US State Department
Human Rights Watch
Report 2000
(ASIA)
Excerpts
PATTERN OF VIOLENCE
Caste Violence Caste violence assumed alarming dimensions early in the year, particularly in the state of Bihar, where clashes between the Ranvir Sena, an upper-caste landlord militia, and Naxalites, Maoist guerrillas agitating for higher wages and more equitable land distribution for lower-caste laborers, claimed many lives. Human rights activists charged the state administration with criminal negligence for failing to intervene effectively and prosecute those responsible for the killings. On January 25, about one hundred armed extremists from the Ranvir Sena killed at least twenty-two Dalit ("untouchable") men, women, and children in Bihar's Jehanabad district. On February 10, Sena members struck again in the same district killing eleven Dalits as they slept.
On March 29, in the Ogalur-Villupuram region of Tamil Nadu, four upper-caste men sexually assaulted a female Dalit farm laborer. The attackers were then beaten by those responding to the laborer's cry for help. On April 3, in retaliation for the beatings, three upper-caste men set fire to a Dalit colony, injuring twenty people. On June 19 a gang of upper-caste Hindus looted and destroyed the houses in a Dalit settlement in Kodankipatti village, Madurai district, after Dalits there had demanded a share in the common property of the village. The Dalits were then chased out of their homes.
On July 23, police action against lower-caste laborers in Tirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu, resulted in the loss of seventeen lives. The victims, including two women and one child, were among those protesting working conditions at a local tea plantation and demanding the release of 652 workers arrested following a demonstration on June 8. Members of the police and reserve forces chased the victims into theThamiraparani river where they drowned.
CHRISTINANITY UNDER FIRE More incidents of violence against India's Christian community were recorded during the past two years than in all the years since independence. Anti-Christian violence in the state of Gujarat reached its peak during Christmas week 1998 when a local extremist Hindu group obtained permission to hold a rally on December 25 in Ahwa town in the state's southeastern Dangs district. Over four thousand people participated in the rally, shouting anti-Christian slogans while the police stood by and watched. After the rally, Hindu groups began to attack Christianplaces of worship, schools run by missionaries, and shops owned by Christians and Muslims.
Between December 25, 1998, and January 3, 1999, churches and prayer halls were damaged, attacked, or burned down in at least twenty-five different villages in the state. Scores of individuals were physically assaulted, and in some cases tied up, beaten and robbed of their belongings while angry mobs invaded and damaged their homes. Thousands of Christian tribals in the region were also forced to undergo conversions to Hinduism.
On January 23 in Keonjhar district, Orissa, a mob of Hindu extremists burned to death Australian missionary Graham Stewart Staines and his two sons as they slept in their car. Staines had worked for over thirty years in a leper colony in the state and was accused of conducting mass conversions to Christianity. In August a government-appointed judicial commission accused Bajrang Dal activist and BJP member Dara Singh of leading the charge in the killings. The commission's report also found that Staines had not been involved in any conversions, but it fell short of accusing the Bajrang Dal, insisting that Singh acted alone. Opposition parties labeled the report a "whitewash," while allies of the BJP by and large welcomed the findings. On September 20, a Catholic nun in Bihar was abducted by two men, stripped, and forced to drink their urine.
HATRED FOR MUSLIMS The Shiv Sena, a Hindu party which heads the state government of Maharashtra in coalition with the BJP, also engaged in disruptive practices and hate campaigns against Muslims and Christians throughout the year. In December 1998, the award-winning film Fire , by director Deepa Mehta, was recalled from theaters after Shiv Sena activists vandalized at least fifteen cinemas where it was playing. Sena members objected to the film's depiction of a lesbian relationship between two Hindu sisters-in-law, adding that had the women been Muslim there would be no objection.
