Ban it in India too

Humans, as everyone knows, are unique in many ways. One of them is that they indulge in torture. No other species that inhabits this planet does that. The practice is as old as mankind. There has probably never been a time when torture was not used as a means of extracting a confession or information or simply as a punishment. Indeed, it is extraordinary, given how far societies have progressed in the matter of defining human rights and the relationship of the individual to the state, that even the most evolved societies still use torture. The latest example of this dissonance came from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq where US soldiers tortured prisoners, often it seemed just for fun. The pictures were horrible to see, and the reports of what goes on in Guantanamo Bay are not much better.

But warts and all, the US is a self-correcting society. So, the US House of Representatives has approved a bill which, if not vetoed by President George W Bush "" he has threatened to do just that "" will ensure that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and others stop torturing their prisoners. The CIA and other US agencies will have to abide by the Geneva Conventions.

Many will argue that these conventions are followed only in the breach and that the issue is not torture but getting caught while or after doing it. But that, surely, is not the point. What is needed is for the state to prevent torture by law. The importance of this cannot be overlooked in societies that have adopted the legal principle that you can do whatever is not specifically banned.

However, thanks to the suspicious way in which the British viewed Indians, Indian jurisprudence usually follows the opposite principle: that you can do only those things that are specifically permitted. The problem is that in India the use of torture falls in an in-between category: it is neither permitted nor banned. The consequence of falling in this grey area is that even when it is found that the police have used torture, it becomes hard to proceed against them.

Indeed, not only has torture become an accepted method, its use appears to be increasing, with the police (and even the army) resorting to it at the slightest excuse, or treating it as a routine questioning tactic. Naval officers arrested in the cases involving what are known as the War Room Leak have alleged extensive torture. Custodial deaths have become more common, and not just in special places like the Kashmir valley.

The number of so-called 'encounters' remains large, and it is surely shameful that there should have been a film (Ab Tak Chappan) glorifying such extra-judicial killings. Even children are not spared. In spite of this, one rarely hears of any but the mildest punishment, like a suspension or a transfer, being meted out to an erring policeman after a suspect who was randomly picked up dies in custody. India has not ratified the convention against torture. Nor has it allowed the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture to visit India to report about the cases of torture noticed in India.

If India wants to be counted amongst the civilised countries of the world, it must legislate a formal ban on torture and put into place severe punishment for those found guilty of using what are euphemistically called 'third degree' methods.

The government needs to recognise that in a country already seething with a sense of grievance and injustice, the failure to rein in the police and armed forces only serves to exacerbate these negative feelings towards the state. India's recalcitrance in this regard, standing in sharp contrast with how US legislators have dealt with the problem, is one of those things that the country should be ashamed about.