Mr. Louise GUILLANTON, Chargée du Prix des Droits de l’homme writes to PVCHR, “La Commission nationale consultative des droits de l’homme (CNCDH) a l’honneur de vous annoncer que la candidature de M. Lenin Raghuvanshi a été retenue par les membres du Jury au titre de « mention spéciale» pour l’édition 2018 du Prix des droits de l’homme de la République française portant sur le thème des « défenseurs des droits ».Nous souhaitions vivement vous féliciter pour l’action de terrain que vous menez au service de la reconnaissance des droits des Dalits en Inde et ainsi reconnaître pleinement votre rôle de défenseur des droits. Ainsi, vous serez invitée par l’ambassadeur de France en Inde à compter du 10 décembre 2018, à la faveur de la cérémonie de remise de prix, au cours de laquelle vous recevrez votre médaille ainsi que votre certificat. Veuillez recevoir l’expression de notre plus haute considération, (The National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH) is pleased to announce that the nomination Mr. Lenin Raghuvanshi has been selected by the Jury members under “special mention” for the 2018 edition of the Prize for Human Rights of the French Republic on the theme of “human rights defenders”. We wanted to congratulate you warmly for field work you are doing in the service of recognizing the rights of the Dalits in India and thus fully recognize your role as advocate. Thus, you will be invited by the Ambassador of France in India as of December 10, 2018, thanks to the awards ceremony, during which you will receive your medal and your certificate.”)
Raghuvanshi said, “the award cannot be seen as a recognition of his individual efforts, but for the collective work in defending human rights he had been part of with like-minded activists and survivors of human rights violation in India and South Asia. It is honour of a fight against Caste system which is one of main reasons of fascism in South Asia.”
This Prize, created in 1988, is awarded in recognition and support for the completion of individual or collective projects carried out in the field, in France or abroad, regardless of nationality or borders, working to promote and protect human rights. In 2018, the year marking the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 20th anniversary of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights chose to honour personalities and the organizations renowned in their country, for the defense and the promotion of human rights, particularly those that are harassed or persecuted for these reasons.
Lenin Raghuvanshi[i] is icon for courageous resist to end the use of hegemonic masculinity based on patriarchy and caste system as a cause of war, conflict, fascism and armed conflict in South Asia. He has made a crucial contribution to focusing on fascism, conflict and war crime alike situations in society, and combating them simultaneously. Lenin Raghuvanshi has devoted his life to defending survivors of fascism. His organization, People’s Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR) is the platform for survivors who tell of the abuses perpetrated against them. In their testimonial depositions, every survivor has helped to give greater visibility to organized violence and torture of hegemonic masculinity, and ultimately providing the necessary voice with the help of which perpetrators can be held accountable for their actions.[ii]
Raghuvanshi has spent a large part of his life helping the survivors of hegemonic masculinity in India. Since the establishment of PVCHR in Varanasi in 1996, Lenin Raghuvanshi, his staffs, associates and volunteers have supported thousands of survivors who have fallen victim to assaults of Hindutva driven Fascism. Most of such abuses and assaults have been committed in the context of a long-lasting conflicts based on majoritarian politics, patriarchy and caste system that has cost the lives of more than 250 million people worldwide, and more such people still face appalling and dehumanizing discrimination based on caste and similar systems of inherited status, warned the United Nations expert on minority issues while presenting finding to the UN Human Rights Council[iii].
The European Parliament (EP), consisting 28-member countries of EU, has recognized caste-based discrimination as a human rights violation and adopted a resolution condemning it and urging European Union institutions to address it. Acknowledging that caste-affected communities that are still subjected to ‘untouchability practices’ in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, the October 10 resolution stressed the need to combat discrimination based on work and descent, which occurs also in Yemen, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal and Somalia[iv].
Born in India, Dr. Lenin Raghuvanshi is strongly convinced that discrimination based on caste system and patriarchy must be completely eliminated. Inspired by Indian spiritual leaders, he is on the forefront of a new social movement rooted in human dignity, the “Neo-Dalit”[v], which is expanding in and out of India. His leadership comes from his experience as co-founder of PCVHR. This non-violent organization aims at resolving discrimination and bonded labor problems rooted in caste systems and marginalized communities especially Dalits (Untouchables in the Indian caste system) and Tribals. Graduate in Ayurveda, modern medicine and surgery, Dr. Raghuvanshi is dedicated to social and economic justice since the age of 23, as he was President of Uttar Pradesh section of the United Nations Youth Organization. His clear vision is building hope and trust in a better future.
