“IN no circumstances, the State can deny the human rights of an individual who inherits the rights at the moment he/she comes out of his/her mother’s womb.  Human rights are the rights of sustenance of life. But in practice, the ministers who swear to be committed to abide by the constitution and protect human rights, act quite opposite after assuming the office of the government,” said Justice Ashok Kumar Ganguli, former judge of the Supreme Court of India in a crowded convention of All India Democratic Lawyers Association (AIDLA), Tripura unit, in Agartala Town Hall on July 31, 2022.

The Tripura Unit of the All India Democratic Lawyers Association (AIDLA) organized the convention which was presided over by senior Advocate of the state Sri Sankar Deb. Sri Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharjee, Member of Parliament (RS), renowned advocate and former Advocate General of Tripura also addressed the convention.

Elaborating the perspective of the drafting of the constitution, Ashok Kumar Ganguli said, in the post-WW-II period, there was a worldwide cry for the formulation of an international charter of Human Rights which was adopted by the UNO in 1948. This charter on Human Rights was entirely incorporated into the Indian Constitution as Fundamental Rights by the members of the Constituent Assembly.

Regarding Constitution, Ganguli quoted from the writings of M K Gandhi who said, ‘Independence cannot be transferred from one nation to another. It is to be acquired. The constitution is the result of the best blood of the nation”. The constitution is not at all a law book, rather it is the soul/spirit of a nation. It is a document of the history of evaluation, political, social and cultural struggle and sacrifice of a nation.   

Referring to the attitude of the BJP-led government towards the judiciary,  Ganguli said, the judiciary being the custodian of the constitution, the government is always keen to keep the judiciary obedient to the government. Citing an instance he said, during the emergency period the Supreme Court going opposite to the spirit of the constitution passed a verdict that no one can knock on the doors of the judiciary alleging violation of human rights. That was corrected afterwards by Justice Khanna, Ganguli informed.  

Coming to the Indian Constitution, Ganguli said, there is an important reference in our Constitution in the name ‘financial equality’ or ‘economic justice. If economic justice ceases to exist, the vast brigade of the pauperised people can hardly enjoy the fundamental rights i.e., the right to thoughts and expression, right to protest, right to get justice, and even the right to worship etc. Raising the question, are we at all independent, Ganguli said, at present 5 per cent of people possess the 75 per cent resource of the country.  In the name of reforming the education policy, Indian history is being distorted, myths are being incorporated in the syllabus as history, and anti-science is being taken as science, he said.

A vast number of justice-seekers in India are scared of litigation firstly, because of the inability to afford the expenses, and secondly, due to procrastination. The Human Rights Commissions in the states were formed with an objective so that the poorer people have the access to justice with no financial burden. But the sorry state of affairs is that most of the SHRCs are not acting properly as most of these bodies are headed by obedient, retired police officers whereas, a large number of complaints of human rights violations are raised against the police, Gangli pointed out.  

Citing several cases where distinguished personalities of the country are now staying behind the bars and denied bail under the sedition act only because they are critiques of the government,  Ganguli said, the sedition rules were enacted by British rulers to suppress leaders of the freedom movement, it was retained in our country. But noticing the gross misuse of this section to suppress the opposition, the Supreme Court recently kept this section in abeyance, Ganguli stated.

 In conclusion, Ganguli said, it is a positive sign that the people in various parts of the country rise in protest against the rampant assault on the essence of the constitution and denial of human rights. Where all avenues to get justice get blocked, the only avenue that remains open is the mass protest, he opined. 

SANGH AGAINST THE IDEA OF INDIA

Referring to the history of the independence struggle, Bikash Bhattacharjee said, the moment the united freedom struggle of the country got momentum and turned to a deciding stage, the British rulers with a view to sustaining their rule, resorted to a shrewd plan to divide the people in religious line i.e., Hindus and Muslims. RSS being the preachers of Hindu Rastra, there was no dearth of subscribers of this hateful two-nation theory.  In the Constituent Assembly, in line with the theory of Veer Savarkar, Shyama Prasad Mukharjee strongly pleaded for characterising India as Hindu Rastra. Joypal Singh, a tribal leader, refuted the claim saying, neither Hindus nor Muslims is the indigenous section of this country, it is the tribals who belong to the original habitants of this country who were disciples of nature. In this way, this debate was settled by incorporating “We The People of India” in the preamble of the constitution.

Bikash Bhattacharjee repented that, when the nation is going to celebrate the so-called Amrita Mahotsav of independence, the prime minister does not feel ashamed to declare how many families have been doled with free rice. Independence is useless when it is devoid of assured socio-economic rights. Citing the disparity of the national resources, Bhattacharjee informed, that during the last two years of the Covid pandemic, when Adani groups garnered the highest growth of their resources in the world, the economic condition of 33 per cent of Indian people has freshly come down to below poverty line.

Bikash Bhattacharjee continued, to divert the people’s attention from this corporate-friendly character of the government, the ruling party is targeting Muslims to consolidate Hindus as a mechanism to win elections. Vicious controversies are created intentionally over the food habit, professions, livelihood, dressing, hostility over the Muslim shrines etc. The Sangh Parivar claims that Muslims are alien in this country, thus they have to assimilate with the Hindus if they want to live here.

The ruling BJP knows very well that, the communists are the hard blocks against the advancement of their communal agenda. Thus the states where the communists have strong bases, the BJP targeted communists as their enemy. As the communists take credit for innumerable sacrifices during the Indian freedom struggle, Bikash Bhattacharjee asserted, they would certainly shoulder the national responsibility to keep India integrated, and united and sustain the fraternal bond of the people resisting this state-sponsored hateful communal aggression of the ruling BJP.

Haribal Debnath, secretary, Tripura unit of AILU in his opening address vividly depicted how democratic rights, the right to franchise, the right to live and more importantly fundamental rights are just denied in Tripura by the BJP-led government. The Indian Constitution has just been kept inoperative in the state. Debnath placed a figural data of incidents of terror that had been unleashed in the state since the government assumed office on March 3, 2018.