Intergovernmental organisations like the United Nations are the sum of their members states. The decisions, therefore, reflect the will of the governments. Barring the odd exception, governments act at the behest of their own economic, political or security interests and compulsions. Their human rights treaty obligations, more often than not, go for a toss. Since governments, in the first place, undertake these obligations freely, they must be held accountable for their actions in their respective countries and at the international level.

Intergovernmental organisations play an important role in the protection and promotion of human rights worldwide. New standards are elaborated and adopted by governments; fact-finding procedures and technical programs to enhance human rights are established and entrusted to independent experts; observers are sent to countries to monitor and report on the human rights situation; and other initiatives are developed and implemented to protect and promote human rights.

Intergovernmental organisations can have a significant influence on specific country situations, but they often shirk their responsibilities. The UN High Commission for Human Rights, for instance, failed in 1998 to yet again take any action to protect the victims of rights abuses in Algeria, despite a rights crisis which has claimed over 80,000 lives since 1992. Algeria's strategic importance and its close cultural or economic ties with other influential states took precedence over the lives of Algerians themselves.

Amnesty feels when those who have committed the most heinous crimes escape justice, an ominous message is sent out to society: perpetrators need not be afraid. Where abuses are not properly investigated; where those responsible are not held accountable for their crimes; where the truth does not reveal itself because the rule of law breaks down or because of a lack of political will, a self-perpetrating cycle of violence often rises. Events in the former Yugoslavia and the Great Lakes region of Africa are two tragic examples. In countries emerging from armed conflict and embarking on reconstruction and reconciliation, the need for justice is overwhelming. It was this precise need that led 120 countries to adopt the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Rome, Italy, in July 1998. The ICC was intended to have jurisdiction over the worst crimes in the world: genocide, other crimes against humanity and war crimes. Sadly enough, only seven governments voted against the ICC statute. Among those who did were the United States, the greatest advocate of human rights.

The 1998 session of the UNCHR exemplified a diplomatic policy of "constructive engagement" in which human rights principles were sacrificed in the interests of compromise. Member states were preoccupied with reaching consensus and obtaining the cooperation of the perpetrating state, rather than addressing the rights situation in the country concerned. Despite the Algerian government's refusal to cooperate with the Commission, and despite continuing reports of killings in that country during the Commission's six-week session, the European Union, The US and Canada eventually admitted to lacking the necessary determination to take any action.

The calls by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters sans Frontieres and International Federation of Human Rights for the despatch of an international team to investigate the situation and the plight of Algerian victims were not considered. The Commission's decision to drop scrutiny of Saudi Arabia's record from its confidential "1503 procedure" was disheartening for rights activists, while the conspicuous absence of any scrutiny of China's human rights record was deplorable too.

UN treaty bodies hold governments directly accountable for compliance with their obligations under international human rights treaties. As in previous years, consideration of states' reports by treaty bodies in 1998 highlighted the repeated failure of some governments to comply with their treaty obligations, and to implement recommendations previously made by the treaty bodies.

 

Excerpts from the section The Cruelty of executions

The death penalty is not an abstract concept. It involves inflicting sever trauma and injury on a human body to the point where life is extinguished. It means the overpowering of basic human instincts - the will to survive and the desire to help fellow human beings who are in pain. It is a repulsive act which no one should be asked to perform or witness, and which no one should have the power to authorise.

All execution methods are gruesome, and all methods of execution can go wrong. The idea that lethal injection is somehow a "humane" way of killing is nonsense. the condemned still have to suffer the terror of waiting for their preordained moment of death, and the method of killing is not always the clinical and painless process claimed by its proponents. Many such executions have resulted in prolonged deaths, including Guatemala's first execution by lethal injection in February 1998. Manuel Martinez Coronado, an impoverished peasant of indigenous descent, took 18 minutes to die, despite assurances by the authorities that the execution would be painless and "over in 30 seconds". After the execution had begun, there was a power cut, so the lethal injection machine switched off and the chemicals stopped flowing. Witnesses in the observation room also reported that the executioners had trouble finding a vein into which to insert the needle. Human Rights Procurator Julio Arango said: "I think we all have the obligation to tell what happened: his arms were bleeding heavily." The execution was broadcast live: audiences could hear Manual Coronado's three children and their mother sobbing in the observation room as the execution took place.

