GYANOPROBHA

HOW SOME FAITH-BASED LAND CLAIMS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

Nandini Sundar is a professor of sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, and one of those who filed the PIL before the Supreme Court to stop the Salwa Judum movement. Because of her commitment to the cause of the tribals of eastern and central India whom she has long studied as an anthropologist, she is no favourite of the right wing Shining India crowd. In the article below, she points to the  double standards of the Hindutvavadis when it comes to what she calls faith-based land claims: one standard for Amarnath, sacred to caste Hindus, and another one for Niyamgiri, sacred to the Dongria Kondhs, an aboriginal community of Orissa.

In the former case, land granted to facilitate pilgrims to Amarnath was taken back after some Kashmiri Muslims (including assorted Muslim extremist organizations, some financed by the Pakistani ISI) threw a fit, seeing it as an attempt to appease the Hindus in Kashmir. After the land grant was reversed by a shortsighted state administration, it's now the turn of the Hindutvavadis (right wing Hindu nationalists and extremists, represented by the BJP and its stormtrooper organizations like the VHP and Bajrang Dal) to throw a fit in return, repeating their rancid slogans of Hindus in danger of Muslims in India. Both the grant of the land and its rescindment are the result of electoral calculations in preparation for the November elections, and have little to do with the sentiments of local Hindus and Muslims, except to rile them up after they had settled down to some kind of uneasy equilibrium.

Niyamgiri is a range of hills in Orissa sacred to the Dongria Kondhs, but their sacred status is of no concern to the BJP-led government of Orissa, which is about to give the land away to various mining interests. The Kondhs are of course the local aboriginals, who are not on the BJP's or the Congress party's electoral priority list. So any resistance they have to the alienation of land is attributed to the maoist extremists, and is being treated with the harshness reserved for those who refuse the predatory development agenda which is a Kamdhenu for both the Congress and the BJP.

The same double standards apply in the case of religious conversions. In the same state of Orissa, there is an ongoing massacre of Christians by the VHP and Bajrang Dal after the murder by unknown assailants of Laxmanananda Saraswati, a holy man, was attributed by these thugs - with no evidence whatsoever - to Christians. The basic cause of tension between Hindus and Christians there is the allegedly continuing conversion of tribal communities by Christian missionaries. But when caste Hindu organizations urge tribals to convert to Hinduism, it is regarded as shuddhikaran (purification). Mind you, "conversion" to Hinduism itself has never been part of traditional Sanatan Dharam Hinduism but is a recent development emanating from anxieties about endangered identities. A Supreme Court decision clearly identifies tribals as non-Hindus, but never mind! One more soul saved for Hinduism is one less lost to Christians.

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Nothing infuriates people more than double standards and indeed, this
is something the BJP constantly plays upon with its accusations of
"pseudo-secularism" and "Muslim appeasement". Yet, in at least two
recent instances involving religious sites in different corners of the
continent – Amarnath in Kashmir and the 'Ram setu' in the south – the
appeasement of Hindutva forces at the expense of everything else,
including actual Hindu sentiment, is glaring. The mainstream media
does it, the political parties do it, and sad to say, the security
forces are doing it, with one army officer allegedly saying they could
not fire upon protestors chanting 'pro-India' slogans, even as they
uprooted rail tracks and smashed public property. Alas, no such
qualms were displayed when it came to Kashmiri fruit sellers defying
an illegitimate blockade or even wounded people in ambulances.
Evidently, all one has to do while abusing the law is wave the
national flag, never mind that in doing so one is cheapening the flag
itself.

Curiously, none of the television channels covering the Amarnath issue
have interviewed the yatris themselves, many of whom have disowned the
agitation in Jammu being waged in their name. Instead, they give space
to rabid 'citizen-bloggers' with little knowledge of or connection to
the shrine, who falsify its history and location in the Kashmiri
emotional and economic landscape. Ignoring the inconvenient truth that
the shrine was discovered in the 18th century by a Muslim Gujjar, one
of the 'representatives' claimed the pilgrimage was 2000 years old.
There are exaggerators among the valley people too, and clearly the
claim that the transfer of land will lead to a demographic change is
one such. But the issue is more complex. Even as the locals are
dependent on the yatra for income, they are also suffering from the
environmental impact of the increased numbers. As Gautam Navlakha
writes in the Economic and Political Weekly, the increase in pilgrims
from 12,000 in 1989 to over 400,000 today, has nearly killed the Lidder
river, with some 55,000 kg of waste being generated every year. On the
other hand, even as more pilgrims flock to the site, the extension of
the yatra from 2 weeks to 2 and a half months with the shivling having
to be buttressed by artificial ice, is a mockery of their faith, since
it is the very naturalness of such formations that are signs of
wonder. In other words, both pilgrims and locals would gain from some
balance. Ironically, however, the very party that shouts the loudest
about the safety of pilgrims, or the sadhus and saints who are trying
to act as mediators, are silent about the inadequate arrangements
leading to the death of pilgrims at the shrines of Naina Devi in
Himachal and Kota in Rajasthan, within the same week.

