| Issue 23 Vol I, September 15, 2006 | Archive |
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Subjugated Migrant Workers in the Land of the
Mahatma
In 2006, a hundred years later, the Ludhiana police require every migrant labour to get himself registered with the concerned police station and be subjected to a scrutiny for criminal past. Similarly, Chandigarh police requires all domestic servants to get registered by disclosing information that may be private to them. The police, as in the past, to justify the act attach a note of passivity to their action; the dire necessity in the wake of rising crime, acts of terrorism, kidnapping and robberies with murders. They want of information about migrant labour and domestic servants to stem the tide of rising crime graph and since it renders difficult the investigation, hence the need for registration. not all the migrants, only poor labourers. What is the legal authenticity and moral justification of this practice is a question haunting many minds. Protests have been staged. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar deputed two members of Parliament to reach Ludhiana and verify facts. Communist leaders had a protest rally in the industrial hub of Punjab. Congress and akalis have maintained studied silence. And, the practice goes on. Is their any moral justification in imputing criminality to a whole class of people as was done in South Africa hundred years ago and protested by Indians one and all, with a resolve to defy the ordinance if promulgated even at the cost of retrenchment from job, Starvation or even deportation from South Africa. Do we suffer from British legacy, which declared certain tribes as criminal tribes as a whole? Moral justifications, civil rights, privacy protection and social dignity of Indians was alien to the British whose concern was to rule and exploit economic resources. Since 1882, the year a uniform criminal procedure came into being for whole of India, to regulate procedure for enforcing substantive law i.e. Indian Penal Code, and later other laws providing punishment for various other offences, did continue to contain some provisions of substantive nature. Section 144 of this code is one such provision which retained its seat besides amendments of the code about half a dozen times. Section 144 empowers among other things, the District Magistrate, the Sub Divisional Magistrate to pass an order "Directed to a particular individual or to persons residing in a particular place or area, to the public generally, when frequenting or visiting a particular place or area, to refrain from any act........." It is under this provision the Magistrate can make a restrictive order providing a party from doing any act, restrain any person from entering the State or a particular area, prohibit carrying of arms, taking out procession, staging a Dharna at a particular place, prohibiting assembly of more than a specified number, generally five, imposing curfew, censorship of news papers before publication, and every other thing which in his opinion, there is sufficient ground for proceeding under this section, and for immediate prevention of danger to public peace or tranquility or in the general public interest or to prevent injury annoyance or obstruction to any person, or danger to human life, health or safety, and to prevent riot or affray. These drastic powers have since hundred and twenty five years been used by foreign rulers to subjugate the Indian subjects, to crush and scuttle the freedom movement, sometimes by providing more teeth to it by laws like Rowalt Act and catena of other similar or even harsher laws of draconian nature, like preventive detention, TADA, POTA etc, the constitutionality of which have more than once been challenged in the Apex Court, where they got mixed reaction by way thrashing in upholding then in the interest of public peace and tranquility. The interests of the governing class are similar may be it is foreigner or domestic, that is why legacy of one is carried by the other, so were the laws carried over and so were the humiliating practices carried on. Indians protesting under the leadership of M.K.Gandhi in Johannesburg (South Africa) hundred years ago are subjecting very Indians to same humiliation of registration. More so, these ignore the very provision of Section 144 that a Magistrate can only restrain a person from doing some act. He is not authorised to issue a mandate directing any person to do a particular act. Directing registration is of mandatory in nature not authorized by law. On moral side, imputing criminality to whole class of people, or to natives of a particular place, or members of a particular caste or tribe, (like the British used to declare certain tribes as criminal ones) is un constitutional, is violative of ones fundamental rights, is deprivation of his right to life and liberty. The practice has neither legal sanction nor moral justification and has to be deprecated. Joginder Singh Toor, Advocate, jogindersingh_toor@yahoo.com |
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ON
September 11, 1906 hundred years ago, Indians, men and women; indentured
labour, traders, businessmen and professionals met in a hall in the city of
Johannesburg in South Africa to discuss the implications of an intended
ordinance. This required all Indians to get themselves registered with the
administration and to obtain the registration card which they were to carry,
all the time with them as their identity. For obtaining card $25 was to be
paid as fee, when the total income of an indentured labour was 40 to 50
pounds per year. The meeting was called by Mohan Das Karam Chand Gandhi.