THE VERDICT OF HASIMPURA MASSACRE - ON WHOSE SIDE IS THIS STATE?
A few months ago, a Delhi Sessions Court granteda clean acquittal of the accused persons of Uttar Pradesh Paramilitary Force PAC. At a first glance, anybody would think that it is possible that the learned Judge had found that there was no evidence against the accused. It is obvious that nobody could be convicted without evidence. But the question which was left unanswered by the impartial and noble judicial system is that if those persons were not the culprits, then who were responsible for the Hasimpura massacre? Will they ever be punished? When they will be punished? Those people of Hasimpura who were waiting for justice for 28 long years after the despicable massacre, they are asking this question today.
Many massacres have taken place in India. But the Hasimpura massacre is different from all other massacres in one respect - because the then SP of Ghaziabad, Bibhuti Narayan Rai (who was a witness of this incident and it is him who started the investigation of this massacre) referred to the Hasimpura massacre as the "most shameful incident of massacre of secular India". This is because in Hasimpura, a few persons of Uttar Pradesh Paramilitary Force PAC took 42 harmless, innocent and poor toiling people in their custody and murdered them cold bloodedly, which has no other precedence in Indian history.
What happened on that day in Hasimpura? A severe riot was going on in Meerut, UP in the month of May, 1987. During the riot, one day, to be precise, on the night of 22nd May, the notorious PAC of Uttar Pradesh lifted 50 harmless, innocent Muslim toiling persons. Those who were lifted thought at first that they had been arrested. But the design of PAC was different. They took the poor Muslim persons to the border of Delhi and Ghaziabad. There they cold bloodedly killed these people with gunshots and then threw their bodies in the canal. But what they did not foresee that some of these people would survive. Among those survivors, a few persons went to the police station by themselves and one person was rescued by a police team under the leadership of the SP. After 28 years, no one was punished for this brutal crime even though there are witnesses of this massacre. Can anything be more shameful than this?
There is no point in holding the judge, who delivered this verdict, solely responsible for this. The above mentioned SP commented regarding this verdict - "I am not surprised by this verdict. I was waiting for this from the very first day." What is the reason behind this comment? Because, barring a few exceptions, different sections of the state had tried their utmost to protect the culprits throughout this entire phase, instead of trying to find out the culprits, who committed this crime, for their punishment. The police, the Government, political parties and their leaders, the judiciary - everybody is responsible for this.
Within a few hours of the incident, the then Congress Government of Uttar Pradesh handed over the charge of investigation to CID, who from the very beginning, tried to cover up the culprits. The charge-sheet was filed nearly after a decade in 1996. Such a large scale incident could not have happened without the order of higher officers. Even then, no complaint was lodged against any of the officers above the rank of sub-inspector at any point of time. In reality, the investigation was not conducted properly at all. In spite of such a heinous crime and the presence of evidences and witnesses for a long period no one was even suspended. Even the accused did not bother to appear in the court in defiance of the judiciary.
During that period, both the central and state governments were led by Congress party. The Congress government did not want the culprits to get punished. But what were the other parties doing? After the incident, various governments have come and gone, BJP, Samajwadi Party of Mulayam, BSP of Mayawati, - but no government had really attempted to punish the culprits. And the judiciary? The Supreme Court and High Court are so often seen to initiate suo moto proceedings on their own to punish the offenders, without any complaint being lodged, showing judicial activism. What were they doing during these 28 years? Have they really made any attempt to get the culprits punished? Had it been so, we would not have been left to see that not even a single culprit was punished after committing such a heinous massacre.
The incident leaves us astounded, stupefied. But on a thorough-going scrutiny it is not at all difficult to understand that it could not have happened otherwise. Because, the incident of Hasimpura and the travesty of justice in the name of trial regarding that incident are not stray incidents- it is the reflection of the real character of the Indian state.
In all the communal riots that took place in nearly the last seven decades after independence, the most affected and ruined were the people from Muslim community. Mostly the Muslim people have been killed and injured among which some of the incidents should be more correctly called genocides. Most of the victims of wreckage of houses and properties were also the Muslim people. This is not only true for the massacre in Gujarat in 2002, or the riot in Mumbai in 1992-93; it is true for all the riots in general. The above mentioned SP Bibhuti Narayan Rai conducted a research on the role of police in combating communal riots. He made a comment in one of his writing- "I am stunned to discover that in the events of communal riots occurring in this country, the Muslim people are the ones who sustained the loss most -in regard of loss of both life and property. Most of the time, the percentage of Muslim people is more than 60(sixty) among the total count of people killed and injured."
