BACKGROUND GUIDE

All India Political Parties Meet

Letter from the Executive Board
Greetings, Members!

It is our pleasure to welcome you all to the All India Political Parties Meet
(AIPPM) of International Youth MUN at Lucknow. It will be an honor and a
privilege to serve as your Executive Board for the duration of the conference.
This Background Guide is designed to give you an insight into the case at hand.
Please refer to it carefully. Remember, a thorough understanding of the problem
is the first step to solving it. However, bear in mind that this Background Guide
is in no way exhaustive and is only meant to provide you with enough
background information to establish a platform for beginning research.
Members are highly recommended to do a good amount of research beyond
what is covered in the Guide.
The agendas at hand are both vast and complex, and a successful discussion on
it would entail the collective participation of all of you. It shall be your
prerogative to decide the direction in which you want to take this committee. At
the outset, we would like to state that the agenda is to be analyzed from a policy
stand point.
We sincerely hope that AIPPM of International Youth MUN at Lucknow 2017
will help you become better professionals and persons. We’re always at your
disposal and please do not hesitate to contact us.
Looking forward to see you all in action!

Regards,
Shashank Shekhar Jha Basukinath Pandey
Moderator Deputy Moderator
 All India Political Parties Meet

An All India Political Parties Meet is convened by the Moderator, Deputy

Moderator and Scribe inviting all prominent political parties across various
spectrums of Indian polity and special invitees that could well be organisations,
councils or personalities to discuss a particular/many prevalent issues at hand.

It is quintessential that members be thoroughly researched & aware of their

characters’ affiliations & interests. Members will be duly updated in case any
developments outside committee take place and shall be expected to respond to
dynamic circumstances while keeping their characters’ and political parties’
interests in mind.
BASIC SUGGESTIONS BEFORE YOU START RESEARCHING:

A few aspects that members should keep in mind while preparing:

Procedure: The purpose of putting in procedural rules in any committee is to
ensure a more organized and efficient debate. All India Political Parties Meet is
not a conventional MUN committee but stands out as a very important in the
Indian Political system, although it does not have any legislative power as a
body but serves as one of the highest forums of discussion and deliberation.

There is an absence of established Parliamentary Procedure the All India

Political Parties Meet is mostly run on the basis of conventions.

Anyways, for the sake of a meaningful and organised deliberation in

International Youth Model United Nations Conference 2017, a few rules of
procedure have been provided in the following pages.

The motive is to maintain the fluid nature of the Indian Committees and at the
same time aim for a fruitful deliberation in an organised form.
 Rules and Procedures
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
Rule 1. Official and working languages
Hindi and English shall be the official and working language of all
committees during formal and informal debate however all the
documentation work shall be done in English only.

Rule 2. Decorum
The Conference will begin with a formal attendance of the
representatives and will be followed by the Opening Statements.
A material in printed form or written form is permissible in the committee.

Note: No electronic gadgets (viz. Mobile, Laptops, etc) shall be permitted

during the session. One may use it only during the break.

Opening Statements:
The members will be delivering an opening statement at the start of the
committee. The default speakers’ time for this will be 60 seconds can be
extended up to 90 seconds.

After every speech members are obligated to yield the floor back to the
Executive Board.
The Executive Board will then direct the members to ask questions.
The number of questions to be asked (if any) will be decided by the
Executive Board depending on the time.
The committee will then proceed in any of the two types of sessions

Establishing the Sessions:

These sessions can be established by proposing a motion to establish a
particular session, which will be followed by a vote.

The motion should be able to secure a simple majority.

Public Session

 In order to discuss various sections of the agenda, a separate time frame is

allotted for the members to put their views on the floor of the house.

 A public session can be of 15-30 minutes but the individual

speaker’s time will remain 60 seconds.

 Everything in a public session is in public domain and is in the

presence of the media.

Private Session

Private session is of two types: Moderated and Unmoderated.

Nothing from the Private Session goes on record or in the public

domain.

Unmoderated:
 A Representative may move for an Unmoderated Session thereby
suggesting a change from formal to informal debate.
 The Representative who makes this motion must suggest a length and
justification for the Unmoderated Session.
 The Executive Board may suggest a more appropriate session length
and put it to vote, or may rule the Unmoderated Session out of order
without possibility of appeal.
 Once the Motion has passed, the Committee will depart from the formal
discussion and will carry an informal discussion without leaving the
conference room.

Moderated: A moderated session will be a formal discussion which is regulated

by the Executive Board.
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Points:
1. Point of Personal Privilege:

 A Representative may rise to a Point of Personal Privilege if a matter

impairs him/her from participating fully in council activities.
 The Executive Board persons shall try to effectively address the source
of impairment.
 A Point of Personal Privilege may only interrupt a speaker if the
Representative speaking is inaudible. Otherwise, the Representative
rising on the Point of Personal Privilege must wait till the end of the
speech to raise the Point.