It is also instructive to compare Amarnath with the Niyamgiri hills in
Orissa, where a faith-based land claim – this time by adivasis and not
caste Hindus – has been casually brushed aside by everyone from
politicians, to the courts and the media.

What the two areas share in common is the worship of nature and the
traditional entwinement of such sacred groves and hill shrines with
biodiversity. Whether one should emphasise the sacredness or the
importance for conservation can be debated. But either way, this
intuitive traditional connection is being rapidly brushed aside by a
commodified, market driven and aggressive Hindutva, where faith is
identified with portable prayer cassettes, video discourses, religious
blogs and credit card offerings.

The courts have often declared in the context of personal law cases --
and the constitution's reservation clauses reinforce this -- that
adivasis are not Hindus. In which case, their religious sites deserve
as much protection as Hindu sites, if not more, since they are
irreplaceable. While Hindus can visit Amarnath or Vaishno Devi or any
one of a number of teerths, all that the Dongria Kondhs have is their
Niyamgiri hills, the sacred home of the Niyam Raja, their law giver.
Destroy the hill and you have destroyed an entire religion. Yet when
the lawyer for the Kondhs tried to represent this point in the court
in the face of government efforts to hand the land over to a private
company for mining, he was not allowed to speak. Compare this to the
patient hearing the Courts gave the Ram Setu petitioners or the
protracted discussion in the Australian courts of aboriginal faith in
the Hindmarsh bridge affair. While the Courts may feel they have done
their bit for tribal welfare, and indeed, insisting on special
provisions for tribal development is important, it is clear that the
Kondhs feel otherwise. What is a special fund of Rs 10 crore against
the loss of an entire way of life and religious system? Yet if the
Kondhs were to rebel in the name of their faith or their livelihood,
we know they would not be treated with the kid gloves being used for
the Jammu agitators. There would be no dialogue here, only the charge
of Naxalism.

Even if faith was not at issue, there are very sound environmental
reasons not to allow Vedanta to blast Niyamgiri. When experts predict
water scarcity on a colossal scale, how wise is it to destroy a
forested hill top which feeds 32 streams and two rivers?

When the faith of a small defenceless group can be ignored with
impunity while agitators of one religion who don't even speak for
their co-religionists get special treatment, the country is sending
out a strong message. But whether that message is compatible with our
constitution and our civilisational traditions is another question.

CONSTITUTIONALISM AND STATE FAILURE

The constitionalist luminaries over at Acorn are always great advocates of supporting the state, "law and order", and upholding the constitution. "You must take a constitutional, law-abiding route if you want to take up something as a political agenda," Nitin Pai urges one of his correspondents. And indeed so we should. 

But what happens when the state itself acts against the interests of significant sections of the citizens, or has been corrupted enough for its institutions to become power centres up for sale, or has turned into a rogue state? In other words, what is the role of parliament, and what is the point of established constitutional procedures, when the separation of powers breaks down, and all the instruments of state - including law and order - become tools in the hands of particular interests? What happens when the state acts contrary to the intentions of the constitution? Does the constitution prescribe or imply limits to the actions of the state when they come into conflict with the rights of its citizens? What are peaceful and law-abiding citizens supposed to do when the state acts without the participation of the people affected by its policies, without any accountability to the people affected by its actions, responding forcibly with violence even to non-violent expression of the suffering of citizens, and  when the processes of governance are opaque to the citizens whom the state is supposed to govern? Does it not matter what kind of state we are referring to: a state that is a servant of its citizens, or a state that, motivated by the greed of its functionaries, acts as a facilitator for only certain interests - domestic or foreign - at the expense of the general mass of the people?

In his Independence Day posting, Nitin Pai reminds us approvingly of the words of Ambedkar pleading for an end to what he called the 'grammar of anarchy' - an end to all extra-parliamentary forms of agitation for change, including Gandhian satyagraha, now that the constitution had vested in parliament the power to make changes on behalf of the people who elected its members. Some sixty years later, Pai seems to think, the powers of parliament to give people a voice in determining their own political destiny - rather than having it determined for them - remains undimmed.