This execution was an attempt by the authorities to sanitise the method of inducing death. The previous executions, Guatemala's first for 13 years, were carried out in 1993 by firing squad. One of the prisoners was not killed by the first volley of bullets. He may even have heard the order for another shot to be fired at his head to kill him. Public outrage in Guatemala and abroad forced the authorities to end the use of firing squads. A more appropriate response would have been to end the use of capital punishment altogether.

In the United States, several states still use the electric chair. One of the most recent such executions took place in Florida in 1997. Pedro Medino, a Cuban refugee with a history of mental illness, was strapped to a chair that was built in 1924. the chair malfunctioned and the black leather face mask shielding Pedro's terrified face burst into orange and blue flames, filling the death chamber with dense smoke. The power was kept on till he died.

Once states believe they have the right to execute prisoners, they end up endorsing practices which are akin to torture, whatever method they choose. Torture is universally condemned and outlawed, including by those who advocate the death penalty. Yet an execution is an extreme, purposeful, physical and mental assault on a person already rendered helpless by the state - the essential elements of torture. If hanging someone by the arms or legs until they scream out in pain is condemned as torture, how should we describe hanging someone by the neck until they are dead? If giving 100 volts of electricity to sensitive parts of the body in order to extract confession is condemned as torture, how should we describe the administration of 2,000 volts in order to inflict death? If carrying out mock executions is condemned as torture, how should we describe the mental anguish of people who are given years to contemplate being poisoned by lethal injection at the hands of the state? The truth is that the intervention of a legal process to allow such cruelty does not make it any less painful. The fact that the death penalty is imposed in the name of justice does not mitigate the suffering and humiliation.

International bodies have condemned public executions. In 1996, the United Nations Human Rights Committee stated that public executions are "incompatible with human dignity". Yet in various parts of the world, governments allow - even invite - the public to witness executions. In Saudi Arabia, executions are routinely carried out in public. In the case of migrant workers, relatives may not even know that an execution is happening, yet the general public is there to watch the final moments of their loved ones.

The choice of themes, the sets of concerns, the specific problems articulated, even the structures of the films keep on changing so as to adapt themselves to changes in the larger society. From the mythologicals, to the historicals, to the socials, to the romantics and then to the post-'70s films, the changes in conventional films have closely followed and reflected the changes in Indian society itself. However, amidst all these changes, one thing that has always remained central in all these different genres has been some notion of injustice, of exploitation, of suffering, always shown from the perspective of the victim.

Cutting across genres and crossing the time barrier, this is one consistent thread which provides a continuity in Hindi conventional films. Right from Raja Harishchandra (1913), the focus has always been on some form of injustice, of exploitation and more often than not, the problems of those in the subordinate sector have been highlighted. If Taramati (the female protagonist) in Raja Harishchandra suffered great ordeals and injustices, her modern counterpart Satyavati in Jai Santoshi Ma (1973) goes through worse trials and tribulations. If the tender love of Salim and Anarkali was thwarted in Mughal-e-Azam (1960), so also was that of the young couple in Ek Duuje ke Liye (1983), Qayamat se Qayamat Tak (1988), Dil (1990), Dilwale Dulhaniya le Jayenge (1995), Raja Hindustani (1997) and Ishq (1997). If the mother of Mother India (1957) faced immense problems in bringing up her children, so also did the mother of Deewar (1973) and Baazigar (1993).

