human rights after the cold war- hardial bains - may 1992

AIPSG Working Papers

' ..

The State of H'u;man "Rights After the Cold War

- A Theoretical and Political Treatment -

Hardial Bains

May 1992

Association of Indian Progressive Study Groups New York

The State of Human Rights after the Col d War

_ A Theoretical and Political Treatment -

by Hardial Bains

Chairman of the AIPSG Preparatory Committee on Indian Philosophy

May 1992

Based on the paper delivered by the author at the AIPSG Seminar on "Theoretical and Political Aspects

of the Struggle for Human Rights in India". St. Catherine's College, Oxford University

May 9, 1992

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Resul ts of research work done by odor AIPSG are reported in these working papers. They are preliminary and subject to revision and are being circulated to encourage discussion and comment. The working papers can be cited or quoted with full acknowledgement.

Publisher's Note

The paper The State of Human Rights after the Cold War: A Theor~tical and Political Treatment by Hardial Bains is the first of a series of Working Papers on philosophical, political, economic and other subjects. It is being presented in this form to facilitate a broad discussion among all those concerned about the direction of society at this time.

One of the aims of the AIPSG is to contribute towards the elaboration of theory aimed at the democratic solution of problems in India. Material contained in this working paper is a contribution in this direction.

We invite your comments, suggestions, proposals and other assistance in making this work a success.

V. Siddharth Secretary, AIPSG

New York May 19,1992

A right by definition is an act of being, whether the being is considered in the political, economic, social or any other sense. The fact that a right is even conceived presupposes both that it emanates from human beings and that, from the time of its conception, it will inescapably assume the form of a demand or a desire for fulfillment. Biological beings which do not possess human qualities are not in a position to either conceive or demand such rights. This is the case, for instance, with plants and animals, which derive such rights as they have (and which are then respected or violated) only in accordance with the rules and ethics of the social organization humans create. Thus a right is fundamentally a phenomenon of human civilization. To put the adjective human before the word right is of course redundant, but at the same time it shows what must be done to remind the powers-that-be that we are human beings and that we should be treated in a way which befits human beings. Only in this sense does the phrase human rights

2 HUMAN RIGHTS AFfER THE COLD WAR

mean anything. The coming into being of rights, by definition, also

presupposes that human civilization would have advanced to the point where all human beings take the existence of rights as immutable, as given, as second nature to them. Humans must have acquired the facility of abstracting absence. After this point, even though the content of what are considered "rights" necessarily changes - in conjunction with the greater complexity of social being - human society is neither willing nor capable of transcending the fact that if a right does not have in it the inherent demand that it must not be violated, it is either merely a phrase or merely illusory, something which appears only in words and stays there.

A distinction, therefore, has to be made between a right which exists only in words and a right which comes into being out of the conditions and which, in tum, determines the very fate of those conditions. For example, human beings are not only social in the way they acquire their living, but in all aspects of their life, they constitute a break with the animal condition. This break with animal existence -with the vagaries of nature - places a new, vital condition on all humans, the condition of being. This condition of being dictates at the present time that not only must all life be carried out on the basis of social production, but that human beings must have a say in the production and reproduction of real life. The demand for a say emerges out of the condition of socialization and leads to further socialization. No longer can what goes on in life be justified merely on the basis that this is the way it is. The condition of being demands that everything be judged on the basis of the ex-

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HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR 3

tent to which the conditions pennit the actualization of human rights.

The demand for a right is 'an expression of the extent to which the human personality has developed in relation to the conditions of the times. We have in mind the human personality as a genre, as the quality of its times, and not the "quality" of this or that "race". The conditions of life undergo change, development and motion, and they do so spontaneously. There then comes a time when this very spontaneity demands that, as a precondition for the human personality to remain in step, the conditions themselves must change. A new basis must be created for a new spontaneity, and it is in this way that the human personality has evolved over the millennia. This evolution can be traced through many radical breaks between what existed before and what came into being, and this process gave rise to one new quality after another. Such a phenomenon can be seen in both nature and society. Evolution presupposes revolution, and the evolution of the human personality or civilisation is an act of being which repeatedly invokes periods of revolution, periods of sudden changes with major consequences. The present period also has such a qUality.