Surveying the political situation of his country from the summit of his achievement, Ambedkar might be forgiven for overlooking the possibility that parliament and the political process itself might one day become vitiated by venality and corruption. But I can't think why it should escape as thoughtful and observant a commentator as Pai that this corrupt variant of parliamentary "business-as-usual" politics fails to serve large sections of the people at all, while serving others very well. And if it does not escape his attention, why does he uphold business-as-usual? What is it that he dislikes about non-violent methods of protest and struggle against a state that has turned violent and oppressive? Does he look upon them as the thin end of a wedge that can split the country apart into anarchy? What would he recommend to the tribals of Chhattisgarh and Orissa when they find themselves displaced forcibly from their forests with which their entire way of life is intimately connected? Or to dalits and peasants, facing the murderous effects of development and trade policies that plunge them into debt and deprive them of their livelihoods? That they write to their MP's to express their desire for redress?

I am not here pleading for an abandonment of the constitution, or a descent into anarchy, but a more vigorous use of the constitution both by the state as well as by civil society. If the state were to obey its own laws, adhere more faithfully to the intentions of the constitution, stop arming itself with greater powers of curbing freedoms guaranteed in the constitution in the name of national security, take more vigorous steps to ensure individual property rights to not just private property but to traditional common property resources such as forests, lakes and rivers, design a more inclusive (and not a predatory) model of development implicit in the constitution, then perhaps the state would fulfill its obligations towards its citizens in a way that would obviate the resort to extraconstitutional means of protest.Civil society could use the constitution to demand the four PARTs of democracy - Participation, Accountability, Responsiveness and Transparency.

Take the case of Dr. Binayak Sen. Pai and friends think that Dr. Sen has full access to the legal processes of the country: after all, he is being brought to court and is being defended by lawyers against accusations of being a terrorist engaging in treason. Let the law take its own course, they say. As it happens, my brother is exceptionally lucky that he is being held under relatively good conditions - no torture, trial in open court (despite an attempt to bar entry to the public), a world-wide network of friends and supporters who are able to publicize his case. But as he told our youngest brother Dipankar: "I am just a name and a face for the thousands like me [who don't have these networks of support]. Who speaks up for them?" So what happens to the thousands of undertrials languishing in jail without the benefit of a trial, lawyers, a chargesheet and the full panoply of a justice system, because they are too poor and therefore too powerless for anyone to speak up for them? To compound the enormity of the injustice, most of them in fact happen to be innocent. The reason why they are languishing in jail is that the state has ignored its obligations under the constitution, and has kept them imprisoned despite lack of evidence. How does strict adherence to constitutional procedure in trying to administer justice to these people help them, when the state itself is deliberately in violation of its constitutional obligations? Ask the Gandhian activists at the Vanavasi Chetna Ashram. Ask Prashant Rahi.

But even in Binayak's relatively privileged cirucmstances, there is a flagrant failure of justice. I provide below a report of one of his trials by his friend Dr. Sridhar - a third one after my brother Dipankar's and Binayak's wife Ilina's - that substantiates this claim yet again.

Is it business as usual in a constitutional republican democracy for the state to regularly produce witnesses and evidence that fall apart on examination, and are introduced in violation of proper procedures? Is it business as usual for a prisoner to be held for 90 days without charges, denied regular access to lawyers, while the state goes around trying to concoct a case? Is it business as usual for undertrial prisoners to be occasionally removed for fictitious reasons to solitary confinement? Is it business as usual in the case of a prisoner who has not been proved guilty, for the state to continue extending his stay in jail by dilatory tactics in the courts, in the manner described below?

Madhukar Sarpotdar is sentenced after sixteen years of justice for participating in armed riots, all the while roaming free, and then gets a suspended sentence. The rioting criminals of 1984, 1992-3 and 2002 have their cases dismissed while they become powerful politicians, even contenders for Prime Ministership. But Dr. Binayak Sen's reward for thirty years of dedicated service to the poor is an indefinite stretch in jail, under patently false charges of treason and terrorism.

Pai and friends claim to be defenders of law, justice and the constitution. They urge the path of seeking constitutional forms of redress for social injustice in an environment when the very guardians of law and order are acting like wolves. But they paint the likes of Mukul Sharma, as terrorist sympathizers because they plead for adherence to constitutional procedures, and quick dispensation of justice for all, and respecting the rights of individuals - including alleged terrorists - in a liberal democracy. What, I wonder, would be their advice to innocent undertrials, including Dr. Binayak Sen, the most privileged among them? To the peasants displaced without adequate or any compensation for the sake of dams and SEZ's? To the forest dwellers of Bastar, caught between the maoists and Salwa Judum and the security forces? I do not expect an answer from Pai and friends, because they seem incapable of putting themselves in the shoes of such victims of state failure. In their world of political realism, perhaps they do not represent a significant enough interest, and can therefore be ignored. 

