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
I!
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Resul ts of research work done by odor AIPSG are reported in these
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Publisher's Note
The paper The State of Human Rights after the Cold
War: A 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 presup-
poses 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 funda-
mentally a phenomenon of human civilization. To put the
adjective human before the word right is of course redun-
dant, 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 ab-
sence. 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 illu-
sory, 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 be-
ings 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 repro-
duction of real life. The demand for a say emerges out of
the condition of socialization and leads to further socializa-
tion. 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 hu-
man 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 un-
dergo 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 revolu-
tion, 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 his-
tory 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 boun-
ties 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 inter-
acting 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 be-
tween individual pursuits and those of society. Unlike the
18th century French declaration, which starts from the pre-
cept 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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HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR 5
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 glorifi-
cation. 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 relation-
ship 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 admin-
istration, 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
6 HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR
the counsel is given that: "The subjects should arm them-
selves 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 protec-
tor 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 to-
wards 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 sup-
posed 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 ac-
tual 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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HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR 7
took the form of an imposition. They became transformed
from an instrument for human fulfillment to one for humili-
ation 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 pre-
cise, 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 what-
soever 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 elabora-
tion of rights, particularly the right to conscience, was peri-
odically 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 illustra-
tion, 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, espe-
cially 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
8 HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR
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 impor-
tant 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, put-
ting him behind bars in Bunna, where he died. His demand
that a people must decide for themselves what kind of sys-
tem 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 Brit-
ain, during the struggle against medievalism, the right to
conscience did not even go so far as its fonnal proclama-
tion, while in practice the rights of the landlords, the nobil-
ity 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
...
HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR 9
rising for winning the right in order to change the condi-
tions 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, Mis-
souri, 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 geo-
political 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 progres-
sive 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 under-
foot 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 else-
where in the past, the right to conscience is said to belong
10 HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR
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 formal-
ity. It has to be an integral, essential feature of the condi-
tions 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
HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR 11
the official conception of rights was expressed in the fa-
mous 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. None-
theless 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 limita-
tions. 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 seven-
teen articles the "right to resist oppression", merely ex-
pressing 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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12 HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR
"social differences can only be based on the general wel-
fare" , 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 dif-
ferences have only deepened and broadened from that pe-
riod 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 recoil-
ing 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-
HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR 13
mality, a sphere of declamation contests between enthusi-
asts 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 them-
selves 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 shed-
ding 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 seventy-
five 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 pos-
sessions 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. To-
day, in the United States and elsewhere, the financial mag-
nates 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 Decla-
ration would remain merely formal and have no real con-
tent. Rewriting many portions of the Geneva Draft which
14 HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR
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 realiza-
tion of the basic freedoms and human rights that it pro-
claimed. For example, they struck down a proposed amend-
ment 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 pro-
vided every opportunity for the right to conscience to as-
sume 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 attain-
ing 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.
HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR 15
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 administra-
tion and police authorities to do whatever they wish. Any-
body 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
16 HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR
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 inter-
preted in this or that way. It can only be interpreted through
the act of overthrowing that which causes oppression, con-
fuses 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 man-
date 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-
HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR 17
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 con-
ditions have worsened. It is not accidental that in the post-
Cold War period, the clash between authority and condi-
tions 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 author-
ity. At the same time, it would not do to propose that no
&.
18 HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR
authority can be changed, any more than it would do to say
that the right to conscience can be gained without over-
throwing 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 au-
thority. In either case, it is the authority which is increas-
ingly 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 de-
mands 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 contra-
dictory 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 over-
whelming that authority, to overcome that limitation. In
HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR 19
such a situation, the demand of the authority for unity and
territorial integrity would be in contempt of what the condi-
tions 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 author-
ity, 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, how-
ever, both are negligent or irresponsible towards the conse-
quences of their clash, then both would end up substituting
the right to conscience with the cult of anarchy and vio-
lence. 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 resis-
tance 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. Revenge-
seeking 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 com-
pletely 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 ac-
tions 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 all-
round assault on the mass of people and through their hu-
miliation, 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 vio-
lence 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 argu-
ment, 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
HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR 23
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 pro-
portions. 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 inte-
grally 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 na-
tional 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 backward-
ness, economic exploitation, poverty, cultural and social
disintegration. Finally, suppose that they call for renewal
and for the formation of a new state organized along na-
tional 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.
24 HUMAN RIGHTS AFTER THE COLD WAR
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 happen-
ing 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 au-
thority in Yugoslavia did not heed the people's right to
conscience nor the right of its member nations to se1f-
determination. It did not do its duty to its member republics
or to the people co-habiting within that federation. Yugo-
slavia 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 ameliora-
tion 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 con-
science, 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-
1
1
I.
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 inde-
pendence struggle in India from 1857 and before, is con-
vincingly showing that by depriving the people of the right
to conscience, authority is being turned into a cult and con-
ditions 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 spiri-
tual and social nature. Rights will be realized when author-
ity 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 Commu-
nism 1989-1991. He is also Chairman of the AIPSG Prepa-
ratory Committee which is organising the series of interna-
tional conferences, A Look at Indian Philosophy. Mr. Bains
is currently the President and Director of the Ideological
Studies Centre, Ottawa.
...
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