Sham-e-Muzakara

The talk in the Sham-e-Muzakara was delivered by Mr. Ratneshwar Pd. Singh, advocate, Patna High Court and about twenty five persons participated in the Muzakara.  Prominent participants included Mr. Anil Jayaswal, Advocate, Dr. A. Q. Siddiqui, M. T. Khan, Joint Registrar, Patna High Court, Mr. Ashotosh Kumar, Advocate, Anil Kumar Singh, Advocate, S. Fazle Rab, Z. S. Jafri, Arvind Sinha, IPS, M. Q. Jauhar, Pramod Kumar Singh and Sidheshwar Singh, Sr. Advocate.

Dr. M. A. Quddus, Co-ordinator, IOS Patna Chapter while introducing the subject, highlighted the objectives of the Institute of Objective Studies, Delhi and the importance of the topic for discussion.

Mr. Ratnesh Pd. Singh, the learned speaker, at the outset, referred to the well known statement of Rousseau that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty because any autocratic or undemocratic behaviour on the part of persons in authority is theoretically wrong and practically dangerous and we can check the authority from bad behaviour by remaining vigilant.  So there is social obligation on every one of us to continuously read writings on the wall to assess whether the country is drifting towards fascism and if so we must check it in time. Otherwise it will gradually devour every one of us unless we fit ourselves into their scheme of things as happened in Germany in the past.

While elaborating different dimensions of rights, he referred to the primary instincts of man leading to Natural Law, National Rights and Fundamental Rights. The justiceable rights refer to fundamental rights while non-justiceable rights as Directive Principles.  The non-justiceable rights are also a kind of fundamental rights. Since they are not enforceable in the Court of law due to shortage of resource, they are almost advices to authorities for making such rights available to the people.

To this the participants reacted by raising the question whether public should go for Jan Adalat if courts fail or provide delayed justice in view of the time-consuming system of Court judgements involving four stages: The record stage, the investigation stage, the prosecution stage and the conviction stage. The examples of MCC in Bihar and other extremist groups in other states were also quoted. Further another participant mentioned about societal support for making fundamental rights effective at the implementation stage. We must develop a platform for protest and raising our voices against violation of fundamental rights. All persons belonging to different hue and colour will have to be united otherwise sectarian approach to such platform will not yield results.  Similarly it was also pointed out by another participant that human right and duty must go hand-in-hand, otherwise there will be imbalance.

There was also a view that the present Indian Constitution is a direct result of the oppressions by the British rulers in India. Rights to freedom of speech, expression, religion etc. were trampled during the period of British rule. Therefore after independence when constitution was being drafted the element of freedom was embodied into the constitution as fundamental right. Another participant placed the view that the more affluent people become the more hardened negative attitude they develop towards fundamental rights. Further it was pointed out that human right, sometimes, is used as a tool for politics. another participant was of the view that right to life is a right to work. Therefore right to work is a fundamental right. In the same view it was also mentioned that poverty is the greatest violation of human right. As mentioned earlier, one of the participants very emphatically emphasized the need for focusing on human duty as well while focussing on human rights otherwise absolutism and impunity shall develop in the society making the prescription worse than the disease.

The contents of two books recently published by the IOS are given below for the benefit of our esteemed readers.

1. Immigration by M. Sujaud Doullah

Foreword

Preface

List of Tables, Maps and Graphs

Introduction

Socio-Economic and Political Conditions of East Bengal-Push Factors

Socio-Economic and Political Conditions of the Assam Valley-Push Factors

Settlement of Immigrants Farmers in the Assam Valley

Introduction of New Farm Practices and Its Impact on the Assam Valley

PART-I

Changes Brought About in Assam’s Agricultural Scenario by the Immigrants

PART-II

Impacts of Immigration on Socio-Economic Conditions of the Assamese Society

Summary and Conclusion

2. Press and Prejudice by V.B. Rawat

Introduction

Communalisation: The Process in Making

Reports and Headlines

Issues

History textbooks and Vandemataram Language issue

Newspaper Scanned

Dainik Jagaran

Punjab Kesri

Hindustan

Amar Ujala

Jansatta

Rastriya Sahara

Nai duniya

Navbharat

Navbharat times

Rajasthan Patrika

Dainik Bhashkar

Dainik Tribune

Swatantra Bharat

Janmorcha

Veer Arjun

Kuber Times

Aaj

Hamara Mahanagar

Conclusion