, they are totally insensitive to and often
supportive of rights violations of those identified as ethnic or
religious enemies. Often their demonisation is extended to
democratic activism on the part of civil society itself undermining
and marginalizing democratic activism around minority rights,
human rights, women rights etc. often attributing it to western
influence and external pressures. Under these circumstances,
ethno-nationalisms and fundamentalisms, particularly where they
have captured the imagination of the state or anti-state actors,
serve to justify and drive violence, discriminatory policies and
serious violations of minority rights.
References
de Tocqueville, Alex, 2000 Democracy in America. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Goodhand, J. & Lewer, N., 1999 Sri Lanka: NGOs and peace building
in complex political emergencies. Third World Quarterly 20 (1): 69-87.
Government of UK, 1945, Ceylon: report of the Commission on
Constitutional Reform. London: His Majestys Stationery Office.
International Centre for Ethnic Studies, 1996 Sri Lanka: the
devolution debate. Colombo: ICES.
McGilvray, Dennis, 1997 Tamils and Muslims in the shadow of war:
schism or continuity? South Asia 20: 239-253.
Minority Rights Group International, 2011 No war, no peace: the
denial of minority rights and justice in Sri Lanka. London: MRG.
Nithyanandan, V., 2007 The economics of Tamil nationalism. In R.
Cheran ed. Writing Tamil nationalism. Colombo: ICES, pp. 250-303.
Silva, K.T., Sivaprgasam, P.P. & Thanges, P. , 2009 Casteless or
caste-blind? Dynamics of concealed caste discrimination, social
exclusion and protest in Sri Lanka. Colombo & Chennai: Kumaran Press.
Uyangoda, J., 2003 Question of Sri Lankas minority rights. In A.
Mohsin et. al. ed. Minority Protection in South Asia. Colombo: ICES,
pp. 246-371.
HUNGER, DISPLACEMENT AND THE SHRINKING

SPACE OF DEMOCRACY
Sheikh Ansar
In the era of neo-liberalism, the shrinking of space of the
bourgeois democracy, continual infringement of the democratic
rights of masses and erosion of the democratic values from the
social fabric has been a global phenomenon. One of the reasons
for this is the fact that an authoritarian and repressive regime is
necessary for implementing the policies of liberalisationprivatisation and to deal with the possible social explosions
resulting from it. The second reason is that at present owing to the
absence of an organised resistance, capitalist regimes are acting
with more and more impunity and in authoritarian and arbitrary
manner.
Democracy does not come alive from the text of the
constitution. It is an outcome of socio-economic changes and
peoples struggle. When we talk of the shrinking space of
democracy in India, we must remember that the space of
constitutionally granted democratic rights is already narrow here.
In a country where more than a quarter of population suffers
from hunger and malnutrition, where about two lakhs peasants
commit suicide in a span of ten years, where the working people
do not even get the minimum wages and social security which is
prescribed under the law, where even after 63 years of
independence the government has not been able to give
guarantee to even the basic needs to the common citizens such as
food, shelter, clothing, housing, health and education (on the
The author is the vice-president of the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha
contrary, in the era of liberalisation-privatisation even the

remaining infrastructure of the already existing public facilities
has been paralysed), the fundamental right to life or fundamental
rights against exploitation mentioned in the constitution bear no
meaning to the common people. The directive principles of the
state policy mentioned in the constitution did not have
constitutional-legal binding from the beginning, they were merely
an expression of the constitutional morality and the Indian state
never took policy guidance from them. And now in the era of neoliberalism the sheer presence of the directive principles seem to
expose the hypocrisy of the Indian democracy. When we talk of
the constitutional guarantee of the fundamental rights, we must
not forget that the reach of the constitutional remedy mentioned in
the constitution is limited to only a handful of educated upper
middle class people. The majority of the population has to contend
with the legal remedies which are implemented by the legal
institutions whose structure and the character of the civil and
criminal laws are mainly and essentially colonial even today.
Insofar as the labour laws and the basic rights of the workers are
concerned, the lengthy legal process and the modus-operandi of
the labour tribunals has always remained a serious problem for
the workers. Now, in the era of neo-liberalism if we consider the
statistics in the last 20 years, it will be evident that the labour laws
have no significance and the courts are found along the side of the
owners with the neo-liberal market based logic in most of the
cases. This bitter truth holds good even for the supreme court.
Recently in the Harjindar Singh vs Punjab State Warehousing
Corporation case, the two judges: justice Singhvi and justice
Ganguly of a two member bench of the Supreme Court itself
expressed their displeasure on the violation of the pro-labour
philosophy of the constitution by the courts and the anti-labour
verdicts given by the several bigger benches and even by five
member constitutional bench of the Supreme Court itself. In the
words of jutice Singhvi, (From the recent verdicts) an impression
is being created that the constitutional courts no longer have any
sympathy with the apathetic conditions of industrial workers and
unorganised workers. After this comment, there is hardly any
need to say anything more about the naked reality of the shrinking
Hunger, Displacement and Shrinking Space of Democracy 123
of the constitutional democratic rights of the industrial workers in

the era of neo-liberalism.
Considering the limits of this essay, instead of a detailed
analysis, on the above topic we only wish to assert in a gist that in
a post-colonial agrarian society like India (i) since there was no
radical rupture from imperialism (ii) since the capitalist land
reforms were not implemented in a radical manner; rather the
reactionary Prussian path of gradual transformation was
adopted, the space of capitalist democracy had to be narrow from
the beginning itself. Even in the western society, the capitalist
democracy is in essence an all-round hegemony of the bourgeois
class, but (owing to a historical process of renaissanceenlightenment-capitalist democratic revolution) the democratic
values and a sense of citizenship prevail in the social fabric of
those societies. At the same time, owing to extremely developed
productive forces, the condition of the majority of exploited and
oppressed toiling masses is not such that they suffer from hunger
or semi-hunger or die for want of medicines. The tragedy of
displacement for the industrial development unfolds even in those
countries, but the displaced people are not left to wander and are
not left on footpaths to die of heat waves and cold. Undoubtedly,
in the era of neo-liberalism the condition of the displaced,
homeless and immigrant workers is increasingly getting worsened
even in America but it is nothing in comparison with the hell like
pitiable condition of hunger and semi-hunger of the bottom of the
population and the displaced people.
Howsoever beautiful words are used in the Holy Book of
the constitution discussing the lofty democratic values, the form
of democracy has been extremely narrow in the day-to-day life of
common people owing to the prevalence of undemocratic values
in the socio-cultural fabric of the Indian society and as a
consequence of the colonial legal machinery and despotic colonial
bureaucracy and police machinery and an electoral system based
on ritualistic franchise and money-power and muscle power.
Another important aspect is that the provisions of lawful violation
of the constitutional democratic rights are present in the
constitution itself. The Emergency was imposed not by stalling
the constitution but in accordance with it. Dozens of draconian
laws such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, MISA,

