Human rights in India: Failings of a welfare state

Earlier this month, the world observed Human Rights Day. The UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the first global enunciation of human rights and one of the first major achievements of the United Nations, on December 10, 1948. The UDHR is the most translated document in the world and is available in over 500 languages.

Human Rights Day is normally marked both by high-level political conferences and meetings and by cultural events and exhibitions dealing with human rights issues. Furthermore, December 10 is also the day that the five-yearly United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights and the Nobel Peace Prize are awarded. Many governmental and non-governmental organisations active in the human rights field also schedule special events to commemorate the day. Of course, many pious statements follow from the bastions of power.

Honesty demands that we confess to a collective hypocrisy that we have been enacting for the last several decades, ever since the observance of Human Rights Day started. We need to reflect on our record vis-à-vis human rights.

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The most deprived sections of society are the worst victims of violations of human rights. Take, for instance, any major industrial or infrastructural development. The displaced are frequently poor, but even worse, they are not always adequately compensated or rehabilitated.

Mega-development projects like the construction of dams, ports, industries, roads, and highways result in the forced displacement of people. It has been found that usually it is the poor who are worse off because their livelihood, habitat, and assets are taken away. More than a million people have been displaced from their ancestral land and deprived of traditional livelihoods in recent years in the country’s drive for economic growth, as disclosed by certain studies. It is a sad commentary on a welfare state and a democracy such as ours to dispossess a people of their traditional way of life, their livelihoods, and their cultural moorings in the name of development and not compensate them adequately.

Millions of migrant workers were left in the lurch during the Covid lockdown in 2020, something we cannot erase from our national conscience. “Custodial deaths” in police stations across the country are a gruesome reality. The NHRC (National Human Rights Commission) reports that there are as many as 3739 cases pending as of October 2022. How can these be justified?

Let’s think about people in jails, awaiting trial. Recently, the President, Ms Droupadi Murumu, lamented the plight of poor prisoners who languish in jails for petty offences because they are not aware of their fundamental rights or are unable to seek a legal remedy due to poverty. The president appealed to the judiciary to help such undertrials come out of jail.

Domestic violence is yet another pathetic example of the denial of human rights. Married women who undergo the trauma of domestic violence at the hands of husbands or in-laws are countless in our society. This is the most under-reported and least-exposed type of violence. Even in cases of outright murder, it is the least convicted due to a lack of evidence. In the very nature of the violence and the context of the family, it’s logical that such cases either go unreported or unpunished. Women who are denied dignity and life itself are in their millions in our country.

Children are next in line. In terms of numbers, perhaps they form the largest segment. They suffer everywhere, including in their homes. The POCSO Act has brought some relief to children, but it’s not much to write home about. The saddest is how children suffer unspeakable cruelty at the hands of their own parents and, at times, of their teachers. Again, these are not reported or punished for the simple reason that children are voiceless. Benjamin Disraeli said, “Youth is a blunder, manhood a struggle, and old age a regret.” Old age has become an unmitigated disaster for lots of people. The saddest part of it is that, in many cases, their children would have deserted them. Filial ingratitude cannot have a worse example.

The differently abled, the LGBTQ communities, those labelled as lower castes, and the ones who still experience some kind of ‘apartheid’ are all people who are denied their basic human rights.

The list of those denied human rights is endless. They are all around us. We either do not see them or we pretend not to see them. What’s needed today is a resurgence of humanity. A new world where human dignity is inviolable, especially for the most vulnerable. It’s not a utopia if those who have power exercise it to rescue those cheated of their basic human rights.

Progress without justice and humanity is not what an egalitarian society is all about; in fact, progress should imply a more civilised and cultured society.

(The writer is Director, Little Rock Group of Institutions, Udupi)