RIGHTS AND DUTIES

Tracing the history of the right to conscience, we find that such a right arose at different times in different parts of the world. In India, the right to conscience has a long history and it has always been connected with the conditions of real life, with maya, a concept which includes everything belonging to nature and society in both time and space, and

4 HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR

aavaagaman, the coming into being and passing away, the mode of existence of maya. According to the ancient Indian view of rights, as well as according to the view which was predominant during the time of the Bhaktas, the conception of a right was integral to the performance of duty. One could not exist without the other. At the same time, neither rights nor duties could be thought of without the existence of society within maya. According to this view, rights and duties are not just rights and duties of an individual, but the rights and duties of an individual within society. The bounties of maya were to be expropriated for the benefit of all: sarve janah sukhino bhavantu ("Let all peoples become prosperous"). The Mahabharata uses the episode of the encounter between Arjuna and Chitrasena to illustrate this point. Elsewhere, Barbarika rebukes his grandfather, Bhima for thoughtlessly destroying trees and plants and for interacting with maya in an irresponsible way.

The conception of rights and duties comes up strictly within the context of maya, and there exists a synergy between individual pursuits and those of society. Unlike the 18th century French declaration, which starts from the precept of equality but ends up restricting rights by implicitly recognizing the desirability of social difference, the Rgvedic conception starts with an explicit recognition of difference and yet goes on to affirm equality:

"Two hands though equal make not what is equal, No sister cows yield milk in equal measure, Unequal is the strength even of twin children, The qualities of even kinsmen are unequal."

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Here, unequal kinsmen are kinsmen nevertheless and elsewhere, a good king was enjoined to be "virtuous like Varuna, desiring good for all and impartial when dispensing justice." Of course, in making this contrast, we are talking of two dissimilar societies at very different stages of development.

Furthermore, the king could not touch anyone who was doing her or his duty. For instance, the Rgveda does not include the conception of a ruler just for the sake of glorification. It does so primarily for the well-being of all, in a society where the elected head had no other right but to satisfy the needs of the people. Speaking about the relationship between the leader and the led, the Rgveda states:

"0 you leader of the Sabha, for our happiness and. comfort, stay away from that which is evil, destroy our enemies and those who are evil, to provide our stomachs with goodfood, learn all the sciences of war and administration, protect all the organs of army and civilians."

And:

"Just like the sun, from whose countenance clouds shiver with fear, the wise leader makes his enemies not his people shiver, such a wise leader achieves great happiness"

Should the elected head fail in this duty, he or she forfeited the right to rule. In the Anushasanparva of the Mahabharata, this conception is given a novel though violent twist when


the counsel is given that: "The subjects should arm themselves for killing that king who does not protect them, who simply plunders their riches, who confounds all distinctions, who is incapable of taking their lead and who is without mercy_ That king who tells his people that he is their protector but who does not or is unable to protect them should be killed by his subjects." Thus people are urged to perform the duty of doing away with adharma, and the adharma is revealed, in the first instance, as a violation of what the people ordinarily have the right to expect from the king and society. Throughout the history of Indian civilisation, there is no acceptance of the divine right of kings or of the rights of rulers, without strict obligations and responsibilities towards the ruled.

The free reign of speculation and inquiry during the Vedic and later-Vedic periods gave rise to many ideas. Along with the concept of maya and aavaagaman arose concepts such as maya-lessness, a form which was supposed to have given rise to maya, and samdhi, the state of being at the end of one phenomenon prior to the coming into being of the other, and these were entirely compatible with the right to conscience. Later, those who came to the positions of privilege used these concepts to assert their authority and invoked them merely to justify the conditions. The possession of knowledge itself was restricted and a long shadow was cast over the right to conscience. For many centuries after the Vedic period, the dyad of rights and duties began to get increasingly divorced from the actual condition of being, from maya, and, stripped of its vitality, began to assume a markedly rigid and archaic form. Once such a process set in, rights and duties very quickly

