From: Dr. Subramanian Swamy,
President
of Janata Party
A-77, Nizamuddin East
New Delhi-110013: Tel: 9810194279
To: SHO/Insp: D.P. Singh
Crime Branch,
Sector 18, Rohini,
New Delhi.
Registering of FIR u/s 153A & B, 295A & 505(2) of Indian Penal
Code.
1. In public
interest I am sending by Courier service a complaint in my name against
Chairperson Ms. Sonia Gandhi of National Advisory Council, which has its office
at 2 Motilal Place, New Delhi-110011, Tel: 23062582, and also against unnamed
other members of the said NAC for committing offences of propagating hate
against the Hindu community of India by circulating for enacting as law a Draft
Bill described as PREVENTION OF COMMUNAL AND TARGETED VIOLENCE BILL OF 2011.
This Draft Bill has been posted on the NAC official website, is dated July 21,
2011 and sent for adoption by Parliament. That this 2011 Draft Bill is
mischievous in content of targeting the Hindu community, malafide, unreasonable
and prejudicial to public order, is apparent from the second section of
Explanatory Note [Annexed herein] to the Draft Bill titled “Key Provisions of
the Bill”, thereby inciting crimes against the Hindu community with impunity,
and thus committing offences u/s 153A & B, 295A and 505(2) of the Indian
Penal Code.
2. The UPA Government in December, 2005 had introduced earlier
a Draft Bill [2005] in the Parliament described as THE COMMUNAL VIOLENCE
(PREVENTION, CONTROL AND REHABILITATION OF VICTIMS) BILL (2005).
3. The Draft
Bill however did not find favour with any Party. Leaders of several political parties felt
that the Draft Bill provided sweeping powers to the Central Government thus
undermining the authority of the State Governments. But the most vocal opposition to this draft
Bill came from the Muslim, Christian and so called secular quarters. Their contention was just the opposite of
what the political leaders were saying.
The view of Muslim and Christian groups was that the 2005 Draft Bill was
“completely toothless”. They demanded
that the powers of managing communal violence be vested in non-government
actors and make governments and administration at all levels accountable them
for communal violence.
4. The All India
Christian Council was in the forefront of this campaign against the 2005 Draft
Bill as being “too weak”. In a letter
written to the Prime Minister, Ms Sonia Gandhi, herself a Christian,
through the AICC had conveyed to the PM the Christian Council
concerns about the 2005 Draft Bill, and
then revised the same as the 2009 Draft Bill.
5. The Muslim bodies too joined in the protest campaign against
the draft as being too weak. They wanted
provisions to make police and civil administration and state authorities
“accountable” to public bodies. The
Joint Committee of Muslim Organizations for Empowerment (JCMOE) made the demand
on behalf of these organizations. JCMOE
also urged the government to convene a meeting of leaders of “targeted
communities” to note their views on the Bill as follows:
“The
Bill does not make police or administration or state authorities accountable
and provide for timely and effective intervention by the National Human Rights
Commission, if the communal violence spreads or continues for weeks, or by the
Central Government under Articles 355 and 356 of the Constitution, duly
modified. On the other hand, ironically,
the Bill grants more power to the local police and administration, which, more
often than not acts in league with the rioters by declaring the area as ‘communally
disturbed area’ JCMOE statement said.
6. It is interesting to note that these two statements, the
Muslim and the Christian, come at around the same time as though they were
premeditated. They probably were.
7. From their arguments in opposition to the Draft Bill, it is
clear that they wanted a Bill that would consider only the Christians and
Muslims as the “generally targeted” victims of communal violence; and that the
word ‘communal violence’ be re-defined in such a way that only the Muslims and
Christians are treated as victims and Hindus as predators, and that the local
police and administration, including the State administration, considered
hand-in-glove with the perpetrators of violence. Hence the Bill should empower
the Central Government to invoke Art. 355 and 356 of the Constitution against
any state in the event of such communal violence.
8. Since the Prevention of Communal Violence Bill (2005) does
not discriminate between the perpetrators and victims of communal violence on
religious grounds and also it does not envisage the State administration as
committed in preventing such violence, these groups wanted the Bill to be
withdrawn.
9. The
National Advisory Council (NAC) was
re-constituted in 2009 by the UPA Government again under the chairmanship of
Ms. Sonia Gandhi. The UPA Government promptly handed over the re-drafting of
the Bill to the newly constituted NAC and asked it to come up with a fresh
draft.
10. The basic communally provocative premise of the re-drafted
Bill is that: a) there is a non-dominant group in every State in the form of
religious and linguistic minority which is always a victim of violence;
b) the dominant majority (usually Hindus) in the State is always the
perpetrator of violence; and c) the State administration is, as a rule,
biased against the non-dominant group.
11. The object of the re-drafted Bill thus was
the basic premise of the NAC that the majority community – read Hindus – are
the perpetrators of communal violence in India and the minority – read
Muslims and Christians – are the victims, clearly is
incitement of religious strife.
12. What is more important is to conclude is that in all cases of
communal and targeted violence, dominant religious and linguistic group at the
State level is always the perpetrator and the other the victims. Similarly the conclusion that the State
machinery is invariably and always biased against the non-dominant group is a
gross misstatement of the sincerity and commitment of millions of people who
form State administration in the country.
13. This dangerous premise is the incitement of communal strife in
this Bill.
14. One can safely conclude that the script writers of this Bill
are themselves blinded with religious biases.
In India
communal violence happens mostly because of politico-communal reasons. In many instances, as documented by several
Commissions of Inquiry, it is the so-called minority group that triggers the
trouble. We hence need laws that can
prevent such violence irrespective of whoever perpetrates it. To argue that since the administration is
always biased in favour of the dominant group we need acts that are biased in
favour of the non-dominant group is imprudent and puerile.
