Human Rights and Religion

 In speaking of ‘religious human rights’, two different ideas come to mind. First, there is the idea of what is commonly called ‘ religious liberty’, i.e., the duty of society to respect and protect the right of every human person to worship any god of his or her choice and no God at all (as long as the exercise of that right is not disruptive of the secular order of that society). In other words, one of the primary duties of the society is to protect the rights of religious liberty along with other human rights. But second, there is the idea of what one could call ‘the religious foundations of human rights’, that is, religious rights are source of all other rights.

 

Encyclopedia Britannica explains Religion as the   relation of Human beings with God, or to whatever they consider sacred or, in some case merely supernatural. Archaeological evidences suggest that religious beliefs have existed since the first human communities. They are generally shared by a community, and they express the communal culture and values through doctrine, rituals, values and myth. Worship is probably the most basic element of religion, but moral conduct, right belief, and participation in religious institutions also constitute elements of religious life.

  

 Religion attempts to answer the basic questions intrinsic to human condition (Why do we suffer? Why is there evil in the world? What happens to us when we die?) through the perception of true nature of reality, or through the relationship to the sacred or supernatural. Some Religions are outwardly focused and some are inwardly focused.

 Most of human history and in much of the world still today, ethical norms are rooted in religious orientations.

The establishment of relationship between human rights and religions is important because of the following reasons-

 

a.      The concept and need of human rights will be better appreciated by the common masses if it is viewed as an inherent value of religions.

 

b.     Evaluation and understanding of all religions of the world will provide a base for universalistic ethical norms that will be ideals for all human societies.

 

c.      Ancient wisdom can provide food for thought to the modern thinkers for evolution and institutionalization of human rights.

 

d.     The modern universalistic ethics needs to be defended from contemporary challenges-philosophical, sociological, and religious in order that, as an ethical norm, human rights may full be actualized in societies.

 

e.      Religions supportive of human rights may flourish among all peoples.

 

Distorted and ambiguous interpretations of religious teachings, which have been rooted deep in the minds of the people, may be viewed in the new rational and sensitive light.

Discrimination?

An Indian high court ruled that Air India, the state-owned airline, could deny employment and stop them from flying to would-be female flight attendants if they were overweight.

The ‘Times of India’ reports:

In the highly competitive industry of civil aviation, the company has to focus on the personality of its employees," the ruling said. "By the very nature of their jobs, their overall physical personality is one of the primary considerations."

Another reason for the ruling, according to the court, was the link between weight, athleticism, and the ability to handle emergency situations. While this news did ignite an uncanny barrage of puns and wisecracks in news headlines -- "Air hostesses suffer heavy defeat in India," "India grounds 'fat' air hostesses," "You're too fat to fly, court tells hostesses"

 

 

1. Is ‘weight’ a reasonable criterion to evaluate fitness and personality?
2. Has the criterion of ‘weight’ emerged out from some immoral or prejudiced thinking?
3. If the criterion of ‘weight’ was reasonable, was communicated to all, and it resulted in loss of job for some, but not for all, would it still be discriminatory. Like in this case, the grounded airhostesses alleged that the male cabin crewmembers did not have to follow the weight specification.
4. Even if ‘weight’ was not the best criterion to evaluate, but if it was communicated as the evaluative criteria, but later not considered during evaluation, wouldn’t it be discriminatory against those people who did well on the evaluative criterion.

 

Can we categorise the above mentioned case as that of being discriminatory.

a human rights case: the case of Guddi

Place	Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh
Period	September 2005
Parties involved	Guddi’s family: Father- who worked ad a driver and died 12 years ago due to TB, Mother, Elder Brother- mentally challenged, Elder sister- fled and married in Delhi. Guddi- 16 year old girl who sells her womb Buyer- the family which buys  the womb for Rs 20,000/-. Newspaper daily- which brought the issue to the forefront first. Sanna and Gang – the Rapists.
The case	The case presents a pathetic picture of the exploitation of a girl who because of her poverty and needs succumbs to the cruel hands of the society. The girl Guddi has been raped by the criminals Sanna and Gang. Unable to get any other respectable job, she decides to carry babies for the families who did not have any child for money. Till the child id born, Guddi is taken care of by the father of the child and thereafter she is paid a sum of 15000/- to 20000/-.

 

 

Issues

 

 

The case involves the following Human rights issues-

 

Future Issues

 §        Will/ can the child be legally adopted?

 §        In case the child is born with a mental or physical disability, will the responsible family still adopt it?

      §        Will the child be accepted in the family and society and treated with justice and equality?

 

§        Will a child born out of wedlock be considered a legitimate chil and not bear the social, moral and legal stigma?

     §        What is the surety that there is no ulterior motive of buying the child?

 

 

Current issues

 

§        Will an intercourse with a female below eighteen years not considered as rape?

 

§        Is the girl carrying the child enjoying her right to good health, safety and care?

 

§        The age group of 15-19 years is most vulnerable to girls. Early mother hood results in inadequate growth, under nutrition and anaemia among girls. Being physically under developed they are at a greater risk of obstetric complications and give birth to low birth weight babies.

 

§        Does the girl live her life with dignity and care.

 

§        Will she be taken care of for her entire life by the family, which buys the child.

      §        Can a womb/child be legally sold?

