Issues

The Communal Violence Bill, 2005, fails to address the problem of increasing communalisation of society and the polity at all levels.


The Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill, 2005, proposes to set up special courts to try perperators of riots and measures for the protection of witnesses, besides compensation to the victims, said Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil.


Speaking at a seminar recently, organised to discuss the proposed Bill, he said the compensation to the victims of communal violence is a new concept in criminal jurisprudence and the proposed Bill also proposes to hold elected representatives from the respective areas responsible for the rioting.


Noting that a point often raised was whether the Centre could send forces to maintain law and order, irrespective of whether the state government asks for it or not, Patil sought to allay fears that the Bill was against any particular state or any person or against any particular community. The Bill would be taken up in the next session of the Parliament, he added.


Maharashtra Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh described the Bill as historic and added that the State government will soon give its reaction to the centre. Goa Chief Minister Pratapsinh Rane felt that the bill should have provisions where action could be taken against those who spread rumours during communal violence.


The Bill provides for constitution of a national, state and district Communal Disturbance Relief and Rehabilitation Council. It prohibits any discrimination in providing compensation and relief to victims of communal violence on grounds of sex, caste, community or religion.


The Bill proposes to arm state governments to declare certain areas as communally disturbed, lay down measures for prevention of acts leading to communal violence and enhance punishments. It also provides for speedy investigation and trial of offences through special courts, and makes institutional arrangements for relief and rehabilitation of victims.


Giving special powers to the Centre to deal with communal violence in certain cases, it provides for directing state governments to take all immediate measures to suppress violence and to deploy armed forces to deal with the situation at the request of the State governments. Prominent human rights and women rights groups and social activists have come out strongly against the provisions of the Communal Violence (prevention, control and rehabilitation of victims) Bill 2005. “The government did not consult civil society groups or attempt to forge a national consensus on a Bill of such importance,’’ they said. The need to bring in an anti-communal violence law arose in view of the increasing communalisation across the country, particularly in the light of the 2002 Gujarat riots. Such a law was expected to increase the powers of citizens against the government, the police and the civil administration. But instead of strengthening the hands of citizens, the proposed law further strengthens the hands of the state against them.


It gives politicians, administration and the police wide powers, which are largely “used against the very minority groups’’ which the Bill purports to protect.


Under the existing law, most of what the Bill envisages is already permissible. Arms can be banned, routes of processions regulated, armed forces called in to assist civil administration and special courts established.


The Bill provides for punishment of public servants who fail to prevent communal violence, but that requires consent of the state government and some states may be partisan. Moreover, the power of the Centre to order armed forces to intervene under the Bill (in cases where the state is complicit in the violence) is negated by a provision, which requires the Centre to seek permission of states for such an intervention.


The Bill is also silent on the issue of mass sexual violence. There is no definition of sexual assault to include the kind of violence women suffered in Gujarat.


All that the Bill gives women survivors of communal violence is Section 376 of the IPC - the much-maligned rape law whose evidence requirements are extremely difficult to meet during communal conflicts.


The Bill also fails to address the problem of increasing communalisation of society and the polity at all levels and does not acknowledge or bring in its purview areas such as driving minorities out of erstwhile mixed settlements, social and economic boycott of particular groups, discrimination in employment and communal writings in text books.


Right of survivors to rescue, relief and rehabilitation has been introduced in a watered down fashion without stipulating any mandatory national norms for a rehabilitation scheme.


While rejecting the draft, the activists called upon the UPA government to open negotiations to prepare a law that can “genuinely’’ strengthen the citizen’s hands and make governments more accountable to them.