Finally, a brief comment on Raman Singh's contemptible reference to Binayak Sen in his independence day speech: "We have nabbed a bearded naxalite...". Indeed, but without a shred of evidence that stands up to scrutiny even in the court of a judge disposed to bend the rules of court procedure to favour the prosecution. Also, as J A points out: "Why imprison an innocent person who has saved many more than 2000 lives from malaria, TB and other diseases? I thought they were trying Binayak on the merits of his own case. It appears that the CM would prefer to try him on the merits of other people's crimes."

And now the report from Dr. Shridhar...

I was in Raipur on Tuesday and attended the hearing for the few hours that it lasted on that day. Met Binayak's lawyer, and had a chance to have a longish chat with Binayak. One Navaz Kotwal from PUCL was present, and said she will attend all scheduled hearings. There was no one other than Navaz present on Monday, and I do not know if anyone else attended yesterday's (Wednesday's) hearing.

The case is dragging on. So far, of the total of 83 witnesses listed, about 25 have been summoned and examined (as of 27th), since Jan. Not all have turned up, and many have been irrelevant. According to the lawyer, virtually all the remaining witnesses are not relevant to Binayak's case, and the only relevant ones are probably turning / have turned hostile. However, since the cases of Narayan Sanyal and Pijush Guha are entwined with Binayak's, it is difficult to expedite this further. Besides, of course, the prosecution is trying its best to prolong the case to the utmost - the trial begins late, examining each witness takes hours of mostly irrelevant detail, there is a long lunch break, arguments verge on the puerile and adjournments happen as a matter of routine. Not more than 3 witnesses are posted each day. On Tuesday, a total of about 90 minutes of examination of one witness was carried out between 11 am and 5 pm - and even that witness was not fully examined, because the defense successfully argued that the prosecution was adding charges that were not originally included in the charge-sheet, and that therefore persual of that point was illegal. Sanyal's lawyer angrily charged the judge with colluding with the prosecution in not following procedures laid down in the law, and suggested that the case might as well have been heard by the prosecutor or the DGP. Apparently, this has been a pattern in the case so far - introducing new witnesses and evidence that were never mentioned in the original chargesheet - and the judge allowing such contravention without a word. Tuesday was one of the rare instances where the judge gave a favourable ruling on such a matter - perhaps because he was personally attacked. Hilarious, but tragic.

They will probably move a bail application for Binayak in the High Court on Friday, although the chances of getting bail are slim. Hoping that a rejection here will provide another opportunity to move the SC. Not much hope, given the utter hostility of the prosecution, and the pressure on the judiciary. In the meanwhile, the trial will limp on.

Binayak has lost weight further since I saw him in December-end, but was pretty cheerful. I could give him a long hug, and felt good about it (though I was later quizzed by the police about who I was and why I was there!). I apologized to Binayak for us not having been able to get him out yet. He smiled and told me to dismiss the thought. Meeting him in jail is apparently much easier now than some months ago. He had asked for permission to get himself investigated for his hypertension, etc. at a facility of his choice, but this was rejected. He appears to be in reasonable health at the moment.

The CM apparently mentioned Binayak in his independence day address - saying something to the effect that "we have nabbed and imprisoned a bearded naxalite, but have received faxes and emails from 21 countries criticizing us for it - and they just don't care for the 2000 widows created by naxalites ...". Ominous.

We chatted about many other issues. He was insistent that I convey his love to "all our friends".

[It] would be nice - if not materially useful - for us to take turns to keep meeting him.

CUI BONO?

At long last, some attention is being paid to Ajay T G's plight. Prominent film makers are beginning to make statements in his support, and two blogs devoted to his release have opened, documenting news, commentary and statements from numerous sources. The DIG of Police in Chhattisgarh has reportedly promised to take a fresh look at his case. Is it possible that the man has some residual sense of shame left in him?

Who is gaining from the arrest of journalists like Sai Reddy, film makers like Ajay T G and doctors like Dr. Binayak Sen who were active in highlighting state abuses of human rights?

Given the paucity of information about the workings of the state, especially on matters of "national (in)security", I can only provide a speculative list of people and agencies who are the intended beneficiaries:

1. The Chhattisgarh government sends out a strong signal to human rights activists and others who may be interested in holding the government to account to desist from any such attempts. The dissenters are silenced, and their "nuisance value" to the government is reduced or eliminated. This may have actually happened within the state of Chhattisgarh itself to some extent, but has signally failed elsewhere, thank goodness!

2. Shadowy police and intelligence officials who may be advising the Chhattisgarh government on ways of combating maoism and promoting Salwa Judum. They will have increased their power and career promotion prospects by creating a feather in their caps out of the judicial entrapment of Dr. Sen, Ajay T G, Sai Reddy and others.

