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The Rediff Interview/ Tahir Mahmood

'What is happening with the minorities should not be seen in political terms but in terms of the Constitution'

Professor Tahir Mahmood is chairman of the National Commission for Minorities, a government organisation that has been in the news recently following the attacks against Christians in Gujarat and Orissa, and the outbreak of communal violence in Karnataka. The NCM had deputed fact-finding teams to the states and their reports have been submitted to the government.

Mahmood, who is credited with turning the NCM into an effective organisation that seeks to protect the rights of minorities, spoke to Amberish K Diwanji. An excerpt from the interview:

Your fact-finding teams have been to Gujarat and Orissa and other places. What do your reports say?

A copy of the report on Orissa has also been sent to the Supreme Court, which is conducting a judicial enquiry into the murder of Stains. Since the matter is sub judice, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on the topic right now.

Besides, I have given copies of the reports only to the prime minister whom I met on February 4, 1999.

Besides the above mentioned, we have submitted our two annual reports -- for 1996-97 and 1997-98 -- for follow-up action; we have submitted the report on Suratkal and Mangalore where communal violence broke out too. By law, these reports have to be placed before Parliament, and we expect the government to table them in the Budget session beginning soon.

Do you expect anything to come out of the reports?

Previously, the annual report and other reports would be submitted very late and the government would then make an excuse that it is too late to take action.

Nowadays, I submit my reports not on time but before time so there is no justification for the government not to take the necessary action. Right now, the government has five reports -- two annual reports and the special reports on Orissa, Gujarat and Mangalore -- and Parliament is going to sit now. I expect the government to follow up...

Do you think the present government is sidelining the NCM? After all, the Bharatiya Janata Party has often said there is no need for a commission for minorities?

That is not the impression that I got from the prime minister. He never said he did not see a need for the NCM.

In Gujarat, was the Sangh Parivar involved in the violence or was it the work of some individuals?

I think it is the handiwork of individuals from smaller groups rather than some national-level organisation. Large national groups may not be involved, but individuals belonging to those organisations and from some smaller groups may be behind the attacks.

Could it not be a case that some larger national-level organisations were unable to control their cadres at the lower level? Could it not be a case of groups taking advantage of a government perceived as being sympathetic?

I find it very difficult to believe that a national- or state-level organisation, especially if it is a religious organisation -- whichever religion it may be -- will openly sanction such a policy of persecuting others in the name of religion. I am not able to believe this. One of my areas of specialisation is Hindu religion [Mahmood is a jurist with specialisation in Hindu Law].

That an organisation which calls itself the religious representative of Hindus seeks to persecute minorities as a matter of policy is, I must tell you, difficult for me to swallow. Whoever wants to say this will have to prove it! It cannot be proved by just one or two incidents.

Certain individuals in small groups are committing atrocities. Even if they are linked to certain large organisations, then of course such organisation have a responsibility. It must be, and has been, brought to the notice of the parent organisation to do whatever is possible to stop the smaller groups and individuals from their actions. But to say that at the top level, the organisation as a whole is involved, I find it difficult to digest.

Then do you have any reason for the sudden spurt of crimes in recent times, especially against Christians?

Yes, I have an explanation. The individuals and smaller groups believe that such persecution is the ideology of their group. I consider this to be a wrong belief. But it is the responsibility of the parent organisations to correct these misconceptions from both the individuals and the groups.

This is being said openly by so many people. I have not said that nor has the NCM, but political parties and independent watchers are saying it. So I think these organisations should realise their responsibility. It is also the responsibility of Hindu organisations to save the fair name of their religion from being tarnished by such individuals and groups.

When Stains was murdered, some groups blamed the Bajrang Dal. Almost immediately, Home Minister L K Advani absolved the Bajrang Dal even before checking the facts. Now does this not give the impression of a sympathetic government?

The problem here is that those in the BJP have not been able to demarcate their roles as members of a political party and as members of the government. There is a world of a difference between a ruling party and a government.

When this government took over, I was asked if I would face difficulties as chairman of the NCM. I replied, "Whichever party may come to power, they have sworn to uphold the Constitution of India and whatever they might have said as a political party, the fact is that a political party in search of power has to be different from a political party in power."

Unfortunately, some members, not all, have not been able to appreciate this difference. In those unfortunate moments when they are not able to differentiate between their political party and government role, they make statements that should not be made by someone in government.

What is happening with regard to the minorities, whether in Gujarat, Orissa or Mangalore, should not be seen in political terms but in terms of the Constitution and the law of the country. To uphold these is the responsibility of the government. So even if someone who is in government belongs to a party which is against taking action in the recent matters, the government has to do its duty.

I can say that the prime minister is quite appreciative of this difference between a political party and a government. Some others, sometimes, slip.

But can you still separate a government from the ruling party's ideology?

But the BJP members have themselves been shouting from the rooftop that their ideology is not the ideology of the government. That the ruling alliance's national agenda for governance and the BJP's agenda are different and that the government would act according to the former.

