Why Statistics Casts Gloomy Pictures of Minorities

Most of the findings, surveys, studies and reports on minorities, Dalits and weaker sections figure out on the borderline and reveal painful and gloomy pictures. Even after six decades of Independence they are vulnerable and subjected to atrocities, discrimination of one form or the other.
Minorities were earlier considered a ray of hope for nation building but now stand reduced to merely second class citizens who are hated the most and perceived as trouble makers. They are presented as a symbol of hate and despair, violators and law-breaking citizens. They have become a contentious issue and an impediment to the growth and development of the nation.
If one picks up morning newspapers or turn to the television, the news reports on minorities, Dalits and the downtrodden are mostly disgusting and disturbing. It seems we have become habitual to such news items or react only when it turns out to be ugly and violent. Sometime it is violence against these groups, attack on their places of worship, violence on beef, love jihad, ghar wapsi, socio-religious profiling, arbitrary arrest of Muslim youth on terror charges and victimisation of Dalits and many more.
But one fine morning the news comes to say the other side of the story as well which needs to be told clearly and loudly. The news is that a Dalit girl, Tina Dabi has topped the list of successful candidates of Civil Services exams, a Muslim boy named Athar Aamir Ul Shafi Khan secured second place while a Sikh boy Jasmeet Singh Sandhu got third place. To some, it may be fascinating stories and welcome news after a series of disturbing stories. Not one or two, but hundreds of such stories will make us believe that India has changed for the weaker section and the minorities, and India is finally on the move.
But who will get this message right and how long will we have to wait for that? Was six decades down the line not enough? When will the perception towards minorities really change? When will rational thinking overshadow hate mongering derived out of age long prejudices entrenched deep in the mindset?  Will Indians ever be considered a single unit? Will they be ever treated equally by the law and by the government?
Recently, in yet another important finding by researchers led by Anup Surendranath at the National Law University in Delhi (NLUD) the figures that have come out are again alarming. It says that most on death row are from backward caste groups and minorities. Furthermore, 80 per cent of prisoners facing capital punishment had not completed school and nearly half had begun working before the age of 18.
On the findings by the researchers at the National Law University, Dr. Upendra Baxi, who is an eminent Professor of Law at the University of Warwick, the United Kingdom and former Vice Chancellor of University of Delhi, told Radiance, “I was to release the NLUD report some months ago but when it eventually was I could not attend as I am currently overseas. I have not seen the draft report and the published version. But I know that it is empirically well worked out report based on available data. I myself think that the report’s findings are correct as this was demonstrated by the earlier studies and a position that was also endorsed by Justice Krishna Iyer, both on and off the Bench.”
As per the findings, Dalits and Adivasis constituted 24.5 per cent (90 prisoners) among those on death row while members of religious minorities were over 20 per cent (76 prisoners). The researchers managed to gain access to 373 of the 385 prisoners. The Tamil Nadu government refused permission to interview 12 prisoners and of the 373, 17 prisoners were not interviewed for some reason or the other. Of the total prisoners presently on death row in India, 279 prisoners which amount to 76 per cent are from backward or religious minorities. Furthermore, all-India proportion of SC/ST death row prisoners is 24.5 per cent and it is even higher in certain states like Maharashtra (50 per cent), Karnataka (36.4 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (36 per cent), Bihar (31.4) and Jharkhand (30.8 per cent).
While simplifying the given figures and decoding the findings, John Dayal, a renowned social and human right activist, told Radiance, “The data is indeed shocking, but comes as no surprise to those of us in civil society who have been monitoring this for decades. The relative percentage changes, and during the 1970s, a very large number of Sikhs found their way into this tragic statistics.  Now it is the Muslims, since 1993, who with Dalits seem to have become the most vulnerable to our skewed criminal justice system.
Dayal argued, “But the death penalty is only the pinnacle, terrible as it is. The other lower segments of the pyramids are taken up by those in solitary confinement, those serving life terms, and the under-trials bringing up the huge base. At the level of the under-trial, and even those facing police and judicial custody, the skewness is disproportionate. The number of Muslim and Dalit and Tribal persons, specially the poor among them, facing loss of liberty, and perhaps loss of life, is humungous. The government must bring out a White Paper on this entire issue. But irrespective of political party, no government has ever dared to do so, not at the state level and certainly not at the national level.”
According to Dayal, the discussion has not even begun on another aspect – the extrajudicial killings and the torture during investigation processes in a police system which has not heard of forensic sciences it would seem. The international focus on terrorism – identified with Muslims both in the US and Europe on the one hand, and in India and Buddhist countries on the other – seems to have brought about a global blindness to this inhumanity. The US has its share of “water-boarding”, so does China. Torture and the targeting of religious and ethnic minorities – remember the Tamils in Sri Lanka for instance or the ethnic minorities in Burma – extra-judicial and judicial victimisation is endemic. Governments professing a nationalism based on religion, as currently in India, only seem to aggravate this situation.
The findings by researchers are indeed very significant because the study observed and claimed that there are no official records maintained anywhere either by any ministry or by any agency. Most surprisingly, the official records are not available as desired about the total number of prisoners India has executed since independence. In Gujarat, 79 per cent (15 prisoners) of those facing death sentences are from religious minorities who constitute 12 per cent of the state’s population. In Maharashtra, 50 per cent (18 prisoners) are Dalits and Adivasis, and they are 20 per cent of the population in the state. In Kerala, with 93 per cent (14 prisoners), the percentage is higher from economically vulnerable communities.
Ravi Nair, Director, South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre, told Radiance, “The recently released report on the Death penalty by the National Law School University of Delhi (NLUD) is outstanding.  It is for the first time in India that almost all prisoners on death row have been interviewed. The exceptions being Tamil Nadu where the prison administration chose to deny the researchers’ access to all prisoners and in the case of Maharashtra access to prisoners convicted under terror offences.”
Nair further said, it is shocking to learn that of the 31 prisoners sentenced to death for terror offences, Bihar was the second with several prisoners convicted under the now allegedly lapsed Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention)  Act, 1987 which  clearly targeted minorities and did not have adequate safeguards and due process standards built into it. Karnataka had the highest number of prisoners sentenced to death for terror offences, 31 in number. Clearly, all these cases will be revisited by the NLUD team to seek judicial redress in the appeals process.
“The study also finds that prisoners sentenced to death for terror offences are imprisoned for long periods compared to prisoners sentenced to death for other kinds of crimes. In the case of terror offences the average duration seems to be 13 years and two months whereas the period of imprisonment for other offences is five years and six months. The report shows what good clinical research work by an academic institution can reveal. It can only be hoped that other universities will follow their lead and take up other issues of rights violations for similar studies,” Nair averred.
According to another estimate, or as per 2013 Census, there were 4.2 lakh people in Indian prisons and about 20 per cent of them were Muslims while as per the Census 2001 percentage the share of Muslims in India’s population was merely 13 per cent. According to 2011 Census, Dalits constitute 22 per cent of all prisoners although they were 17 per cent of India’s total population. According to data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) on Prison Statistics, India for the year 2013 percentage of inmates from three minority communities in India – Dalits, Muslims and the Adivasis – is more than half the prison population in the country. Muslims, Dalits and tribals make up 53 per cent of all prisoners in India.
On the possible reason for such a horrible tale and above findings, Dr. Amir Ullah Khan, Director of Aequitas Research, Advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who keeps a close watch on minorities nationally and internationally told Radiance that it is a worldwide phenomenon and there are various reasons such as lack of access to lawyers, apathy of the police force, and expensive and cumbersome legal procedures.