Hindi - People's watch

2010 ANNI Report on the
Performance and Establishment
of National Human Rights
Institutions in Asia
The Asian NGOs Network on
National Human Rights Institutions (ANNI)
Originally compiled and printed by
Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA)
Now Printed
On behalf of
The All India Network of Individuals and Organizations working with NHRIs (AiNNI)
by
People’s Watch
6, Vallabhai Road, Madurai-625002, Tamil Nadu, India.
Phone: + 91-452-2539520, 2531874 Fax: + 91-452-2531874
Email: info@pwtn.org Website: www.pwtn.org

PREFACE
People’s Watch, as the Secretariat of the All India Network of Individuals and Organisations
working with National Human Rights Institutions (AiNNI), has the pleasure of reproducing
for the benefit of the Indian audience, relevant portions of the ANNI report 2010 on the
performance of National Human Rights Institutions in Asia. People’s Watch has had the
privilege of not only its Executive Director serving as a Member of the National Core Group
on NGOs of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India since the year 2001
till now but has also had the opportunity of working very closely with the NHRC of India
by preferring several complaints right from the year 1998 till today. This had resulted in
People’s Watch’s first publication focused on the functioning of the NHRC, titled “Hope to
Despair” (2006). It is thereafter that People’s Watch further had the privilege of becoming a
member of the Asian NGOs Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ANNI) and
effectively contributing to the 2007, 2008, 2009 and now 2010 ANNI reports. This association
with ANNI, coupled with People’s Watch’s own work with thousands of training programs,
since its inception in 1995, across the length and breadth of this vast country, its innumerable
publications in relation to creating awareness of the National Human Rights Commission
of India, its powers, functions, achievements and challenges has provided it the special
opportunity of appreciating Paris Principles of 1991 and their interpretation and expansion
until June, 2009.
ANNI has also helped People’s Watch to understand the urgency of creating a critical
mass of individuals and organisations within the country to engage in a very close monitoring
of the National Human Rights Institutions within the country, in particular the NHRC of
India. It is this engagement of creating this critical mass in the year 2009 - 2010 that has led
to the formation of the AiNNI.
2010 is a critical year in the history of the NHRC of India since the NHRC will in the first
quarter of 2011 be submitting itself for re-accreditation before the Sub-Committee of
Accreditation of the International Coordination Committee on National Human Rights
Institutions in Geneva. This perhaps will be the first time therefore that all Civil Society
Organisations and leaders of the Civil Liberties and Human Rights Movement in India will
together be mobilised and engaged in preparing a shadow report on the performance of the
NHRC of India to be submitted at the time of its re-accreditation by the ICC.
In order to lead to this process in truly participatory manner, the AiNNI is therefore
pleased this year to reproduce the original overview as well as the chapter in relation to the
NHRC of India in Hindi and English. We hope we would be able to do it in Tamil,
Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu and a few more languages if possible. While doing so AiNNI

would like to make it clear that there cannot be any other Institution more relevant today
for the actual protection and promotion of human rights in India than a body like NHRC
which however has outlived the Protection of Human Rights Act of 1993 and therefore
deserves a completely new, vibrant, powerful legislation to provide it the wherewithal to live
up to the General Observations of the ICC to the Paris Principles of June 2009. Therefore,
the criticisms contained in the book arise out of the passion of AiNNI to perform this role
and to ensure that India is able to hold its head high among other Nations within and
outside Asia. The challenges of an Institution moving from 400 complaints a year in 1993 to
400 complaints a day in 2010 is daunting to say the least and this calls for a complete
overhaul of the Institution, its composition as well as its staffing pattern to ensure its
independence, accessibility, effectiveness and accountability to the society. AiNNI humbly
therefore places this publication, hoping that this will lead to a process of major change in
the NHRC - A change is that is long overdue. Let not the reader mistake the criticisms
contained in this book which are perhaps hard to stomach, to wrongly point out that they
are targeted at individuals. On the contrary, they are pointed to make sure the Government
and the Parliamentarians of this country come to the rescue of the NHRC and provide it a
complete overhaul to live up to the human rights challenges of India in 2011.
I hope this will also lead to many more reports by collectives of Civil Society Organisations
and AiNNI members in the different States about the performance and establishment of
State Human Rights Institutions in India in the different States.
Henri Tiphagne
National Coordinator - AiNNI
and
Executive Director, People’s Watch

Yap Swee Seng
Executive Director
FORUM-ASIA