Do statutory national bodies such as the National Commission for
Women (NCW) and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) have only
cosmetic value, or are they a political tool to help the ruling
dispensation at the Centre to harangue or protect State Governments ?In over three weeks since the murder of a Muslim youth for allegedly tormenting a young girl on her way to inter-college at Nangla Mandore in Muzaffarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh on August 27, the retaliatory murders of her two brothers, and the communal violence that followed and took 49 lives, there was not a peep from these august bodies despite so much human suffering and angst.
Twenty-three days after the first death, on September 19, after a rattled Chief Minister began looking for ways to cover his inadequacies, NCW chairperson Mamata Sharma arrived at Muzaffarnagar to take stock of the situation. The National Human Rights Commission is still notable for his absence, largely perhaps because it tends to confuse its mandate with that of the National Commission for Minorities. Indeed, barring the compulsion of the Centre to provide sinecures for loyalists, there seems no legitimate reason for the continued existence of these bodies.
The National Commission for Women should have rushed to the spot once the print and electronic media reported that the violence was triggered by repeated and routine harassment of Jat girls from Malakpur village as they passed by of the minority-dominated Kawal village to catch a bus to the Inter-College. The sexual harassment of women, particularly minor girls, which could result in crime and/or put an end to their studies on account of their families or communities being unable to provide physical security, should be a primary concern of the NCW. Yet, even the State Commission for Women has not visited the aggrieved family and village.
Mamata Sharma will doubtless indulge in homilies before returning to Delhi. The question is whether the State Government or District administration will provide security to school-going girls. This aspect of the Indian reality, which inhibits realisation of the goal of total literacy, has been highlighted by the Muzaffarnagar tragedy, and deserves to be recognised.
Meanwhile, it would be instructive to examine the cases where the NCW has been proactive in discharging its duty. There is the 2009 Mangalore pub attack, where an hitherto unknown organisation helped in maligning the Hindu community. The Commission rushed to Guwahati in 2012 when public sentiment was inflamed by the rape of a minor girl; it distinguished itself by revealing the name of the victim in its press conference. It took a considerable public outcry to compel the Commission to apologise.
On the issue of acid attacks on girls and women, a Scheme for Relief and Rehabilitation of Offences (by acids) on Women and Children was supposedly prepared by the NCW in consultation with women’s groups a decade ago. But Mamata Sharma claims ignorance in the matter though it figured in NCW Annual Reports until 2008-09. Then, it was subsumed in a new scheme for relief and rehabilitation of rape victims, but acid victims are not mentioned and are thus left out of the new scheme.
The alleged rapes of Bhatta Parsaul in 2011 are the most impressive instance of NCW activism. After Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi claimed there had been police atrocities against villagers in Greater Noida and “women too were raped,” the NCW demanded an urgent CBI probe into the incidents. The then chairperson said villagers in Bhatta and Parsaul in Greater Noida told an NCW fact-finding team about the alleged atrocities, including molestation of the women and burning some men alive in Bhatta village.
The Uttar Pradesh Government stoutly denied the allegations, especially on rape. The National Human Rights Commission found no evidence to support Rahul Gandhi’s allegations, and after initially failing to substantiate the same, the NCW finally claimed evidence of seven rapes in its final report in September 2011. The evidence, interestingly, was affidavits submitted by the victims to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes!
The National Human Rights Commission is equally choosy regarding the recipients of its affection. But the most serious instance of dereliction of duty pertains to the Gujarat riots of 2002 which, as is well known, were a reaction to the Godhra train atrocity.
Here the NHRC became complicit in the games of some high profile individuals and NGOs to defame the Gujarat judiciary and administration, and get the riot cases transferred out of the State.
This was exposed way back in 2007 when Zahira Sheikh, the ‘expert witness’ relied upon to damage the Gujarat judiciary and Chief Minister Narendra Modi, turned hostile and told the Supreme Court that the documents upon which the NHRC recommended shifting the trial outside Gujarat were not signed by her. Indeed, they were found to be blank (where the signature should be). Thus, the pages and pages of allegations prepared by Teesta Setalvad and her NGO, Citizens for Justice and Peace, were unsigned typed papers!
Legally, this made the complaint void — worse than an anonymous allegation. Zahira Sheikh contemptuously called the document Teesta’s “pamphlet-baazi”.
But the NHRC accepted the document as valid, and passed it on to the Supreme Court with a plea to order retrial in the Best Bakery case and take the trial out of Gujarat. The Supreme Court Registry failed to authenticate the document; and thus the cases were transferred to Mumbai. To this date, the Supreme Court is acting on the basis of this unsigned document.
It is notable that though Zahira Sheikh claimed she had been intimidated to give a certain testimony in the Best Bakery case in Vadodara, neither the NHRC nor the Supreme Court asked the State Government to ensure her security in Mumbai. She was left at the mercy of Teesta Setalvad and her NGO. Even in late 2004, when Zahira Sheikh fell out with her mentor and accused Setalvad of virtually imprisoning her (Zahira) and forcing her to sign documents she could not read (in English), and pressurising her to give a certain type of testimony after recognising persons from photographs, no police protection was offered to Zahira. Her whereabouts are presently unknown.
Zahira Sheikh had demanded the right to cross-examine then NHRC chairman AS Anand, saying she visited the Commission with Setalvad and made an oral submission which was recorded by the Chairman and two members. Zahira alleged her oral testimony differed from the record NHRC placed before the Supreme Court. NHRC needs to come clean on this episode if it is to enjoy public esteem in future.
To conclude on a personal note, on November 23, 2008, KPS Gill, Kanchan Gupta and this writer were part of a citizen’s initiative to the NHRC, to demand an enquiry into allegations of illegal detention and torture of Sadhvi Pragya by the Mumbai ATS. Thereafter, some of us went to the NCW to urge it to take up the matter. Needless to add, neither Commission has found the time or the compassion to do so.
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