Legal

Do We Need A Separate Legislation To Stop Religious Violence?

________________________________________________________________________________

This Blog is written by Ayush Meena from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Indore. Edited by Lisa Coutinho.

________________________________________________________________________________

INTRODUCTION

In recent times Religious Violence and Communal Riots seem to be in a rise in India, and the need for Separate Legislation looks more essential than ever. Communal Violence is one of the major peace-breaking problems today in India. India is a country with a lot of diversity in term of religion and culture. Our country holds the concept of Brotherhood and unity to keep the peace, but this has not been the case. We often hear Religion violence incidents. It may start with a small reason, but when it takes the colour of communities, the people divide themselves on the bases of communities, and choose sides.

Religious conflict has now become a cancer of our society. India could not free itself of the curse of ‘Communalism’ even more than Seventy years after independence, and it’s just getting worse now. Government officials and Political parties have huge part behind it. They use Identity politics to promote separatist, which condone violence against non-group members. These actions incite Sectarian thinking, and such hostility manifests itself in communal violence.

There has not been even a single year after independence in which there weren’t cases of communal violence including some major incidents, such as 1984 Anti-Sikh riots, 1989 Kashmir violence, 1993 Bombay bombings, 2002 Gujrat riots etc. a majority of them are Hindu-Muslim conflicts.

In order to tackle this problem, the government made efforts to legislate against religious violence, and the interior ministry introduced the Communal Violence (Prevention, control and rehabilitation of victims) bill 2009 in the upper house of parliament to check communal violence. This bill provided measures for prevention and control of communal violence, speedy investigation and trials as well as rehabilitation of victims. The bill was referred to the parliamentary standing committee, and one of the suggestions made by them was the inclusion of genocide as a crime against humanity, to clause 2 of the bill. However, the bill was stated to be violating the basic federal principle of the Indian constitution, and the bill didn’t get approved and cannot become an Act.

The condition of India in the matter of Religious intolerance is very high according to report also. According to the Data of Pew Research centre analysis[1] which surveyed 198 countries, India stand at the 4^th position throughout the world. The only countries ahead were Syria, Nigeria and Iraq. The report also stated that after the year 2015, social hostilities and government restrictions on religion increased. The tension between the two major religious groups – Hindu and Muslim, has been quite a rise lately. Cases such as mob violence, communal violence, religion-related terror, etc. are observed. Atrocities on beef-eating Muslims have put the secular position of India in question as more cases of lynching came in news. The centre also has not been helping the situation, as policies of the government are clearly discriminating and restricting the Non-Hindus.

The new controversial Citizenship law has incited protests nationwide, a large number of Indian citizens have been protesting against the bill (now act), as they say, it discriminates against Muslims. While some criticize the Act and state it as discriminatory and violative of India’s secularism, the residents of North-east are worried that migrants will become citizens of that area. Hindu crowds are seen attacking Muslims during the protest, and many have been killed during the confrontation. The law has put Prime Minister Narendra Modi in worry, and his government has been put under pressure by citizens and the Bhartiya Janata Party have been accused of Anti-Muslim measures to steer the country towards becoming a Hindu nationalist state.

In last one year, the centre has taken some really worrisome decisions which have directly pointed out towards religious bias, such as revoking Article 370 from Jammu & Kashmir, which gave it autonomy and special states, or controversial decision of the Supreme court regarding Ayodhya dispute. Discrimination and unjustness seem to rise a lot in recent, years and the need for separate legislation looks more essential than ever.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS DEVELOPMENT

Since the time of Independence, there hasn’t been a single year in which there happens no communal violence in India. In spite of many general and special legal provisions, there is no stoppage to combat communal riots in India. Government has a duty to ensure the security of citizens, irrespective of social and economic status, and to provide fundamental rights.

There have been several instances of sectarian violence against minorities since Independence. It is in these moments that the politics of sectarian hatred is tearing apart the Indian social fabric from time to time. The paramount duty of the state is to protect and secure all its citizens without discrimination, and to ensure legal justice and accountability of precarious Public officials.