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took the form of an imposition. They became transformed from an instrument for human fulfillment to one for humiliation and debasement of the human personality. Dharma as a means becomes transformed into Dharma as an end. The conflation of rights and duties becomes transformed into the overwhelming of one by the other, where, to be more precise, authority has all the rights and no duties, while the victims of authority have only duties and no rights. Such an act of negation of rights is seen also where the supremacy of the caste system puts a block on the right to conscience and even, in many cases, the very right to life. Not only were (and are) a vast section of the population placed out of the bounds of consideration of society, but women as a whole were forcibly deprived of the right to any knowledge whatsoever and remain restricted and obstructed in various other ways to this day.

Historically speaking, the condition of being could not but remain in tension with this rigidity and a fresh elaboration of rights, particularly the right to conscience, was periodically attempted. The Bhaktas not only proclaimed their own right to conscience but also demanded this right for women and men regardless of their caste or social standing. In doing so, they once again fused the right to conscience with the very well-being of society. For the sake of illustration, just as the women and men of the Vedas could not do without the elements of nature and were fully versed in their use, so too they established rights according to the social conditions of the times. Those who followed them, especially during the time of the Bhaktas, all conceived rights from the standpoint that they were beings living in definite conditions. The same can be said of the patriots of 1857 and


of others whose condition of being never pennitted them to compromise with the British colonial authority. Indeed, the people of India gave themselves the right to independence because of their being as a people enslaved by the colonisers. The present rulers of India must not forget that the Indian people are justified in claiming their right to overthrow their conditions of oppression at the present time too. There is no going away from the act of being as the most important argument in favour of rights.

In the history of the right to conscience, no Indian can forget that when Bahadur Shah Zafar fought for the right of the Indians to choose the kind of system they wanted, the British crushed his insurgency and sent him into exile, putting him behind bars in Bunna, where he died. His demand that a people must decide for themselves what kind of system they want also finds its expression today in the work of the millions who do not accept state terrorism and all fonns of oppression and who demand to have a say in the affairs of the country. If one were to make a comparison, in Britain, during the struggle against medievalism, the right to conscience did not even go so far as its fonnal proclamation, while in practice the rights of the landlords, the nobility and the mercantile class found their expression in the elimination of the rights of all others. Such a thing is not possible in India, because an Indian never separates a right from the condition in which she or he lives. Fonnality does not fill anyone's stomach nor does it satisfy her or his longing to be free to choose the kind of economic and political system which would satisfy her or his aspiration. While in some countries the fight for the right to conscience is reduced to a mere fonnality, in India movements are

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rising for winning the right in order to change the conditions of oppression and backwardness.

GOING BEYOND THE LIMITATIONS

Over a period of fony years since the end of World War II, first the U.S. and then the Soviet Union raised their hand against the right to conscience. This right was held in such contempt that it was "granted" only on the basis of which camp an individual or a country belonged to. Following Winston Churchill's fonnal declaration of the Cold War in his Iron Cunain speech on March 5, 1946 in Fulton, Missouri, which put the right to conscience in utter disrepute in this period, U.S. President Harry S. Truman could make it a fact by calling upon the U.S. Congress to set aside millions of dollars to suppon the fascist forces in Greece. The aim was to ensure the defeat of the democratic struggle which was underway in Greece and thereby guarantee the geopolitical interests of the U.S. in that region. By this act, not only was Greece deprived of the right to self-detennination but the Greek people were also stripped of their right to conscience. In the late fifties and thereafter, the world was to witness the Soviet Union also defining what was progressive on the basis of whether the country, organization or individual in question was its friend or enemy. What has become quite clear, as the dust of the past few years settles, is that the right to conscience is again being trampled underfoot by the national interests of the big powers, as they once more attempt to redivide the world between their own spheres of influence. Today, as it was in the U.S., Britain and elsewhere in the past, the right to conscience is said to belong


only to those who are opposed to communism or who serve the interests of this or that power. In fact, such a right cannot be connected to this or that system but only to the act 0/ being. Does it exist in real life or not? Is it inviolable or not? The judgement has to be made on the basis of the merit of the thing itself and not on the basis of whether or not invoking the right would help this or that power or this or that system. The right to conscience must, a/ortiori, be a matter above such considerations. During this post-Cold War period, there is no need to issue an endless number of formal declarations. What is needed is to ensure that the right to conscience exists in/act and not as a mere formality. It has to be an integral, essential feature of the conditions in which people work and live and not a footnote which has no relevance to life.