In January 1999, when Pakistan's cricket team was set to travel to India for a series of
test matches, members of the Shiv Sena dug up the pitch at a New Delhi stadium that was to host the first match and ransacked the headquarters of the Board of Control for Cricket in Bombay. In June, the Shiv Sena launched a series of attacks against Christian mission-run kindergarten schools alleging that they were not admitting the children of Sena activists. On June 26 suspected Sena members vandalized the Sacred Heart school in Worli, Bombay.
On August 26 Staines' killer Dara Singh struck again, when he led an angry mob to attack the garment shop of Sheikh Rehman, a Muslim trader in Orissa's Mayurbhanj district. In the presence of four hundred eyewitnesses and in broad daylight, Rehman's arms were chopped and his body was set on fire. Singh continued to evade arrest despite his numerous television appearances in the months following the Staines murder.
ABUSIVE LAWS Police in Andhra Pradesh continued to summarily execute suspected Naxalites in so-called "encounter killings."
The Armed Forces Special Powers Act remained in effect in the northeast, but it was not the only abusive law on the books. Due to the spurious backdating of violations, detentions under the notorious Terrorist and Disruptive Practices (Prevention) Act (TADA) continued for offenses allegedly committed before the law lapsed in 1995. In Karnataka, for example, fifty-two people remained in pre-trial detention in Mysore Central Prison for periods ranging from four to six years.
Persecution of Human Rights Activists On February 11, members of Parivartan, an NGO working with Dalits and landless agricultural laborers in Gujarat, were attacked in Padra village. Sixteen Dalit women, who had come to attend a tailoring course organized by Parivartan's women's co-operative, were among those physically assaulted by local strongmen. Police officials agreed to register a complaint only after the Home Ministry's intervention. In 1998, the Hindu group VHP had issued a press statement claiming that Parivartan was trying to convert Gujarat's entire tribal belt to Christianity-a charge that the NGO has denied.
In July, political parties in favor of the building of the Sardar Sarovar dam across the Narmada river in western India burned copies of the book, The Greater Common Good by novelist-activist Arundhati Roy. Roy, whose book discussed the social and environmental costs of the Narmada project, including large-scale population displacement, was part of a larger people's movement against India's big dam projects. Facing threats from the youth wings of the BJP and the Congress party, bookstores in Ahmedabad city, Gujarat, also began to pull the book from their shelves.
The Role of the International Community Tensions between India and Pakistan dominated India's international relations during the year. The international community failed to use the opportunity to press India to curb human rights abuses in the state.
United Nations While Pakistan demanded U.N. mediation in the Kashmir dispute, the Indian prime minister rejected an offer by the U.N. secretary-general to send an envoy. In a report issued in January, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture commented on India's abysmal record on torture and detentions, especially in Jammu and Kashmir, and noted with regret the government's continued refusal to extend him an invitation to conduct investigations in the country.
European Union The European Union (E.U.) joined the international community in expressing concern over the escalation of fighting in Kashmir. . In a February resolution the European Parliament expressed deep shock over the persecution of Christians in India by extremist groups and called on the Indian government to put in place effective measures for protection of religious minorities and to bring to justice those responsible for the killing of Australian missionary Graham Staines.
The European Parlaiment also called on the E.U. and the European Commission to ensure that human rights clauses in treaty agreements with India be rigorously implemented. A legally binding partnership and development agreement between India and the E.U. concluded in 1994 contains such a human rights conditionality clause. In March, the European Parlaiment expressed support for the European Commission's efforts to enhance relations with India but said improved relations should depend in part on India's nuclear disarmament. The European Parlaiment also urged India to foster tolerance and protect freedom of religion; to ratify the torture convention; and to impose a moratorium on executions and step up efforts to abolish the death penalty.
United States In September the U.S. Department of State released its first annual report under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, detailing attacks on religious minorities throughout India. Responding to reports that U.S. Ambassador Robert Seiple wished to visit the country to discuss religious rights, the Indian government defended its ability to guarantee constitutionally mandated religious freedoms and rejected any "intrusive exercise" into its internal affairs.