NSA, TADA, POTA, Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act
etc. have been enacted and implemented as per the Constitution
itself. It is also noteworthy that the state power establishes the
rule of violence not only with the draconian laws but the invisible
process of the structural violence carried out by it goes on
perpetually which mostly victimises the weaker sections of
society, the dalits and tribals, the lower strata of the religious
minorities and the women.
In the backward societies where the level of development of
the productive forces is low, the logic of surplus appropriation
from its auto-centric motion continues to push the lower strata of
the wage labourers and the poor population which remains at the
margins of the mainstream of the capitalist development into the
whirlwind of hunger and malnutrition. It is also a sort of structural
violence. The capital, from its auto-centric motion uproots and
dispossesses small owner farmers, tribals and the village-poor
from their inhabitant and land and puts them in the queue of the
wage-slaves. Even this constant process of migration is a form of
displacement and it is yet another form of the continuously
unfolding structural violence of the capitalist system. Secondly,
there is a displacement which happens openly. For the purpose of
constructing big dams, highways and industrial projects and for
plundering the mineral wealth of the forests and hills, the process
of forcible eviction of their population and handing down a paltry
sum in the name of wiping out the tears goes on since last 60
years. Every time the promises of rehabilitation are made, but not
even 10 percent of the promises are delivered and whatever gets
delivered is utterly inadequate for living. Even this constitutes
structural violence inherent in the process of capitalist
development which renders the constitutional presence of the
even the fundamental right to live into merely a formal right.
Owing to ineffectiveness of constitution and the colonial law
and order and bureaucratic machinery and due to the role of
legislature as a showoff and talking shop and role of
government as the managing committee of the capitalists, when
masses are left with no alternative to democratically protest
against the above process of structural violence, a section of it
chooses the path of terrorism for resistance in the situation of the

lack of alternative and pessimism. The state once again takes
resort to open violence in the name of crushing such resistance
and it wages an undeclared war against the people by performing
a danse macabre of brutal repression. Under such a situation it
becomes easier for the state to tag the brand of terrorism even to
the mass movements for democratic rights, the labour
movements and civil society organisations and to establish a
totalitarian system by crushing every kind of civilian resistance.
In such a situation, it becomes easier to appropriate surplus,
to plunder the mineral wealth and to uproot the people for the
industrial projects. Today, the Manmohan Singh and
Chidambarams government is moving in this very direction and
they have consensus on this issue with the chief ministers of all
the states, be it Raman Singh or Budhdev Bhattacharya or Nitish
Kumar and Mayawati or anyone else. The question is not only
that of Operation Green Hunt or Salwa Judum or the current
campaign of crushing Maoism/Naxalism. The fundamental issue
is that there is a consensus between the central and state
governments on the neo-liberal policies which have resulted in a
situation in which even the remaining social-securities of toiling
masses of villages and cities have been snatched away in the last
two decades, the labour laws have been rendered meaningless,
the structure of the public services are getting destroyed and
being handed over to the market forces, the process of
displacement has been intensified, brutalised and freed from all
restraints in order to makes SEZs and in order to exploit the
minerals and handing-over the hills and forests to Jindal-MittalBirla-Tata-Posco etc. its native population is being uprooted in the
same manner as the Spanish and other Europeans had uprooted
the native population of America. As a consequence of this
process, neo-liberlism has caused an unprecedented
intensification of the process of structural violence of the state
and the shrinking of the horizon of capitalist democracy in the
form of displacement, hunger, semi-hunger, deaths due to lack of
medication and malnutrition and due to diseases caused by
exhaustive work in bad conditions. Only some representative
facts and figures are enough to clarify the picture.
According to the governments definition of poverty in

India, in villages, poor person is the one who gets less than 2400
calorie a day. It is noteworthy that between 19931994 and
20042005 the percentage of such population in villages has
increased from 74.5 percent to 87 percent. Similarly, in the urban
population, the percentage of the people living on less than 2100
calorie has increased from 57 percent to 64.5 percent. (Utsa
Patnaik: Neo-liberalism and rural poverty in India, EPW, 28 July,
2007). According to a UNICEF report (The state of worlds
children 2009), the rate of malnutrition among children in India is
highest in the world and it is even more than the sub-saharan
countries. The children of rural areas in India are doubly
underweight than the children of urban areas. According to a
United Nations report, the death-rate of children of less than 5
years of age in India is three times that of China, 6 times that of
Srilanka and it is even more than Bangladesh and Nepal. Half of
the Indian children suffer from malnutrition and are underweight.
60 percent children and 74 percent infant suffer from anaemia.
Around 9 thousand children die per day due to hunger,
malnutrition and diseases caused by malnutrition. More than 50
percent cases of the death of children of less than 5 years old are
caused by malnutrition. More than 5 crore children of less than 5
years old suffer from chronic malnutrition. According to a United
Nations report 63 percent children often sleep hungry. 23 percent
children are weak and sick from their birth and 60 out of 1000
infants die within a year.
The flip side of the economy making a leap with the rate of 89 percent annually is that according to the Untied Nations Human
Development Index of 2007, India slipped from 124th to 127th
position. According to International Food Policy Research agency,
Indias position was 94th in 118 countries of the world while
Pakistans was 88th and Chinas 47th. According to the Global
Hunger Index prepared by International Food Policy Research
Agency and California University, Indias position was 66th in 88
countries of the world. Leaving aside the African countries and
Bangladesh, highest number of hungry people live in India.
According to a report of the Food and Agriculture
Organisation of the United Nations, 855 million people suffer from
hunger, malnutrition and lack of nutrition in the world. 350 million

such population lives in India. According to another report of the
United Nations, per capita food availability in India was 580 gram
in 1991 which got reduced to 445 gram in 2007. It needs to be
noted that in this duration the prosperous and rich section of the
society has substantially increased their expenditure on food and
beverages. That means in this duration the reduction in the poors
food intake has been more than average reduction mentioned
above. As per the same report, during the two decades of
liberalisation, there has been substantial reduction in the per capita
calorie consumption of the poor in India.
In the developed countries, people spend 10 to 20 percent of
their income on food while people in India on an average spend 55
percent of their income on food. But the Indian citizens having
low-income spend 70 percent of their income on food and even
then they neither get the two square meals a day nor nutritional
diet. On an average, an individual requires 50 gram of pulses a
day, but in India the bottom 30 percent population gets only 13
gram pulses a day. A family of five persons eat 200 kg lesser food
today than what it used to eat fifty years ago on an average. This
is an average of the entire population, that means amongst the
poor the food consumption has reduced to even greater extent.
According to National Sample Survey, average consumption in
rural India is only Rs. 19 a day and in urban India it is Rs. 30. 10
percent of the population in the villages manages to live on Rs. 9 a
day. According to the report of the National Commission For
Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector, about 840 million people (
77 percent of population) were living on Rs. 20 a day in 2004
2005. Among them 22 percent people were living on an income of
Rs. 11.6 a day, 19 percent people on Rs. 11.6 to Rs. 15 a day and
36 percent people were living on the income between Rs. 15 and
Rs. 20 a day.
Now even Manmohan Singh is conceding the reality of food
crisis. The root cause of this crisis and the hunger generated by it
has been the neo-liberal economic policies. Currently the SEZs
which are being constructed for handing over land to the
capitalists on meagre sum ( 63 SEZs are notified, 171 are
approved, 162 are approved in principle and 222 are under
consideration) have so far taken over 1 percent of land suitable

for agriculture. We are not including the huge expansion of many
industrial areas, multi-lane highways and residential projects here.
Most of these development works are for the luxuries of the
highly prosperous elite section and is not socially useful. For the
moment we are setting aside the discussion of the people
uprooted by the and are talking about the reduction on agricultural
land.
A huge section of the remaining land is being used by the big
Kulaks and the agro-based multi-national companies (through
contract farming) for producing tomato and malta etc. For the
global market of the processed food, they are doing organic
farming and are producing the bio-fuels like Jatrofa. This
tendency is fast gathering pace. The food-grain which is
produced does not reach to the poor at affordable prices due to
continuous breakdown of the public distribution system and
corruption. Owing to the policies of open market, the prices of
essential consumer goods are skyrocketing since last many years
due to hoarding and the absence of any mechanism of pricecontrol.
The neo-liberal era has not only made the workers
employment security and social security of every kind as totally
ineffective and ritualistic, it has also caused huge fall in the real
wages. Despite the huge increase in the labour-productivity in the
last 20 years, huge reduction in the regular employment and the
share of wage in the production-expenditure has been witnessed.
According to a study, in 19901991 the share of wage in the
production expenditure of the 100 big industries in India was 11
percent which got reduced to only 5.56 percent by 20002001.
This era of neo-liberalism has not only brought the tragedy of
hunger and all round dispossession to the poor toiling population,
even the small and marginal owner farmers are not left untouched
by its flog. In the two decades of neo-liberalism, around two lakh
farmers have committed suicide due to losses in agricultural,
pressure of loan and lack of alternative employment.
The severity and barbarity of this danse macabre of hunger
is more clearly visible against the backdrop of the rich-poor divide
and it becomes evident that the common peoples difficulties in
even living a life have made their democratic rights so ritualistic