Historically, rights have been conceived in different ways in different countries, but the content has always remained the same. This content pre-supposes that those who have the right to conscience are, by virtue of this fact, also free to make use of it as they see fit. In the European context, the period of the Renaissance brings us to the eve of modern times in this respect. Since that time, exercising the right to conscience has led to the overthrow of the conditions which block its realisation. Starting in Italy in the 1400's, and eventually spreading to all of Europe, royal power broke the feudal authority of the nobles and created the great national monarchies, within which were developed the new modern states and the new bourgeois society. Later, during the period of Enlightenment which preceded the French Revolution, the right to conscience was conceived from the precept that "all men are born equal", this at a time when


the official conception of rights was expressed in the famous declaration of Louis XIV: "L' Etat c' est moi" . A clash ensued between these two conceptions of rights and gave rise to the French Revolution which struck a heavy blow at the basis of the old feudal power. The well-known slogans of the revolution of "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" aroused people in Europe and North America and made them conscious of their rights within those conditions. Nonetheless these rights remained largely on paper, confined by the internal flaw of their conception. Rights conceived on the basis of a precept which merely proclaimed that "all men are born equal" but which did not try to eliminate the "social difference" were bound to remain unrealisable. Nor was the class which brought forth such a conception of rights interested in its embellishment. Once it acquired the political rights it had previously been denied, it failed to apply its slogans on a universal basis or without any kind of prejudice. It did not and could not go beyond these limitations. Until a class emerged in whose interest it was to do such a thing, the flaw in such a conception of the right to conscience and its limitation would remain.

For instance, the French Declaration of Rights proclaimed after the French Revolution, contained in the original seventeen articles the "right to resist oppression", merely expressing the will of those who had themselves risen against oppression. They actually wrote this clause with their deeds. But this "right to resist oppression" disappeared from the Declaration of Rights in the 1795 Constitution, meaning that those who had become the rulers did not want to give anyone else the "right to resist oppression". At the same time, the 1795 Declaration of Rights kept the clause that

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"social differences can only be based on the general welfare" , thereby providing the legal and juridical basis for the existence and continuation of "social differences". Such social differences were bound to transform themselves into open clashes, as had already occurred in 1789. This was the case in 1848 and again in 1871, with the Paris Commune, and many clashes have erupted since then. The social differences have only deepened and broadened from that period to the present and the right to conscience has remained a mere formality.

The ruling circles in Britain have played with the idea of the right to conscience for well over two hundred years, but they have never accepted it on face value. Their recoiling from a position of such vital importance can be seen in their promotion of the idea of "fair play" and "tolerance" as a substitute for the right to conscience. The universality of rights was reduced to depriving the people of the right to conscience, on the one hand, and giving favours, on the other. Ever since their new system, based on an alliance between the landlord class, the nobility and the mercantile class, began to take shape, the British ruling circles have had a strictly class definition of rights. In the opinion of Edmund Burke, British political theorist and member of parliament from 1766 to 1794, the right to conscience only belonged to the "historically evolved institutions" like the monarchy and the church, while the people were merely their "subjects". Burke mirrored what was happening in the sphere of that right at that time, and, to date, this is the state of the right to conscience in Britain. The monarchy, the church and parliament enjoy broad economic and political sanction, while the right to conscience remains a mere for-


mality, a sphere of declamation contests between enthusiasts who have no intention to see it realized in real life.

