NEW DELHI, May 2: The editor Imphal Free Press, Pradip Phanjoubam, delivered the 7th Foundation lecture of the Indraprastha Public Affairs Centre, IPAC, a non-profit advocacy group with focus on human rights and sustainable development, at the Vishwa Yuva Kendra, Chanakya Puri, on April 30.
In the simple function, opened with a cultural performance by differently abled children, the well known journalist from Manipur spoke on the need to expand the understanding of human rights to accommodate new, formerly unseen needs.
Taking the cue from French Philosopher, Jacques Derrida`™s words that `We must more than ever stand on the side of human rights. We are in need of them and they are in need, for there is always a lack, a shortfall, a falling short, an insufficiency; human rights are never sufficient`, the editor said such a lack can be understood if it is acknowledged that the international movement for human rights evolved in a very definite historical context.
Explaining this point, he said this movement solidified immediately after World War II, and after the world witnessed the brutality the State is capable of perpetrating on the individual. This being the case, the human rights movement, and the Universal Declaration Human Rights, ratified by the UN is envisaged as a mechanism for checking the State`™s encroachment into individual rights.
In this sense, the charter is also part of the postmodern disillusionment with the modern, he said. `The modern, so called enlightenment age, put all its trust in science, and therefore also the scientific modern State to be the answer to all human ills. However, the 20th which saw two world wars, two atom bombs, numerous ethnic cleansing campaigns at the behest of the State forced a reconsideration of the earlier euphoria about the State` he said.
He said since the movement was contextual, it was in its own way limited by the historical juncture it belonged to. As for instance, he said, rather than major conflicts being by and large being fought between States as believed once, in the postmodern world, 80 percent of the conflicts have been non-international conflicts, and fought within the modern States. Issues such as these are as yet inadequately addressed by the current format of the human right charter, he contended.
Again, issues of rights of pre-modern, pre-State societies, have also been inadequately addressed. Incorporating the demands of the indigenous peoples into the human rights charter hence is also another challenge, he said.
A brief, but lively interaction with the audience, in which among others the question of advocacy groups being bullied into pliancy by the State, and the legitimacy of subversive tactics by these groups to offset policies that hurt human rights, came up for discussion.