3. Contractors that supply the security forces and Salwa Judum in particular - particularly suppliers of arms, transportation services and other infrastructural service providers - stand to make a killing from the increase in manning levels.

4. Companies that invest in the lands vacated by villagers fleeing maoists, Salwa Judum or the police can now go ahead and start their "greenfield" ventures. Tata and Essar have signed Memoranda of Understanding for investing in Bastar and Dantewada. Corporate Social Responsibility is peculiarly blind to the consequences of corporate investment decisions for tribals and dalits, because of course 'someone must pay the price of development'.The CSR of companies like Tata and Essar and Jindal is such that these corporations are quite comfortable with the arrest of human rights activists under false charges. They will never confront the question why it is the tribals and dalits who usually end up being the egg in their development omlette.

Someone might argue that ordinary people too benefit from the arrest of people like my brother.If that were true, why is it that laws like MISA, TADA, and POTA have not succeeded in dealing with the internal and external threats, but have been repealed for the frequency with which they have been misused against ordinary people?Where is the evidence that the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act has made ordinary people feel any more secure, or benefited them in some visible way?

STRAWS IN THE WIND

A July 9 report in the Indian Express claimed that SJ is petering out. The next day, a report in Livemint claimed that the Salwa Judum is to be wound down.

According to Livemint:

After criticism from several entities, including human rights organizations and India’s top court, the Chhattisgarh government, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) one, is disbanding Salwa Judum, which is translated as peace force by some people and cleansing water by others.

Mahendra Karma, a Congress legislator from Dantewada who played a role in the creation of Salwa Judum, announced recently that it will soon cease to exist. Both the Congress and the BJP supported Salwa Judum, which essentially functioned as the local government’s deterrent against the growing influence of the Maoists.

In a section titled Why the Judum fell, it continues:

The Salwa Judum’s violent methods and corruption in camps has led to the organization’s decline. “The governments of India and Chhattisgarh spend Rs100 a day on every camp inmate. So they (Salwa Judum) are inflating the number of people in camps and siphoning off money...,” alleges Ajit Jogi, a former Congress party chief minister of the state. “Disposable plastic drinking cups that cost 20 paise each are being bought for Rs9,” alleges an activist who does not wish to be identified.

Both the Congress and the BJP are now distancing themselves from Salwa Judum. “The Salwa Judum has only caused damage... How is it beneficial to us?” asks Satyanarayana Sharma, a Congress legislator from Chhattisgarh. “The government has begun to consciously distance itself from Salwa Judum. It has even replaced the earlier collector of Dantewada district who was actively pro-Judum. The current collector is trying to set right the excesses of Salwa Judum,” says a government official who does not wish to be identified.

This change in the government’s stance has resulted in a decline in Salwa Judum’s activities. Earlier this year, the organization asked the government for permission to restart the ‘padayatras’, or marches, through villages, rustling up support and conscripting members. The government declined permission.

On the other hand, I had written earlier that the Salwa Judum model is not only likely to be strengthened in Chhattisgarh, but is likely to to be applied to Manipur as well, as the central goverment already seems to have responded positively to requests from two villages there to begin implementing it. But here is a report that the Manipuris themselves may have begun to have second thoughts about it.

It is quite possible that as part of its electoral strategy, the  BJP may be seeking a face-saving way out of its disastrously embarrassing association with the Salwa Judum. But I have not so far found any independent confirmation of the Livemint report in the electronic media. Perhaps we should wait till the publication of the NHRC report commissioned by the Supreme Court before we can expect any public stance on the Salwa Judum to emerge on the part of the BJP and the security agencies. Even if the Supreme Court bans the "movement" - and so far, all the signs point towards a possible whitewash by the NHRC investigating team - we still cannot take it for granted that the BJP and the security agencies in the centre will cease to support and promote the movement. After all, our executive appears to be "independent" of the judiciary in a way that allows it complete impunity from judicial action.

PARAGON OF ANIMALS

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals!

(Hamlet Act 2 Scene 2)

Now for the flip side...I do not regard myself as a great animal lover or animal rights sympathizer, but a friend and colleague who is, sent me something which I found utterly appalling, and almost symptomatic of the present diseased state of human "civilization".

In 2006, the Costa Rican 'artist' Guillermo Vargas Habacuc took a dog from the street, tied him to a rope in an art gallery, and left him there to starve to death. For several days, the 'artist' and the visitors of the exhibition watched without revulsion the slow and agonizing death of the dog.

The Visual Arts Biennial of the Central Americas decided that the 'installation' was actually art, so that Guillermo Vargas Habacuc has been invited to repeat his barbarity for the biennial of 2008.