The American revolution, exalted by the possibilities of independence and the opportunities which presented themselves on such a grand scale in the new world, did not reject the British idea of rights. The fathers of independence did not let the right to conscience develop creatively, by shedding its formal trappings and turning its essence into the means for the revolutionary transformation of society. From Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence in 1776, to the Bill of Rights in 1791, when the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution were added under great pressure from the people, various rights were proclaimed; however, chattel-slavery was not abolished. Slavery, referred to as a "peculiar institution" was to remain intact for some seventyfive years after the proclamation of the Constitution, just as for its part, the French Constitution of 1791 stressed in a special article that "although the colonies and French possessions in Africa, Asia and America are part of the French empire, the Constitution aforesaid still does not extend to them." As a result of such limitations, the American war of independence never created a deep-going social revolution which could facilitate the flowering of human rights. Today, in the United States and elsewhere, the financial magnates rule with the support of the labour aristocracy and trample underfoot the rights of all others.

When the U.N. started work on a Declaration of Human Rights after World War II, the U.S., Britain, France and other countries exerted pressure so that the Universal Declaration would remain merely formal and have no real content. Rewriting many portions of the Geneva Draft which


Committee No.3 of the U.N. had prepared in 1947, the U.S. and other colonial powers ensured that the Declaration contained no measures which could facilitate the realization of the basic freedoms and human rights that it proclaimed. For example, they struck down a proposed amendment to Article 4 that "the state must ensure each person protection against criminal encroachments on his rights and provide the conditions preventing a threat of death from starvation and exhaustion."

The October Revolution in Russia, even though it provided every opportunity for the right to conscience to assume utmost importance in the lives of the people and society, eventually found its destruction in the inability to transcend the class conception which had become archaic and which had become merely a form through which new rising exploiting classes could fight to put the people down. Claims about the leading role of the working class and the truth of Marxism-Leninism were used to justify the building of an industrial and military complex for the conquering of the world. When time was ripe for the society to enshrine human rights, there arose those who took the road of attaining their own ambitions. The phrases remained, but the conception of rights began to serve the exploiting classes which had begun to resurface.

Today, in this post-Cold War period, the very act of being, whether of a nation, a collective or an individual, presupposes that they must have rights. From the realm of mere conceptions, a mere formality, the demand has come down to earth, it is fuelling the conflict between those for whom a right is a mere formality and those who are not satisfied with such an offering singularly devoid of content.


The end of the Cold War has itself brought forth a stonn which will only grow even more tempestuous, until the demand for human rights is fulfilled. Cold War camouflage pushed to the side that which was fighting to come to the fore: the right to conscience of all women and men. This camouflage has now been tom asunder. It comes as no surprise to hear from all comers of the earth the clamour of voices which are demanding their rights.

CLASH BETWEEN AUTHORITY AND CONDITION

The end of the Cold War has opened the path for the momentous development of the movement for human rights, but it is not a one-sided development without any obstacle or opposition. At the present time, the abuse of human rights in the hands of the ruling circles in various countries has degenerated to the extent that there no longer seem to be any rights which are inviolable. An example of such abuse is the Terrorism and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) in India. Under this act, anyone's right can be taken away. This, however, is not the only thing wrong with it. The existence of such a law encourages the administration and police authorities to do whatever they wish. Anybody who challenges them could be detained under T ADA. It has happened in the case of Justice Ajit Singh Bains. The act of being of the Indian government is taken to be a license to pass any laws and demand that everyone comply. Nothing else need be argued. Such a definition of a right is reminiscent of medieval times: when the kings and feudal lords of Europe justified their power because of their act of being sanctioned from divine right. More importantly, such