and narrow that Indias capitalist democracy does not remain
anything but an oligocracy of elites and this oligocracy is ready to
go to any extent of despotic totalitarianism in order to safeguard
the interests of handful of people. According to an article
(Economic Times, July 9, 2007) written by Chetan Ahya, the
managing director of Morgan Stanley, between 2003 and 2007,
more than one billion dollar of wealth was created in India whose
large section went to a meagre section of the population.
According to another study, the top 10 percent of the population
has come to own 85 percent of the total wealth while the bottom
sixty percent owns only two percent. The income of 0.01 percent
of people in the country has exceeded more than two hundred
times of the average income of the country. The difference
between the income of the top three percent and the bottom 40
percent has today become 60 times. The top ten billionaires of the
country earn Rs. 20 million per minute. In the list of billionaires of
the world released by Forbes magazine, there were 9 Indians in
2004 and by 2007 this number increased to 40. During 2006-2007,
within a span of one year the wealth of Indian billionaires was
increased from 106 billion dollar to 170 billion dollar. According to
economist Amit Bhaduri ( Filhaal, August-Sptember 2008), 60
percent increase in the wealth of the billionaires was made
possible because the central and state governments handed over
land on large scale to the corporate in the name of public
purpose for mining, industrialisation and Special Economic
Zone. This reality is, in fact, at the heart of all the activities of
Maoism, Salwa Judum, and Operation Green Hunt in
Chhattisgarh.
Samrendra Das and Felix Padel, in their soon to be published
book Out of this Earth: East India Adivasis and the Alluminium
Cartel have mentioned that in the price of Bauxite present in
Orissa itself was about 2.27 billion dollar which has now become
about 4 billion dollar. And this tale is not that of Orissa only.
Minerals such as Uranium, Limestone, Dolomite, Iron, Bauxite,
Coal, Tin, Granite, Marble, Copper, Diamond, Gold, Quartzite,
Corundam, Beril, Alexandrite, Silica, Florite and Garnet worth
billions of dollar, in fact immeasurable, lie buried in Chhattisgarh,
Jharkhand and Orissa. That is the reason why ManmohamChidambaram are desperate to hand over the hills-forests and the
land of the region to the domestic and foreign companies such as
Mittal, Jindal, Tata, Posco, Essar, Rio Tinto, B.H.P Billiton and
Vedanta. Hundreds of memorandums have already been signed
(90 among them are from Jharkhand itself). The state has made
all the preparations to uproot the lakhs of tribals from their
settlements and land at any cost. The real aim of whatever is
happening today in the name of the military action against
Maoism is to forcibly uproot the tribals.
A fifteen member committee of the Ministry of Rural
Development ( Committee on State Agrarian relations and
Unfinished Task of Land Reforms) itself has termed the
industrialisation campaign in the iron-ore rich districts of
ChhattisgarhBastar, Dantewada and Bijapuras the biggest
incident of land-grab from the natives after Columbus .
According to the committee, So far 350,000 tribals have been
uprooted for setting up steel and electricity plants with the total
investment of Rs. 20,000 crore. This large-scale campaign of
land-grab was akin to a declared war. The script of this play was
written by Tata and Essar. It has become evident today that the
financiers of Salwa Judum were the corporates like Tata and
Essar Group more than the local contractors and capitalists.
It is noteworthy in this context that todays union home
minister P. Chidambaram was at one time the non-executive
director of Vedanta company, a company to which the Niyamgiri
hill of Orissa is being sold to for bauxite mining and in the process
forcibly uprooting the tribals of the region. The lakhs of people
who are getting uprooted are today fighting the battle of life and
death. Manmohan Singh has already said that the biggest obstacle
to land-acquisition is the resistance of tribals and it is having
adverse impact on the foreign direct investment. That is the
reason why Indian government is now planning to do the same
thing in the adjacent regions of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa,
West Bengal and Maharashtra which was done by the Spanish in
Latin America against the its native population. In this situation of
the lack of alternative, the tribals are taking up arms and are
supporting the politics of Maoism.
Surely anyone who favours the politics of mass-movement

for labour rights and democratic rights cannot support Maoism
or any kind of terrorist politics. But we believe that even this
strategy of terrorism has been fuelled by the state terrorism, it is
the constantly unfolding structural violence of the state which has
given rise to this and now a war is being waged against the entire
population under its cover so that large-scale displacement could
be accomplished. At the same time to crush every massmovement rising against the calamity of neo-liberalism by
branding them as Maoist-terrorist.
It is important to look at some more facts in order to have a
broad understanding of the question of displacement. It has been
said earlier that even the migration of the poor population from
village to cities after getting dispossessed by the flog of capital is
also displacement only. These displaced workers, deprived of the
social security of all kinds, toil hard in the factories liked dailywage-slaves. The 180 million population which according to the
National Sample Survey lives in the slums and 180 million
population which sleep on the footpaths are actually the cursed
population of the migrant and displaced workers. In the duration
of the 2001 census alone, 1 crore 44 lakh people moved towards
the cities or the more prosperous parts of the country as migrant
workers.
Arundhati Roy, in one of her articles (The greater common
good) has given reference to a study by the Indian Institute of
Public Administration. On the basis of the study of 54 large dams,
it has been told that the average displaced population per dam is
44,182. But the number of 54 is very less in comparison to the
total 3300 big dams in the country. Even if we consider the
population getting displaced by every big dams to be 10000 (
which is obviously very low), the total population getting displaced
by the big dams comes out to be 3 crore and 30 lakhs. Now let us
talk about those who have been displaced in the last half century
because of big projects.
N.C. Saxena, ex-secretary of Planning Commission, in one of
his speeches said that the number of people getting displaced by
all the development projects including the dams would not be less
than 5 crore. This population is around three times that of
Australias total population, three times the refugee population

during partition of India, ten times that of Palestinian refugee
population and fifty times the number of Kosovo refugees. It is a
continuously unfolding calamity like a war. It is perhaps needless
to mention that the governments rehabilitation schemes are only
for the name sake and their failure rate is sixty to seventy
percent. Seventy percent of whatever paltry sum they get goes
through the drain of corruption. It is to be remembered that every
year thousands of people get displaced due to natural calamities
or communal and caste-based tensions and riots. The attitude of
the governments and bureaucracy towards them is merciless to
the similar extent.
To sum up, it can be said that the limits of the Indian
democratic republic have been narrow right from the beginning
due to its colonial past and its link with the imperialist world as a
post-colonial society and because of being a backward capitalist
agrarian society. Now in the era of globalisation and neoliberalism, the naked brutal lust of capital for extracting superprofit is making the Indian state more and more despotic,
arbitrary, totalitarian and repressive. The logic of surplus
appropriation inherent in the capitalist socio-economic structure is
continuously giving rise to hunger, displacement and myriad forms
of structural violence. Owing to some other social reasons, this
structural violence which was already prevalent in India, has
taken the form of a calamity like a continuously unfolding war
during the last two decades of the neo-liberal policies. When the
population which is affected most by it is trying to resist, the state
has begun to take resort to the methodology of direct fascist
repression. The resistance to the structural violence is giving rise
to the campaign of barbaric, open state violence by the paramilitary forces and the state is prepared even to use army if
required. An atmosphere of the reign of terror is being created in
a systematic manner by making the draconian laws one after
another, by streamlining the intelligence machinery, by brutally
crushing even the small scale local mass-movements and by
carrying out propaganda war and psychological war through
media.
One of the ways of resisting such a situation is to rebuild the
mass-movements of workers, to prepare new strategy and tactics