Habacuc is to art what Josef Mengele is to medicine, Milton Friedman is to economic policy-making, and George W Bush or Tony Blair is to diplomacy. All acted with contempt for what they regarded as lower forms of life. All were able to accomplish their deeds while the world watched passively, or even cheered them on. Till the just declared ceasfire with Hamas, was not Israel doing the same thing with the Palestinians in Gaza as Habucuc was with the dog? No, actually, the Palestinians were being treated much worse. And with no revulsion from the rest of the world, if the media were to be believed.

Please sign this petition if you wish to stop him.  Also see some of the responses to the posting here.

"CIVIL LIBERTIES" IN THE MODI MODEL

I don't think people appreciate the extent to which the Indian state is becoming fascist in the original sense of being a state for corporations where individuals are powerless unless they happen to be connected to these corporations (and sometimes not even then).

The independence of the judiciary and the rights of the individual (as opposed to the corporate) person are becoming increasingly illusory, as opposed to pre-democratic times when they were non-existent (and therefore didn't even belong to the repertory of concepts with which people understood their worlds). So we are actually in a sense worse off than under British rule or even under the Mughals, because we now have a painful pretense of being democratic in an era of heightening fascism

Take the following case.

In my posting Should we be suprised?  I criticized the Government of Gujarat for filing a case against Ashish Nandy for his opinion editorial in which he accuses the middle class in Gujarat of complicity in the fascist agenda of the democratically elected Modi regime. I received an irate response from one V K Saxena, claiming to be the President of an NPO called National Council of Civil Liberties, which describes itself  on its website as "a prime mover of opinion, a frontline organizer of relief material, a feared legal warrior, and a prominent voice raised in support of social causes and public good".In his comment on my posting, Saxena denies that Narendra Modi or his government fied the suit against Nandy as reported in the video clip, but never cares to inform his readers who actually did. Now I learn that it was he himself who filed the suit against Nandy under Sections 153 A and B of the Indian Penal Code.

So a civil LIBERTIES activist pleads for the SUSPENSION of civil liberties for someone who is a well-known critic of Modi the man (whom Nandy, after an interview with him, describes in his capacity as a clinical psychologist as dangerously earnest and incorruptible), merely because he expressed an OPINION about the middle class in Gujarat. Compared to the kind of opinions that were expressed by Narendra Modi and his hatchet-men in 2002 about Muslims, or others of an earlier vintage that I named in my post, what Nandy wrote was  provocative, as any of his writings are, without being inflammatory.

His comment and my reply are worth reading in full. Saxena fails to respond to my observation that in trying to suppress dissenting opinion, he imitates the Maoists whom he undoubtedly despises. Also, he has nothing to say about that great upholder of "civil liberties" Narendra Modi himself, nor of others of his ilk whom I name in my post, and who have acquired a well-attested reputation for publicly promoting hatred and violence against Muslims.

The activities listed on the NCCL website show that it focuses, among other things, on harrassing Medha Patkar and the NBA because of their opposition to and inconvenient questions about the Sardar Sarovar Project and the resettlement of the people ousted by the SSP. No mention as yet of the suit against Nandy.

This Orwellian distortion of what is normally understood by the concept of civil liberties - the liberties of citizens in a democracy to express dissenting opinion - seem to be precisely what NCCL aims to achieve. Which rather leads me to suspect that the NCCL is a front for the fascist Modi regime in its attempt to stamp OUT civil liberties for inconvenient opinions, and promote it only for those that share its ideological proclivity that incites some people to  rip out foetuses from live mothers and burning them because they happen to be Muslims (and then later boast about it).

Here is another case in point, again from that democratic paradise, BJP-ruled Gujarat.

The City Police Commissioner of Ahmedabad, O P Mathur, has filed a case of sedition and treason against the Resident Editor of Times of India Bharat Desai, and the local TOI crime reporter Prashant Dayal. Apparently Dayal had reported on alleged links between Mathur and the underworld don Adbdul Latif, and through him, to the Pakistani ISI and Dawood Ibrahim, the Dubai based mafia boss, both extremely popular objects of hate in India. Mathur has been reported to be acting on his own initiative. On the face of it, the Gujarat government is unconnected with this case. But one is forced to ask why, if Mathur felt aggrieved by the reports, he did not file a case of defamation or libel against the paper? How does hurting the sentiments of a police officer amount to sedition and treason? The point of bringing such a charge is that the full force of the highly repressive anti-terrorist laws can then be brought to bear on the journalists, who can then be locked away indefinitely, just like Binayak Sen, Sai Reddy, Prashant Rahi and numerous others.