a definition of rights holds in utter contempt the women and men who elaborated the right to conscience in India. The Indian state has usurped all the rights in the style of a European state, but it has forgotten about its duty. Such a rendering of political power negates all that Indians have given rise to over the millennia as regards the right to conscience and prosperity of all. Such an authority can make a decision and justify it simply on the grounds of its being, without having any interest in fulfilling its duty. This is why the people are also justified in overthrowing such an authority as an act of their being, the carrying out of their duty. According to the historically developed Indian view, conscience has a profound meaning which cannot be interpreted in this or that way. It can only be interpreted through the act of overthrowing that which causes oppression, confuses the mind, and stifles human initiative. For instance, the poor and the unemployed exist, and it is because they are poor and unemployed that they are demanding their rights. They are demanding the right to get out of their condition of being poor and unemployed. If we look at it from the idea of conscience as it developed in India, it is their duty to do such a thing. In the same way, when women demand to get out of their condition of being discriminated against and humiliated, they are also doing their duty to society. Various governments and international bodies such as the Security Council of the United Nations Organization are, in a manner of speaking, justifying their decisions by asserting their right to take them on the basis of their mandate and are neglecting their duty, and the peoples are doing their duty by demanding their rights on account of their conditions of life. They are doing their duty by c1aim-


ing their rights from the act of being in a definite condition; they want to overcome that condition. A clash between the act of being, Authority, which refuses'to do its duty, and the act of being, Condition, which is demanding that the people do their duty, is the order of the day. No authority can justify its neglect of duty without having the conditions back it up. In this respect, the act of being of the condition has assumed the primary position over the formalities and abstractions used as justifications by various authorities. When authorities do such a thing, the right to conscience is violated.

However, to divert attention from the fact that various authorities are not discharging their obligations, there is an attempt to confine the demand for human rights to the forms which suit these authorities. The resurgence of the demand for human rights is still being curtailed by the same bodies which evoked the defence of human rights for their own ends during the Cold War period. Many examples can be given of this, but one thing is clear: the end of the Cold War did not abolish the conditions which violated human rights. On the contrary, such violations have increased as the conditions have worsened. It is not accidental that in the postCold War period, the clash between authority and conditions has become the most salient feature. This is so because people are seeking to abolish the conditions which give rise to violations of human rights in the first place. They want to protect their right to conscience and use the content of their conscience to improve their condition of being.

It would not be helpful to suggest that the cause of the right to conscience would be served by opposing all authority. At the same time, it would not do to propose that no

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authority can be changed, any more than it would do to say that the right to conscience can be gained without overthrowing those conditions which obstruct it. What has to be stressed is that either the authority must bring about changes in the conditions, that is to shoulder its responsibilities so as to favour the right to conscience, or the conditions will continue to deteriorate until the people tenninate the authority. In either case, it is the authority which is increasingly coming under fire and it is the conditions which are more and more crying out to be changed and an increasing number of people are coming forward to take up their duty. This is the content of the struggle for human rights in the post-Cold War period. As time passes, the form these demands for human rights will assume, in order to express their essence, will become increasingly clear. These forms will vary, but in every instance they will reflect the contradictory process posed by the clash between the claims of authority and the demands of the conditions.

AUTHORITY AND THE DEROGATION OF DUTY

At this stage, it will be beneficial to take the example of those states which have one or more nations within their territories. When such states demand that the unity and territorial integrity of their countries be placed above every other consideration, such a demand could itself very well negate the right to conscience and curtail human rights in such a manner as to prohibit the people of that state from renewing their society. Such a demand could very well leave the people no recourse but to do their duty by overwhelming that authority, to overcome that limitation. In


such a situation, the demand of the authority for unity and territorial integrity would be in contempt of what the conditions within that territory are telling the people need be done. Such an authority may justify itself because it is a being, but the conditions do not recognize such an authority. It obviously points to a clash between what an authority wants and what the conditions tell the people to do. Of course, the right to conscience under such circumstances would not only lead to the end of the clash between what an authority wants and the demand which conditions give rise to, but it would also end the anarchy and violence which feeds on such a clash.

