Government of India must not profile the Muslim community

PRESS STATEMENT
14 July 007

Civil Society distressed at racial Profiling of Indian Muslims

Civil Society in India must be deeply distressed that our democratic Government admits to have started religious profiling of its own Muslim citizens in the wake of the bombings in the Untied Kingdom in which at least one Indian doctor is a prime suspect.
No activist or association working for Human Rights, Civil Liberties and Freedom of Faith issues condones terrorism, or the killing and maiming of civilians – or for that matter even of combatants – in bombings, shootouts, or attacks. It is because of this that we condemn landmines and booby traps as much as we do torture, custodial deaths and fake encounters.
We are also all of one accord that terrorism and terrorists can not be labeled by religion, caste, race or nationality, and at the end whatever motivates the killers, it is ordinary men, women and children who have nothing to do with the confrontation, who get killed. This has been the case all through.
Profiling of communities because of the actions of individuals is a shortcut that States take when their respect for their own people is overwhelmed by the colossal failure of their security forces. The worse case scenario is when governments and authorities in charge of security and police forces are themselves guilty of partisanship, bigotry and hate.
Christians have been victims of religious profiling in Gujarat for almost ten years now, and have borne the brunt of it under the chief ministership of Mr. Narendra Modi, a hero to a political ideology that feeds on hate. Sikhs suffered religious profiling for more than a decade through the Seventies and into the Nineteen hundred and Eighties. Muslims, whether we have the courage to accept it or not, have been victims of an informal, unofficial and latent profiling since Independence, and the absence of the community from the Intelligence Bureau, Raw, and till quite recently, from the higher echelons of the Army, are directly linked to this national aberration.
As is obvious, once it is given legitimacy, religious, caste and racial profiling spreads its tentacles far beyond the immediate police needs of surveillance. An entire community is stigmatized, its patriotism and nationalism tested and made suspect.
It is the worst in the case of stigmatizing of the religious minorities. No one, quite correctly, bothers about the religion of the armed militants of the ULFA or of the many terrorist groups of the North East. No one bothers about the religion of dacoits and the many thugs and gang-lords whose writ runs in large tracts of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.
I, personally, am deeply distressed that the Union Home Minister, Mr Shivraj Patil whose name was at the top of the list for the National Presidency, and the Prime Minister, himself the pride of the minority communities in India, should be so directly party to the decision to profile the Muslim community. And this even as lip service is paid to the plight of Indian Muslim doctors who may now find it difficult to get a visa to the UK. There is something morbid in the cynicism of senior bureaucrats who say there should be no surprise in Indians facing visa problems for has not India itself been denying visas to Pakistani and Bangladesh citizens. No remorse, so feeling for the human tragedy, no sense of guilt.
As the report by Laskshmi Iyer in Bombay and New Delhi newspapers chains said on 14 July 2007, officials `admitted that instructions have gone to states to keep track of the activities of the community.` Before the Glasgow case, it was enough to profile just those who attended madrasas and were members of fundamentalist groups. Now even those who have had liberal education are being profiled.
It is good that social and political leadership of the Muslim community has made clear in the words of Justice Sachchar Committee secretary and eminent economist Dr Abu Salah Sharief, the suspected bombers are individuals “whose actions cannot be a reflection of the entire community or the nation.”
The government of India must make it clear that it has not put the Muslim community under the microscope. It must, of course, also make sure that anyone who in due process of law is found guilty of conspiracies against the state and against the people will not be spared, whether he or she belongs to the majority community, or to the minority communities. The rule of law demands – and expects -- no less.