A few other quick examples, all from Gujarat, cited here:

• The reporter of AajTak was charged because of telecasting the news exposing the indifferent attitude of the Modi Govt. towards the orphans of the riot victims of Naroda Patia , as assured by the then President of India Dr.A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.
• The editor of Samana of Surat was prosecuted due to its coverage on the Surat flood.
• The editor of Aajkal of Rajkot was charged with 124A of the IPC (sedition) because of coverage of news exposing the nexus between Police and the Underworld in Bhavnagar.
• The editor of Young Aarohi of Veraval was framed under 124A because of carrying the news exposing the Arms traffiking. 
• 124A was also filed against Ms. Nafisa Ali and daily Divya Bhaskar on her comment on the Gujarat carnage in 2002.

I focus on Gujarat mainly because it is regarded by BJP-aligned columnists and commentators
as the first to apply the Modi model of governance, and so is a harbinger of what is to come if the BJP were to form a government at the centre. We already have the record of the wrongful arrest and confinement of Binayak Sen, Ajay T G and Sai Reddy (among others) in Chhattisgarh, even as the Chief Justice of India himself agrees with Binayak's main argument on Salwa Judum.

The point need not be belaboured any further. The BJP model of governance, initially in Gujarat, now also in Chhattisgarh, represents a potentially virulent form of fascism in this country. [I say "potentialIy" advisedly, since it still seems possible for activists to organize a conference on human rights abuses in the state. But for how much longer?] It will spread by stimulating, then exploiting, the paranoia of a majority community feeling itself under threat from terrorism, either external or home grown. In the process, it will garner majoritarian Hindu support for a dangerous form of nationalism that identifies development with handing over the nations resources to large corporations, displacing tribal and low caste communities from their forests and traditional abodes for the sake of industrialization and creating infrastructure. Those who resist this model can then be identified as traitors to and enemies of the nation, and be smeared by association with Muslims as terrorists. Organizations like NCCL are the Orwellian face of this strategy, designed to confuse people with their deceptively liberatory and progressive rhetoric, while using the legal system to attack those who like the NBA stand in its way. This process of filing Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation - appropriately known as SLAPP - is a tactic developed and honed to perfection in the US, but is well under way in India too.

ANOTHER FORGOTTEN PRISONER

Sai Reddy is a rural journalist in Bijapur district in Chhattisgarh. Like Dr. Binayak Sen, he was arrested under the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, which means that he cannot get bail. His story is reported here probably for the first time. His ordeal too needs to be publicized during the fast for Dr. Sen. As I have argued earlier, the agitation for Dr. Sen's release ought to focus also on others in his situation.

What was Mr. Reddy's crime? Having "connections" with Naxalites.

What kind of connections? They used to "take" their rations from a ration shop run by his wife, according to a statement from a naxalite prisoner. The report does not clarify whether this means "buy", or "receive" as comradely support, or "extort" in ways for which the naxalites have become notorious.

Although this is no occasion for flippancy, the argument that terrorism can be fought by means of repressive laws like the CSPSA reminds me of this joke:

Two friends are sitting on a park bench, but one of them has a brown paper bag over his head, covering his face. The other asks him: "Why are you wearing the bag over your head? You look stupid!"

The man replies: "To keep out the elephants."

"But I see no elephants!" cries his friend.

"Just shows how effective this is!" is the reply.

Of course, there are elephants, but in the forests: Bijapur has become notorious for naxalite activity as well as police brutality. But how are the terrorists being kept out by the continued imprisonment (probably without trial) of "seven small businessmen, two cloth merchants, two shopkeepers, one NGO member, two Naxal couriers, 19 agricultural labourers, 12 cultural activists of the Chetna Natya Manch, a cattle trader, a videographer, a tailor, a journalist, a former journalist and a private doctor"?

How successful the CSPSA has been in reducing naxalite violence can be gauged from the recent attacks on Essar's steel plant in Dantewada district, or on power transmission towers in Bastar. As always, the victims of such attacks are ordinary people - the "Public" in whose name the Act was passed. I am sure they are feeling quite Special now.

So if the Act is useless in reducing terrorism, or bringing any greater sense of Security to the Public - Special or Ordinary - what purpose does it serve? It remains a handy tool for intimidation, fear-mongering, and locking away inconvenient critics like Dr. Sen and Mr. Reddy, whose real crime seems to have been to refuse to side with Salwa Judum. It also allows the state to publicly smear its critics by implicating them in a network of lies and false cases - a standard operating procedure in the Indian police whenever they do not have enough grounds for detention. Dr. Sen's case is itself an example of such a tactic, which is why the state has been unable to bring forth any credible evidence so far in his trial. But it's enough to condemn him in the eyes of the public, although this tactic has not been as successful as the state might have hoped , because of Dr. Sen's public reputation and the record of his work. Truth is not an overriding concern in such cases.