Take yet another example in which two diametrically opposed forces have come into being in many parts of India. These opposing forces have arisen within the Indian Union which was negotiated with Britain leading to partition and transfer of power in 1947, and which was later consolidated according to the Constitution adopted on January 26, 1950. Why would two diametrically opposed forces come into being in such a Union? Why would one force want to take advantage of this Indian Union while the others see no future in this kind of Union? Could it be that successive Indian governments have been derelict in their duty and that various peoples are dissatisfied with the conditions this Union has placed them in? Could it also be that something is inherently wrong with what was negotiated in 1947 or with what was contained in the Constitution adopted in 1950? Such questions have to be answered because a situation exists where two opposing forces have come into being. What is the explanation for this? The two forces, speaking generally, are getting increasingly demarcated into two hos-

20 HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR ---tile, irreconcilable, antagonistic camps. One has the authority, that is state power, while the other has the power of resistance. The champions of authority justify their actions merely on the basis that they have power vested in them, while those who have the power of resistance justify their actions on the basis that the conditions demand it. If, however, both are negligent or irresponsible towards the consequences of their clash, then both would end up substituting the right to conscience with the cult of anarchy and violence. What is required under such circumstances is for the champions of human rights to hoist the banner of the right to conscience. By definition, they have to be a politically unifying force which means that they cannot accept just any kind of politics or just one kind of ideology. Such a force has to reject any narrow views and has to work out an immediate platform and call for everyone to rally around it. It will have to carry out its own mobilization, going to both authority and resistance and pointing out to them that the broad-scale destruction of society cannot be tolerated. It will have to emerge as a political force quite different from the forces which are in combat. This means that while it openly sympathises with the victims of authority, it cannot accept that the resistance be so blind as to respond to the anarchy and violence engendered by authority with its own contribution to the same. The resistance has to outwit the authority and strive to end anarchy and violence. When a broad struggle against state terrorism develops, then resistance must not lose its focus. It must organize everyone who is opposed to state and individual acts of terrorism. Resistance can only be true to itself if it vigorously opposes any violence against anyone because of their ideological

HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR 21 -----------------and political stances. No force can simply delineate its programme and then, on the basis of it, fight everyone else. Delineation is necessary but this demarcation line, that boundary, has already been drawn by the act of being of authority and by the act of being of conditions.

The right to conscience is a political and ideological question since its denial is clearly a political act. Revengeseeking is not a political attitude. The cult of violence which the state practices is not a political attitude either. When the state carries out terrorism, then this shows that it has completely given up the political attitude. When the resistance also gives up the political attitude, then it stoops down to the level of the state and it is high time that the champions of the right to conscience intervene in such a situation. Unfortunately, as the authority gets increasingly discredited, it more and more resorts to unleashing anarchy and violence to prolong its life. The response to state terrorism and all individual acts of terrorism cannot be any form of terrorism. Those who champion the right to conscience know this all too well. It is only a political attitude which gives initiative and which creates the conditions for unity.

A vicious circle can be created, as it can be seen in various countries in this post-Cold War period. Many states, not just the U.S. and the state of Israel, South Africa or Britain or India, justify their own terrorism on the basis of the claim that some other force is terrorist. More often than not in such cases, it is the authority which continuously creates a condition for individual acts of terrorism. It even finances such acts of terror and then uses them as a pretext to justify state terrorism, as all the evidence about the actions of the state-organized "Third Force" in South Africa

22 HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR -~---~-

indicates. When a government claims to combat anarchy and violence through the massive use of force, by an allround assault on the mass of people and through their humiliation, it is not beyond belief that such a government may have created that anarchy and violence in the first place. Otherwise, it is not possible to have such a broad assault on the peoples as is taking place in various parts of the world today. Of course, such a government never stops claiming that it is innocent of any wrong-doing and that everything which is being done is for the well-being of the entire people and humanity. But the very act of being, the very existence of anarchy and violence, refutes such a claim. It is not difficult under such circumstances to retort that if such a government were fighting for the interests of the people, and were actually doing its duty, anarchy and violence would not take over. This is because the people, who despise anarchy and violence above all else, since they are the ones who suffer from it the most, would certainly side with such a government. Failing this, then, the only argument, the one which is justified by the conditions, takes over. The act of being is a far more convincing proof of the state of affairs in any society, even if billions of dollars are spent to cover it up. The act of being is what has to prevail. The act of being of conditions overrides any claims of authority.

