Going by the results of a poll conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org (a project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland), 14 of the 19 nations surveyed were in favour of an unequivocal rule against torture. 4 countries were in favour of torturing terrorists. India led this gang of four, which also comprised Nigeria, Turkey and Thailand.
For all my patriotic fellow-citizens out there, who agree with the respondents and feel we should adopt such practices, my question is: what is the definition of a terrorist? Who decides that someone is a terrorist, and therefore can be tortured?
Is there any such definition? Can there be any such definition? Who validates this definition? Is there a safeguard to ensure that mistakes don’t take place? Does anyone seriously believe that the police and the authorities in India can be trusted with powers like these?
Allow me to explain how this will work in practice across India. The police suspect someone is a terrorist. He could actually be a terrorist, he could be a pick-pocket, he could even be someone who refused to pay a policeman a bribe. But the cops decide he is one. So they pick him up, and since they believe he has information that could save innocent lives, they torture him. All of this to whoops of approval from my patriotic, nationalistic, jingoistic and self-righteous friends.
Except it doesn’t take very long for the whoops to change to “ooooops”. Because the person – whether erroneously or otherwise – picked up could very easily be you. A member of your family. A friend. And please don’t kid yourselves – this scenario replicates itself in thousands of police stations across India. The degree of torture varies – some are slapped, some are beaten more severely, others have worse things done to them. And when that happens, remember – you sanctioned it, based on a cop’s best judgement.
While the Right to Freedom is a fundamental right guaranteed by the constitution, it is important to note that the various “freedoms” under this Right have been subject to review, curtailment, dilution and amendment. (Here is an excellent post on how, in India, free speech is not all that free.)
The state is all pervasive; it has too much power and too little accountability. The last thing this country needs is alleged public sanction of additional extra-legal methods.
PS: For the record, I have absolutely no sympathy for terrorism, terrorists or their political wings. I believe in certain fundamental, inalienable rights.
June 25, 2008 at 6:42 pm
If more people entertained the thought “the probability of this happening to me is finite”, the world would be a far less controversial place. But then, what would we all blog about, eh?
A poem I am fond of quoting; it is attributed to Martin Niemoeller who was opposed to Hitler and his philosophy:
Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Kommunist.
Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.
Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.
Als sie die Juden holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Jude.
Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr,
der protestieren konnte.
That last stanza should keep us all engaged and in line. Alas, it will not come to pass not in India where we are extremely self-centred and selfish and in gaming terms, shameless free riders and raiders of the commons.
June 25, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Shefaly – that’s a very pertinent poem. It really doesn’t take very long to go from “It wasn’t me/I wasn’t one of them” to “They took everyone and there’s no one to speak for me”.
Of course, we will never learn.
June 25, 2008 at 7:53 pm
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
June 25, 2008 at 9:44 pm
LM – good to hear from you. Thank you!
Were there too many dashes?
Cheers.
June 25, 2008 at 9:59 pm
I noticed the dashes and it made me smile. Be sure to take note of my commas, they’re difficult to let go.
Two peas in a grammar-frenzy pod, I tell you.
June 25, 2008 at 10:54 pm
LM: Only two this time, and correctly placed at that. You’re kicking the habit!
June 26, 2008 at 3:27 am
Could the poem be translated into English please? Thanks.
June 26, 2008 at 5:53 am
Our police decides who is a terrorist or who is not. If BJP is in power, they decide that all muslims are terrorists. If Congress is in power, all the chaddi gang members are terrorists. If the commies are in power, everyone except the commies are terrorists.
At the end of the day, the police has the final say. So simple right?
June 26, 2008 at 10:43 am
Liam – not sure of the exact English translation, but the gist of the poem is this:
When the Nazis first came to take the Communists, I kept quiet as I wasn’t a Communist.
When they took the Social Democrats, I kept quiet as I wasn’t one.
When they took the trade union members, I didn’t protest, as I wasn’t one.
When they took the Jews, I didn’t speak out as I wasn’t a Jew.
When they took me, there was no one left to speak up for me.
June 26, 2008 at 10:47 am
Liju – the trouble is, in a lot of cases, it is that simple. And our “chalta hai, it’s not me” attitude makes it even worse.
June 26, 2008 at 11:22 am
Thanks for the translation. I am familiar with that poem – very moving. Here’s the poem in its entirety in English:
http://www.hmd.org.uk/resources/item/28/
June 26, 2008 at 11:26 am
Liam – thankee kindly!
June 26, 2008 at 6:09 pm
QI: I was talking about this to somebody yesterday. We both agreed that Indians also are the first to express their dissatisfaction with ‘due process’. When they are the subject of it, they feel they are being treated unfairly; when the due process is the reason for delays, they are of course intolerant.
