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Reckoning with State Crimes in South Asia

Sun, June 26, 10:30am to 12:20pm, Shikokan (SK), Floor: BF, 003

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel Proposal Application

Abstract

This panel will reflect on grave human rights abuse by South Asian governments, and efforts to challenge such abuse and shift the political equilibrium that allows it to happen.
The panel begins by considering the findings on state impunity in the recently published ‘Landscapes of Fear: Understanding Impunity in India’ (Navsharan Singh & Patrick Hoenig eds.; New Delhi: Zubaan 2014). This edited volume analyses the settled culture of impunity surrounding, inter alia, national security operations, sectarian violence and sexual violence in India.
Scholars from Sri Lanka, Nepal and India will then consider how grave human rights abuses are justified and neglected in different parts of South Asia, as well as how these abuses have been exposed and challenged. The panel provides an opportunity to identify gaps in scholarship, advocacy, and institutional capacity on human rights accountability in South Asia, as well as regional collaboration in response to these gaps.
Navsharan Singh will discuss state reparations for human rights abuse, drawing from detailed interviews with victims of such abuse in India. Chulani Kodikara will consider how Tamil women’s testimonies about state crimes during and after Sri Lanka’s civil war are a force for accountability. Prakash Adhikari will reflect upon the delicate role that former combatants in Nepal’s civil war – some of whom have committed serious abuses - play in transitional justice processes. Surabhi Chopra focuses on extra-judicial killing by the police in India, and analyses attempts to expose and challenge the systematic nature of this practice through public interest litigation.

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