Ashon Lungleng
UNITED NATIONS – “Human Rights could be generally defined as those which are inherent in our nature and without which we cannot live as human beings”.
Justice D.V. Madan said, “The concept of human rights is the result of man’s inhumanity to man.”
Human Rights is viewed as an on going attempt to define human dignity and worth and to create human rights culture in future for society. The basic Principles of human rights culture will survive only if people continue to see a point in it doing so. It needs to be constantly defended. The concept of human rights tells the detailed story of the attempt made to define basic dignity and worth of the human beings and his or her most fundamental entitlement. The denial of human rights and fundamental freedoms, not only is an individual and personal tragedy but also creates conditions of social and political unrest sowing the seeds of violence and conflict within and between societies and nations. To avoid these problems, various international agencies including United Nations laid stress for the protection of human rights.
The UN determined and reaffirmed faith in fundamental human rights in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men, without distinction as to race, language or religion. A declaration made by the UN in 1992 requires the member state to safeguard and promote the identity of the ethnic, cultural and religious minorities living within its jurisdiction.
The immediate objective of UN Security Council is to maintain international Peace and Security and to settle any disputes through peaceful means.
India, one of the founding members of UN, has argued even for a permanent seat in UN Security Council, but is India really a peace loving state ? It is doubtful. Is there no room at all to solve Indo-Naga political problems through peaceful means ? It is painful to hear that Sumi (Sema) tribe of the Nagas came and set fire under the directive policy of Indian Union Govt., in Wungram Colony, Dimapur Nagaland, a residential place of NSCN- (IM) families, around 11:30am and the fire lasted till 7:00pm, on 22nd of April 2007, of which the Nagaland State Govt. is helpless and remain a mere spectator. It is very shameful, being a member of UN, using barbaric act, tried to bring a division, confusion among the Nagas. Denying the human dignity and principles of humanism, for how long India, using divide and rule policy, barbaric act, would solve the Indo- Naga political problems ? It is true that India has lost its ethical values and decencies. Rather to remain a mere spectator, a peace loving Nations and member of UN should understand that India has affront to human dignity and disavowal of the principles of the UN charter. Is satisfaction for India would come when several Naga families remain homeless ? Is these the love and peace that the Indian leaders are talking about ? Gandhi says: “our religion is based on Ahimsa, which in its active form is nothing but love, love not only to our neighbours, not only to our friends, but even to those who may be our enemies”. Being the member of UN, if India is not so respectfully looked upon by others to what extend has India contributed to the indifference ?
The other related questions for India are : Why is India’s claim to a permanent seat in the UN Security Council treated with contempt ? Why does its attempt to secure a non- permanent seat in competition with Japan meet with a crushing defeat ? Why, for that matter, is the world so set that the dividing line between nuclear and non- nuclear states must pass between China and India when two are of equal size, have been in armed conflict before and are five times larger than the next most populous country ? Why is India chiefly not in the news ? To cite an example, the New York Times carries at least five stories on China every week and hardly a single item for weeks on India. We do not understand why China is in the mainstream news. It looks that the world is interested even in such secondary policy changes like tax hikes on foreign companies. Only cyclones and earthquakes, poverty, child labour and violation of human rights seem to attract them. The world’s second populous nation and its largest democracy has no concern for them. May be that India is a peace loving country and as such there is no news for them. India, as such, is no threat to any other country except Pakistan. But this cannot be the reason. On nuclear proliferation, it is argued that the dividing line runs between India and China. As Prem Jha rightly feels that India is reaping the fruits of being, however tangentially, on the losing side in the Cold War, While Indonesia, with the list savoury human rights record in Asia, is being rewarded for being, equally, tangentially on the winning side.
Gandhism is particularly relevant in the present scenario, both national and international. He wrote : “I believe that the sum total of the energy of mankind is not to bring us down but to lift us up through the definite, though unconscious, working of the Law of Love”. With terrorism on an international scale and ethnic wars on the rise we can safely says that the world has found out for itself that war has not helped to solve even a single difference till date, whether in Iran, Iraq, or the far East. Even those fail when they are based on meting out humiliation to erring people as was pointed out by Gandhi himself in the instance of the Treaty of Versailles after the First World War, which merely laid the ground for the Second World War twenty years later. All regimes and governments based on coercion, and authoritarianism have failed, negotiations and peace talks are the only way out time and again. It looks as if only a second coming of a Gandhiji could save the Indo-Naga political problems, the leader who follow the law of love, with a pure intention to serve whole heartedly, the people of the nation, is the need of the hour for India too.