 

Suggestions

 The  problem of Guddi is not an isolated casen, nor is an individual problem; it is a social problem, the root cause of which lies in poverty,lack of opportunities, societal insensitivity, lack of education and erosion of basic moral values. If a practice has to be abolished which is morally, socially and legally wrong but is done out of sheer helplessness and necessity then the first corrective action should be development and availability of better options

 

1.      Keeping in mind the health conditions and age of Guddi and with her consent only the pregnancy may be terminated.

 2.      If the child is born, then the father who is responsible for it should legally adopt it.

 3.      The father should support Guddi financially. The society should also contribute money. From the money collected a trust may be founded which would give a regular amount to Guddi per month.

 4.      When Guddi turns 18, she may be trained for self-employment eg. A Juice shop, tailoring etc. and the money from the trust may be utilized to set up her job.

 5.      The rapists should be punished by court. However, the punishment for the father of the child, to whom Guddi willingly consented, should be less severe.

Conclusion

 Women have huge responsibilities in relation to their families as the caretakers and nurturers but have low negotiating power at the same time.  It is, however, very important to realize that gender justice cannot be secured merely through laws and the legal system.

 Enacting gender just laws will not mean an end to the exploitation of and discrimination against women.   Using law and the legal system can only be one of the many remedies to be used to change the unequal status of women.  Law is one of the means of empowerment of women but it is very essential that we realize the limitations of law and not just hope that since we have a Constitution that guarantees equality and various laws to address the different kinds of atrocities against women that women now are enjoying equality.

 Society has to be changed, attitudes of people in society have to be altered before equality can become real for women.

 The legislative framework provided in the Constitution provides for equality in society between men and women.  In order to fulfil this constitutional mandate the Parliament and the Judiciary have from time to time made laws and interpreted the existing ones that would guarantee gender justice. 

 However since law, the legal system and society are closely interlinked it is not possible to enforce the rights provided in law without changes in social institutions, values and attitudes.  Social change cannot be brought about through law.  It is only through the process of sensitizing various branches of the government and more importantly the members of society to the rights and concerns of women can gender justice become a reality.

  Law is only one method by which the various problems of women can be resolved.  While law can empower women at one level it is not possible to completely the subordination of women or the discriminatory practices merely through the legal system.

 After all we have the Constitution that guarantees various rights to women and enactments since then which have attempted to address various crimes against women.  We have to recognize the limitation of law in bringing about change in society and in ending oppression of women.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What are words?

I remember in my childhood I used to narrate horror and suspense stories that I came to know from my friends and movies to my grandmother. In just one-fourth of the story she would fell half asleep and start snoring. However when I stopped and started to leave, she would hold me back and insist that I should complete the story as she was listening. Now I understand that probably it was the sound of the words, which made her feel comfortable as it diverted her mind from the tensions of the unconscious mind and also made her feel that somebody was around.  

People might just hear your words and not actually listen to your message. 
 

Words are not just meanings, they are more than that. Spoken words have a rhythm. Out of all the sounds existing around us they are one of the most familiar ones. They also do not come alone but wrapped with voice, volume and expression. Therefore it is all-possible that the listener is put on or off by just hearing the ‘music’ of the words. It is also possible that the attention of the listener is somewhere else but he cannot afford to look unresponsive to somebody’s speech. While taking lectures I had noticed several times students faking attention. When suddenly asked- ‘ What the class has been discussing’, they would promptly utter 2- 3 sentences just spoken by somebody in the class.which might have been just stored in their ‘RAM’. On further probing, however, they would be clueless. 

What is right?: the case of selecting students team for a National Event

I was working as a coordinator for students activities in a management institute. My task was to select and train the students for the various inter institutes and national level competitive events. 

AIMA ( all india management association) like every year was organising  the National Simulation Students Game.

There was also a particpation fee of around 3500 Rs per team which was to be paid from the fund of the Students' body of the institute

After a series of tests and games, twelve students were selected , which were divided into 3 teams of 4 each, to be sent to Delhi to particpate in regional round of the national games. The three teams which were selected , one had the students from 1st year and the other two from the second year.

the 1st year students team did exceptionally well and reached the regional finals, however, they could not make to the top.

The institute and the students were very happy about their achievement. we thought that the next year with experience and better training we would be able to do much better. The team came into the limelight and received other opportunties to participate in various other inter college  contests as it was established that they were better than the rest.

Many other students got inspired and they also started gearing up for the AIMA Simulation game for the next time. A special simulation trainer was also hired by the institute to conduct simulation exercises and games for all the students.

The next year again we started preparing and selecting our teams for the AIMA's National Simulation Game. The previous year winning team students were now in the second year and they expected that they in the same team would be sent to participate.

However, as a Coordinator, I made them clear that there will be a selection process for all the students and those who performed the best will be selected. I however encouraged them saying that since they were already so good and also had an experience, there was no question that they wont be able to get through the selection rounds. Infact I also personally wanted they to get selected but through a fair procedure only and I was pretty sure that they would qualify.However, they did not seem to appreciate this.

To my surprise, in the prelim round of the selection process only, two members of the winning team were not able to qualify. Infact, they had not even  answered many of the questions. Perhaps it was a sign of protest, or they were pretty sure that they would be selected in any case. Then, the other rounds were conducted.  Finally, 12 students were selected for the three teams to be sent in the National Competition.  

None of the teams were able to do well in the competition!!