Stop
all kinds of tortures
A new anti-torture legislation should
come up to stop all kinds of tortures. Tortures like Custodial torture, Dismemberment,
The Arthashastra prescribed mental torture, biological and chemical
experimentation on humans — prisoners etc. should just stop.
Is sadism is an inherent part of human nature? That’s what the history
of power, of authority and control questions. The practice of custodial power
is about men — and sometimes, women — who are in positions of power, even if
for a brief while and over a limited terrain, having custody over a powerless
person. It becomes something of a
sport for the human “Gods” that rule mere humans. “They kill us for their
sport,” Shakespeare said of “the Gods”.
The death penalty is a close kin to this
lawless and heartless game. Torturers are invariably sadists. Mary
Surratt is not a well-known name. She was the first woman to be hanged in the
U.S., in 1865, under due process. Her crime: being part of the conspiracy that
led to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Hitler’s torturing of his prisoners would shame
Satan, Stalin’s, torturing would have embarrassed Hell. The
power-centres of these tyrants were hellishly real. Apartheid South Africa had
its torturers trained in Algeria to inflict pain without leaving any signs on
the body. The butchering last October of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is another case of torture. Be sure that
not far from wherever we are, someone is being tortured by somebody.
India has practised and continues to practise
the ‘third degree’ with impunity. But if torture is real, human
revulsion with torture is also real. In the meeting on December 10, 1984, the
UN General Assembly stirred the world’s conscience. It adopted the Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Better known as the UN Convention against Torture, it sought to prevent torture
around the world.
The Convention made state parties to undertake
that “no exceptional circumstances whatsoever” will be “invoked to justify
torture, including war, threat of war, internal political instability, public
emergency, terrorist acts, violent crime, or any form of armed conflict”.
India took 13 years to sign the Convention, but
sign it did, on October 14, 1997, during the 11-month-old Prime Ministership of
I.K. Gujral. Hat’s off to him. He did what Rajiv Gandhi, V.P. Singh, Chandra
Shekhar, P.V. Narasimha Rao, H.D. Deve Gowda could not, did not, do. But
signing is only the first step. But the convention should be ratified and
followed or preceded by domestic legislation that commits the ratifying party
to compliance.
The UPA II government introduced a Prevention
of Torture Bill in the Lok Sabha in 2010 and had it passed in 10 days. The bill
as passed by the Lok Sabha was referred to a select committee of the Rajya
Sabha. The committee gave its report recommending the Bill’s adoption later the
same year. National Human Rights Commission report said the figures showed
custodial torture was rising. That
Bill lapsed with the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha. And was not revived by
the 16th, the present Lok Sabha. Ratification of the Convention remains in
limbo. Custodial torture remains in position.
21 years after signing the Convention, India is
yet to legislate a law that will outlaw torture and enable it to ratify the
Convention. Why is the Indian state unwilling to say, ‘no custodial torture in
India’? Is it because the power over a captive’s body and mind is not easily
given up?
In a matter that concerns ‘life and liberty’,
the Supreme Court is the guardian of the Constitution’s guarantees. And when
the one being guarded says, ‘I thirst,’ the guardian can only bring to its
parched lips the waters of life.
The 17th Lok Sabha must take a stand. It has a
choice: to join the civilised world in moving away from ancient barbarism or
stay in the dungeons of blinding, benumbing brutality.
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