according to the new conditions and to prepare for a radical trade
union uprising. The traditional trade-union movement has been
degenerated and disintegrated. The NGO brand reformism also
does a patch-up work and creates a safety-valve. The condition
of the lack of alternative and pessimism is giving rise to the
politics of terrorist resistance which only takes the project of the
emancipation of masses towards a dead-end. The state
repression promotes the politics of terrorism only and targets the
entire population under its cover.
Only alternative left now is a new project of radical politics of
anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism. But it is not sufficient to state
this in general terms. The democratic and civil rights movement
also need to be built on a new footing alongwith the the class
movement of the toiling masses. The democratic rights
movement and civil liberties movement need to be taken out of
the narrow confines of submitting memorandum, organising
seminars, preparing reports, carrying out signature campaign and
organising symbolic protest-demonstration and it needs to be
transformed into a broad mass-movement. The question of
democratic rights and civil liberties is not only that of enlightened
intellectuals and jurists. We will have to convince those people for
taking up active role whose democratic rights are being infringed
on daily basis by the state-machinery and the powerful people of
the society. The civil rights movement is not just a movement for
the release of prisoners and to raise voices against the police
repression and for political rights. If the structural violence
committed by the state on sustained basis (which could be seen in
myriad forms such as hunger, malnutrition, displacement, lack of
basic needs such as housing, health and education) attacks on our
fundamental right to live, it becomes the task of the democratic
rights movement itself to organise widespread mass struggle
against it. It can be possible only if the masses are aware about
their democratic rights and are ready to fight for it. For this the
democratic rights movement also needs to become a widespread
peoples education movement and a campaign of mass
awakening.
The civil rights movement needs to be taken out of the
confines of the limited acts of the intellectual pressure-groups

and it needs to be transformed into a militant mass-movement
having broad mass-platform and a broad united front of all classes
of masses. If a concrete initiative is taken in this direction by
giving up sectarianism, dogmatism and convenient selfish habit of
ritualistic actions and if it is moved forward, it is very well possible
one day that a country-wide civil satyagrah and civil disobedience
movement could be organised on any kind of democratic rights
issue such as on the question of rehabilitation of the displaced
population, on the question of work to every person and full
nutritious food to every citizen, free universal health-care and
free and uniform education, housing for all, or on the question of
the democratisation of judiciary, labour department and police
machinery.
It could look like a utopia or a big dream today, but it is not
impossible. Things look difficult or impossible as long as a
beginning is not made. And a beginning is normally made through
a dream only. We need to have faith on the masses and chose the
path of mobilising the broad population.
INDIAN DEMOCRACY - STORY OF CIVIL

LIBERTIES MOVEMENTS
Jaya Vindhyala
A democratic society is one where the government and the
citizens come together to create an open society where there is
maximum and effective public participation. Citizens must evince
an active interest in the formation of policies and their execution
and thus exercise their democratic rights as important
stakeholders in the government process.
The starting point of all contemporary civil society initiatives
is the assumption that the state cannot be held solely responsible
for governance, development and growth of the nation. People
can effectively participate and contribute only when they are
empowered with knowledge of their rights and avenues of
redress. The first step in this direction is to secure basic human
rights within the framework of the constitution, through legislation
and a transparent political process.
Civil society movements have largely articulated and agitated
for rights safeguarded by the constitution and its constant
impingement by the state and as instrumentalities. The citizenry
must be conscious and vigilant if human rights are to be realised
and the state is to be prevented from encroaching on fundamental
rights.
Social movements are an effort to change institutions and
practices. They are usually for the purpose of furthering the rights
of one or more groups within a system, either through reform or
The author is the President of PUCL, Andhra Pradesh.
Contact: jaya_pucl@yahoo.com
more radical changes. Social movements labor to alter

fundamentally existing social relationships and institutional
structures. Given this broad definition of social movements, it
must be kept in mind that the trajectory of democracy and
freedom in India is largely different from that of the Western
liberal democracies.
A number of social movements have marked Indian history
from the 1800s onwards. Such strugglers are generally in
opposition to the governments of the time, although some reforms
were carried out under ruling administration. For example, British
colonial government enacted some changes for the cause of
social equality after efforts were initiated by individuals like Raja
Rama Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Dayanand
Saraswati. Generally these changes had positive impacts on
groups that have historically been marginalised in India. Women,
for example, were primary beneficiaries of new laws that ended
the practice of sati, and allowed widows to remarry.
The movements for independence, led by the Indian National
Congress (INC), engaged in a larger struggle for democracy,
which was inclusive of greater human rights and civil liberties. In
that capacity, the INC contested several repressive laws contrary
to civil rights such as the Arms Act 1878. However, the INC also
supported some very draconian laws during that time and was
therefore not a wholly democratizing influence.
The INCs primary interest was in gaining independence
from British rule, and its struggled to balance its support for
human rights with the need to establish stability as a precursor to
achieving that independence. Therefore, it was not an adequate
advocate for civil liberties and there still remained space for a
more far-reaching civil and social movement.
The Indian Civil Liberties Union (ICLU) was established in
1934 and this marked the beginning of a distinct civil rights
movement. Its main activities were gathering information about
violation of civil liberties, particularly regarding the conditions of
prisoners and people in detention, police brutality, proscriptions on
literature and restrictions on the press.
Along with the ICLU, the Bombay Civil Liberties Union, the
Madras Civil Liberties Union and the Punjab Civil Liberties Union
Indian Democracy - Story of Civil Liberties Movements 137
further marked the birth of viable social movements for rights in

India. In 1937, the INC and its provincial governments came into
power. Many of these provincial governments were held
responsible for human rights violations. Tension grew between
the INC and the ICLU when the ICLU declared that, with
independence, the need for a civil liberties organisation was
redundant. This ultimately led to the collapse of the ICLU.
The congress government led by Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru
guaranteed the citizens of Independent India certain inalienable,
fundamental rights through the Constitution of India. The
constitution of India is one of the longest, most sweeping and most
rights-based Constitution in the world. It was heavily influenced
by the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights, which was
written shortly before, and also drew on a range of existing rightsbased Constitutions. Consequently, it encapsulates and
guaranteed the fundamental principles of human rights.
Evidence of Indias historical struggle against the British
Colonial powers that so consistently abuse the rights of the people
can also be found in the document. The constitution provides
protection against such infractions, and includes other principles
that informed the battle for independence in particular, social
reforms against practices like sati, child marriage, and
untouchability. The constitution also directs the state to set
policies for the welfare and relief of the people, thereby
encompassing ideas of economic and social rights in addition to
civil liberties.
The leadership of Mahatma Gandhi saw the capitalisation of
the constructive spirit within the society. After independence, all
voluntary initiatives that were hitherto mobilizing people against
oppressive rule of the British now placed reliance on the
independent government to realise dreams. The policies of the
government clearly widened the gaps and lead to the
appropriation of privileges by the upper castes and the wealthy.
The casteist, feudal and communal characteristics of the Indian
polity, coupled with a colonial bureaucracy, weighted against and
dampened the spirit of freedom, rights and affirmative action
enshrined in the Constitution.
The governments commitment to civil liberties was further
challenged by internal instability. The left-wing Naxalite