Nevertheless, sometimes this does not happen. I told the prime minister of an incident that quite disgusted me. Gujarat chief minister Keshubhai Patel said he had not received the NCM's report. Immediately thereafter he said the report was biased. Now how could he say the report was biased if he had not seen it? Obviously, one statement is a lie. Fortunately, I have received a fax from the Gujarat government telling me that it had received a copy of the NCM's report and that the chief minister's statement that the state had not received the report was not correct.

In all your work, have you come across any case of induced, forced or coerced conversions in the tribal areas as alleged by certain groups?

We have been asking for such evidence from converts willing to admit that they have been forcibly converted, or converted by illegal inducement or coercion. But the fact is that in the 10 months that we have spent in Gujarat, not a single such case has come up. In fact, during the fag end, one person came up to speak of conversion. When we understood him through the translator, it transpired that he had been converted from Christianity to Hinduism. We ignored his case.

Have you ever come across intra-tribal violence between different religious denominations?

There are as many as 60 recognised tribal groups in India. In my travels I have found that among the tribals, there is so much unity that they don't care if one person belongs to one religion and a second person belongs to another. In Meghalaya, where I went recently, there are Hindus, Muslims and Christians within a tribal group yet they don't care. There are inter-tribal rivalries, but never along religious lines. Hence reports of conflicts within a tribe on the basis of religion is nothing but a story.

The government has asked for a debate on conversions. What do you think about it?

The prime minister has clarified that he was not talking of debate but was talking of a dialogue. He explained that to me, saying that there is a difference between the two. Before that, he said there is no proposal to amend the Constitution's Article 25 to ban conversions in India. After that he clarified that a debate on conversion has already taken place in the Constituent Assembly and hence there was no need for another. The need was for a dialogue.

A very appreciable point about the prime minister is that if he is convinced that what he is saying is not correct, he has no hesitation in correcting himself. Only a few days ago, in Lucknow, the prime minister said there were no forcible conversions in the country. If he says that, that is the end of the controversy.

But you don't have any view on whether there should be a debate on conversion?

The reality is that there have been conversions because of the weaknesses in the Hindu society. The whole world, minus the Hindu society save a few who have studied Hindu society, recognises this fact. Whatever conversions have taken place, whether to Islam or to Christianity, the dominant majority -- not all -- have been due to the weaknesses in Hindu society. So if we have a debate, these weaknesses will be talked about. Where will it lead us? It will only create more bitterness. I don't think anyone will relish the idea of creating more bitterness. In fact this bitterness must come to an end.

All the crimes so far have occurred in states with non-BJP governments, save Gujarat. Yet, fingers are pointed at the central BJP government rather then the state governments. Law and order is a state subject. Does this reflect a prejudice against the BJP?

A politician is a politician. Whichever party is in power, it does not matter because a politician will take the first opportunity to criticise his opponent if anything happens. This is what the non-BJP politician has been doing.

What is happening is not just a law and order situation. It is a basic question of equality of every citizen in this country, the implementation of fundamental rights, the rights and equality of minorities and majorities as guaranteed by the Constitution of the country. This is where the central government is involved because the Constitution imposes certain duties upon the central government regarding such matters.

This is exactly what we recommended to the central government in the case of Gujarat, which caused a hue and cry. Yet what did we say? Article 355 states that if there is any internal disturbance in any state, it is the duty of the central government to protect that state. We asked the government to invoke Article 355 in Gujarat as we saw the attacks on Christians as an internal disturbance. It was not an incident that occurred on one day but has been happening since April 1998.

A number of incidents have occurred despite the efforts of the Gujarat government -- I have not and am not blaming the Gujarat government of inaction in any of my reports. But what matters is not the action taken but the impact it has, which was negligible. The Gujarat government in early December said that it had taken sufficient action and we all saw what happened on December 25, 1998.

Hence we made our recommendations to the central government. The government could give directions to the state government under Article 256. All these are existing laws. We listed those laws to the central government. So what is the bias in it?

But there does appear to be more harshness towards Gujarat, which has a BJP government, than Orissa, which has a Congress government. Is it because of the BJP's image and its past record?

Our commission has never been concerned with who or which party has been ruling the state. It is absolutely irrelevant to us. The Anjana Mishra rape case and the Jehanabad massacre does not fall under our jurisdiction. We are deeply concerned.

In the Anjana Mishra case, we have made an official reference to the National Commission for Women to what we would have done had the victim been from a minority and, similarly, for the Jehanabad case, we have sent a reference to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. We are concerned with minorities. How the media and minorities behave is not our cup of tea. I don't want to comment on that.

But I would like to say that what you attribute to its past, I would attribute to the present style of action and statements of the government, which indicate that there is a prejudice on their part against the minorities.

If the press takes notice of that and comes out openly against it, I don't think there is anything wrong. My overall assessment of the media is that it has been very fair to the minorities. Being fair to the minorities does not mean prejudiced against the ruling party.

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