While proctoring an exam, I received an SMS from my younger brother that my older one has been arrested (see the previous post for some of the background). I had spoken to them both a short while before, to my older brother while he was waiting at the Tarbahar police station with his lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj. He seemed fairly calm and relaxed as he told me how he had been invited by the police to make a statement, and that they would not arrest him. Unsurprisingly, they did.
The circumstances leading to his arrest are narrated in this Press Release from Rajendra Sail, the President of the Chhattisgarh unit of the People's Union for Civil Liberties, a major human rights organization in India.
See also the PUCL Chhattisgarh Press Release dated 9 May 2007
On 15 May, after my brother's arrest, PUCL Chhattisgarh published another Press Release.
The reactions to Dada's arrest have been extensive, but also troubling. Medha Patkar as well as others have sent an appeal to the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, copied to the Prime Minister, the President and others, demanding Dada's release. Other activists have pointed to the dire human rights situation in the entire state, where democratic norms and the rule of law have been abandoned in favour of rule by goons and criminals of all kinds. Remember that all this is occurring under the aegis of a state that is anxious to be as hospitable as possible to foreign investment, and to suppress the resistance to the forcible expropriation of land, water and other resources for creating Special Economic Zones or other enclaves of "development" where the normal obligations towards society and the natural environment that are nowadays expected of business are suspended.
My brother is fortunate that his social background and education ensure that he is linked to some pretty influential people, as the reactions to his arrest demonstrate. Most of the people he works for are not. If someone as well known as my brother is subject to arbitrary arrest, this is an index of the growing impunity among agencies of the state. Can you imagine what's happening to others LESS well-connected? Unfortunately, most of people with some voice in our country are still relatively unaffected by these events, and some even stand to gain from them. No wonder the mainstream media is largely silent about such abuses, or will only report them as a minor counterpoint to the main celebration of India Shining.
Comments