movement of the 1960s was formed in response to the ongoing
repressions and abuses of the central government. This caused
the State to even further suppress dissent and exert political
control-sometimes violently- over citizens. However, it also drew
attention to the contradictions between the Constitution and State
practices, precipitating the growth of new social and civil rights
movements.
In response to massive movement by students and youth
against corrupt and undemocratic practices by the party in power,
in 1975, the government of Indira Gandhi imposed a nationwide
state of emergency to suppress opposition. Mrs. Gandhi unilateral
action ultimately served to spurt a resurgence of civil liberties
movements in India.
The Emergency gave rise to gross violations of human rights,
preventive detention laws being used extensively. More than one
lakh people were arrested and detained for political reasons, often
under false charges. This included political opposition leaders,
trade union leaders and social activists. The government also
imposed censorship on newspapers, media outlets and
prohibitions on public gatherings. The Constitution of India and all
its protections were entirely suspended for 19 months.
It was during this period that the human rights movement
developed a wide organisational base and became more visible.
The agenda of the civil liberties movement included arbitrary
detention, custodial violence, prisons, and the misuse of the
judicial process. Several organisations were formed during this
period like the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL).
The major activities taken by these groups included factfinding mission and investigations, public interest litigation, citizen
awareness programs, campaigns and production of Supportive
literature for independent movements and organisations. They
have also served to relieve, support and lobby for those whose
rights have been breached in times of crisis; for example, during
the 1984 Sikh riots, the Bhopal gas disaster, the Bhagalpur riots in
1989, and more recently, those displaced by the Sardar Sarovar
Project and victims of the Godhra riots.
The auspicious increase in the number of human rights NGOs
in India after the Emergency of 1975-77 was a result of the

human rights abuses perpetrated by the government and its
agents during this time. This included the emergence and
mobilisation of groups and institutions-new social movements-led
by these NGOs. These movements have succeeded in creating
an impact among a cross section of people of India.
NGOs at the forefront of civil society movements in India
have had notable success in areas like electoral reform.
Beginning in 2000, coalitions of NGOs have filed suits against the
Government of India in the interest of citizens rights to
information about candidates standing for office at every level.
Specifically, they pressed for the release of information about
criminal convictions, or pending criminal cases, financial status
including campaign, financing, and educational qualifications.
Despite the opposition of all the political parties- ruling and
otherwise- and their attempts to legislatively derail such a
development, the persistence, unity, and popular support of the
NGOs resulted in repeated court rulings in their favor.
Consequently, their efforts have led to freer, fairer elections in
India today by way of a more informed electorate.
The initiatives by social society groups led to bring
revolutionary enactments like Right to Information, Right to
Education etc. At presently we are witnessing all round efforts to
contain corrupt practices in the government. Such moves certain
leading strengthening of democracy and its institutions.
The economic policies adopted by Dr. Manmohan Singh
leading to social and economic unrest in the country. While these
have been widening gap between the rich and poor, large number
of poor are losing their occupations, high rate of increase in
unemployment, key sectors like education and health going away
from the reach of common people with corporate houses are
coming to the center stage of policy making. They are gaining
control over natural resources displacing large number of
indigenous people.
This scenario is leading to new type of social tensions. For the
first time in the independent India, the Left Front lost its power in
West Bengal when the poor and marginalised sections of the
population started asserting their rights on their piece of lands.
Both the state and central governments have been showing

impatient towards peoples movements asserting their right to
land, right to food and right to work. These tendencies are
recalling days of Emergency period. The arrest of human rights
and health activist like Dr. Binayak Sen under sedition laws
shows how the State is impatient against anyone who dares to
raise issues of oppression.
Since the 1980s, the human rights movements has
strengthened and diversified its range of activities. The
movement had widened its focus areas from civil and political
rights to economic, social and cultural rights, environment,
development and womens rights among others. While such a
broadening of focus has strengthened the movement, it has also
increased the conflict between NGOs and the Indian
Government.
With the human rights movements in India has been
successful in mitigating some serious forms of oppression, and
has kept alive the spirit of democracy in India, it is not without its
limitations.
Social and human rights movements in India are voluntary in
nature. Most of the organisations that represent such movements
are without all-encompassing rights foundations and are based on
individual or collective enthusiasms for special interests. While
such groups may be able to affect small changes, naturally they
are limited. There are many human rights groups advocating
numerous social causes, but most with narrow focuses have
failed to affect any significant changes in society.
The expansion of NGOs across India should not in and of
itself be equated to a strong human rights movement. It is
unfortunate to note that NGO sector has become politicised, and
is large enough in India so that political factions are beginning to
fight one another by proxy through NGOs. Such organisations are
often aligned with political parties, and conduct their business
according to agenda of those parties. This may in turn, greatly
diminish the influence and ability of NGOs to provide legitimate
criticisms of the government, thereby leaving a vacuum for the
leadership of true social movements.
Perhaps the matter of greatest concern is the gravy train
trend that has accompanied the explosion of NGOs. Many

observers have criticised the inefficacy and sometimes
corruption, associated with NGOs and the funding they obtain
often from government or international agencies like the UN.
Often NGOs have proven too small or too inefficient to affect
significant changes per the amount of money they are given.
Institutional Erosion in a Democracy

Pushkar Raj*
Vibrant democracies are known for their institutional strengths. It
is incumbent on the government of the day to ensure respect for
these institutions as well as to make sure that they function
smoothly. If it does not do so, the government fails in its trust that
people have reposed in it. Institutions are important in a society as
they protect basic rights of people. For example they might be
engaged in important work of ensuring that there are no extra
judicial killings; public money is spent properly for peoples
welfare or; those who are guilty of misuse of public offices are
held accountable for their misdeeds.
In recent days some of our important institutions have come
under scanner due to acts of omissions and commissions of the
present government in relation to them. The National Human
Rights Commission, the Comptroller and Auditor General and the
Central Vigilance Commissioner have attracted attention for
different reasons which have left their image a little tarnished.
While the CVC had to resign on the Supreme Courts order, it has
shaken peoples confidence in the present government that
persisted in appointing him. Similarly one of governments
ministers disputing Comptroller and Auditor Generals findings
on financial loss to exchequer on 2G spectrum allocations is an
attempt to denigrate a constitutional body that has a reasonably
good demonstrable track record of autonomy and impartiality.
The said ministers act is an unwelcome attempt to mix
governance with petty politics and worthy of censure. The
National General Secretary, Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL)
National Human Rights Commission chairmans office too has

come under criticism from media and civil society groups for
negative reasons. Even though one does not de-construct those
reasons, it is a matter of discomfort that such an eventuality arises
leaving the office of NHRC chairman somewhat less shining in its
stature.
In all these mentioned instances the government of the day is
responsible in one way or the other. One must bear in mind that
this institutional undermining was one of the cause and fall out of
breakdown of democracy in the country during 1975-77. It is
important that the civil groups in country ensure that the present
government respects the statutory bodies in letter and spirit, so
that an undeclared spectacle of the emergency period is avoided.
It is a matter of satisfaction that efforts of civil society have borne
fruit in form of CVCs appointment being quashed and
investigations being launched in 2G spectrums allocation process.
However there are many more battles that are waiting to be
fought and won. Each such victory will strengthen our democracy
leading to empowerment of our people.
DISPLACEMENT, DISPOSSESION AND THE