2. Point of Order
 A Representative may rise to a Point of Order if he finds a factual flaw
in the speech of the speaker.
 This point may not interrupt a Speaker.
 The Executive Board will rule on the validity of the point immediately.
 A Point of Order ruled dilatory by the Executive Board may not be
appealed.

3. Point of Parliamentary Inquiry

 A Representative may rise to a Point of Parliamentary Inquiry requesting an

explanation from the Executive Board on the Rules of Procedure.
 This point may not interrupt a Speaker.

4. Point of Information
 A Representative may rise to a Point of Information if he/she

wishes to ask a question or clarification to the speaker.

 This point may not interrupt a speaker.

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This point is only valid at the time of the opening statements.

5. Right of Reply.

 A Representative whose personal integrity has been impugned by another

Delegate’s comments may rise to a Right of Reply.
 Disagreement with the content of a Delegate's speech is not grounds for a
Right of Reply.
 The Executive Board will recognize the Right of Reply at his/her discretion
as well as decide on how to resolve the motion.
 This point may not interrupt a speaker but should be addressed the moment
he/she has finished his/her speech.
 Should the Executive Board rule the Right of Reply out of order, his/her
decision cannot be appealed.
 No Representative may call for a Right of Reply on a Right of Reply.

Written Documents:

The members can prepare a press release or a communiqué.

 Press Release is an official statement issued to newspapers giving

information on a particular matter.

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Evidence or proof is acceptable from sources:

1. Government Reports: These reports can be used in all manners. It includes

reports from central as well as state govt. report and published through the verified
manner.
2. UN Reports: All UN Reports are considered are credible information or
evidence for the Executive Board of the Security Council.
a. UN Bodies: Like the SC (http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/), GA
(http://www.un.org/en/ga/), HRC
(http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/Pages/HRCIndex.aspx) etc.
b. UN Affiliated bodies like the World Bank (http://www.worldbank.org/),
International Monetary Fund (http://www.imf.org/external/index.htm),
International Committee of the Red Cross (http://www.icrc.org/eng/index.jsp), etc.
c. Treaty Based Bodies like the Antarctic Treaty System
(http://www.ats.aq/e/ats.htm), the International Criminal Court (http://www.icc-
cpi.int/Menus/ICC)

Under no circumstances will sources like Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/),

Amnesty International (http://www.amnesty.org/), Human Rights Watch
(http://www.hrw.org/) or newspapers like the Guardian
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/), Times of India (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
/), etc. be accepted as credible proof, though they might be used for general
information.

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Agenda: Rise in intolerance with

special reference to Beef Ban

Cattle Slaughter in India

“The State shall endeavour to organise agriculture and animal husbandry on

modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and
improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter of cows and calves and other
milch and draught cattle." -Article 48 of the Indian Constitution

The prohibition of cow slaughter is one of the Directive Principles of State Policy
contained in Article 48 of the Constitution. The "Preservation, protection and
improvement of stock and prevention of animal diseases, veterinary training and
practice" is Entry 15 of the State List of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution,
meaning that State Legislatures have exclusive powers to legislate the prevention
of slaughter and preservation of cattle.
Several State Governments and Union Territories (UTs) have enacted cattle
preservation laws in one form or the other. Arunachal Pradesh, Kerala, Meghalaya,
Nagaland, Tripura and Lakshadweep have no legislation. All other states/UTs have
enacted legislation to prevent the slaughter of cow and its progeny. Kerala is a
major consumer of beef and has no regulation on the slaughter of cow and
its progeny. As a result, cattle are regularly smuggled into Kerala from the
neighboring states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, for the purpose
of slaughter.

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No state law explicitly bans the consumption of beef. There is a lack of uniformity
among State laws governing cattle slaughter. The strictest laws are in Delhi,
Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh,
where the slaughter of cow and its progeny, including bulls and bullocks of all
ages, is completely banned. Most States prohibit the slaughter of cows of all ages.
However, Assam and West Bengal permit the slaughter of cows of over the ages of
10 and 14 years, respectively. Most States prohibit the slaughter of calves, whether
male or female. With the exception of Bihar and Rajasthan, where age of a calf is
given as below 3 years, the other States have not defined the age of a calf.
According to the National Commission on Cattle, the definition of a calf being
followed in Maharashtra, by some executive instructions, was "below the age of 1
year"
In several cases, the Supreme Court has held that, "A total ban [on cattle
slaughter] was not permissible if, under economic conditions, keeping useless
bull or bullock be a burden on the society and therefore not in the public
interest.”
In May 2016, Bombay High Court gave the judgement that consumption or
possession of beef is legal under Article 21 of Constitution of India, but upheld the
ban on cow slaughter in the state of Maharashtra.
The Government set up various Committees and Expert Groups to look into the
question of a ban on cow slaughter as well as related aspects concerning
development and preservation of the cattle wealth of the country. Some of the
more important Committees / Commissions are as below:
Cattle Preservation and Development Committee (1947-48)
Uttar Pradesh Committee (1948) and Nanda Committee (1954)
Expert Committee on the Prevention of Slaughter of Milch Cattle in India (1954-55)
Gosamvardhan Seminar (1960)
Special Committee on Preserving High-yielding Cattle (1961-62)

