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Human Rights and Peace PEACE has always been regarded as one of the five eternal human values, the others being truth, righteous conduct, love and non-violence, which usher in human excellence on all five levels of human personality — physical, mental, emotional, psychic and spiritual.
The book is an anthology of articles by eminent scholars on several sub-titles which are relevant and informative with historical traces. The book is divided in three sections, Ideas and Visions; Encouraging Undemocratic Laws; and Rights, Movements and Institutions. The first two chapters in the first section dwell directly on the inherent right to peace, while the succeeding five chapters tend to signify that peace is a path as well as destination for a human voyage. A political goal to garner through specific human rights’ practices! The first section echoes the sentiments and political resolve of the United Nations and initiatives of UNESCO to fashion an ambience that is conducive for endurance, "preservation of human civilisation and the survival of mankind". The second section, Encountering Undemocratic Laws, brings to the fore a number of long-drawn-out armed conflicts plaguing the South Asian region, where the common citizenry have remained exposed to the tyranny of the State’s systemic repression in the form of anti-democratic enactments, curtailing human freedom. Pamela Philipose damns the Indian policy on deportation of Bangladeshi illegal migrants as a ‘nowhere policy for a nowhere people’ while taking on the Bangladeshi government as well for its ‘denial’ of any such migration to India. Instances of lynching of Dalits in north India spell out harsh realities of social ostracism and caste-sponsored vertical splits still rampant in the rural milieu. The third section, Rights, Movements and Institutions, deals with the interface between peace and human rights, and the role of human rights movements in the pockets, which witnessed terrorism and state-sponsored subjugation of human liberties. Ram Manohar Lohia’s dossier in ‘The Concept of Civil Liberties’ is indeed a slice of history. He voices that a law has essentially to be an ‘expression of general will’ and that any attempt by the State to curtail civil liberty must be resisted. He continues that the concept of civil liberties is an outcome of citizens’ eternal struggle waged against the State. He gives an interesting account of the agitation launched by Indians in favour of the ‘Ilbert Bill’ that sought to abolish the preferential justice meted out to Englishmen at the cost of Indians. The agitation marked the beginning of a new era of political rights. Randhir Singh advocates that democratic rights should be fortified against any possible intrusion by the State. He laments the absence of credible ‘institutional safeguards’ against the State-sponsored terrorism. He, however, seems to forget that the Indian judiciary has, of late, emerged as a real champion of human rights. The book makes an interesting study of a subject that is so vital for human existence. It has succeeded in restyling the fabric of human rights and peace, both being mutually integral to each other.
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The
title Human Rights and Peace ascribed to the book is most
suitable and connects the readers instantly with the theme. It tends
to re-define the contours of peace, indicating as to how it has, over
a period of time, come to encompass the domain of human rights.