पंछी नदियाँ पवन के झोंके
कोई सरहद ना इन्हें रोकें
सरहद इंसानों के लिए हैं
सोचो तुम और मैंने क्या पाया
इंसान होके !
This was the key issue when Upendra Bakshi, noted Professor of jurisprudence and humanitarian law was speaking on "The Future of Human Rights in a Home Away from Home: Towards Rethinking the Right to Have Human Rights" at the public meeting organised to mark the World Refugee Day. Before going in the comical, ironical and subtle commentry Prof. Bakshi lead from the front about the possibilities of converging the Human Rights Law and Refugee Law. Let me share what Bakshi commented on the divergence and divorce between thinkers and actors on the ground when it comes to protection of the human rights.
He agreed to the assessment of one of the audiences about Professors being great reflectors on the interpretations of the law affecting the operations on the ground but not the true actors which are embedded in bureaucracy and civil service are actually making things happen. Prof. Bakshi had very insightful answer. He quoted Marx who said around 1850 that the "Suffering people should start thinking and thinking people do need to suffer!" This was on the lines of quotation which goes like this: "Act like a man of thought and think like a man of action !" He delicately exposed the great divide between two and how it is actually making a mockery of the people who deserve immediate attention, care and legal help; either they are refugees, people trapped in natural and man made crisis land locked away from opportunities of employment, education and livelihood.
In this context, it was worthwhile to reflect on the recently unfolded massive controversy about liability, responsibility and accountability in Bhopal Gas Tragedy. He lamented the role played by the civil service and bureaucracy in failing to deliver the compensation and justice to the aggrieved people. This had lead, according to him towards burecratisation of suffering. Is the executive lead by the civil service truly 'civil' and 'in service' of the people? Is the porous boundary between civil and evil which is actually provoking us to ask the question that to which people these executives are serving other than suffered?
Two memorable TV shows braodcasted recently made a very strong point about introvert and extrovert character of our systems which we claim to have evolved during the brief stint of Indian democracy during last 60 years. One show hosted on NDTV 24/7 actually tarnished the work done by successive governments in the role they played to take an action against the culprits in the Bhopal gas tragedy. This show which invited many people from law, civil society, investigating agencies, political parties, media, diplomacy concluded in affirming that "As a system we have not learned to think. And even we learn something, are we applying that learning to solve the urgent issues of people related to development, health and environmental problems." Point made by Prof. Bakshi was beyond learning. Actually he was complaining about sycophancy of political class claiming themselves as learned who actually are never interested in learning or being in the phase of learning. In another show on IBN Live, Karan Thaper interrogated Minister Salman Khursheed about lack of credibility, integrity and authenticity in the outrageously vague commentary of the Congress spokespersons regarding the fallout of Bhopal Gas Tragedy trial court decision on seven June 2010. Mr. Thapar grilled Mr. Khursheed very wisely and ruthlessly to compel him to concede before him that in case if it is found that spokespersons are lying with their knowledge he will apologise for that.
This is actually perfect case when looked in the perspective of what Prof. Bakshi was trying to say. He said, "We need to move forward to go beyond the commentary to statesmanship and oratory of law and justice." If it is to be interpreted in my lay man`s words then we need to be careful about the platitudes of media, politicians and government about the rhetoric of black and white, right and wrong in the discourse about justice. Prof. Bakshi was pointing out towards necessity to have more attention towards questions of Theory, Philosophy and Justice when the gravity of human rights is to be considered. These are the times when there is great disregard and disrespect for the aspects of theory, philosophy of any thinking which finally shapes the solution through the means of law, policy and other instruments of states intervention in the society. As Prof. Bakshi put, if actually, if not ideally, good and rigorous theory is epitome of pragmatic actions we can/may usher in.
So, going ahead with the discussion about the human rights of the refugee he said that in today`s world we must remember that everyone of us can be a refugee, exile in some form or other. It is not only about being in refuge condition during the voyage across the borders of state or nations. Everyone of us are subject to so much vulnerabilities that we need to understand the law and other discourses of human rights and refugees so as to help ourselves to be prepared for future. As Prof. Bakshi emphasised that refugees are not the problems of the past but the obligations of the future. We have to be prepared for these obligations of future especially out of top ten countries receiving maximum exodus of refugees, seven are developing countries. May be developing countries are nurturing the culture of hospitality through which they can understand the problems of deprived, migrated and sufferings originating from different problems of identities. This is where developed countries and debate about immigration appears so loud and so much assertive as witnessed in recent UK Parliamentary elections and pervasive in the integration and regulation of European Union.
Finally, very crucially Prof. Bakshi made very subtle but philosophically distinct definition of Responsibility, Accountability and Liability. He said, "Over the years Indian government and system has become more accountable in terms of new laws, procedures, conventions and acceding to the wish list of political correct principles of justice. But actually with the increase of measures and appearances in the court of law to perceive themselves as more accountable, state has become less responsible and less efficient in justice delivery mechanism. Secondly, when it is claimed that liability is defined in terms of law and other regulatory frameworks it does not mean that people who are accepting liability are actually responsible to the people whose grievances need to be addressed in a responsible manner. And thirdly the mention of word 'Responsibility'evokes a sense of linguistic whitewash. 'Responsibility'according to Derrida should express the sense in which we are Responsive with the Ability to address the problems before us. So the sensitivity which is inherent in our natural emotions is actually very much reflective when we are responsive to the events occurring around us. A sense of responsiveness actually gives the evidence of our priority framework in which we view the world around us which is appealing us to take a call to protect human rights being violated every other nook and corner. "
When disparities, discrimination and differences are getting unnoticed from system and state then the sufferings get institutionalised through bureaucracy. Even though India`s role in the humanitarian efforts has been lauded over the world, our own domestic track record deserves serious study for further because we are inheriting the ticking time bombs in terms of domestic displacements which are actually our own citizens being treated as foreigners.
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