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A word called ‘genocide’
The
search for language to express the horror of Gujarat is on. Recent
events in that state have been variously described as ‘riots’,
‘a pogrom’, ‘mass murders’, ‘massacres’
, ‘a carnage’, ‘a genocide’. Interestingly,
it is the word ‘genocide’ that RSS ideologue, Nanaji Deshmukh,
chose to describe this tragedy. There is a news report that relatives
of the three Britons killed in the state were going to move British
courts for justice, on charges ranging from ‘murder’ to
‘genocide’.
What
does ‘genocide’ signify in international law? Well, let’s
go back to the earliest General Assembly resolution on it. On December
11, 1946, the world community agreed that ‘‘genocide is
a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide
is the denial of the right to live of individual human beings’’.
It went on to note that such denial shocks the conscience of mankind
and is contrary to moral law and the spirit of the world community.
There is a realisation here that punishment for this crime is a
matter of international concern.
Exactly
two years later, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment
of the Crime of Genocide came into being. According to it, all the
contracting parties agreed that ‘‘genocide...is a crime
under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish’’.
It also tries to define what constitutes genocide. Article 11 of
the Convention lists, inter alia, that killing members of a group;
causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberating
inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about
its physical destruction, as genocide.
According
to Article VI of this Convention, ‘‘persons charged with
genocide shall be tried by a competent tribunal of the state in
the territory of which the act was committed, or by such international
penal tribunals as may have jurisdiction with respect to those contracting
parties which shall have accepted its jurisdiction’’.
India, incidentally, has ratified this Convention. While the Ministry
of External Affairs (MEA) may haughtily dismiss international concern
over Gujarat, the fact is that India in principle recognises that
there are some actions that constitute crimes against humanity and
therefore necessarily invite international scrutiny. How much more
effective, therefore, would have been our MEA spokesperson’s
observations if she had stated instead that India is committed to
ensuring that such heinous acts of mass violence do not occur and
that those guilty of committing them will be promptly brought to
justice.
The
fact is that no government today can duck its responsibilities to
protect its people under the guise of ‘national sovereignty’
in a post-World War II globe that is rapidly evolving an international
jurisprudence to deal with crimes against humanity. Developments
in Rwanda and Yugoslavia in the nineties have only expedited this.
But instead of this driving nations into the defensive mode, it
should in fact goad them to ensure that their own systems of criminal
justice function both promptly and effectively.
What
this means for India, vis-…-vis Gujarat, is clear. For starters,
the National Human Rights Commission’s observations could provide
a basis for action. The NHRC has strongly indicted the Gujarat government
for not preventing the Godhra carnage and the ensuing communal violence.
It expressed lack of confidence in the state government’s ability
to bring the guilty to book and asked for the transfer of all ‘‘critical’’
cases to the CBI, a demand that the intransigent Gujarat government
has made short shrift of. The NHRC has also noted the need for collating
information on the Gujarat developments by all agencies, both state
and citizen’s initiatives, so that the guilty can be punished.
From
all evidence, what occurred in Gujarat amounted to genocide, or
near-genocide. The clinching factor is the deliberate nature of
the attacks. A women’s panel, sponsored by Citizen’s Initiative,
Ahmedabad, stated in its fact-finding report that ‘‘there
was pre-planning, organisation and precision in the targeting.’’
A point confirmed by ‘A Report To the Nation’, another
report on the carnage. It said: ‘‘Certain crucial aspects
of the carrying out of the pogrom required systematic planning well
in advance of the Godhra incident. The lists the rioters possessed
and used (to target the Muslim community) must have been compiled
over time...’’
There
is no getting away from it. Gujarat will continue to haunt India
for years to come. It signified, as the NHRC observed, a violation
of the constitutional rights of life, liberty, equality and dignity
of all citizens. We have let ourselves, and the foundational tenets
of India, down.
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