In response to the
finding of the Gujarat government that the accused bombers involved in
the recent Ahmedabad blasts were trained in the south and mostly in
Kerala, the Kerala government came back with an instant knee jerk
reaction that the State’ s efforts to curb terrorism were somehow being
prevented by human rights activists who raised a ‘hue and cry.’ Broad
statements like these show the work of human rights groups in a bad
light and create real misgivings about human rights activists whose
limited intention is merely asking the state to uphold the law and
follow the due process. Statements against human rights defenders
deflect — as they are often intended to do — a real look at why
terrorism thrives in our country and also help, again as they are
intended to, to put one more nail in the coffin of the little
understood and less appreciated work of human rights defenders, who
struggle to keep us all safe from unbridled state power and societal
prejudice.
Role misunderstood
Human rights defenders don’t espouse, support or defend violence and
certainly not terrorism. But they would like to fashion a more
effective response to it. A state by its very definition is the
embodiment of lawful behaviour. It demands legal behaviour from
citizens and itself always acts only through law and as a sentinel of
human rights. This is the fundamental difference between state action
and the acts of terrorists.
Terrorists by definition and intention act outside the law to
terrorise. The state cannot do that. There can be no greater defender
of human rights than the state, so it is hard to see it blame human
rights defenders for its inability to provide society with reasonable
levels of safety and security. What perhaps irks the authorities into
seeing human rights defenders as one with the enemy is their constant
insistence that the agencies of state act only in accordance with the
law and do not take short cuts, nor indulge in illegal practices, nor
use public prejudice and stereotypes to shape their response.
In their frustration with the state’s inability to assure them a
peaceful life, the public too is often tempted into wanting its
government to forget the niceties of legal process and just go and
blast those damned people into perdition. It is understandable that
people, suffering the effects of evil doing, ask why terrorists should
be given a fair trial and not just killed or locked away forever.
The answer lies in our right to make a defence for ourselves against
our accusers. Our Constitution requires that we don’t do what
terrorists do, kill or deprive people of liberty without a fair
process. So, a so-called ‘terrorist’ must first be proved to be a
terrorist and then get his just deserts, again at the hands of the
state.
Improving the process
This is the process we would all want if our sons were suddenly
declared ‘terrorist’. We don’t want the police or the para-militaries
to decide in their own secret wisdom that you and I are terrorists and
shoot us in our beds or take us into secret hideouts to question us for
days on end without ever telling our families or the court where we are
or what is being done to us, all in the name of law and order! Human
rights defenders wish all our systems of justice were faster, fairer,
efficient, honest, responsive and more certain in outcome. This must be
the debate as to why we are unable to deal with terrorists, instead of
taking rhetorical potshots at our most law abiding citizens.
This system may allow the real terrorist to get away and hence calls
for improvements in policing standards and a quick and easy access to
justice. But if we don’t want this process for every single one of us
then we must abolish the courts and become a police state. But right
now the system is designed as a uniform system of law which can protect
all equally.
http://www.hindu.com/op/2008/09/14/stories/2008091450031400.htm
Copyright
© 2008, The Hindu.
