RAIPUR: While human rights commissions routinely handle grim cases of custodial torture, police excess, and societal injustice, the Chhattisgarh State Human Rights Commission (CGSHRC) recently had to ponder an extraordinary philosophical and legal dilemma: can burning the effigy of demon king Ravana be considered a human rights violation?
In a bizarre complaint that took officials by surprise ahead of the festive season, a citizen formally moved the commission, questioning the age-old Dussehra tradition.
The complainant argued that setting Ravana’s effigy ablaze "year after year" was fundamentally discriminatory and amounted to an infringement on his rights. Drawing a direct comparison, the applicant argued that Mahabharata’s Kaurava prince Duryodhana had committed far graver and more heinous sins than Ravana.
The complainant raised a probing ethical query: If evil must symbolically burn, why is Ravana singled out every Dussehra while Duryodhan is spared the flames?
Faced with the mythological grievance, the rights watchdog had to explain the statutory boundaries of jurisprudence to the persistent complainant.
“We were left befuddled. I told the complainant that CGSHRC deals with human rights and not address mythological dilemma,” the Commission Chairman Girdhari Nayak, who heard the plea, told TNIE.
The Commission further politely turned down the plea, pointing out a fundamental technicality, by definition, Ravana does not fall under the category of a human being (Manav). Consequently, issues surrounding the burning of his effigy lie completely outside the statutory jurisdiction of the Human Rights Commission.
The petitioner was advised to approach an appropriate forum if he wished to pursue the grievance further.
Addressing the media, the Chairman of the Commission revealed that the bizarre plea was among roughly 74,000 cases that have landed before the Commission between 2000 and 2026.
According to Nayak, around 3,000 to 4,000 complaints received over the years have been baseless, frivolous, or completely offbeat, placing an unusual burden on the commission's docket.
Despite these distractions, the panel has managed to resolve the vast majority of its caseload, with only about 900 cases currently pending, most dating back just one to two years.