The Gujrat carnage of 2002 became a central concern to study the existing Criminal justice system of combating communal violence as it crashed the whole nation to low shame. This hostility alerted secular and democratic opinion of government to the need for a comprehensive legislation that bows out its duties to its citizens of sectarian discord, not only morally but legally as well. That was a welcome step by the UPA government in the common minimum programme.

It is not that there is no existing law dealing with communal violence. The Criminal procedure code (CrPC) and Indian Penal Code (IPC) have extensive provisions which empower police officers to use force, assist the armed force in order to control public disorder, and this provisions also include the instigation of hatred against communities as a grave crime. However, there is no separate legislation in India that dissect in unambiguous detail which provides powers to control communal clashes and to provide relief, compensation and rehabilitation to the survivors.

However, in the event of the actual outbreak of communal violence, the law has empowered police authorities to take adequate action and deploy legitimate force in order to protect innocent citizens. But we have witnessed many a time that officers obsequiously work for the political idea which deliberately delays blameworthy toll of many more innocent lives. This pattern is consistent in many commissions where the state has unreasonably used force against minorities in the majority of cases where they are proved to be actual victims. This turned from individual errors to more widely general misconception resulting in dangerous institutional collapse.

IMPACT

According to the report[2] of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), the right to freedom of religion is getting violated in India, and religious minorities are facing several challenges. Religious freedom in India is continuously getting hampered, and it has been on a gradual decline for quite some time now. USCIRF stated that Hindu extremist groups such as Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sang (RSS) and Sangh Parivar are a big problem, and are responsible for the rise in several cases of violence against Muslim, Christian, Dalits etc. As a result, the trouble for religious minorities is reaching the next level, and alienation against Non-Hindu surging.

This is indeed a serious issue, and the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs reported that in 2017 alone, 111 people were killed and 2384 were injured in communal clashes. The perpetrators of violence are becoming fearless as victims of such savagery are being forgotten by government and wrongdoers of crime are getting exemption from punishment. As a result, victims of such brutality are losing their faith in justice. This is growing the amount of mistrust between the government and religious minorities.

The laws like anti-conversion and anti-cow slaughter law are discriminatory on the part of the religious minority which are enshrined in law. Anti-conversion laws have been adopted in several states of India, which law prevents people from practising their faith freely. These laws directly violate the right of freedom of religion and belief as they are mainly targeted against religious minorities. Government have to take a decisive step to deal with the issue of religious clashes.

STATUTORY PROVISIONS

Section 147 of the Indian Penal Code

“Punishment for rioting. —Whoever is guilty of rioting, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.”

SECTION 153 A

“The purpose of the Section 153 A is to punish persons who indulge in wanton vilification or attacks upon the religion, race, place of birth, residence, language etc of any particular group or class or upon the founders and prophets of a religion.”

SECTION 295

“Section 295 of the I.P.C makes destruction, damage, or defilement of a place of worship or an object held sacred, with intent to insult the religion of a class of persons, punishable with imprisonment which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both. This section has been enacted to compel people to respect the religious susceptibilities of persons of different religious persuasion or creeds.”

SECTION 295-A

“The object of Section 295-A is to punish deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage the religious feelings of any class by insulating its religion or the religious beliefs. This section only punishes an aggravated form of insult to religion when it is perpetrated with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of a class.”

Article 15 of the Indian Constitution

“Article 15 of the Indian Constitution prohibits discrimination of Indians on basis of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.”

Articles 25 to 28 of the Indian Constitution

“It imparts freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion. It gives freedom to manage religious affairs. It sets freedom as to payment of taxes for promotion of any particular religion.”

CASE LAWS

Bilkis Bano case

A 3-judge bench of Ranjan Gogoi, CJ and Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna, JJ directed the Gujarat government to give Rs 50 lakh compensation, a job and accommodation to Bilkis Bano who was gang-raped during the 2002 riots in the State.