The outcome of this survey however suggests that most people fail to see the logical dissonance between their dislike of ‘due process’ and then the blind faith in the reliability of due process prior to such torture being sanctioned. Logical disconnect – that is the common thread across many things of desi-ness, isn’t it?
June 26, 2008 at 8:01 pm
[…] Indian writes about how Indians are one of 4 peoples who believe that it is ok to torture terrorists. I find this […]
June 26, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Shefaly – to my mind, it’s a toss up between our dislike of due process and arrogance,as you have said in your post.
As for logical disconnect – that seems to be a genetic trait of desis!
June 27, 2008 at 9:30 am
Opposed as I am to terrorism,torturing terrorists makes us no different from them!
June 27, 2008 at 9:59 am
I’m being a dare devil and incorporating dashes in my craft. Watch out!
(how pompous am I to call my blogging a ‘craft’?)
Tootles!
June 27, 2008 at 10:35 am
Nikhil – absolutely.
The point of my post was that with the shockingly low levels of accountability our system has, there is every chance that such provisions will be abused. A lot of the existing ones already are.
LM: way to go!
June 27, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Nikhil: Interesting point and one of which few adults have any understanding…
My friend’s 8 year old is being bullied by his supposedly good friends. He is smart enough to retort and make their lives miserable by crushingly reminding them of their own shortcomings. He recently stayed with me for 2 days. I asked him what was happening. He said, well, I can say things but that makes me just like them and I am not stupid and I am not mean. What a profound thing for an 8-year old to say…
June 27, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Shefaly – it’s such a cliché, but out of the mouths of babes…….
June 28, 2008 at 9:02 am
Hmm… this sounds a bit familiar. Gitmo and the Patriot Act come to mind here in the U.S.A. All in the name of protecting our country.
June 30, 2008 at 11:02 am
I have a feeling that most of the people surveyed have *unbelievable* faith in the ever-failing Indian juidiciary.
This reminds me of “POTA” and the way it was misused here in TN.
And I loved the question you raised in this post – Who is a terrorist? Who decides on this?
June 30, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Ford – it’s the same old BS everywhere, isn’t it?
Chennairamblings – while I am an ardent supporter of the activist Indian judiciary, I agree that it is over-burdened and stretched, and hence prone to failure. I think this has more to do with the fact that the executive and legislative branches have completely failed in their responsibilities, adding to the pressure on the judiciary.
August 7, 2008 at 5:23 pm
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November 27, 2008 at 12:54 pm
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November 28, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Signing or not signing an agreement doesn’t change attitudes. We can sign and then torture also. What needs to be changed is a host of behaviours – towards one another. The rich towards the poor. The educated to the illiterate.
We are still a country that looks down on a host of jobs, preferences (banning consensual same-sex relationships), the darker skin, the foreign returned. The list is long.
The moment you start debating past histories are used to justify present behavior. There is no consensus on almost anything in India. Look at the issues that decide elections. The idea of India is still nebulous almost 60 years after independence.
Or rather we need a new vision for the nation. That respects all.
November 28, 2008 at 10:10 pm
The victor judges. The reigning definition of who is a terrorist therefore is a simple one: any enemy of the current majority (or ruling government).
Has history not shown that as long as the attacker loses or is in the minority; he/she is named a terrorist, but as soon as the tables are turned and they win; the one previously branded a terrorist becomes a hero.
If the US so blatantly ignores human rights when it comes to “terrorists” (and has significant trouble selecting their subjects), I won’t count on Indian police to do any better.
November 30, 2008 at 4:06 am
To interrupt, your flight of idealist fancy i posit the counter question – why are you mortified at the idea of a suspected terrorist of a particular breed and ideology being tortured? Why not speak against torture of alleged rapists or murderers? Probably, because of application of a communally warped logic
Speaking against the cops or even the army has become a fashionable pretense in the modernist frenzy which is nothing but a dramatic transplant of western leftist ideologues on Indian soil, which is totally alienated from our ground realities where we constantly face sustained attacks from jihadis, naxals and missionary terror
Human right violations need to be minimized at the hands of some unscrupulous cops or misguided army-men but to draw conclusions based on abject generalizations is grossly unfair in a nation which loses approximately 2 soldiers per day! Terrorism is ultimately a proxy war, and collateral damage is the norm rather than the exception….One has to be sensitive to a nation’s needs before defining terrorists – for those who oppose a democratic and stable state while pursuing religious based divisive and separatist ideologies of hate are to be neutralized, for it is only the nation which sustains…
September 9, 2009 at 3:11 am
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