All in all, there are many lessons to be taken from Raghuvanshi’s incredible and arduous journey. Here is a man, who finds fulfillment in the ascension of those below him. Through his persistent and innovative efforts towards the rehabilitation of the Dalits, he has proved and reminded us of how far reform is possible when passionate about it. His convictions shine-through like a lighthouse on a foggy ocean night, and those on the sinking boats of unjust discrimination row towards him with the greatest hope. He showers them with a compassion that is long overdue. Lenin Raghuvanshi is one of the Caste System’s greatest nemeses and is one of Society’s Downtrodden’s most dynamic champions and we can all take a humane leap from his book[vi].
India has one of the highest GDP rates in the world. As a ‘developing economy’ in a global place, the country tries more and more to penetrate itself in the international market for goods and capital. Such amazing economic growth accompanied by the established democracy seems to have made India as a paradise under construction. But this lovely frontage is hiding many inappropriate practices such as poverty, brutality, destruction of nature and emerging corporate fascism.
We know that Indian economic policy as a conversion to the neo-liberalism religion with a brutal ‘shut up’ ritualization. On one hand, politicians see India as one rich reservoir of natural resources. They allow big corporations to rape nature and destroy the sensitive ecosystem which allows the rural people to breathe and live; similarly, on the other hand, the politicians sell the entire national key infrastructure – such as water, electricity, health, telecommunication, transport, education, natural resources – to private corporates in order to make money through corrupt practices. This privatization process of the state and land is also strongly encouraged by neo-liberalist global institutions – such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund etc.
In order to achieve their vested priorities, the authoritarian political leadership, more often than not, resort to violent measures through the state machinery and any opposition is severely dealt with. Police use torture, the army is deployed against defending citizens and human rights are violated. The Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) and Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) are used much against the dissenting people who attempt to peacefully criticise these policies than the terrorists or to maintain law and order at the disturbed territories. During the time, other legal texts are enacted to protect and attract multinational companies to provide them fiscal and legal advantages on a very broad definition of what we call the ‘free market’– as the Nuclear Civil Liability Bill which limits liabilities of Transnational companies (TNC) for nuclear industrial disaster.
By this, Indian politicians try to create a good ‘investment climate’ for big corporations, allowing them to play their dangerous economic game with all the rights and without, however, any duties. India, therefore, becomes the favourite destination for TNCs and a daily nightmare for rural and urban workers. Furthermore, we should understand that this situation is dangerous, not only because this seems to foreshadow the establishment of an authoritarian regime which allows brutal political repression with impunity, but also because this political impunity is put in place alongside with the implementation of an economic policy of corporate impunity.
But this political and economic culture of impunity cannot only be fully understood by the opening of Indian market to the international one or by the corruptive practices that plague public and private institutions. Behind those external factors, there is a cognitive reason which is also important to understand. I want to talk about the caste system now.
Indian society has lived for hundreds of years on a strict and rigid social hierarchy based on the Brahminical stream within Hinduism. The caste system – which so many people see wrongly as the concomitant to Hinduism – is a social organisation of society which allows upper caste to do whatever they want – including mental and physical torture to lower castes and women who are considered as inferior. They have to just accept this supremacy theoretically claimed to be founded by God but in reality exercised to implement an unequal political regime. This belief created a cognitive complex of inferiority and superiority – for the lower and the upper castes respectively – which allowed implementation of a national culture of caste and social impunity which is perpetuated by a culture of silence created by fear, pain and lack of self-esteem of the hapless lower castes.
The story, however, does not stop here since all those “cultures of impunity” which allow a minority group to govern and exploit the majority of the people can be partly questioned in protest movements by the civil society organisations, who want to reverse this cognitive and social pyramid or, at least, flatten it. For those reasons, power holders use several means to divide the majority of lower castes through communitarianism hatred – and ensure their freedom of act as leaders – by enacting draconian laws to “protect” people from communitarianism terrorism act that they contribute for creating themselves.
So, political impunity and economic impunity are two sides of the same social impunity coin. Social activists and lower castes, who want to defend their rights and critics of the system, are very often assault by both the police and the army without any respect for humanity in the era of neo-liberalism which allows upper castes and big corporations to make profit with all impunity since people are fighting each other on religious issues or they do not dare to attack the Brahminical power.
