POVERTY OF PHILOSOPHY
The endemic social cataclysms could be officially attributed to cosmetic and rationalized reasons of state that could hardly be contested by a rational discourse of one kind or another and the state-ist argument holds the fort as long as the state defines its own existentialist, metaphorical truth or untruth whatever.
Indian state since its inception in 1947 and access to republican status in 1950 by virtue of landlord-feudal-casteist-racialist dominated constitution-making process, has been legitimizing asymmetrical hegemonic rule of the hegemonic mainland population group over the peripheral and after-acquired territorial population groups, particularly in the seven NES of the Indian state.
The embedded hegemony dictates the hegemonic interest under the cloak of legitimacy and unequal constitutionalism that inherently suffers from the basic premises of unequal nationalities viz., the ruling nationality and the subject races in the peripheral states. The official constitutionalism, based on egalitarian values like socialism, secularism, among others are negated by the hegemonic constitutionalism in practice.
The hierarchical Indian civil society poses a monstrous evil and terror to Indian womanhood, Indian peasantry, national minorities and the subject race of the later occupied AANSGT in the NE region . The cataclysm happens to be the favourite child of the inherently unequal Indian civil society, which even the dignified human rights NGOs dare not fight out; the NGOs fight out the symptoms of he hidden terror within the unequal Indian civil society.
No other demonstration would be as loud and clear than the post-1991 Indian capitalism, officially adopted by the union government in direct and blatant negation of the state policy of socialism, as enshrined in the preamble of the constitution. Secularism is in the preamble while not more than two percent of Indian Muslims could be recruited into defense forces.
The North-easterners and the NES had been denied equal state representation in the Council of states and the union cabinet, although quislings could be occasionally recruited in key positions on the basis of their proportionate loyalty to neo-colonialism and hegemonic rule.
The original sin that denied the principle of equality of nationalities and nations in the constitution-making process has been accepted as Indian statist virtue that transcends any opposition whatever from any rational discourse, and even the Indian leftist fail to contest the national inequalities because of their hidden racial philosophy and hackneyed hegemonic pre-eminence.
The imperialism that Indian state nurtured with sufficient labour and ingenuity had been virtually instrumental in resurrection of the festering wounds and inevitable historical uprisings addressed to the hegemonic Indian state as well as the mainland hegemonic people who retain the Indian state as their permanent hostage.
Even the national human rights commission and national institutions failed to rise above the deeply entrenched hegemonic philosophy and institutions. The battle line has not therefore, been drawn exclusively between the Indian state and the contesting NSAs or liberation groups, but more explicitly between the hegemonic, neo-colonial, imperial philosophy impregnably shrouded by a far- fetched patriotic cloak and the democratic philosophy of equalities of nations and nationalities that would hit hard upon all the conceptualized hegemonic philosophy.
It would be appropriate to cite the Indian supreme court judgment in 1997 on the humanity’s most black law- the Armed Forces Special Powers Act,1958, which permits any low level army officer to shoot to death any suspected citizen in the NES for more than half a century. Normally, at the drop of a hat when any mainland Indian citizen faces human rights discomfort, the supreme court admits and hears the case in a day or two under the public interest litigation.
The supreme court did not take up a 1982 PIL case challenging the black law for long 15 years till in the year 1997, the UN Human Rights Committee grilled the Indian representative at the UN and he assured of triggering off the supreme court mechanism. The supreme court, with its racialist logic invented all racial justification to uphold the black law. They call it judicial logic and the NES jurists call the 1997 judgment apartheid verdict.
The recommendation of Justice Jeevan Reddy,2005 for the repeal of the black AFSPA,1958 and also the observation of the United Nations CERD made in 2007 March for the repeal of the same statute, the critical conclusions of the UN Human Rights Committee in 1991 onwards about the same black statute, compounded by the global juristic tirade against such extrajudicial execution law isolate the supreme court’s explicitly racialist and genocidal verdict as pariah The Administrative Reforms Commission of the government of India has in August,2007 recommended the repeal of the AFSPA,1958 .
The supreme court has glorified and justified extrajudicial execution of the people of the AANSGT with its own shrouded reasons. The United Nations Human Rights Committee in its report 1997 has urged upon the supreme court to comply with the ICCPR obligations, however by its November 27 ,1997 verdict it has simply overlooked the aforesaid ICCPR obligations.
The cataclysmic apex court juridical logic reinforces the otherwise racialist Indian mainstream philosophy. Some body had rightly said that capitalist USA should never appoint a Marxian judge in the supreme court and in similar vein, Cuba should never appoint a capitalist judge in her bench. mutatis mutandi, Indian hegemons would never make an exception to the isotopic hegemonic law.
He is at first a first blood hegemon a la Nazi judge and then, a judge with bequeathed colonial common law traditions. Before the world fought the noble Nazis, it had to fight out the Nazi gospel and preaching. Under these given conditions, universally endorsed human rights standards have to be the first casualty and the rest is masterpiece of rhetoric and political metaphors- the metaphors that sabotage and hijack justice from within thereby leaving the civil society to respond naturally, presumably under the social contractarian theory that justifies the ultimate revolt.
The national institutions do the inbreeding of the cataclysms and the cycle continues in the best tradition of the hen or, chicken: which comes out first _ the state repression or the NSA counter-violence- which comes first. The CATACLYSM exists in one form or another- constitutional, juridical, institutional and whatever.
The phenomena sustains because of the poverty of Indian political, legal, constitutional and national, hegemonic philosophy. Behind very mistaken theory lies he the great Indian empire instinct.
Read Part 1 |
Part 2 |
Part 3 |
Part 4 |
* Dr. Naorem Sanajaoba is a Professor and former Dean of Law Faculty at the Gauhati University, Asom.
The author is a Human Rights defender and a social activist in the NE region of India for more than 4 (four) decades and is a reknown author of several internationally distributed books on human rights, humanitarian laws, among others.
The author can be contacted at naorem06(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot)in or alternate email at
nsanajaoba(at)gmail(dot)com .
This article was first webcasted on September 20th, 2007.
|