QUESTION OF DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS
Sourav Banerjee
With the increasing urbanisation, rapid economic development,
increasing infrastructure requirements, prolonged armed conflict
and ethnic or communal violence etc., each year, millions of
people in India are forcibly relocated and resettled away from
their homes, lands and livelihoods. The Loss of livelihood and
displacement has become a recurring feature for the people of
India in order to make way for large-scale development
projects such as dams, reservoirs, power plants, roads,
plantations, urban renewal, and oil, gas, and mining
projects. Hundreds of villages have been acquired by the Indian
government for Greater Good and development purposes, as a
result of which, millions of people become displaced from their
homes. Experts estimate that over 250 million people worldwide
have been displaced in the name of development over the past
twenty years while in India alone, development projects have
displaced more than 60 million people in the past 60 years. Adding
to its woes, the regional armed conflict too has a great
contribution towards the number of displaced and dispossessed.
Based on known numbers of IDPs(internally displaced person)
living in camps and registered there, a conservative estimate of
the total number of people displaced due to conflict and violence
would be at least 650,000. However, the real number, including
people dispersed in Indias cities and others living in displacement
outside camps, is likely to be significantly higher. The fear of
losing land under unfair terms or the menace of displacement thus
The author is a social activist and journalist.
Contact: souravbanerjee25@yahoo.co.in
become a subject of urgent debate of the time. The concern is

because often, the internally displaced suffer extreme
deprivation, human rights violation, threatening their very
possibility of survival, and are often exposed to considerable
danger, both during flight and while in displacement. Accordingly,
the death toll among internally displaced persons has often
reached extreme proportions, particularly among physically
weaker section of the population, such as children, the elderly or
pregnant women. Displacement can be physical, economic, or
both. Physical displacement refers to the actual relocation of
individuals, families or communities from one place to another
while economic displacement occurs when people lose access to
vital natural resources that they need to sustain their livelihoods
such as forests, grazing lands, and fresh water.
At present there exists no internationally agreed upon
definition as to who is a displaced person. United Nations current
working definition given by the Guiding Principles in Internal
displacement (1998) holds them to be:
Persons or groups of persons who have been forced to
flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence as
a result of, or in order to avoid, in particular, the effects of
armed conflict, situations of generalised violence, violations
of human rights or natural or human made disasters, and
who have not crossed an internationally recognised State
Border.
Development is one of the primary causes of forced migration
in India today. This forced relocation is known as developmentinduced displacement and resettlement, or DIDR.
Development-induced displacement can be defined as the forcing
of communities and individuals out of their homes, often also
their homelands, for the purposes of economic development
though at the international level, it is viewed as a violation of
human rights. Figures on the number of people forcibly uprooted
from their homes and communities are incomplete and are careful
approximations at best. They do, however, give us a clear indicator
of the magnitude of the problem. The vast majority of DIDR is
involuntary, with government authorities, security forces, or
private militias forcing people from their homes and lands. Since
Displacement, Dispossesion and Democratic Rights 145
1990, the government of Indias liberalisation policy boosted by

increasing inflow of foreign investment for major infrastructural
projects by the World Bank and other international financial
institutions, has consciously invested in infrastructure development
that has exacerbated internal displacement. Livelihoods, lifestyles
and identities have been threatened by these policies. In the last
63 years, India has invested in industrial projects, dams, roads,
mines, power plants and new cities which have been made possible
only through massive acquisition of land and subsequent
displacement of people. At least 60 million people in India have
been displaced by dams, mines, thermal power plants, corridor
projects, field firing ranges, express highways, airports, national
parks, sanctuaries, industrial townships, SEZs and even poultry
farms. For reasons of location of these development projects, a
vast majority of internally displaced persons are adivasis, dalits
and other economically marginalised communities. Roughly one in
every ten Indian tribals is a displaced person. Tribals constitute 8%
of the countrys population and more than 40% of the displaced
population.
Now let us look at some Major instances of displacements:
Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) built along the Narmada River:
30 big dams, 300 medium and 3,000 small dams are built on this
single river. Over 300,000 people have been displaced by the
Narmada Project. According to the Commissioner for Scheduled
Castes and Tribes, 60 per cent of the displaced people are
adivasis. Environmental groups have pointed out the immense
ecological damage through the inundation of forests, which are
prime habitats of rare species. In total, over 32,000 hectares of
land have been submerged by the SSP, 13,000 of which is forest
land, and 11,000 hectares of agricultural land.
The Tehri dam, one of the highest dams in the world harnessing
the waters of two important Himalayan rivers Bhagirathi and
Bhilangana, has completely submerged Tehri town and 23
villages, while 72 other villages had been partially submerged.
Nearly 5,200 hectares of land has also been lost to the reservoir.
About 85,000 persons have been displaced by the dam.
Tribals living in Jharkhand are under constant threat of their

displacement from their ancestral habitat. 65,40,000 Jharkhandi
people have displaced due to mining, irrigation projects, heavy
industries and animal sanctuaries
Polavaram Multipurpose project built on the Godavari River is
expected to submerge of at least 276 villages and displace
170,000 people out of which 259 villages are in Andhra Pradesh,
10 in Chhattisgarh and 7 in Orissa. Majority of the displaced are
tribals, living along the Godavari and adjacent.
On the border of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, in the
Singrauli region, over 200,000 people have been displaced on
different occasions. First by the Rihand dam, then by a series of
thermal power plants of the National Thermal Power Corporation
(NTPC), followed by mining projects of the Central Coalfields
Limited (CCL). Singrauli has illuminated the lives of many in the
urban centres, but has seen its natives groping in endless
darkness, grappling to overcome the trauma of displacement.
In Karnatakas Nagarhole National Park about 5,000 tribal
families, including aboriginal tribes were thrown out of the
forests, which they tended for centuries. Presently, the tribals
living on the fringes of the forests are grappling with the market
economy they have been forcibly exposed to. Many of tribals
work for meagre wages as coolies at nearby coffee plantations.
They have sold their children as domestic workers for the urban
rich over the past decade.
237 among 500 Special Economic Zones in 19 states
(occupying 86,107 hectares) have been approved by the Central
Government. 63 of these SEZs have already been notified. 23
SEZs are operational, 18 are in Information Technology (IT)
sector. 1,50,000 hectares (the area of National Capital Region)
will be total number of land to be acquired, which would displace
1,14,000 farming household (each household on an average
comprising five members) and an additional 82,000 farm worker
families who are dependent upon these farms for their livelihoods.
At least 10 lakh people who primarily depend upon agriculture for
their survival will face eviction.
SEZ approved by the State Government of Orissa signed a
deal with South Korean company, POSCO, one of the worlds
biggest steel makers for setting up of 12 million tonnes per annum

integrated steel plant at Ersamma block in the coastal
Jagatsinghpur district which will displace 22,000 people from
4000 acres of land,around 15 villages and ruin their betelleaf
farming.In addition to the farmers who will be displaced,
thousands of fisherman and the villagers in the port area will also
lose their livelihood.
In Maharashtra Reliance had set up a large SEZ composed
of 35000 acres, where it has plans to build an upper and middle
class New Mumbai on top of rice fields.This SEZ will displace
45 villages and 2,50000 people.Similarly in Karnapura valley in
the state of Jharkhand The National Thermal Power
Corporotation(NTPC)has set its sight on developing huge open pit
coal mines that would eventually displace 186 villages and 250000
people out of 3lakh people who now live in the valley.
And there are million other incidents like Nandigram,
Singur, Jaitpur or Common Wealth Games which poses equal or
more danger to the poor people of India.
Apart from development, there are political causes such as
secessionist movements, identity based autonomy movements,
caste disputes and religious fundamentalism etc., which
generates millions of IDPs in India each year. In other words it is
called conflict induced displacements. Since independence, India
has continued to experience outbreaks of armed conflict,
fratricidal conflict and religious and caste based massacres which
have also displaced several thousand people. Currently, more
than 650,000 persons are estimated displaced by these conflicts.
If seen critically the reason lies behind this kind of forced
displacement is nothing but the anti-people policies of the state
which essentially creates enemies and eventually leads to conflict
or war.
It is very difficult to estimate the total number of conflictinduced IDPs in India as there is no central government agency
responsible for monitoring the numbers of people displaced and
returning. In addition, there is no UN agency that has an overall
overview of the situation, and NGOs and civil society
organisations have generally focused on specific displacement
situations in India rather than on the overall situation.
Apart from these two major reasons, there are displacements

