Wajahat Habibullah, India's 1st Chief Information Commissioner, has requested the establishment of a 'Truth and Reconciliation committee' (TRC) to help Kashmiri Pandits, who have been displaced from their homeland for some more than three decades.
Habibullah, who acted as Divisional Commissioner of 8 Kashmir regions between 1990 and 1993, said he'd be willing to testify even before a committee if one is constituted.
In the year 1990, it is claimed that Pandits were forced to flee the Kashmir valley in large numbers when it was announced that non-muslim men would be forced to leave the valley unless they converted to Islam, failing which they would be slain. The recently released film 'The Kashmir Files' has reopened old wounds and brought to light atrocities perpetrated against Kashmiri Pandits.
In an interview with IANS, Habibullah remarked regarding the situation: "A truth and reconciliation commission should be established so that the public is aware of the hardships that Kashmiri Pandits endured at the time. Instead of accusing one another, the Committee can investigate who is to blame, and I would like to appear before it to tell people what happened."
"Why isn't the authority held responsible? It was a failure on the administration's behalf. The Kashmir Pandits evacuated as a result of statements made from the mosque. Cops were resting at home at the time. Wasn't it their job to intervene and halt the exodus? If the cops had felt intimidated as well, they would have either completed their duties or quit."
The TRC is widely regarded as the most substantial and well-organized endeavour to address previous regime atrocities through the concept of truth. It is reported to have been founded in 1996 to investigate political offences committed during the apartheid era.
The truth and reconciliation method, according to experts, is a type of restorative justice that differentiates from traditional adversary or retributive justice. The goal of retributive justice is to identify and punish those responsible. Restorative justice, on the other hand, tries to mend relationships between offenders, victims, and the group in which an offence occurs.
TCR are tasked with uncovering truths and distinguishing fact from lies. Acknowledgement, appropriate public grief, forgiveness, and healing are all possible through this process.
Starting in the 1880s, Aboriginal children across Canada were forcefully removed off their homes and sent in Indian Residential Schools, according to reports. Students were not permitted to talk their native languages or practise their culture in school. Survivors' testimony reveals irrefutable evidence of widespread neglect, hunger, substantial physical and sexual abuse, and a high number of student deaths as a result of these crimes. According to existing estimates, sexual abuse percentages in some schools were as high as 75%, with bodily injury rates even higher.
The TRC operated in Canada from 2008 to 2015, and was established by the participants to the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (IRSSA). A 60 million dollars funding for the TRC's activities was created on the basis of the approved IRSSA over a five-year period.
On June 1, 2008, the panel was formally constituted as an independent body with the objective of researching the history and long-term effects of the Canadian Indian residential school system on Indigenous children and their families. It allowed survivors of residential schools to speak up about their experiences in public and private sessions conducted across the country.?
The Catholic Church was in charge of around 70% of the schools, which were funded by the government. The TRC underlines that revealing the repercussions of the residential schools to Canadians who have been kept in the dark about these issues is a top concern.
The TRC issued an executive report of its conclusions, in June 2015, as well as 94 "calls to action" for reconciling between Canadians and Indigenous Peoples. In December 2015, the committee's work draws to a close with the publication of a multi-volume full report concluding that the school system constituted to cultural genocide. The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, which launched in November 2015 at the University of Manitoba, is an archive repository that houses research, documents, and testimony gathered during the TRC's work.
When South Africa gained independence, Nelson Mandela considered establishing a TRC to prevent a carnage. Survivors of human rights violations could speak out about their ordeals, while abusers could ask for a reprieve from prosecution.
The TRC's work was divided into three task forces: the Human Rights Violations Review panel, which probed human rights atrocities; the Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee, which was responsible for restoring victims' dignity and aiding with their rehabilitation; and the Amnesty Committee, which regarded amnesty applications in accordance with the Act.?
Several public hearings were held across South Africa, with renowned figures such as Desmond Tutu in attendance. However unlike Nuremberg Trials, which attempted to identify blame and impose punishment, the TRC's goal was to allow people to express and subsequently create reconciliation.
The general public and the press were invited to attend. The TRC's work was publicised through radio, television, films, theatre, literature, and poetry. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was helpful in "bringing out the truth" about what transpired during the apartheid era. It emphasised the significance of reconciliation.
A range of criticisms about the TRC have been brought forth both by the Indigenous and non-Indigenous thinkers, spanning from its scope and driving premise to its methodology and conclusions.
Many commentators have noted how the TRC historicises colonial history while ignoring the fact that unequal Indigenous-non-Indigenous connections are permanent and ongoing. The TRC's 'Principles of Reconciliation,' where reconciliation is framed as reckoning with past injuries, is another example of historisising. This is problematic because it indicates that colonialism does not exist and is not a present government strategy.?
Because of this historicisation, the TRC's attempts were focused mainly on 'psychological' recovery through the assembling and airing of stories; however, it is believed to lack considerable institutional change, especially in the types of government institutions engaged in residential schools and other types of colonial dominance.
Another criticism levelled at the panel is that it introduces reconciliation, "On terms that are still mainly set by the administration," instead of allowing a grassroots campaign or modes of "moral protest" to emerge. Some critics assert that since the administration introduced and dictate the parameters of the reconciliation process, the colonial power is setting the rules of their colonial subjects' recovery and "enforcing a time frame on 'healing' in order to move on, making it less efficient as a platform for reconciliation.
The commission's method of engaging with Indigenous Peoples when and how it is most convenient for non-Indigenous Canadians might be characterised as, "Yet another type of colonial oppression."?
Because, "From a Canadian viewpoint, Indigenous acknowledgment and reconciliation? is focused primarily on the wrongs of the past, and the reality as it exists today is neglected."
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