Based in Jaipur, Kavita Srivastava is the President of the Rajasthan chapter of
the Peoples' Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). She and her comrades have been
consistently working in Rajasthan for the cause of human rights, particularly
for the state's Muslims, Christians, Adivasis and Dalits, and have taken up the
issue of targeting of Muslims by agencies of the state and the media in a major
way. She discusses this and more in this interview with Yoginder Sikand.
Q: How do you see the way in which the state in Rajasthan is responding to acts
of terror that have rocked the state in recent years, most particularly in the
aftermath of the deadly blasts that shook Jaipur earlier this year?
Kavita Srivastava
A: The situation is indeed grim. Muslims are being readily branded as
terrorists, and this is how many government officials view them. So, soon after
the blasts large numbers of innocent Muslims were wrongly suspected or branded
as terrorists. They were arrested and interrogated by the police, and many of
them were subjected to cruel torture. The police somehow automatically assumed
that Muslims were responsible for the blasts, without having any proof. Almost
a fourth of those who died in the Jaipur blasts were Muslims, although Muslims
account for just about a tenth of the city's population. But still the dominant
view was that Muslims had killed Hindus in the blasts, without, as I said, this
being proved at all.
Anti-Muslim bias in agencies of the state is mounting today. Just one instance
of this is how some of the Muslims picked up by the police were treated. They
were asked if they believe in the Quran or in the Indian Constitution, this
ridiculous question reflecting the entirely erroneous notion that a religious
and observant Muslim somehow is a traitor or a potential traitor to India.
Then, of course, were the large numbers of Muslims who were picked up and
thrown out of their homes in Jaipur, accused of being Bangladeshis, their
miserable hutments being bulldozed over. All this suggests that there are
powerful forces at work that seek to push Muslims to the wall.
And then there is the media. They simply parrot the police version of any
Muslim whom it picks up as a terrorist, and when it is found that this person
is innocent and is subsequently let off, the media chooses not to say anything
about it. So, in this way, the image of large numbers of Muslims is being
deliberately tarnished. Many of them have lost their jobs because of this, and
are tainted in society for the rest of their lives although they have nothing
to do with terrorism. I could cite several instances of this, people whose
cases we have taken up. This is really a very worrying development.
Q: Why is it that the media, the police and the investigating agencies often
jump to the conclusion that blasts must be the handiwork of Muslims soon after
these occur even before any investigation has been conducted?
A: Unfortunately, that seems to be the case in large parts of country,
including Rajasthan. Obviously, it is possible that some terror attacks might
have been done by some Muslim elements, just as it is possible that they might
be the handiwork of, say, Hindu extremists. But surely the agencies of the
state and the media should not rush into concluding anything before a detailed
investigation. Sadly, that does not seem to happen in most cases. So, they
generally begin with the premise that any blast must be the handiwork of
Muslims, and that obviously influences or determines the conclusions that they
reach. They start with this premise probably, or at least in part, because
there seems to be this widely-held, though erroneous, image in society of
Muslims as somehow inherently and congenitally programmed to be prone to
violence and terror. And so Muslims and their behavior come to be seen in an
essentially criminalized way, not just by the police or
media but also in the wider public domain.
Q: And why do you think this sort of image of Muslims is so deeply-rooted?
A: One major reason is that most Hindus, especially those in positions of
power, have little, if any, personal engagement with Muslims. So, being unable
to relate to them as real, flesh-and-blood people, they tend to see them in the
form of sinister stereotypes and cruel caricatures. The only source of
information about Muslims they might get is from the media, large sections of
which, of course, are communalized and are getting increasingly more so.
Take television, for instance. You won't find a single programme set in a
Muslim household. It's almost always set in an 'upper' caste, upper or
middle-class Hindu family. Hindi cinema—or Hindustani cinema actually—once had
considerable space for Muslims, although they were generally presented in
stereotypical terms, as decadent feudal lords luxuriating in comfort, or as
burkha-clad women or singing, paan-chewing qawwals or whatever, not as 'normal'
human beings. But even that space has vanished, and now numerous Bollywood
films clearly and explicitly demonise Muslims in a very carefully planned
manner. In addition to all this is the poisonous anti-Muslim propaganda of the
Hindutva forces. So, all this combines to colour the public domain and the
public perception of Muslims in an increasingly negative light. As members of
the wider society, it is not surprising that many people in the police, the
courts and the media are also influenced by this way
of thinking.
That said, let me also say here that the Rajasthan police must be distinguished
from its Gujarati counterpart, which is far more anti-Muslim. At the same time,
the Rajasthan police seem to be acting on the same premise as the Gujarat
police does when it comes to Muslims, often regarding them as behind each and
every terror attack and ignoring the possibility that some non-Muslim
elements—say radical Hindutva groups—might be behind terror acts.
Q: There are now demands being voiced to make anti-terror laws even stricter as
a means to counter terrorism. How do you see this demand?
A: What some people, such as the Hindutva right-wing, some police officers and
pro-establishment media persons, are so forcefully advocating today is for a
change in the law or a new law so that statements given by the arrested before
the police can be counted as evidence against them. Now, we all know that this
would lead to the further hounding of innocent people picked up by the police,
who might torture them to make false 'confessions', which would be used as
'evidence' to falsely implicate them in cases for which they were not involved
in, and which would let the real culprits go free. This would be a major
assault on democracy.
Under the proposed draconian 'anti-terror' laws that some right-wing hawks are
proposing, even human rights groups taking up the case of people wrongly
accused of being terrorists could be arrested. Anyone who criticizes the wrong
role of the police, the judiciary or any other branch of the state could then
be easily branded as a criminal or terrorist sympathizer or abettor.
In other words, if such a draconian law comes into place, if you even think
differently from the state you could be booked. Anyone who even talks of state
terrorism could be labeled as a 'terrorist' or 'anti-national'. If you take up
the rights of oppressed people who are being suppressed by the state, as is
happening with human rights activists working with Adivasis in Chhatisgarh, for
instance, you could be branded as an enemy of the state and thrown into jail.
Or, as is happening in Orissa, activists protesting against multi-nationals
grabbing Adivasi lands, backed by the state, can be arrested, but no action
will be taken against the Hindu mobs, backed by Hindutva fascist outfits, which
have left tens of thousands of Christians in the state homeless.
And now there is talk of the need for a new 'anti-terror' law according to
which any person can be arrested if he or she even simply intends to support
any banned group. In that case, how would the government presume that it can
judge anyone's intentions? Obviously, this would make a complete mockery of any
claims to democracy.
In other words, with these sorts of new laws that are being put into place or
are being so vociferously advocated day in and day out, I fear India may be
moving in the direction of a 'police state' run by intelligence agencies so
that the state and the ruling classes can do whatever they want without any
opposition whatsoever. These represent the sinister agenda of forces that are
bent on destroying whatever little democracy we already enjoy.
Q: What, then, do you see as the way ahead?
A: This is a political issue, and for this we need a political struggle. It
concerns not just Muslims, who might be among the worst targeted by such
draconian laws, but all oppressed and marginalized social groups, communities
and classes. It is a major threat to democracy, and so all democratic forces
need to come together to stiffly oppose these draconian laws.
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Kavita Srivastava can be contacted on [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye
Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roye
The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping
The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping
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