Book of Integration Council New - Ministry of Home Affairs

are completely ruined. An entire community cannot be put to ransom for the
misdemeanors of some of its members.
Now, I shall concentrate on the most significant and the most worrisome of our
findings derived out of National Commission for Minorities’ visit to riot torn areas in the
country. The minorities especially Muslims and Christians are very rapidly losing trust
in political parties, the Executives, the bureaucracy, the police, the judiciary and the
media. They virtually see no hope on the horizon. Their sense of frustration and
disenchantment is growing day by day. There is a need to understand the reasons
behind this.
In the eyes of minorities, it is in the very nature of some political parties and their
affiliates to cast aspersions on their patriotism, harp on the so-called foreignness of their
faith and castigate them for their refusal to be part of the so-called mainstream Indian
culture.
The minorities are also not happy or satisfied with political parties who claim to
uphold the secular nature of the polity. The minorities argue that secular forces lack the
courage to tackle communal elements head-on. And this includes communal elements in
the minority communities as well. Indeed, conservative figures are accorded importance
on the baseless assumption that they are the true representatives of the followers of their
faith.
The police force is also under severe criticism. We cannot dismiss this criticism
simply on the pretext that such criticism will hit the morale of the police force. We have
to accept the reality. Minority communities youths are picked up at random as suspects,
put behind bars without any legal assistance. These youths are subjected to third degree
methods. They are made to confess under duress. Kept behind bars for years. The
trials for their cases drag on and on.
Various Commissions set up to enquire into communal violence take an inordinate
amount of time to submit their reports. Governments routinely ignore their
recommendations. Convictions of non-Muslim and non-Christian accused are almost
negligible. On the other hand the conviction of Muslim accused is not only very fast but
also given wide coverage by the print and electronic media. Muslim accused are paraded
and produced before court and media with their religious cloth wrapped on their faces
making the religious cloth an identity brand for criminals and terrorists. While recalling
the stories of Commissions and shelving of their reports in the cold storage, I would like
to point out towards the tale of two Commissions set up to enquire into Gujarat riots,
namely, Nanavati Commission and Justice U.C. Banerjee Commission. The two
commissions have arrived at completely contradictory conclusions. How this Commission
therapy can be relied upon by the Minorities in the present circumstances?
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