People at the receiving end

By Kuldip Nayar

IN A way, a ceasefire is victory. It is supremacy over those who believe in guns and killings. There is an expression of faith in peace and it evokes hope that the opponents too will come to believe one day that wrong methods will not lead to right results. The relentless killings in Kashmir underline one thing: no amount of violence can solve the problem, which is primarily human and political. The killings of Sikhs has not brought the solution any nearer. Nor has the firing by the Army which resulted in the death of seven demonstrators. Translated in any parlance, they were violations against human beings. Innocents have died in Kashmir in thousands, both at the hands of militants and the security forces.

What has hurt me most is that some members of the All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC), who should have condemned the militants, are silent for one reason or the other. Why can they not take upon themselves the responsibility of stopping the guns directed towards the common man? They have rightly spoken against the excessess committed by the security forces. Human rights activists in India have supported them and complied reports which Islamabad has quoted at U.N. forums to point out that even Indians are critical of the security forces. What about the militants who have initiated a Nadir Shah-type reign of terror in the Valley? Their victims are the innocent. That the APHC should go to Pakistan to talk to the militants' leaders to stop killings is not a point at dispute. They should have gone by now. But the APHC should start from the Valley where it claims it has the entire population behind it. Surely, the dissentions within the party should not come in the way of stopping murders.

Violation of human rights is not of one community in Kashmir. It is of all. The APHC leaders, particularly its chief, Mr. G. M. Bhatt, should speak out whenever any excesses are committed against anyone. The APHC would be speaking for man. It talks of the good of society. Is this something apart from and transcending the good of the individuals composing it? If the individual is sacrificed for what the APHC considers is the good of society, is that a right objective to pursue?

Something similar motivated me to visit Orissa 15 months after the super cyclone. A few shells of buildings standing precariously and a welter of wires dangling from the bent poles. What was obvious was the ineptitude of the Government which was convinced that it had done all for the affected areas. In fact, a portion of the much-needed assistance was diverted to Gujarat to show that the State did not need relief any more. This is not true. Hundreds of people are still without any provision. A case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing. The Government has no idea of how to go about the rehabilitation work. Scores of villages in the interior parts are still without any electricity.

Bureaucrats and the State's politicians have thought of one way to remove the odium of their failure: they have picked on the NGOs. They blame them for mismanagement and shrug their shoulders when asked to render accounts for the lakhs of rupees collected. It is a sad story of corruption, criminalisation and cussedness. Were there to be an impartial inquiry, not many in power, either in the Government or in the bureaucracy, would come out unscathed.

The NGOs have reconstructed the full story of how the meterological set-up had warned the Government about the cyclone 48 hours in advance. Hundreds of lives would have been saved if the officials had only disseminated the warning in time. The worst part is the bungling in relief and rehabilitation. A group of NGOs told me in Bhubaneswar how everything received from outside Orissa was dumped at a Government godown in the State capital. It was not so much red-tape which stalled the distribution as the waywardness of some officials. They should have been punished but they have been promoted.

Fifteen months is time enough to begin to put it all back together again. I had imagined that the place would be seething with activity - dwellings and shops coming up and people rebuilding their lives. There was nothing like that happening. At some places, life is limping back to normal. But the overall scene is still dismal. Many NGOs are working but in the midst of a hostile environment created by bureaucrats and politicians. They face a piquant situation: people have asked officials to go away. They want only the NGOs.

At the end of my journey, I was convinced that the Government should keep away from relief and rehabilitation work. The bureaucracy is too mixed up with politicians and the mafia. The proposed central department to deal with national calamities, following the Finance Commission's recommendation, should be manned by NGOs and headed by an eminent person. If the UNDP has come to the conclusion that it will funnel all its assistance in Gujarat through NGOs, why not the Centre and the State Governments? What matters is the pressure which the public can build to ensure that private hands count in the social field.

Had there been such pressure, the killings of tribals at an alumina unit in Kashipur in Rayaguda district of Orissa would not have taken place. There is no doubt that a foreign concern owning the project has permission for mining and clearance from the Environment Department. But it is an open secret that both money and muscle were used. The management says that ``an attractive package has been drawn up for the project-affected persons''. Can anything compensate for the loss of home and hearth in which you and your ancestors have lived for years? That is the reason why some 100 families have not yet accepted ``the attractive package''.

People have to be persuaded to leave and be rehabilitated before they are uprooted. Packages do not become attractive because the managements bless them. They are attractive only when the affected people accept them.

Most of our minerals are located in the tribal areas, mainly in Jharkhand, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Chattisgarh. Although industries depending on these minerals have come up, there has been no systematic attempt by the Centre or the States to recognise the rights of tribal communities on the minerals. This has led to conflicts between the miners and industrialists on the one hand, and the tribal communities and social activists on the other.

The Supreme Court judgment (Samata v State of Andhra Pradesh) has held that lands in the scheduled areas of Andhra Pradesh, including Government lands, cannot be transferred to non-tribals. It declares mining void and impermissible. The Supreme Court has stopped forthwith all mining operations in Andhra Pradesh and directed the State Government to prohibit granting of mining leases in the scheduled areas to non-tribals.

It is a pity that the Centre is trying to amend the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution relating to protection of tribals to take away the legal basis of the Supreme Court judgment. What the Government forgets is that the President of India is fully aware of such nefarious moves and will not allow amendment of the Fifth Schedule to take place.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Opinion
Previous : The Don, 1908-2001
Next     : Starving the poor - II