Muslim women say no to Communal Violence Bill

Calls are mounting for the Communal Violence Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation Bill to be scrapped. The Bill currently tabled for discussion in Parliament is largely a response to demands in wake of the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Campaigners with the recently launched Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (Indian Muslim Women’s Movement) insist that while the intent behind the Bill is good, it fails to deliver on all key points and could result in further oppression of minorities.

“The Bill in its present form will be yet another tool in the hands of repressive state governments”, says Zakia Jowher of ActionAid who escaped the 2002 riots and is a founder member of the Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan.

Survivors of Gujarat 2002 are still grappling with the consequences of state atrocity. Yasmin a 29-year-old mother of four whose husband was killed by the police in the riots has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. “How can I manage my children’s lives without support, I am too unwell to do anything,” she says. With no compensation or medical treatment from the government she depends on the charity of her neighbors.

Campaigners are concerned that instead of increasing citizen’s powers to hold elected representatives, police and judiciary to account, the bill concentrates power in the hands of state authorities. 

“The Bill gives sweeping powers to state agencies,” explains Razia Patel of Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan ”It will depend on sole discretion of state governments to declare a particular area “communally disturbed”, upon which various provisions of the Act will apply.”

In states which regularly witness communal violence or frequent targeting of one particular community, the fear is that authorities can be selective in declaring areas “communally disturbed”, thus increasing the potential for harassment and human rights violations.

“There are numerous eye witness accounts of how marauders were supported by policemen and other state actors in Gujarat. We need to guard against such complicity by empowering people to deal with communal strife,” says Patel.

The real problem say campaigners, is not lack of laws but a lack of political will to implement the existing laws properly.

”The problem with Gujarat in 2002, Delhi in 1984, Bhagalpur in 1989 or Mumbai in 1992-93, was not that the state lacked the powers, but that it lacked the will to act, or worse that its will was for the communal violence to continue,” says Jowher.

Under existing laws, arms can be banned, routes of processions regulated, armed forces called to assist civil administration and special courts established. 

Under the Communal Violence Bill, Central government’s power to deploy armed forces to curb violence in disturbed areas is negated by the fact that prior permission would need to be granted by the state. This is particularly worrying when, as witnessed in past, state governments may be party to the problem.

Peace activist Noorjehan Diwan points to way forward: “It will do more good if government supports citizen’s initiatives of building trust and harmony,” she says.

 

Noorjehan is part of the Aman Samuday network of peace activists formed by ActionAid in the wake of the 2002 Gujarat riots. Staff and volunteers are responding promptly to outbursts of violence in Muslim and Hindu neighbourhoods and are committed to bringing divided communities together.