Thus in Hindi conventional cinema we have had films which have highlighted:
*** the poverty and exploitation in rural society: Saukari Pash (1925), Aurat (1940), Do Bigha Zameen (1953), Mother India (1957), Ganga Jamuna (1961);
*** the plight of young widows: Balyogini (1936), Prem Rog (1982);
*** protest against arranged marriages and social barriers: Devdas (1935), Koyla (1957);
*** caste problems making it impossible for a young woman to marry above her caste: Achyut Kanya (1936), Ratan (1943);
*** the tragic consequences of the marriage of a young girl to an old man: Duniya na Maane (1937), Guide (1966);
*** the religious tradition of offering human sacrifices: Sacrifice (1942); Amrit Manthan (1934);
*** the devastating aspect of migration from village to city: Dharti ke Lal (1946); Shree 420;
*** social inequality: Adhikar (1938), Deedar (1951), Awara (1951);
*** the struggle of survival in a big city: Do Bigha Zameen (1953), Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman (1992), Ghatak (1996);
*** the deprivation, suffering, disease and want among the lower middle-class: Humlog (1951), Footpath (1953), Boot Polish (1954), Awaz (1956);
*** the problem of orphans left on their own to face the world: Muqaddar ka Sikandar (1978), Laawaris (1981), Raja Hindustani (1997);
*** the right of workers to participate in management: President (1936), Laadla (1997);
*** collective farming and mechanisation of agriculture: Dharti Mata (1937), Upkar (1967);
*** the challenge to traditional ideas: Aadmi (1939);
*** the appeal to nationalism: Sikandar (1940), Roja (1993), Krantiveer (1993), Border (1997), Pardes (1997);
*** the vulnerable position of the common man when pitted against underworld dons: Zanjeer (1973), Deewar (1973), Andha Kanoon (1983), Khalnayak (1993), Ghatak (1996);
*** dacoits: Sholay (1975); or the powerful politician-police-goonda combine: Aakhri Rasta (1985), Pratighat (1987), Aankhen (1993), Ziddi (1997);
*** the tragic consequences of doing one's job honestly: Zanjeer (1973), Sholay (1975), Meri Awaz Suno (1981), Pratighat (1987), Mohra (1994), Vinashak (1998);
*** the problem of corruption: Hindustani (1997); and communalism: Bombay (1993), Krantiveer (1993);
*** obsessional love: Darr (1993), Anjaam (1994), Agnisakshi (1996), Daraar (1997).
If the success of a film depends upon the extent to which it has been able to interpellate the audience, it is obvious that the higher the level of interpellation the greater its chances of succeeding. This explains why there is always a multiplicity of interpellations contained within the structure of almost every conventional film. The top grossers of the last 25 years incorporated within their diverse structure elements whereby they could interpellate the audience on many different levels. Thus more often than not the familial, religious and political elements are all subsumed within these films. In fact, in the highly successful films, each and every scene including the songs and dances, the dialogues, the fight, the décor and the dresses are used and structured in such a way that they constantly keep on interpellating the audience. This explains the tremendous success of a filmmaker like Manmohan Desai, who is a master in the art of using such multiple interpellations effectively. This also explains why sex films (Main aur Tum, Kacchi Kali, Jawani ki Pyas), or films which contain fights just for the heck of it, never go on to become top grossers at the box office.

Even within the religious genre the focus is never on the purely devotional aspect but on highlighting the trials and tribulations of an ordinary individual (Taramati in Raja Harishchandra, and Satyawati in Jai Santoshi Ma) or the problems faced by the saint himself before his teaching is accepted e.g., Sant Tukaram (1936), Sant Dyaneshwar (1940). Even in the stunt films of Homi Wadia like Hunterwali (1935), the protagonist, fearless Nadia, as she was called, was always shown rescuing and helping the weak and underprivileged. This also explains why in a film like Kismet, which was dealing with something entirely different, nationalistic concerns were incorporated in the film in the form of a song which went like this: Aaj Himalaya ki parvat se/Phir humne lalkara hai/Door hato, door hato ai duniyawalo/Hindustan hamara hai (Today from the peaks of the Himalayas/We have again given a call/Go away, go away, ye aliens/For India is ours). Or Kalpana, an overtly musical film, incorporated the theme of national integration, 'Ek ho, kyon ki tum log ek ho' (Unite, for you are one).

After Independence, as India developed into a more fully capitalist society and its contradictions started surfacing, the forms of interpellation also changed. A capitalist society is essentially one in which the dull compulsion of profitmaking is the predominant element which characterises it. As a result it is dull, drab, unheroic, and from a certain viewpoint, even unethical.

It is a society made up of atomised, isolated units which, either through force or fraud, ruthlessly pursue their own selfish interests. Thus the basis of such a society is cut-throat competition, where those who succeed are revered and worshipped, while those who fail are swept aside and forgotten. Compounding this is the fact that a lot of residual pre-capitalist elements are deeply entrenched in the superstructural consciousness of the people. Consequently, they are susceptible to, and hanker after, all these elements which are now lost to them. Hindi conventional films exploit this psychic need every effectively. This explains why such pre-capitalist values such as honour, friendship, loyalty, sacrifice, valour and religion are crucial elements within the discourse of these films. For instance, all the blockbusters of the last 25 years have highlighted and literally gloated over the strong male bonding between the heroes.