due to natural disaster, which is called Environmental
Displacement. Millions of people are displaced oweing to this
reason each year in India. The Climate Institute defines
environmental refugees as people fleeing from environmental
crises, whether natural or anthropogenic events, and whether short
or long term. Reasons for displacement include land degradation,
drought, deforestation, natural disasters, and other environmental
changes that interact destructively with poverty and population
pressure. There are currently between 25-30 million environmental
refugees worldwide, and their numbers are expected to swell to 200
million by mid-century, largely as a result of climate change. For
instance, the Indian Ocean tsunami, which hit southern India in
December 2004, devastated the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and
a 2,260 km stretch of the mainland coastline in Andhra Pradesh,
Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. According to the World Bank
an estimated 2.7 million people were affected by the disaster and
some 650,000 were displaced. Indian-controlled Kashmir was also
badly affected by the South Asia earthquake in October 2005,
which rendered thousands of people homeless.Over 3 million people
were displaced by the Kosi flood in the state of Bihar in 2008. The
most tragic part for the environmentally displaced person is unlike
traditional refugees, environmental refugees are not recognised by
the Geneva Convention or the United Nations High Commission on
Refugees (UNHCR), and therefore do not have the same legal
standing in the international community thus more prone to misery
and injustice.
Last but not the least, even the capital too has its significant
role in displacing people from their land and livelihoods. As per the
current pace of globalisation millions of workers are migrating
from their home land in search of jobs. Though this cannot be
directly considered as a forced displacement but metamorphosis
of rural farmers into a wage laborer is indeed a displacement;
physically, economically and culturally.
So now, let us look at the grave impact of displacement and
dispossession on the displaced and society as well.
The impact of a project is rarely limited to people within the
identified project area. The construction of a dam or a mine, for
example, typically does not displace only those people and

communities located on lands used for the project. People living
downstream from a dam may suffer the loss of fisheries needed
to sustain themselves. An entire community may suffer health
impacts due to pollution from a mine. Both circumstances
commonly force people to move, and both are examples of
development-induced displacement.
Following are the evident out-come of displacements:
New poverty and loss of community resources:
The people who bear the brunt of the personal, social, and
environmental costs of projects involving DIDR rarely share in the
benefits. On the contrary, DIDR commonly leads to the
impoverishment of those who are forced to move, creating new
poverty in project-affected areas. A multi-year study of
development-induced displacement concluded that
impoverishment and disempowerment have been the rule rather
than the exception with respect to resettled people around the
world.One of the worlds foremost experts on DIDR identifies
eight impoverishment risks posed by DIDR. These are:
landlessness; homelessness; joblessness; significant deterioration
in incomes and livelihoods; food insecurity, undernourishment and
hunger; serious declines in health, Increases in morbidity, stress
and psychological trauma; a spiral of downward mobility leading
to economic marginalisation often accompanied by social and
cultural marginalisation; and profound social disintegration. People
displaced by development are known to be at increased risk of
suffering life-threatening diseases, epidemics, and loss of physical
and mental health, yet they commonly have less access to hospitals
and health clinics. Families often lose access to educational
facilities as well, resulting in lost or delayed educational
opportunities for children. Existing patterns of leadership, social
organisation, and subsistence are dismantled. Kinship ties and
other informal networks that provide mutual support are dispersed
or unraveled precisely when the need for them is the greatest.
Disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable:
It is the poorest and most vulnerable members of a community
who typically bear the heaviest costs of DIDR. Women, children,
the elderly, and indigenous groups are particularly vulnerable to

impoverishment and disempowerment when forcibly displaced. For
those indigenous peoples who value land as the core of their identity
and way of life, the impacts of DIDR are particularly devastating.
Documented effects included hunger, debt-bondage, and cultural
disintegration.The forced displacement of indigenous people
violates Principle 9 of the UNs Guiding Principles on Internal
Displacement, which stipulates that: States are under a particular
obligation to protect against the displacement of indigenous peoples,
minorities, peasants, pastoralists, and other groups with a special
dependency on and attachment to the land.Despite formal
protection afforded by the UN Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples, tribal groups and ethnic minorities have been
disproportionately affected by DIDR. India, the country thought to
have the largest number of people affected by DIDR in the world,
serves well as an example: it is estimated that 40 percent of all the
people displaced by development projects during the first 40 years
of Indias independence were tribal people.
And on top of that there are Human rights violations:
The international community is beginning to recognise
misguided development projects which displace millions of
people and destroy their livelihoods for what they really are:
violations of human rights. DIDR frequently comes hand-inhand with coercion, threats or violence and egregious corruption.
IFIs and governments alike routinely fail to uphold their
obligations to fairly compensate, resettle, and restore peoples
livelihoods. Far too often, people attempting to claim their rights
risk intimidation, degrading treatment or punishment, arbitrary
arrest or detainment, violence and even torture from private or
state security forces. Following relocation, people often
face the risk of communal violence in resettlement areas
where tensions between members of existing communities and
new settlers are common.
Loss of traditional environmental knowledge:
The Convention on Biological Diversitya legally binding
international treaty established by the United Nations and ratified
by 190 states and the European Unionrecognises that
conservation of our planets biodiversity and ecosystems is only
possible if we conserve rapidly-disappearing traditional

knowledge about how to care for and sustainably use our natural
resources and ecosystems. When indigenous and farming
communities are forced to uproot and vacate their traditional
lands to make way for development projects, their entire way of
life is lostalong with their practices for sustainable use of
natural resources and ecosystems.
Climate change:
DIDR is inextricably linked to climate change through a
vicious cycle. Large, carbon-intensive energy-sector projects
such as oil extraction, coal mining, and bio-fuel plantations
forcibly displace millions of people every year. These projects
then generate greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global
warming, with impacts that include desertification and rising sea
levels. Impacts of climate change are disproportionately severe
for impoverished countries or regions with insufficient resources
to effectively mitigate longer droughts, increased flooding, and the
loss of agricultural land and crops all of which can trigger
further forced migration.rvices, including health care.
Some facts on the states role.
1. Almost 80% of the agricultural population in India owns
only about 17% of the total agriculture land, making them nearlandless workers. Far more families and communities depend on
a piece of land (for work, grazing) than those who own it outright.
However, compensation is being discussed only for those who
hold titles to land. No compensation has been planned for those
who do not.
2. In states like Gujarat a large part of the land being diverted
to SEZs is in the category of common or gowcher land (referred
to wrongly aswasteland).Since these lands are common lands
with no individual titles, they are transferred without even
consulting the local communities and panchayats.
3. Temple or Panchami land in Tamil Nadu and Waqf board
lands in Andhra Pradesh are other examples of Public lands that
have been expropriated and privatised for SEZs.
4. The most outrageous acquisitions are taking place in
Andhra Pradesh which has the highest number of SEZ approvals,
in the form of acquiring assigned lands (allotted to Dalits and
Scheduled Tribes) for SEZs. This has been seen clearly in places
like Polepally, Kakinada, Chittoor and Anantapur where SEZs are

proposed.
Destruction of Agro-based and rural economies1.The bulk of land being acquired for SEZs is fertile,
agricultural land, especially in case of the multi-product zones.
Agriculture Scientists have estimated that close to 1.14 lakh
farming households (each household on an average comprising
five members) and an additional 82,000 farm worker families who
are dependent upon these farms for their livelihoods, will be
displaced.
2. The total loss of income to the farming and the farm
worker families, then, is an astounding Rs.212-crore a year.
These were the estimates in 2006 after the initial SEZ approvals
which are now multiplied three-fold.
Creation of exploitative employment opportunities and
working conditions resulting from nullification of labour protection
laws A. The SEZ policy of the government transfers all the
powers of the state Labor Commissioner to the Development
Commissioners of the SEZs.
B. The power in the hands of the development Commissioner
to declare SEZs as public utility services under the Industrial
Disputes Act would mean that in SEZ areas workers will have no
rights to strike or even to form unions and organise collectively to
bargain for better wages or working conditions.
exposure to collateral risks in attempting to meet essential
needs.
A number of indigenous movements that have grown have
pointed out repeated instances of the States complicity in denying
rights to communities facing eviction.lve tribal villagers were
killed by police on January 2, 2006 during a protest against the
development of the Kalinga Nagar steel complex in Orissa. The
indigenous tribals were refusing to hand over their land to the
TATAs in Kalinganagar and were demanding a halt to
construction by steel developers on their traditional land. A 13year-old boy and three women were among those killed.
2.On 14th March 2007, on the orders of the CPI(M) led Left
Front government in West Bengal, in Nandigram over 4,000
heavily armed police stormed the Nandigram area with the aim of
stamping out protests against the West Bengal governments

