Crimes by humans against humans have become so mundane because a dishonourable idea had managed to survive throughout millennia. The idea has metastasized and exists among Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs and Christians- more is the shame and the pity! That is, some people are inferior or even untouchable because of their low birth. This primitive idea plagues our country because we have failed to abolish it by law.
Largest democracy in the world, probably one of the busiest judiciaries with million pending cases and a constitution shaped by some of India’s finest minds and drafted by a committee headed by B.R. Ambedkar – India finds it hard to form a cohesive national identity. Hailed as the best in the world and 30 times longer than America’s and still growing, only the intellectually honest can agree on the fact that the country’s progress is being held back because there is no unanimity of understanding on the set of rules. Ransacking the known constitutions is not difficult but taking valuable lessons is. After 73 years of Independence a vice known as discrimination, outlawed for over six decades, is resilient and exist in new and insidious forms.
Slavery abolition didn’t happen only because there existed a constitution. It became a reality because of political will power. For 18 years William Wilberforce introduced anti-slavery motions in parliament to realize his dream. ‘Honest Abe’ made sure his country became “The land of the free” in the real sense through the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1865. .
Abolition of Apartheid, a brutal and restrictive racial regime in South Africa took more than lives of revolutionaries, their all. Few anti-apartheid activists including teenagers succumbed to cruel and prolonged police torture and few were jailed and assassinated. Stories of heroes who were assaulted, blindfolded and given electric shocks for more than 2 months in detention gives us the creeps even today. While the apartheid state continued their cases against the defenseless and state-violence continued, the hero Nelson Mandela fought 40 long years. 27 years of imprisonment did not deter him from his long walk to freedom until he drew up a new non-racial and democratic Constitution for South Africa. Procedure for amendment of the Constitution and election of members of Rajya Sabha of the Indian constitution were borrowed from the South African constitution. Since 1996, the South African Constitution has been amended by seventeen amendment acts and it is widely regarded as the most progressive Constitution in the world, with a Bill of Rights second to none. Of all the 104 amendments of the Constitution of India since it was first enacted in 1950, how many exist to guarantee equality and freedom to all citizens irrespective of their lineage? Rise of leaders like Chandrashekar Azad, Kanhaiya Kumar, Jignesh Mevani and Hardik Patel is seen as an aggression- persecuting them into the bargain.
Not a year has passed ever since a 21 year old Jitendra was beaten up by a few beings and killed in “Devbhoomi”. The reason being nothing but Jitendra preferred to sit on a chair and have a meal like hundreds of others who attended the wedding. How ridiculous is this! More pitiable is the fact that not one among the hundreds were willing to testify what the crime was. Still, the incident was registered under the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
The hate towards fellow humans who are branded different on the basis of an inhuman varna is so strong. Stories of humans being threatened, beaten up, lynched and killed on the basis of dharma-shastras are more than sufficient for the world to condemn and scoff at us. Forget the ‘Land of Gods’, in the ‘Land of Mahatma’ stones were hurled at a wedding procession by people who believe they are entitled to do anything while at Khambhisar village in Modasa taluka because the groom rode a horse.
Despite the presence of police and their attempts to control the stone pelters, the victims had to run and hide. If Gandhiji is relevant today, why does Gujarat tops the list of states where certain people are subjected to systemic violence? Atrocities against the tormented and neglected lot in Gujarat have been rising steadily in the last two decades with the state witnessing a 72 percent increase in the number of registered cases between 2003 and 2018. Disturbing silences of those who are supposed to speak and act bother the citizens a lot. A proactive role expected of the police leads to disappointments. Citizens are provoked. Is the epithet “The jewel of the west” unfairly awarded to Gujarat? A notable percent of India’s willful defaulters belonging to Gujarat provokes us to rethink if the state deserves the epithet. Better a flaw in a Jewel than no Jewel at all, isn’t it?
Bhim Jayanti is a day to reckon with. 129 years after his birth, Dr. BR Ambedkar’s tenets are still very relevant because India is home to 28% of world’s poor, the wealth of a handful is equal to the wealth of almost 600 million people, 30 million are trapped in quasi-slave labour paying off the ‘debts’ of their ancestors, 220 million are excluded from the mainstream society, 65% of health workers refuse to visit certain settlements thereby denying basic care to some of India’s most vulnerable people, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of over 165 million people in India is justified on the basis of their descent and above all the death of leaders who challenge the mindset of those who seek to maintain the status quo is very disturbing.
Inspite of the available legal tools and affirmative action policies in India, police systematically fail to properly register these crimes under the Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989 and the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1995.
Dr. BR Ambedkar is right. Casteism and Capitalism triggers everything that amount to the collapse of state institutions and a country’s downfall. Constitutional provisions prohibiting discrimination and the existence of legislation enacting these provisions will end crimes committed against humans on the basis of their “work and descent” only if Affirmative action policies in India are operative in three main spheres, namely appointment and promotion in government services, admission to public education institutions, and seats in the legislature. Graded inequality in ownership of country’s assets we see.
Don’t we see governments allotting lands to Industrialists belonging to a privileged community, who in turn employ and play favourites to respective communities to make sure they are dominant and enjoy entrenched senior positions. 27 years on and the statistics prove that the OBCs have not optimally benefited from the supposed-to-be implemented Mandal Commission recommendations. Excuses are many and varied, but definitely not convincing. So, even with an administrative mechanism for regulating, monitoring and implementing the reservation policy certain communities continue to lag behind other segments of the Indian population which also means religious myths are used as a means to justify the privileges and rights enjoyed by a few at the cost of denying them to many others.
Instead of attempting to criminalize peaceful social activism and engage in a pattern of repression to preserve the status quo, the government must address the social and cultural sources of exclusion, discrimination and violence. All repressed voices, be that of traditionally social and economic backward classes, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes or women, India needs to go a long way in bringing about true equality and justice as dreamt by Babasaheb Ambedkar.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s Political Legacy : Harbinger Of Social Justice
