India rarely saw accountability of state in targeted violence: Teesta Setalvad

Social activist Teesta Setalvad has said the country had rarely seen accountability of the state as far as targeted violence is concerned and added that survivors and citizens supporting them are among the fallout of such violenceDelivering the Girish Patel Smarnanjali Lecture on Sunday Setalvad said the story of targeted violence begins with the buildup that is created with hate speeches and hate writingsThe survivors of such violence have to face difficulties in ensuring punishment for the perpetrators she addedWhat is fallout State accountability happens rarely in our country How many people have been punished in the riots of 1984 1992 and 2002 These are the questions before us And the difficulties that survivors have to face to ensure punishment and citizens for supporting them are the issues that come up she saidSetalvad was recently arrested by Gujarat police in a case of the alleged fabrication of evidence to frame innocent people in the 2002 Gujarat riots cases in which a large number of people especially those from the minority community were killed She was recently granted interim bail by the Supreme CourtSetalvad said working on a deeply polarising issue among the public is not an easy one and added that the impact of social media on polarization is also overwhelmingThe people in power who are controlling social media are the same that have spent 7080 years in the society on the roads among doctors lawyers and cultural organisations to capture them Power is degenerative but they have worked hard she saidAlso Read Activist Teesta Setalvad walks out of jailThe process being witnessed in the country is that of people perpetrating the violence and the party in power lending its support and this has an old history she saidWhat happened after the demolition of Babri Masjid on December 6 1992 appears to repeat itself she claimedWe saw a harking back to an earlier period We need to understand the phenomenon as to what was happening in the country between 1986 and 1992 and what are we looking at now and what happened in between Today one also has to grapple with the media which are carrying out a set agenda of targeting individuals and movements who have in any way threatened it the rights activist saidShe said the buffer against polarisation and hate politics will build on its own if one is successful in holding on to social political constitutional and human rights engagementsThe stamina we require for sustained rigorous action sometimes fails us because everything is overwhelmingSomehow we need to get back to this language where we actually talk about how we can build this buffer zone to make sure the Constitution stays alive among our people said the former journalistShe said people know of the promises made to them in the Indian Constitution but are getting overwhelmed by the divisive propaganda coming from different directionsThe big challenge in this situation is to get back to an agenda of constitutionalism and make sure the battle for the Constitution is fought in a real sense Setalvad said and called for the need for collective risktaking rather than individual risktakingCollective is more difficult to become a target Can we collectively articulate certain issues Silence is not an option she saidShe also talked about the issue of citizenship regarding the National Register of Citizens Citizenship Amendment Act and said the people trapped in its net are nearly onethird of the population of AssamTo take up their case from tribunal to the Supreme Court is an impossible job So there has to be a political solution there has to be a solution which decides on what basis notices are being issued to common people They are malafide and wrong and need to be questioned and stopped Setalvad saidShe added there is a need to look at prison reforms and prison monitoring and bail courtsTalking about Mahatma Gandhi she said the first attempt to rewrite history after Independence was regarding his assassinationShe claimed Gandhis speech asking the Sanatan Hindu religion to repent for Dalit and Harijan atrocities and calling for India to be a secular country were the reasons for his assassinationThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever