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New Delhi, 16 December 2014
Human Rights
LAW ENFORCEMENT CRUCIAL
By Dhurjati Mukherjee
A week ago Human Rights Day,
December 10, was observed world-over, but sadly it failed to receive the
attention it deserves in India.
More so, since the past two-three decades there has been a vociferous advocacy
of human rights across the globe. While in the developed West, such rights are
ensured, in the East people lack in their basic rights so as to enjoy a
dignified existence.
Such rights are essential for all as
these are consonant with freedom, dignity and conducive to physical, moral,
social and spiritual welfare. For social prosperity and moral uplift of people,
these human rights, also referred to as fundamental rights, are
imperative. The term ‘human rights’ was first used by Thomas Paine in the
English translation of Declaration of Rights of Man & Citizen. It is
a 20th century name for what has been traditionally known as ‘natural
rights’ or the ‘rights of man’.
The need for protection of rights
has arisen because of increase in the control over men’s action by government,
which by no means can be considered desirable. Added to this is the fact that lack
of balanced development along with non-functional grassroot democracy are
possibly the significant reasons for people being denied such rights. Maurice
Cranston termed human rights, which no one can be deprived off without a grave
affront of justice.
Eminent Jurist Justice P N Bhagwati
stated (in Maneka Gandhi case, 1978) that: “All those rights which are
essential for the protection and maintenance of dignity of individuals and
create conditions in which every human being can develop his personality to the
fullest extent may be termed human rights”. Thus, the idea of human rights is
intrinsically bound with the idea of human dignity.
Thus, it is quite clear that human
beings ought to be protected against unjust and degrading treatment while also
assuring them the fundamental facilities needed for an existence. However, in
most countries, such facilities are non-existent. The respective governments
either do not have the financial resources to make available these minimum
requirements or their strategy of development is lopsided i.e. only a small
section enjoys more rights than they actually should get at the cost of the
majority.
In India, two recent enactments
pertaining to educational right and the right to food are welcome steps in
realization of human rights to the masses, which over the years have been
denied of these two vital necessities. Now, Modi has assured that every
household would get shelter by 2022. This has to be made a reality. There have
been umpteen cases where land and jhugis of
poor have been taken away for activities like construction, roads, mining etc.
rendering them homeless. Until a few years back, the compensation paid was
meagre and totally insufficient for rehabilitation. Thus apart from providing
shelter to all, the question of making it a fundamental right needs consideration.
Social problems arise only when
there is lop-sided development and, in India, the majority has been
languishing in poverty and squalor. The urban bias in planning has witnessed
the rural sector being neglected. This found expression in different types
of mass movements, asserting the need for bestowing basic rights and privileges
to the oppressed sections. These movements have questioned the elitism of
representatives of democracy and pioneered alternative forms of direct
democracy.
Bestowing the right to free and
compulsory education and the right to food to the hungry millions have indeed
been significant strides in the country’s rights based approach. This has only
been possible due to sustained campaigns by social activists who were very
close to the establishment and whose point of view was accepted by the
Government after much deliberation. However, the enrolment rate at the upper
primary level (Class 6 to 8) is as low as 60-62 per cent while the drop-out
rate in the 6-14 age group in over 40 per cent and these need examination. The
revamping of the educational system, especially in rural areas, is called for
along with improving the quality and module of education
imparted.
Earlier, the Right to Information
was passed after years of grassroots struggle involving expertise from each of
their areas – environment, agriculture, politics, rights of marginalized
sections of society etc. However, the slow disposal of RTI has become a huge
hindrance towards achieving good governance. A study by the RTI Assessment
& Advocacy Group and Samya Centre for Equity Studies in the 10th
anniversary of the Act painted an alarming picture of pending cases. It found
that an RTI appeal in Madhya Pradesh Information Commission would come up after
60 years while it would be a 17-year wait in West Bengal.
In Rajasthan, the appeal would be taken up after three years and in Assam and
Kerala, it would take two years.
If the Acts are not properly
monitored and strictly implemented, pious wishes will remain only in paper and
the poor would not benefit in any way. The question of child rights is also
very important but though India
was the first country to join the International Programme for the Elimination
of Child Labour way back in 1992 and also ratified the UN Convention of the
Rights of the Child, millions of children continue to be drafted into the
country’s labour force. The problem is acute where children are used in
hazardous industries and there is trafficking of girls who are sexually
exploited and abused.
In a society where we hear almost daily
of inclusive development, how is it that a significant portion of children don’t
go to school, people die of starvation or malnutrition, health care doesn’t reach
the poor, shelter is not available to the distressed? While educational right
needs to be enforced through a revamping of the State machinery, health needs serious
attention. Why cannot the State provide health care to the poor at affordable
rates? Is it due to the lack of doctors or the inadequacy of proper
infrastructure in the health sector?
The latest Economic Survey
showed that the Centre’s expenditure on health and family welfare as a
percentage of total expenditure was hovering around 2 per cent since 2008-09.
As a proportion of India’s
GDP, the expenditure on health is even lower at 1.4 per cent. The present
government has promised a new ‘National
Healthcare Policy’, which should obviously lead to greater public
investment in health care and improve the quantity and quality of standards so
that the masses benefit. India
is said to have the most rights but if such rights are unenforced, it
undermines the credibility and the integrity of the legal system.
One may conclude with Dr Karen Vasak’s
observation made almost four decades back during his association with the
Council of Europe: “The promotion of human rights… implies action resolutely
directed towards the future: the question of human right is seen as containing
a lacuna, because they are not all, or are only incompletely, guaranteed under
national legislation, or international law, or because they are not
sufficiently understood by the persons entitled to them or by the States and
their subsidiary bodies which are bound to respect them. In these
circumstances, a body for the promotion of human rights will attempt to
determine inadequacies and even violations, not so much in order that they may
be punished but that similar situations may be prevented from recurring in the
future”. ---INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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