When Muslims are largely the victims of riots, then the police action and arrests should be more from the other community. But what happens in reality? The facts Mr. Rai faced after his inquiry stunned himself even more and at the same time astonishes us also. On one hand, the people from Muslim community are largely the victims of riots; on the other hand, they are also largely the victims of police terror. They are mostly arrested by the police. Curfew is imposed more strictly in the areas inhabited by Muslim people. In the areas inhabited by Hindu people, curfew is imposed mainly on the major streets. Life goes on as usual in the lanes and alleys even during the curfew.
Generally the majority of the officers and staff of lower rank of the police are Hindu by religion and anti-Muslim mentality is prevalent in most of them. Due to that, collecting information about the possibility of occurrence of communal riots, sending reports about the same, assuming appropriate role to stop the fights during communal riots, regarding these the role of police is extremely prejudiced against the Muslims in every step. It may be more correctly stated that it is prejudiced in favour of the Hindus. This observation is made by an officer of a high rank of police administration of India, on the basis of his first-hand experience and factual inquiry and research.
There is evidence that the police force also assumes a similar role in many instances involving other minority communities. Such an instance was brought to light by a reporter of Outlook periodical. It was about an incident during the days of massacre of the Sikhs after the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984. At that time, a Punjabi writer and a principal of a college in Kanpur, Taran Gujral rang up the police requesting to protect her and others in that locality fearing an attack by Hindu rioters. She obviously believed that the police will take a neutral stand. But in that situation of riot, all her faith and belief regarding the neutrality of the police was shattered by the reply from the police. Instead of helping them out, the reply she received from the police is enough to bring a shudder to anyone - the police person answered her with a contemptuous laugh - "We are also Hindus!" ("hum bhi to hindu hain!")
Is this a feature of the police force only? Are the other sections of the state free from such biasness? History does not bear evidence in favour of that. Take the case of Hasimpura. The entire bourgeois intelligentsia is vociferous about the impartiality and active role of the judicial system. But where had that active role vanished in the case of Hasimpura massacre? Why the entire judiciary including the Supreme court and High court, which supposedly upholds the democracy of India, could not take any measure so that the culprits of this diabolical massacre are administered with severe punishment? The answer is that the virus is within the anti-dote itself. We have now got accustomed with the reports that BJP Government has introduced recitation of 'Geeta', prayer songs of 'Saraswati' in schools. Nobody should be surprised at these measures which are taken by those who aim to make this country a Hindu rashtra. But does not the secularist neutrality of the judiciary regarding religion become questionable when a judge of this secular state proposes to make the study of Geeta and Mahabharata compulsory in schools?
These are not only one or two stray incidents. The so-called secular state of our country is imbued with Hindu biasness from top to bottom. Any government project here is inaugurated with the breaking of coconuts, foreign guests are welcomed with a holy mark on the forehead, and constructions by governments are initiated with the worship of earth. Hindu biasness is noticeable in the syllabi of the schools, especially in the history books. The main reason is that the secularism of this country was never based on the policy of real secularism. The real secularism means dissociation of religion from all the aspects of state and education. Instead of this, the policy of secularism which was followed in India from the very beginning was that of equability of all religions - the policy of encouraging all religions equally. For this reason there is personal law for every religion. Just as the Hindus have to take oath by touching Geeta during deposition as a witness in the court, the Muslims, the Christians or followers of any other religion take oath by touching Quran, Bible or their respective scriptures. Besides Geeta, Quran and other scriptures are chanted during state mourning. Here just as the government can take over and run Hindu temples, it also provides monetary aid for the Haj pilgrims from the state treasury. There is no doubt that India is not a religious state. But the policy of secularism which is followed by this state made the state predisposed towards the religion of the majority, Hinduism. It is true that to appease the religious fundamentalists and the leaders a few or more privileges were granted to the religious leaders. But the followers of minority religion, especially the Muslim people were always victims of discrimination, the reflection of which can be found in the utterly indigent condition of the Muslim people in comparison with the Hindu people by nearly every social standard. That is why the Sachar committee, which was constituted under the government directive, commented- "though there is difference in the conditions of the Muslim people in different states, this community exhibits deficiency and discrimination by every standard of progress."