15. The final
Draft is available on the NAC website now.
One is not sure when the same will be placed before the Parliament. However, a close scrutiny of the Draft is
essential to understand the serious implications of and threats from it to our
national integration, social harmony and Constitutional Federalism.
16. This Bill when it becomes an Act will apply to whole country except
the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Note that J&K is one of the two States in
India
(excluding the North East and other tiny UTs) that has Hindus as minority – the
‘non-dominant group’ according to this Bill. Punjab
is the other State where the Sikhs constitute the majority, while in the rest
of the entire country it is the Hindus who constitute ‘dominant group’ and by
implication the perpetrators of communal violence, according to this Draft
Bill.
17. The mischief in the drafting primarily lies in the
‘Definitions’ part contained in Art.3 of the first chapter. Art. 3 (c ) defines Communal and Targeted
Violence as under:-
“Communal
and targeted violence” means and includes any act or series of acts, whether
spontaneous or planned, resulting in injury or harm to the person and or
property knowingly directed against any person by virtue of his or her
membership of any group”.
18. The mischief is centered round the word ‘Group’. Art 3(e)
defines what constitutes a ‘Group’.
“Group”
means a religious or linguistic minority, in any State in the Union of India, or Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
within the meaning of clauses of the Constitution of India;
19. Having thus established that the individual member of the
Minority community is always considered a part of the Minority group the Draft
Bill goes on to add several detrimental clauses subsequently. Art.3 (f) defines ‘Hostile environment
against a group’ thus:
“Hostile
environment against a group” means an intimidating or coercive environment that
is created when a person belonging to any group as defined under this Act, by
virtue of his or her membership of that group, is subjected to any of the
following acts:
(i)
boycott of the trade or business of such person
or making it otherwise difficult for him or her to earn a living; or
(ii)
publicly humilitate such person through
exclusion from public services, including education, health and transportation
of any act of indignity; or
(iii)
deprive or threaten to deprive such person of
his or her fundamental rights;
or,
(iv)
force such person to leave his or her home or
place of ordinary residence or livlihood without his or her express consent; or
(v)
any other act, whether or not it amounts to an
offence under this Act, that has the purpose or effect of creating an intimidating,
hostile or offensive environment.”
Note the Clause
(v) – ‘Any other act, whether or not it amounts to an offence under this
Act’. The intention here seems to be to
make anything and everything an offence, even if it doesn’t come under any definition
of an offence. It is clear that the
entire definition of ‘hostile environment’ is malafide.
Clause (k)
defines who is a ‘victim’. Here the draft makers are very explicit:
“victim” means
any person belonging to a group as defined under this Act, who has suffered
physical, mental, psychological or monetary harm or harm to his or hr property
as a result of the commission of any offence under this Act, and includes his
or her relatives, legal guardian and legal heirs, wherever appropriate;
“Victim” can
only be belonging to a ‘group’ as defined under this Act. And the group as defined under this Act is
the Minority – the ‘non-dominant group’.
That means this act will consider only the Minority as the victims. And he or she will become a ‘victim if he or
she has suffered physical, mental, psychological or monetary harm….’ Now,
physical harm is measurable, mental harm is difficult to gauge, but how on
earth can anyone define ‘psychological
harm’? The Bill does not define it. Then how can be so-called ‘psychological
harm’ be one of the reasons for victimhood?
Similarly, Art. 4 (a) states as
follows:
4. Knowledge. – A person is said to
knowingly direct any act against a person belonging to a group by virtue of
such person’s membership of that group where;
(a)
he or she means to engage in the conduct against
a person he or she knows belongs to that group;
20. Art 7 of the draft Bill
defines ‘sexual assault’. It is by far
the most widely covered definition that is very much needed to protect women
from becoming targets of sexual violence as part of communal violence. But against the problem is that this
definition is applicable to the women belonging to Minority group and women of
the Majority community cannot benefit from it.
Secondly, it also states that in a case of communal violence sex by
consent also can be construed as a crime.
21. Patriotic Indians now realize that the present draft Bill is a
standing proof that neo Jinnah-ism – the belief that the minority is
perpetually oppressed in India by the Hindu majority – is still poisoning our
minds even today by mischievous minds..
22. The present Draft Bill will only promote disharmony. With
these kind of laws the LeTs and Hujls across the border need not have to
promote terrorism in our territory anymore.
All that they need to do is to encourage a minor communal riot and they
can achieve what they want – huge rift between the Majority and Minority
communities.
23. Hence, the NAC, with Ms Sonia Gandhi as Chairperson, and other
members have jointly committed offences under IPC Sections 153A & B, 295A,
and 505(2).
24. It is significant that even well known persons of secular
credentials have condemned this Bill as divisive. The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister
Ms. J. Jayalalitha has in a Press Release dated July 29, 2011 [Annexed] has
concluded that “the remedy sought [in the Draft Bill] to be provided against
communal and targeted violence is worse than the disease itself”.
25. Therefore, this complaint be taken as a
basis to register an FIR and conduct investigation into the communal mentality
of the NAC chairperson Ms. Sonia Gandhi and other members and take necessary
action under the law to prosecute the offenders under the cited sections of the
IPC.
(
SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY - President of Janata Party )
New Delhi 25 October : Central Law Minister Salman Khurshid written play "Sons of Babur" in which Mughal Invador Babar is unnecessarily glorified will be exhibited on October 28 in Presidential House in the presence of President Smt. Pratibhatai Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Sing. Salman Khurshid will also going to act in this play.Last time, even after protest by Hindus this play was exhibited in Goa in May month .
