Intervention Papers by IPF on Communal Violence Bill
Disastrous provisions
Hole in the Bucket: Examining Prevention of Communal & Targeted Violence Bill-2011; NAC’s Hindu Apartheid Law: Prevention of Communal & Targeted Violence Bill-2011; India Policy Foundation, Pp 30 & 56
A country that does not respect diversity and fair play can barely be a multicultural and secular society. It this does not happen, both democracy and secularism become victims of the dominant groups.
The rule of law means equality before the law and there should be no discrimination on the basis of gender, community, region and language. But the draft of Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill 2011, prepared by Smt Sonia Gandhi- led National Advisory Council (NAC) is a direct attack on the common legal system of the country. This has divided the people into two sections-the majority community as the aggressor and the minorities as the permanent victims of the majority. More dangerous is that the SCs/STs have also been put in the ‘Group’ so as to camouflage an aggressive minorityism.
The India Policy Foundation (IPF) has prepared two Intervention Papers in English and one in Hindi on this burning issue highlighting various aspects of the draft Bill. The Papers analyses the provisions and implications of the proposed Bill in details. The first paper deals with summery of the proposed Bill while the second Paper consists of prominently the papers presented by various scholars at the brain storming sessions conducted IPS on May 31 this year. Prominent among those who participated in the discussion included Shri R Venkatanarayan, Shri RNP Singh, Prof. Rajvir Sharma, Shri Rambahadur Rai, Shri Rajesh Gogna, Shri Satish Pednekar, Shri Manmohan Sharma and Shri Priyadarshi Dutta. The opinion of Prof AP Singh, Shri Gopal K Agarwal, Shri KB Mahajan, Prof. Madhukar Shyam Chaturvedi and Shri Navaneet has also been accommodated.
The opinion of some of the experts and intellectuals on the issue, appeared in the media, has also been accommodated. It includes opinion of Shri Arun Jaitley, Shri R Jagannathan, Shri Sudheendra Kulkarni, Shri Vivek Gumaste, Shri Swapan Dasgupta, Shri Sam Rajappa, Shri A Surya Prakash, Shri Joginder Singh, Shri Arindam Chaudhuri and Shri Ashutosh Varshney. The Intervention Paper also has excerpts of a letter written to NAC Chairperson Smt Sonia Gandhi by IPF director Prof. Rakesh Sinha.
The Intervention Papers highlight in detail how the proposed Bill ignores all the laws and restrictions of the Constitution and divides the minority and majority into two imaginary opposite enemy camps. What is surprising is that the Bill even defines sexual offences on communal grounds. If this becomes a law, it would spell a dangerous communal polarisation and destroy the communal harmony that has existed in the country for centuries.
(India Policy Foundation, D-51, Hauz Khas, New Delhi-110 016)?
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