In this division process, those who try to retain their power usually resort to classical methods to conserve their social position. They know that hate calls for hate, a universal law. And when government begins to feed communal hatred among their own citizens and practice authoritarian political repression, it can be qualified it as a ‘neo-fascist’ state because it implants a national culture of hatred against difference, and love – or at least blind respect – for authority.
Does this simply mean that few political leaders have the interest to create divisions on society in order to conserve their power? Or maybe just that the true aim of the Hindutva project is to divide people with a view to allowing traditional power holder–upper castes–to keep ruling the country and keep running their business easily with the economic leaders? Or just that those who promote genocide and mass-killing can do it with impunity and that there would be actually rewards for this?
Actually, this example highlights well that neo-fascism and authoritarian Hindutva project which feed communal hatred and divide the poorest majority of the society is also promoted by economic leaders to hide the implementation of an economic policy of impunity which is supposed to make India an attractive country for foreign investments simultaneously enriching both the political and economic leaders in clandestine ways.
We can say that all those political repression, police torture, bureaucratic corruption, economic exploitation and rigid hierarchy of social domination result in implantation of those social, political and economic cognitive cultures of impunity such as “the dangerous cross-currents of neo-liberal capitalism and communal neo-fascism” as much by the actors of cognition than by the contextual factors[vii].
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) believes in the philosophy of Hitler[viii], and idea of Manusmriti as supermen based on caste system and patriarchy[ix]. After the election of 2014, regressive forces are systematically dismantling each one of the institutions that have led us to commanding heights, by undermining the radical welfare architecture that was laid down over the last 70 years, and by destroying the pluralistic fabric of India. This poses a grave threat to India’s inclusive conception of policy and citizenship. “A society where emotions don’t exist is bound to be ruthless. It’s bound to be dangerous. In my experience, a society that doesn’t love women, resorts to violence, conflict and war,” says Lenin Raghuvanshi[x].
Dr. Raghuvanshi is the foremost, most unifying symbol, both nationally and internationally, of the struggle to end war and armed conflicts of RSS. His basic principle is that “peace without justice is culture of silence based on impunity, which is base of negative conflict and war”. Men and women and local, national and international authorities alike all have a shared responsibility for reporting, and combating, this type of crime of fascism. He has repeatedly condemned impunity for fascism and criticised the Indian government as well as other countries for not doing enough to stop the use of tool of fascism as a strategy and weapon of war.
The “United Nations” had been the official name for the coalition fighting the axis powers since January 1942, when Roosevelt and Churchill had led twenty-six nations, including the Soviet Union and China, in a “Declaration by United Nations”. The declaration committed the twenty-six not to cut separate peace deals with the Nazis and to subscribe to the principles of the Atlantic Charter for the post-war world. The Charter provided the political basis for countering Nazi ideology[xi].
Lenin Raghuvanshi has put his personal security at risk by courageously combating crimes of fascism and seeking justice for the victims. He rightly says, “Human security based on inclusiveness and justice is one of main factors for foundation of sustainable peace based on resilience and humane relationship.[xii]”
[i] https://www.thebetterindia.com/60607/lenin-raghuvanshi-people-vigilance-committee-on-human-rights/
https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2017/06/lenin-raghuvanshi-a-radical-social-worker-with-a-laptop-bag/
[ii] https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498541947/Identity-Rights-and-Awareness-Anticaste-Activism-in-India-and-the-Awakening-of-Justice-through-Discursive-Practices
[iii] https://news.un.org/en/story/2016/03/525012-caste-systems-violate-human-rights-millions-worldwide-new-un-expert-report
[iv] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P7-TA-2013-0420+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN
European Parliament resolution of 10 October 2013 on caste-based discrimination (2013/2676(RSP)
[v] https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2018/08/justice-shall-prevail-not-revenge/
[vi] https://deedindeed.org/health/tireless-service-to-humanity
[vii] https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2017/12/can-the-neo-dalit-movement-eradicate-emerging-fascism-in-india/
[viii] https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/national/golwalkar-drew-lessons-from-hitlers-germany/article7924161.ece
[ix] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manusmriti
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/rss-clarifies-no-plan-to-admit-women-into-shakhas-4886624/
[x] https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10218093729834606&id=1228281279s
[xi] http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-UN/article_2519.jsp
[xii] https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2018/10/sustainable-peace-human-securityliberty-and-justice-are-interlinked/