But, what is the need for one more human rights groups? What is so new about the new organisation? Would it not have been better if all those concerned about the issue had joined one or the other of the existing civil and democratic rights groups? Will it be one more group, adding its mite to the efforts of existing bodies? Or, will it be an umbrella organisation, a platform that brings together all existing groups to make their work more effective?

All these are legitimate questions but those who took the lead in organising the conference consciously chose not to make these the focal point of deliberations. In retrospect, for good reason. As one of the convenors emphatically stated in response to pointed questions at the conference, "we refuse to start on a negative note".

The need for a new organisation was evident from the keenness with which the delegates, despite the diverse nature of their everyday concerns, responded to the invitation for a conference to consider the formation of a new group. KG Kannabiran, the national president of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), showed enormous grace in agreeing to deliver the inaugural address at a conference, which some may well have seen as an attempt to create a ‘rival’ body. Several state-level office-bearers of the Gujarat unit of the PUCL also participated in the conference.

The former chief justice of the Supreme Court of India and a highly respected crusader for human rights, Justice V Krishna Iyer, could not participate for health reasons. But he did send a warm message blessing the new initiative. Justice Hosbet Suresh, a retired judge of the Mumbai High Court, whose untiring commitment to human rights is acknowledged by diverse groups throughout the country, presided over the conference and was unanimously elected convenor of the broad-based organising committee formed to draft the Constitution of the PUHR.

Sentiment, undoubtedly, alone is not enough. The PUHR will need a perspective that, while acknowledging the valuable contribution of existing groups in the country towards raising national awareness about civil, democratic and human rights, is conscious of their shortcomings so that its own organisation and activities avoid the same pitfalls.

But the organisers of the conference were clear that the first concern of the new group-in-the-making was to emphasise that it was not about to open its own exclusive shop in opposition to others. Rather, they intended it to be an inclusive body which would shun sectarianism, recognise and accommodate within its fold diverse initiatives, all of which are equally legitimate and an integral part of the human rights agenda.

It could be said that the concrete achievement of the conference was the consolidation of the sentiment of togetherness. The attempt was to ensure that all those who participated in the conference – civil and democratic rights activists, trade union leaders, women’s rights activists, anti-communal groups, those representing dalit concerns as also independent dalit women’s initiatives – felt equal participants in the new initiative and acknowledged that each of their concerns were equally legitimate parts of the broader struggle for human rights. This much having been achieved, a truly broad-based organising committee was the concrete outcome of the conference. The next important step is for this organising committee to evolve the PUHR’s perspective and draw up a Constitution which will be the basis on which individuals can associate with one another.

There was a consensus among the participants that the PUHR should be an association of individuals, not an association of existing associations. This means that PUHR members will be free to belong to any other organisation(s) so long as they are agreed on some basics. What are these? Its for the organising committee to spell these out. But in a way, some of them were implicit in the background paper that was circulated among the delegates, some of the interventions during the conference and even the name the new initiative has chosen for itself. Above all, the initiative was already unique as, for the first time perhaps, it brought together diverse individuals engaged in a diverse range of activities.

The birth of the democratic rights movement in the country dates back to 1936. But it was in the social backdrop of the ’60s and the ’70s that provided the main impulse and informed the perspectives and priorities of most of the existing rights groups in the country. The birth of the naxalite movement in the ’60s and the ruthless repression of hundreds of naxalite activists by the state machinery, including the killing through "encounter deaths" specially in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, prompted the birth of the Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) in Calcutta and the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee in AP. The suspension of democratic rights during the ‘Emergency’ imposed by Mrs. Indira Gandhi in the mid-70s resulted in the lead taken by Jaiprakash Narain to form the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL).

While these organisations remain active even today, other organisations with broadly similar perspectives took birth subsequently. Together they have played a critical role in creating public awareness about rights violations. At the same time, through litigation in the courts, they have repeatedly highlighted the fact that the law-keepers (the state machinery, in particular the police) were the worst law-breakers. Illegal detention, harassment and victimisation of activists attempting to mobilise/unionise agricultural labour or industrial workers, torture and rape of women in police custody, custodial deaths, encounter deaths, are some of the forms of rights violations.

But over the years, some other questions, too, have come to haunt activists engaged in the defence of civil liberties and democratic rights. What about the growing instances of violation of basic rights of others by ‘militants’ – be they those engaged in the struggle for secession or azaadi in Kashmir or the Northeast, or activists of the People’s War Group (PWG) fighting for a ‘revolution’ in Andhra or Bihar? Put bluntly, do groups and organisations whose rights we defend themselves believe in democratic politics and democratic forms of mass mobilisation? Is it ethically right and politically tenable that rights groups focus their entire attention on violations by state personnel but remain mum when ‘militants’ maim, rape or kill fellow citizens? Why has the rights movement kept mum on the fact of over four lakh Kashmiris, mostly Pandits from the Valley, have become refugees in their own country?

Questions such as the above are increasingly being asked today of democratic rights organisations, some of whom function as barely disguised fronts of groups like the PWG. On the other hand, a different kind of question is today being asked vis-à-vis organisations such as the PUCL which were the end product of the movement for democracy preceding and during the Emergency period. How is it that this movement for democracy in the ’70s provided a platform and social legitimacy to an ideology and organisation which today constitute the greatest threat to Indian democracy – Hindutva and sangh parivar?

Meanwhile, the women’s movement and the dalit movement which also took birth in the ’70s and grew in parallel to the movement for civil liberties and democratic rights today demands that its concerns be recognised as part of the human rights question. If ‘socialism’ and ‘garibi hatao’ were the catchwords in the ’70s, today’s mantras are ‘globalisation’ and ‘privatisation’.

In short, the India of the ’90s and at the turn of the century is vastly different from the social reality of the ’60s and the ’70s when many of the existing rights groups were born. The new reality calls for a new response and the birth of the People’s Union for Human Rights is an implicit recognition of this social fact and its name too suggests the same.

If the words ‘People’s Union’ (in PUHR) suggest continuity with existing tradition, the use of the words ‘Human Rights’ instead of the earlier ‘Civil Liberties’ or ‘Democratic Rights’ reflect recognition of the need for marrying civil liberties concerns with those of gender justice, equality for dalits, union rights and minority rights within a secular polity.