There is not only Hindu biasness in this state. Influence and predominance of the upper castes is very much prevalent in this state. Just as the communal PAC got clean acquittal even after committing the Hasimpura massacre, similarly in last few years, some courts granted clean acquittal to the mass killers belonging to upper castes. We can not forget the massacres committed by the unlawful armed gangs of the landlords of upper caste like Ranvir Sena, one after another in the decade of 1980s. But what happened to the trials of those massacres? Ranvir Sena, the armed gang of the landlords of upper caste brutally murdered 23 people of Dalit landless agricultural labourers in Shankarbigha of Jehanabad district in Bihar in the year 1999. Jehanabad court acquitted the 24 accused members of Ranvir Sena on the pretext of absence of witness or evidence in January this year. But there are also several incidents where members of higher caste were acquitted by the higher court even after being convicted by the lower court. In a verdict in April 2012 the high court of Patna acquitted the culprits who were accused of committing the Bathanitola massacre in 1996. Besides this, the other verdicts which were annulled by the Patna high court are the verdicts on the Lakshanpur-Bathe massacre of 1997 (58 Dalit people were murdered, the high court gave the verdict in October 2013), Nagari Bazar massacre of 1998(10 people were murdered, the high court gave the verdict in March 2013) and Mianpur massacre of 2000(32 people were murdered, the high court gave the verdict in July2013). But the activists of the erstwhile Maoist Communist Centre, who were from Dalit and backward castes, are serving a sentence of imprisonment since 1992 for being involved in the Bara massacre of Gaya district.
What do these incidents reveal? It reveals the fact that just as the Indian state protects the interest of the big bourgeois and the big landlords, similarly there is Hindu biasness and dominance of the upper castes within the state. The reality behind the high-flown words of secularism is that there is Hindu communal biasness within the Indian state. Behind the social equity, the hegemony of the upper castes is rampant to the core. There is nothing unusual in this. Because where the hegemony of the so-called upper castes exists, where disharmony, oppression on the basis of castes exists, where discrimination against the religious minority is an everyday affair, where communalism has engulfed the whole society and the Hindu communalism holds an aggressive and dominant position being the religion of the majority, then there will be Hindu communal biasness within the state, there will be hegemony of the upper castes. This is a quite natural consequence, isn't it?
These kinds of incidents have another disastrous effect. The campaign of extreme Hindu communalism in the society is gradually becoming more and more aggressive. On whom the common people of the religious minority community will depend for survival in the face of the attacks of this extreme Hindu communalism? Obviously on that state which boasts of secularism. But where will these people find refuge if the state itself assumes such a role, if it stands on the side of this extreme Hindu communalism instead of protecting these minority people from their aggressive campaign? This attitude of the state is pushing and will further push them to the fundamentalist forces of the minority community who will obviously utilize this opportunity to increase their power and influence. This is especially more true in a situation where there is no organized force of the working class in the society who can show them the real path towards a transformation. As a result, the state itself is responsible in a way for the flourishing of the Muslim communal forces - its role is encouraging the growth of both the communalisms. It does not need to be explained that the Muslim communal forces can not protect the Muslim people from Hindu communalism, because the activities of the Muslim communal forces increases communal disharmony, facilitates the intensification of the influence of Hindu communal forces on the Hindu people, and caters them the opportunity to become more aggressive.
The history of the rule of the last seventy years shows that the bourgeois rulers could not free the society from this poison of communalism; on the contrary, they helped it to flourish to reach this current situation. In order to purge the society from all communalisms including extreme Hindu communalism, the oppression of casteism, a great revolutionary upheaval is necessary which will uproot all these abominable and inhuman maladies to flush them out in its deluge. It will establish a truly democratic and truly secular state in place of this state, which is pseudo-secular and biased towards the upper caste. Let the Hasimpura massacre and the travesty of its trial make the class-conscious proletariat firmly resolute in strengthening their fight towards achieving radical, revolutionary transformation of the society.
Comments:
No Comments for View