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Cow vigilantism:

The cow protection movement was the movement that demanded end of cow
slaughter in British India. The movement gained momentum with the support
from Arya Samaj and its founding father Swami Dayananda Saraswati.

In the present day, Gau Raksha Dal and cow vigilantes continue to spread the cow
protection movement in India, but some recognised organisations are also working
on this cause widely. Pawan Pandit, the chairman of Bhartiya Gau Raksha Dal, is
leading the cow protection movement currently.

Today, “Cow vigilantism” is commonly used in India to describe the current

lawlessness happening under the rubric of Cow protection. The term “vigilante”
refers to a self-appointed person or a group of persons that undertakes to enforce
the law without any legal authority. It also includes persons who take the law into
their own hands to avenge what they may perceive to be crime. No definition of
“vigilante” includes what is happening in India: Murder and violence of men by
other men in illegally and extra-judicially enforcing religious beliefs.

As a euphemism, Cow vigilantism conceals more than it reveals. It bestows a

measure of social, moral and legal legitimacy to the so-called Cow protectors.
More tragically, and to a large degree, it hides their criminality: It conceals the
truth of men killing other men in the name of the Cow. Cow vigilantism as an
expression has sadly become a convenient cloak for violence, brutality, murder and
mayhem in the name of the Cow. The convenient robe of words “Cow vigilantism”
and “Cow vigilantes” deceptively and quite ironically elevates murderers of men to
the pedestal of protectors of Cows. Even the RSS chief recently acknowledged that
the illegal and violent acts of the ‘vigilantes’ in the name of the Cow actually defile
her. The truth is that in this immense profaning of the sacred underway in the
violence in India, India is rendered a human abattoir – a slaughterhouse of men and
women to save Cows from slaughter.

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We dare not awake lest we rise to the human truth within us: That human life is
sacred; that the holiness of the Cow mustn’t supersede the sanctity of human life.
There once was a Mahatma in our country. We called him Bapu. We used to
worship him. He worshipped the Cow and the man but had declared his refusal to
kill man to protect the Cow. The ideological ancestors of the current killers of men
in the name of the Cow silenced his body with bullets; but his thunderous message
survives and even reverberates today – but not in the hearts and minds of the killers
numbed by their own inhumanity.

In the ongoing insanity and horrific drama of the killings in the name of the Cow,
someone has petitioned the Supreme Court of India to declare the killings of Dalits
and other minorities to be a crime of “extortion”. Killing or assaulting men and
women is already illegal. One would have thought there would have been no need
for anyone to petition a court. But petition someone did because the governments
of the day, blinded and stymied by their own political calculations, religious
beliefs, biases and prejudices refuse to govern for all the citizens of the states and
the country. The courts shouldn’t have to ask governments to protect people’s lives
or to enforce the law; those are the fundamental moral and legal obligations all
democratically elected governments owe to the people they govern.

Freedom of speech and Nationalism in India

The right to freedom of speech and expression is enshrined as a fundamental right

under Article 19(1) (a) of the Constitution. Freedom of expression means the right
to express one's opinion by words of mouth, writing, printing, and picture or in any
other manner. Such is the importance of this right in a democracy that without this
right, the attempt to achieve a democratic and principles would be a hollow
formality. In sum, the fundamental principle involved here is the people's right to
know. Freedom of speech and expression should, therefore, receive generous
support from all those who believe in the participation of people in the
administration Indeed, the history of independent India is replete with examples of
the government curbing free speech: We were the first country to ban Salman
Rushdie's book, The Satanic Verses; Rohinton Mistry's Such A Long Journey was

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dropped by the Mumbai University from its syllabus; Delhi University did the
same with A.K. Ramanujan's essay Three Hundred Ramayana’s.

These examples are just the tip of the iceberg, and there are numerous other
instances where the government has chilled speech in the country.

In Sakal Papers v. Union of India, it was contended by Union of India that there
are two aspects of the activities of the newspapers- the dissemination of news and
the commercial aspect. The government can place restriction under 19(6) in the
interest of the general public on the commercial aspect of the press. But the Court
held that the State cannot curtail one freedom by placing restriction on other since
the restrictions that can be placed for that right are different.

