Leaving aside new recruits attracted to the ‘cause’ largely in support of terrorism of one kind or another in different parts of the country, you look into the the background of any well-known ‘human rights’ activist in India and you will find an anti-communist cold warrior. This should tell you a great deal not only about local organisations but also about Amnesty International as well. Like the Congress for Cultural Freedom, it was forged as an instrument in the struggle against the Soviet Union and the world communist movement.
Communism of course has been one of the worst disasters that has fallen mankind. The Soviet Union was, in President Reagan’s phrase, indeed an ‘evil empire’. But just as nationalist Indians could not support the allies during World War II against the evil axis of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and militaristic Japan without disregarding the cause of India’s own freedom at least for the time-being, they could not join the anti-communist crusade in the post-war period without compromising the country’s right to independent judgement.
Only Indians cut off from the political mainstream represented by the Congress party could support the British war effort, especially after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Similarly, only Indians cut off from the mainstream could join the Cold war on the side of either the West or the East. The sensitive among the rest of us faced a dilemma on both occasions but by and large decided to stay with the main current – the ‘Quit India’ movement in 1942 and the Nehru government after independence. The communists opposed the ‘Quit India’ movement and they accepted Nehru’s foreign policy only after first China and then the Soviet Union endorsed it.
Many sensitive Indians have faced a similar dilemma in recent years in the context of the rise of terrorist-secessionist movements in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir. No Indian worth the name can be indifferent to the often high-handed and brutal behaviour of the security forces. But taking an overall view of the situation, he or she has had no choice but to continue to support the state. Only arm-chair theoreticians or the evil-intentioned can take the stand that an insurgency, especially if it is backed by a powerful neighbouring state and other well-heeled agencies, external as well as internal, can be fought wholly within the parameters of law.
The issue in Punjab and Kashmir has not been only the territorial integrity of the country, though that has been cause enough for concern. It has been the survival of minorities as well. In the Kashmir valley ‘ethnic cleansing’ was easy in view of the size of the minority and it has taken place without much bloodshed. The rest of the state and in Punjab, secession can involve ‘ethnic cleansing’ on the Bosnian scale.
This is what I had in mind when at a discussion between the Amnesty International team and a group of non-official Indians, I asked the visitors whether in the wake of the holocaust in Bosnia-Herzegovina, they felt it necessary to review their activities. The example, on the face of it, was not well chosen. ‘Ethnic cleansing’ in Bosnia, it can be said, is the result of the exercise of the right of self-determination and not of external interference on behalf of human rights. In reality, the two are often inter-linked; they surely are in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir. There was no response to the question by the Amnesty team.
A democracy is obviously different from a dictatorship. But among democracies too, the quality differs from one country to another and indeed within a country if it as large as ours. Bihar illustrates the later point. But if it is self-evident that the quality of our democracy needs to be raised, it is equally obvious that it is an awesome problem and it cannot be tackled in a hurry. Human rights prosper in a healthy socio-economic climate and call for an efficient administration.
Rare would be a Westerner who would like to be reminded that in several countries instruments of state terror have been forged with the active assistance of their governments and agencies. But that is the truth. Many ‘thug’ regimes have been backed by the West.
Economic Times, 27 November 1992