INDIA: Torture, Rape and Deaths in Custody
By Amnesty International
New York, 1992
Pages : 195; Price : $7.00


In March 1992, Amnesty International (AI) released a damning report on human rights violations in India. Predictably, the Indian government spokesmen quickly denied the veracity of the report while attacking the honesty and integrity of those who compiled it. But the government's actions were far more consistent with the scathing findings for scarcely a month later on April 3rd, the government arrested retired Justice Ajit Singh Bains, the 75 years old venerable Chairman of the Punjab Human Rights Group under the so called "Terrorists Act." His arrest at that time was probably not unrelated to his public outcry at the discovery of several corpses of handcuffed Sikh young men recovered from a canal in March 1992; these men were supposed to be in police custody.

Amnesty International is impartial. It has no connections to any government or political group anywhere but has over a million members worldwide who support its work. Its major agenda is to free all prisoners of conscience, ensure fair and prompt trials for political prisoners, abolish torture and cruel treatment of prisoners, and end extra-judicial killings and "disappearances." Amnesty's work enjoys the highest credibility and respect internationally except with governments, which routinely flout international norms in human rights.

In the case of India, it is significant that AI published its first report in 1974 that was critical of the detention of Sheikh Abdullah for 15 years without trial. During the "emergency" years, 1975-77, AI mounted a campaign for the release of political prisoners. AI visited India last in 1978 when the Janata Dal government was in power. Since then Amnesty International has not been permitted to enter or conduct research in India.

The 1992 report needs to be examined in conjunction with earlier analyses of long-term detention of political prisoners in Punjab, special laws curbing human rights, torture and extra-judicial executions in Northeast India, and caste related violations of human rights in Bihar. The arrest of Justice Bains fits the Indian government's pattern in dealing with dissident voices. In the past, a similar fate has fallen others, journalists or human rights workers, who dared to report the truth.

The 1992 AI report starts with a January 1988 quote from Rajiv Gandhi, the late Prime Minister of India who said: "We don't torture anybody. I can be very categorical about that. Wherever we have had complaints of torture we've had it checked and we've not found it to be true." Yet the same year, India's Chief Justice R.S. Pathak said: "We are gravely concerned at the increasing number of deaths which are reported of persons detained in police lock-ups." Rajiv Gandhi was speaking to an international audience on British television, whereas Justice Pathak was indulging in a rare moment of candor in India. There is sufficient evidence that the judiciary has since been tamed by and become subservient to the political bureaucracy.

In this report AI documents evidence that police torture is a "pervasive and daily routine in every-one of India's 25 States......" AI states: "Everyday in police cells and military barracks throughout the land pain and indignity are deliberately inflicted by paid agents of the state on men, women and even children. They are beaten senseless, given electric shocks or have their limbs crushed by heavy rollers. Sexual torture, including rape, is common." The report provides names, dates and places concerning 415 cases from every State of the country where there is evidence that the victims, including women and children, were brutally beaten, raped or otherwise tortured until they died. The report concludes that these 415 cases are only a sample of the total for many cases never come to light. Mock post-mortems are routine, and official cover-ups are common.

In Punjab and Kashmir, repressive laws allow a person to be arrested without charge and detained for up to two years. Since he is not formally charged, he has neither the right nor the opportunity to defend himself or apply for bail. Neither the family nor any legal counsel may be allowed to meet the person or even know his whereabouts. In fact, he is convicted without trial. Security forces have immunity for "anything done or purported to be done" under these laws. Few police officers are ever brought to trial and virtually none are ever convicted. The AI report would be humiliating to any civilized society that claims or aspires to be a government of laws.

At the United Nations and other international parleys, the Indian government routinely and repeatedly denies that any torture ever occurs and continues to project itself as a functioning democracy which respects the United Nations Charter of Human Rights of which it is a signatory. From this report however, it seems that in the matter of human rights, India is rapidly descending to the level of a "Banana republic."

The intelligent response of a society which wants to improve itself would be not to ban the AI report or arrest those who are seen with it but to open their doors and their files, look carefully at the findings and the recommendations provided by the AI and to start implementing them. The country will become the stronger for it. At this time, the Indian government does not allow any international inspection or monitoring of its human rights policies and routinely imprisons its own citizens who raise their voices. Despite these handicaps, the Amnesty international has done a difficult job commendably and extremely well; it deserves everyone's full support and gratitude


Dr. Inder Jit Singh is Professor & Co-ordinator in Anatomy, New York University. Among other publications, he is the author of two books: 'Sikhs and Sikhism: A View With a Bias' and 'The Sikhs Way: A Pilgrims Progress'.

I.J. Singh is on the editorial advisory board of 'The Sikh Review', Calcutta and 'The Encyclopedia of Sikhism', Punjabi University, Patiala.