Freedom of speech case studies

 Dr Zakir Naik Banned from UK and Canada
The man in question is a self-styled medical doctor turned Islamic preacher who
delivers lectures, holds debates and answers questions in front of large audiences
worldwide, all in the effort to spread the ideology of Islam. Naik is known for his
hate-filled propaganda, delivered with a self-pretentious smugness. Dr. Naik, the
Mumbai-based founder of Peace TV and a widely respected lecturer in India, has a
laundry list of views that have led to his exclusion from the U.K. and Canada, both
of which require an Indian citizen to obtain a visitor visa. Naik has been under
controversy for his statements. Why Naik is considered controversial in the UK
and Canada and not in India? India has faced more Islamic terrorism than either of
the other two countries, and yet Naik has not been the target of the Indian
government. A closer look at some of the vilest of Naik’s statements offers some
clues. The statement that has been a part of most of the controversies says “If he
(Osama) is terrorizing the terrorists, if he is terrorizing America the terrorist, the
biggest terrorist, every Muslim should be a terrorist.”

 JNU Incident
It is important to note that under the Indian law of sedition, the events at the public
meeting in JNU leading to the filing of an FIR under Section- 124 A of the IPC
against Kanhaiya Kumar, even if completely true, do not even come close to
establishing an offence. In Kedar Nath Singh’s Case, 5 judges of the Supreme
Court – a Constitution bench – made it clear that allegedly seditious speech and
expression may be punished only if the speech is an ‘incitement’ to ‘violence’, or
‘public disorder’. Subsequent cases have further clarified the meaning of this

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phrase. In Indra Das v. State of Assam and Arup Bhuyan v. State of Assam, the
Supreme Court unambiguously stated that only speech that amounts to “incitement
to imminent lawless action” can be criminalised. In Shreya Singhal v. Union of
India, the famous 66A judgment, the Supreme Court drew a clear distinction
between “advocacy” and “incitement”, stating that only the latter could be
punished.

Overview of Sedition Laws in India

While this document is dealing with section 124A of the Indian Penal Code in
detail, there are other laws that are related to this section or also criminalise
‘disaffection’ to the state.

Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1960

Section 124A forms the main section that deals with sedition in the Indian Penal
Code. 124A carries with it a maximum sentence of imprisonment for life.

CRIMINAL PROCEDURE CODE (CrPC), 1973

The CrPC contains section 95 which gives the government the right to forfeit
material punishable under section 124A on stating grounds. The section requires
two conditions to be fulfilled: (i) that the material is punishable under the
mentioned sections (ii) the government gives grounds for its opinion to forfeit the
material.

UNLAWFUL ACTIVITIES (PREVENTION) ACT (UAPA), 1967

Supporting claims of secession, questioning territorial integrity and causing or
intending to cause disaffection against India fall within the ambit of ‘unlawful
activity’ (Section 2(o) UAPA). Section 13 punishes unlawful activity with
imprisonment extending to seven years and a fine.

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PREVENTION OF SEDITIOUS MEETINGS ACT, 1911

The Seditious Meetings Act, which was enacted by the British a century ago to
control dissent by criminalizing seditious meetings, continues to be on our statute
books. Section 5 of the Act empowers a District Magistrate or Commissioner of
Police to prohibit a public meeting in a proclaimed area if, in his/her opinion, such
meeting is likely to promote sedition or disaffection or to cause a disturbance of
the public tranquility. Considering this legislation was specifically enacted to curb
meetings being held by nationalists and those opposed to the British, the
continuation of this archaic legislation is completely unnecessary and
undemocratic.

Rise of extremism in Kashmir

Unrest due to killing of militant Burhan Muzaffar Wani

Also known as Burhan Wani, was a commanderof the Azad Kashmir-based Hizbul
Mujahideen. He was popular among the Kashmiris due to his activity on social

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mediaand had issued many photosand videoson social media against Indianrule in
Kashmir. He was killed in an encounter with the Indian security forces on 8 July
2016. Widespread protests have erupted in the Kashmir valley since his death, in
which more than 70 people have diedwhile over 7,000 civilians and more than
4,000 security personnel have been injured. The violence which erupted after his
death has been described as the worst unrest in the region since the 2010 Kashmir
unrest, with Kashmir being placed under 53 consecutive days of curfewsimposed
by Indian authorities that was lifted from all parts of the region on 31 August 2016.

COMMITTEE LOOKING FORWARD TO:

1) Reasons for rise in intolerance and ways to counter the same
2) Review and analysis of socio-economic policies of government
3) Assessment of working of current government during their
ruling period
4) Reviewing the status of cow slaughter
5) Regulating cow vigilance groups

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