The bench was informed by the Gujarat government that action has been taken against the erring police officials in the case and that pension benefits of the erring officials have been stopped, and the IPS officer who was convicted by the Bombay High Court in the case has been demoted by two ranks.

Bano had earlier refused to accept the offer of Rs 5 lakh and had sought exemplary compensation from the state government in a plea before the top court.

The Court had earlier asked the Gujarat government to take disciplinary action in two weeks against the erring police officials, including an IPS officer, convicted by the Bombay High Court in the case.

A special court had on 21 January 2008 convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment 11 men for raping Bano and murdering seven of her family members in the aftermath of the Godhra riots, while acquitting seven persons including the policemen and doctors.

Chief Justice Gogoi observed that there was no point in looking at the past, and pointed out that the need of the hour was to rehabilitate the victim who, according to her lawyer, is living a nomadic hand-to-mouth existence, having lost all.

Rev. Stanislaus v. State of Madhya Pradesh & Ors. (1977)

Rev Stanislaus vs Madhya Pradesh, 1977 SCR (2) 611, is a matter where the Supreme Court of India considered the issue whether the fundamental right to practise and propagate religion includes the right to convert. It held that the right to propagate does not include the right to convert and therefore, upheld the constitutional validity of the laws enacted by Madhya Pradesh and Orissa legislatures prohibiting conversion by force, fraud or allurement.”

Reverend Stanislaus of Raipur challenged the Madhya Pradesh Dharma Swatantrya Act by refusing to register conversions. The Madhya Pradesh High Court upheld the Act by stating that the freedom of religion must be guaranteed to all, even those who are subject to conversions by “force, fraud, or allurement.” When the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act was challenged in the Orissa High Court, the decision went in the opposite direction on grounds that the definition of “inducement” was too broad and that only the parliament had the power to enact such legislation and the state legislature did not have the power to legislate on this matter. The Supreme Court of India heard both these cases together and ruled in favour of both the Acts.

The Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court had five judges and was headed by Chief Justice A.N. Ray. The Bench interpreted the word `propagate’ used in Article 25(1) of the Constitution as `defined’ in the Shorter Oxford Dictionary – “to spread from person to person, or from place to place, to disseminate, diffuse (a statement, belief, practice etc.)” and in the Century Dictionary (which is an Encyclopaedic Lexicon of the English Language) Vol. VI – “to transmit or spread from person to person or from place to place; carry forward or onward; diffuse; extend; as `propagate’ a report; `propagate’ the Christian religion.” The Bench observed: “We have no doubt that it is in this sense that the word `propagate’ has been used in Article 25(1), for what the Article grants is not the right to convert another person to one’s own religion, but to transmit or spread one’s religion by an exposition of its tenets.

ANALYSIS

The communal violence has become such a big problem. Especially after 2015, the tension between religious groups are very clear and visible. A small thing can make a big news if it takes a religious turn, and News channel and media aren’t helping the situation too. In recent time we have noticed that the condition of the minority is worsening, and the conflict between Hindu-Muslim is rising. It looks like the political belief and Ideology of the centre is the main reason for the current condition. Now it has become even clear that the government favours one specific religion over others and despise a particular religion. It was all implied before, but then the centre introduced CAA NRC in which citizenship will be provided to illegal non-Muslim migrants. This bill, as expected gained a huge controversy, and protests began against this bill as it clearly violates the essence of the secular nature of India. So, the discrimination of one community was impolite before, but now it seems more explicit.

CONCLUSION

There’s no doubt that India needs separate legislation to stop religious violence in the current situation, but the ideal understanding between common people are also important. It won’t matter even if we get separate legislation for communal clashes if the people don’t have a feeling of Brotherhood. Hindus and Muslims should engage in public debates in various forums to determine how to solve this problem and discuss Indian nationhood and secularism. However, in India, it is quite difficult to hold dialogue on such issues. Ultimately, the nation’s Judiciary is one important branch of government to put it into force, as its decisions can encourage public simultaneously. So, Judiciary can prevent communal sentiment and increase awareness of diversity which Indians had and shared.