Rights violations

Right to speech and property must be protected

It is the government’s duty to protect the rights of its citizens. These include, but are not limited to, the rights to free expression and property. Recent events have demonstrated that the limits placed on these rights over decades by the state continue to lead to significant problems. Widely publicised statements by certain leaders then associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party about Prophet Muhammad caused outrage in Islamic communities. This outrage then led, in certain parts of India, to violence. The right to free expression includes the right to protest. But it does not include the right to violent protest. Indeed, violence in response to speech is correctly seen as infringing the right to free expression. The Indian state has long constrained free speech about religious issues precisely because it believes this will prevent violence. But history shows this is hardly the case.

Instead, the state should have spent this time propagating and enforcing a culture of tolerance and respect for the law. This is not, particularly at this moment, an issue unique to any one religion. Indeed, competitive offence-taking by religions has become a national phenomenon, to the detriment of every Indian’s rights. This could have been foreseen decades ago, when the right to free expression in the Constitution was abridged by amendment. The government’s response to violence should be firm, but also constrained by individual rights. Unfortunately, in some parts of the country today — particularly Uttar Pradesh — these rights are not being observed.

The summary demolition of the property of supposed rioters is unquestionably a violation of these rights, whatever dubious legal status it might have. The UP government has cited a “Gangster Act”, passed in the 1980s, and the more recent draconian National Security Act, to demolish property without a full public investigation or the usual burden of proof. Claims that such construction was illegal in the first place hardly hold water, given the vast proportion of Indian urban and semi-urban real estate violating one or the other bylaw. Some state governments have shown a penchant for collective or arbitrary punishment using such statutes, including the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, which has been strengthened by successive Union governments. Yet using bulldozers as the first tool of state action is a new low for the protection of the right to property in India.

The right to property, like the right to free expression, was enshrined in the Constitution and then weakened by short-sighted governments. Yet the right to property is essential for stable investment and growth. It is worth noting that even countries with authoritarian governments such China, where all land is technically owned by the state, have moved in the direction opposite to India’s in terms of the right to property in this period, with the right being written into the Constitution in 2004 and specific State Council guidelines protecting and limiting the powers of local authorities being issued in 2016. The relationship between such actions and investment security and returns was obvious to the leadership in Beijing but not to New Delhi. It is a basic truth that criminal activity should be punished after investigation and trial, and that property should not be expropriated by the state without clear requirements. A constant infringement of rights will make India a poorer country in terms of both economy and the quality of life.