Introduction Part I

This essay aims to expose the inherent colonial bias and nature of the Human Rights as they exist today and argues for a dismantling of the colonial epistemology at the root of the universalization of such a framework. In its present form, due to its Euro and America-centric tendency, the UN, under whose aegis Human Rights are monitored, has failed to deliver justice not only to historical crimes like colonialism, but also to ongoing exploitations that are taking place elsewhere, especially in Asia. Asian nations, on the other hand, are also sceptical of the operations of the different international bodies that uphold international laws. On the other hand, due to the lack of critical engagements with the local engagements with the local experiences and the scarcity of trauma vocabulary, Asians are generally ill-informed and hesitant to seek help from outsiders whose understanding of Asian experiences are either severely monolithic or at best cursory. Asian foundations of knowledge are equally diverse and divergent making it difficult to formulate one legal framework for the entire continent. In the case of Asia, a microinstitutional solution is perhaps the most plausible one which would locate justice in the acceptance of diversity, dynamism, and public participation, in collective and experiential mourning to restitute historical wrongs and ascertaining equitable and culturally nuanced amendments; but it remains a distant dream. Therefore, this essay argues, one of the first steps to be taken is to critically engage with the western narratives of the Human Rights, to borrow catachrestically from it while exposing its colonial skeleton and at the same time develop trauma vocabularies for unique experiences until they become a part of public discourse so that a legal framework can be formulated based on debates and differences. Until then, a comparative, multidirectional, and critical approach, to educate ourselves as subjects of postcolony and others as subjects of colonial nations remain an effective pedagogical intervention that would gradually upend the imperialist foundation of anything that uses universalism as a politically motivated excuse. The elementary question that drives this book is to address the question of Human Rights from an Asian perspective, or an attempt to do so in this post-human and post-truth time. Human Rights, as they exist today, aspire to universalization, diluting cartographic and cultural differences, seen through a lens of imperialist reckoning. This macronarrative blurring must be discarded in favour of micronarratives that not only celebrate diversity, but also grieve for the crimes that took place in the name of civilizational utilitarianism.