RENEWAL AND DISINTEGRATION

During the period of the Cold War, both sides justified their stands according to their interests. Such a justification, it seems, has now been transformed into the even more


violent clash between the interests of the U.S., Japan and Germany and others, which is increasingly coming to the fore. There are clashes between what is justified by the authority and what is being demanded by the conditions. As a result, the call for the restoration of human rights and opposition to their violation is assuming even broader proportions. How should those who become the victims of the authority because of their being, because of their conditions which put them in a clash with the authority, justify the defence of their human rights? Should they do so because "all men are born equal", or on the basis of ideological and political pluralism, or because one class will guarantee the rights of its members over another? Should they do so on the basis of their right to conscience which includes integrally their duty to society, or should they justify their stand by claiming to be on the side of the U.S. or Germany or Japan or some other country? Take, for instance, the people of a nation within a state which is established beyond national lines as in the case of the British state. Suppose that such a state negates the rights of a nation which exists within it and that people of that nation feel that the state is oppressing their nation and is the cause of their backwardness, economic exploitation, poverty, cultural and social disintegration. Finally, suppose that they call for renewal and for the formation of a new state organized along national lines, following which the member nations, on the basis of an agreement, form an equal union. Clearly, those who demand such a thing claim that a renewal is necessary in Britain, as elsewhere, but the authorities may interpret such a demand for renewal, such a plan where new states are created on the basis of the rights of all, to be seditious.


They may then begin to take away the rights which people have and unleash violence and anarchy to crush the struggle. Imagine that, on one hand, the people are persecuted in a broad way and, on the other hand, some international power or powers take advantage of the situation and begin to finance anarchy and violence. It is the cause of the people of all lands, their right to conscience, their human rights, which would be the first casualty. Such things are happening in various parts of the world. Yugoslavia is a case in point, but it is not the only one. The Yugoslav federation disintegrated in a matter of a few months because the authority in Yugoslavia did not heed the people's right to conscience nor the right of its member nations to se1fdetermination. It did not do its duty to its member republics or to the people co-habiting within that federation. Yugoslavia opted for disintegration but not for renewal. This could not but be used by those foreign powers which had an interest in breaking up this federation.

My thesis is that if vigilance about these fundamental questions like the right to conscience is not kept, the end of the Cold War, far from leading to renewal, will take us hundreds of years back. This will be a great tragedy and a setback for the struggle for human rights, for the amelioration of the human personality and dignity. Worse still, it would mean the physical extermination of hundreds and thousands of people in various regions of the world and a broad-scale devastation. Whether or not the right to conscience, which is sometimes presented as merely a demand in the constitutional and juridical sphere, exists in real life, will actually determine whether a people live or die. It is the fundamental question of our time, along with matters re-

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HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR 25 ~------

lated to the nature of a state, its fonn of organization and the economic system. It is at a par with these, and it actually overrides them in its importance.

To conclude, it can be seen that the developments on the world-scale and in India point to the need for renewal but this cannot take place without the right to conscience. This must be stressed at this time because the experience of the past forty years since the war, and the history of the independence struggle in India from 1857 and before, is convincingly showing that by depriving the people of the right to conscience, authority is being turned into a cult and conditions are being worshipped as final and immutable.

When everything is said and done, rights can only find their concretization in the solution of the problems facing a modern society, be they related to the economic well-being of the people or to the peace and hannony between peoples within a nation or between nations, or to matters of a spiritual and social nature. Rights will be realized when authority changes the conditions in favour of the people and the people carry out their duty by ensuring that authorities do such a thing. People can perfonn their duty only if they have the right to conscience. This struggle, then, is the fulcrum on which the uplifting of the world and its renewal rests.

About the Author

Hardial Bains is the National Leader of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) and author of many books, including Call of the Martyrs: On the Crisis in India and the Present Situation in the Punjab (1985) and Communism 1989-1991. He is also Chairman of the AIPSG Preparatory Committee which is organising the series of international conferences, A Look at Indian Philosophy. Mr. Bains is currently the President and Director of the Ideological Studies Centre, Ottawa.

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