plans to expropriate 10,000 acres of land for a Special Economic
Zone (SEZ) to be developed by the Indonesian-based Salim
Group. The police shot dead at least 14 villagers and wounded 70
more.
3.In December 2000 the tribals protesting against UAILs
bauxite mining and alumina factory at Maikanch, in Kashipur,
Orissa were indiscriminately fired and three tribals killed by
police.
Conclusion
In the light of the preceding discussion, we can see there are
various causes of internal displacement in India. But the serious
fallouts of the development process, have to be seen from the
point of view of displacement. The postcolonial Indian state has
failed miserably to resolve the issues raised by the Internal
Displacement and virtually abdicated its responsibility towards
the victims of the same. If the present situation continues without
any effective intervention, India is likely to experience more
internal displacement of population, particularly the marginalised
groups in near future. Why should the poor be compelled to pay
the price for the creation of the global city? Can we not
envisage a state that caters to the needs of all its citizens? And for
that we need development that benefits all. Projects that
impose displacement must be designed to improve affected
peoples standard of living and restore their livelihoods. To
achieve this, the following key reforms are needed:
1) Demand new rules governing DIDR and
accountability systems that protect rights.
We need to continue targeted advocacy efforts aimed at
creating rights-respecting, responsible policies on displacement
and resettlement that promote the principles of avoiding
displacement, accountability for decision-making and project
outcomes, participation by all segments of affected populations in
all phases of project design and implementation, and
transparency. We also need to ensure that these policies are
accompanied by strong systems and mechanisms for
enforcement. Development policy-makers and IFIs should be
held accountable for their role in funding projects that forcibly

displace people and must uphold their obligation to restore the
livelihoods of projectaffected people and communities, improve
their standards of living, and support their visions and priorities for
local development.
2) Include the risks and financial responsibilities
related to displacement and resettlement up front in
project costs.
Development policy-makers and IFIs should recognise the
full impacts and costs of DIDR, including the fact that forced
displacement creates the very poverty that development
purportedly seeks to eliminate and disproportionately impacts the
most vulnerable members of affected communities. One way to
effectively mandate this would be to require that all resettlement
and rehabilitation work be fully carried out and financed before
the project that will cause the anticipated displacement can be
built. In addition, the project framework should be structured to
ensure that there is an ongoing revenue stream from the project to
the people who are threatened with displacement.
3) Promote a development model that does not unduly
displace.
A development model based upon excessive and brutal
displacement is profoundly unsustainable, and is resisted by the
people and communities it threatens and affects. However, the
converse can also be true: often projects that are better for people
are also better for the planet. This becomes clear if we honor
existing resources and assets that have been undervalued in
prevailing development models, including cultivation and grazing
lands, forests, ecosystem services, waterways, community, and
traditional knowledge on how to cultivate the earths resources in
a sustainable manner. We need to work toward a world in which
human connection to land, vibrant communities, healthy
ecosystems, and democratic decision-making are not bulldozed as
obstacles to development, but rather are defended as the
foundation for human health, justice, and sustainability.
4) Reform in policy.
The only legislation pertaining to land acquisition currently in
place is the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (The Act) which,
though amended several times retains its colonial flavor by

granting an unfettered powers to the Government. It is time the
legislators test it against the needs of the society of a democratic
India of today.
The following are a few major issues that need to be
addressed:
1) Required changes in the legislation:
- Too wide a definition of Public Purpose
- Arbitrary and only monetary compensation
- No provision for compulsory Social Impact Assessment
- Non-recognition of indigenous rights.
2) Need for participation by the people affected in the
process,
Above all, the most important thing we have to do is to
redefine development. While aspiring for development, it is
important to understand what constitutes development itself.
For a society to ensure true development and a sustainable
growth it becomes important to address wealth distribution within
the society. If this be so, it is essential that the laws of a
democratic country ensure that, for the growth of a few, the
displaced persons are not made worse-off. To conclude, there is a
strong need to put legal thought and thorough investigation into
issues regarding removing the imbalance from the system. And
here lies the need of a well organised democratic rights
movement which compells the state to rethink on its policies on
diaplacement and resettlement. This is certainly a huge challenge
to the civil society, mass organisations, intellectuals and justice
loving people to educate and aware the evicted as well as the
broader mass on their basic constitutional rights and also the
trauma of displacement and dispossession, to erect such mass
movement and unitedly oppose any such move to be made by the
state in future.

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Orientation, Problems and Challenges

Democratic Rights Movement

Papers Presented in the

Arvind Memorial Trust

Price: Rs. 80.00

First Edition: January, 2014

The policies of economic fundamentalism have prepared a

Some Points to Ponder for the Organisers and Activists

In Search of A Realistic Approach Towards the Human

How Democratic is the Indian Constitution and

Democratic Rights Movement and the

Governments War Against Terrorism or Against

Socio-Cultural Tasks of the Democratic Rights

Right to Health is A Fundamental Democratic

Reflections on Democratic Movement of Nepal:

Vicissitudes of Minority Rights in Sri Lanka

Hunger, Displacement and the Shrinking Space of

Indian Democracy - Story of Civil Liberties

Displacement, Dispossesion and the Question of

SOME POINTS TO PONDER FOR THE

approach them for some investigation. People view these

hoc, narrow utilitarian and pragmatic outlook.

social fabric and the neo-liberal economic policies. We wish to

(1) The democratic and civil rights movement will have to be

universal adult franchise. Should we not ask as to what happened

transparent and accountable life style of the politicians and

democratic rights movement is not a declaration of a radical

fake encounter; they cannot be tried by slapping false charges and

of the local population in the form of Salwa Judum and as SPOs

of the political opponents of the government and the political

decay and disintegration in even the remaining power and

shared and broad mass movement.

cultural-social-ideological hegemony, the masses cannot be

can be stated that the neo-liberal policies are depriving people

into issues and taking up the issues of police repression,

merged into India, when did the territory of Arunachal Pradesh

Kashmir and North-East, nor is it our purpose here. Here we wish

more brutal. Under these circumstances, as an immediate task, it

IN SEARCH OF A REALISTIC APPROACH

adequate standard of living), but what is undeniable is that in the

covenants with separate characters, in 1993, at the World

brought to reality through class-differentiation and class-struggle.

understand the basic class-nature of human rights in a classsociety.

organisational form before 1936, its genesis can be traced from

no doubt, has ensured the inclusion of some fundamental rights

post-colonial India just side by side with the process of transfer of

A resurgence of the civil liberties movement began only in

developed a high tide of mass-movement demanding the release

It will not perhaps be irrelevant to mention here that, so far

to reckon with again and again. That no doubt signals, to some

they want to interpret human rights only in an individualistic sense,

economic, social and cultural rights to these people become a

in the last few decades with the emergence of the economics of

on to keep pace in the face of deprivity and poverty, brought about

as turning the whole world into one global village, leading to

The Consequences of violations of human rights is

as we noted earlier, without fully achieving economic, social and

assumption of power by TMC and Congress block defeating the

50 Democratic Rights Movement in India

HOW DEMOCRATIC IS THE INDIAN CONSTITUTION

Democratic Alliance (NDA). Undoubtedly, NDA governments

independence on the basis of universal adult franchise. But after

American constitution and Indian constitution begin with a fraud.