SOUTH ASIA - House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats

2242in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, police killed 6 persons and injured 15 others when theyfired on a crowd of about 2,000 persons (see Section 1.a.). The crowd had rampagedthrough a Muslim-minority section of the city after reports that ballot boxes hadbeen tampered with in the city’s municipal corporation elections. In West Bengal,clashes between supporters of the Trinamul Congress Party and the CPI(M) left 71persons dead in the first 9 months of the year (see Section 1.g.). Voting irregularitiesin the West Bengal election—such as fraud, delaying tactics, and intimidation—werereported widely.Women are underrepresented in government and politics, although no legal impedimentshinder their participation in the political process. A large proportion ofwomen participates in voting throughout the country (with turnout rates slightlylower than those of men), and numerous women are represented in all major partiesin the national and state legislatures. There are 66 women among the 790 Membersof Parliament, including the Deputy Speaker of the upper house, and there are 8women in the 74-member Cabinet. The 1993 passage of the ‘‘Panchayati Raj’’ constitutionalamendments reserved 30 percent of seats in elected village councils(Panchayats) for women, which has brought more than 1 million women into thepolitical life at the grassroots level. In September debate over the Women’s ReservationBill, which was designed to reserve one-third of parliamentary seats for women,subsided when the Government failed to introduce the bill during the monsoon sessionof Parliament. The bill was introduced but not debated in the winter sessionof Parliament. The Women’s Reservation Bill first was introduced in late 1998.The Constitution reserves seats in Parliament and state legislatures for ‘‘scheduledtribes’’ and ‘‘scheduled castes’’ in proportion to their population (see Section 5).Indigenous people actively participate in national and local politics, but their impactdepends on their numerical strength. In the northeastern states, indigenous peopleare a large proportion of the population and consequently exercise a dominant influencein the political process. In comparison, in Maharashtra and Gujarat, tribal peopleare a small minority and have been unsuccessful in blocking projects that theyoppose.Section 4. Governmental Attitude Regarding International and Nongovernmental Investigationof Alleged Violations of Human RightsIndependent human rights organizations operate throughout most of the country,investigating abuses and publishing their findings; however, in some states and ina few circumstances, human rights groups face some restrictions. Human rightsmonitors in Jammu and Kashmir have been unable to move around the state to documenthuman rights violations due to fear of retribution by security forces andcountermilitants. Since 1992 several individuals closely involved in the documentationof violations in Jammu and Kashmir, including lawyers and journalists, havebeen attacked and in some cases killed. International human rights monitors havehad difficulty in obtaining visas to visit the country for investigation purposes. Forexample, during the year the authorities continued to deny HRW and AmnestyInternational permission to visit Jammu and Kashmir; however, some foreign diplomatsgained improved access to some prisons in Jammu and Kashmir. The Governmentalso continued to deny the U.N. Special Rapporteurs on Torture andExtrajudicial Killings permission to visit the country, despite their repeated requests.Moreover, the police and security forces have arrested and harassed humanrights monitors. In May U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata wasallowed to visit the country (see Section 2.d.).In September 1999, the Ministry of Home Affairs sent a notice to several prominentNGO’s asking them to justify their status as nonpolitical organizations underthe Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act. According to HRW, the notice effectivelywas a threat to cut off foreign funding. The NGO’s, many of which worked on women’srights, communal violence, and Dalit and tribal issues, publicly had criticizedthe policies of the BJP-led government and the antisecular activities of the SanghParivar, a collective of rightwing Hindu organizations of which the BJP is a member.On May 24, an agent of the intelligence bureau visited and questioned the directorof the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center (SAHRDC) about histravel earlier in the month to Geneva to participate in the meeting of the U.N.Human Rights Commission. In 1998 the Andhra Pradesh government issued a directiveto faculty members of state universities not to associate with the AndhraPradesh Civil Liberties Union (APCLC), a well-respected human rights organization.Following protests by faculty organizations, the directive was rescinded.On April 9, the Government prevented four members of a Kashmir human rightsorganization from traveling to the 56th annual meeting of the UNCHR in Geneva(see Section 2.d.).VerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:46 Sep 20, 2001 Jkt 071555 PO 00000 Frm 00086 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\COUNTRYR\S71555\71555.035 HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1