IS THIS AN INQUIRY OR A WHITEWASH?

While the publicity for Binayak has died down after the Jonathan Mann award ceremony in Washington DC, the lies spread by the right-wing continue circulating in internet discussion forums. Although his detractors are often challenged by Binayak's supporters, the shockingly abusive language and violent attitudes displayed by these cyber-patriots who continue to tarnish Binayak with their lies often make me despair for my country.

Meanwhile, a 10-day fast has begun in several countries, urging Binayak's release. Dr. Ilina Sen, his wife, accompanied by their daughters and our mother, were present in Delhi yesterday at the release of a book on Binayak and his work.

The almost entirely unreported news in the context of Binayak's detention is the inquiry into Salwa Judum that is being conducted by the NHRC as instructed by the Supreme Court.

Following a Public Interest Litigation appeal filed by Nandini Sundar, Ramchandra Guha and EAS Sarma, and another one filed by Kartam Joga, Dudhi Joga and Manish Kunjam, the Supreme Court first criticized the Salwa Judum as "abetting murder", then on 15 April 2008 directed the NHRC to conduct further investigation and submit its reports within eight weeks. Specifically, "after hearing both sides", the Supreme Court felt that

"in view of the serious allegations relating to violation of human rights by Naxalites and Salwa Judum and the living conditions in the refugee settlement colonies, it will be appropriate if the National Human Rights Commission examines/verifies these allegations. We leave it to the NHRC to appoint an appropriate fact finding Committee with such members as it deems fit and make available its report to this Court within eight weeks. We request the State of Chhatisgarh and the Union of India to render all cooperation to the NHRC and the Committee appointed by it."

So how are the investigations being conducted?

Well, the NHRC is observing the directions of the Supreme Court to the letter, and has so far refused to respond to the allegations of some of those who brought the PIL. According to a rare report in the Times of India :

"Kunjam [one of the petitioners in the second PIL mentioned above - GP] has pointed out that the composition of the investigation team does not have anyone from the NGOs who are associated with the NHRC. In fact, Henri Tiphagne along with seven members of the NGO core group of NHRC had written to chairperson Justice Rajendra Babu requesting that NGOs also get representation in the team. But it was ignored by the commission. Instead, a team of serving police officers was formed.

When the investigation started, Kunjam says, the petitioners were told on May 19 that those who wanted to depose could come to Sukma and Cherla on May 20 and May 21, respectively. Kunjam says since villages are far flung and communication is poor, it takes time for people to gather.

What marred the investigation, according to Kunjam, is that the NHRC team took Salwa Judum leaders like Ram Bhuwan Kuswaha to Dornapal camp along withspecial police officers and the SP of Dantewada in an armed convoy. Kunjam goes on to say that Kuswaha allegedly threatened villagers for deposing before the NHRC. He even cites local news reports stating that Salwa Judum had cut off all rations and road access to Chintalnar villagers for testifying against them.

Another complaint against the NHRC team is that it did not employ impartial translators while talking to Gondi-speaking tribals.

Activists have demanded that NHRC should send an impartial committee consisting of eminent people, including women or NGOs from its own committee. Also, there should be minimum police presence and protection be granted to those who depose against Kuswaha."

On June 11, this is what another petitioner, Nandini Sundar, reported from Chhattisgarh:

"On 10th June the NHRC investigation team took depositions from villagers affected by Salwa Judum at Dantewada. About 100 villagers from over 20 villages came.

On 11th June, as one group of villagers was returning to Andhra Pradesh, they were detained at Konta thana. According to Raghu of Action Aid who was with the team, they were forced by the Salwa Judum leader Soyam Mooka, to tell the local press that whatever they had told the NHRC was false. They have been detained for over four hours in the police station, from 8 am. As of now, we still dont know their exact wherabouts. One group has been taken to Soyam Mooka's house.

The team of six villagers was accompanied by Raghu of Action Aid, Adi Narayana, Advocate with HRF, Ramanna and one doctor from Sitara. Their phones are not accessible. The villagers with them were from Nendra village which has suffered serious losses. Children have been killed in this village."

A further update on the same day from Nandini Sundar reads as follows:

"More details will follow from the people who were stopped, but these are the bare facts we have got it from them:

They were stopped at Konta at 8 am by Salwa Judum people and abused for giving testimony. one man was slapped. then they were taken to the police station. Afterwards their belongings were searched. They took away and made copies of all the affidavits that they had brought with them from AP; in addition, they made them sign statements on Rs 5 stamp paper. the villagers were made to write that they had been brought with the lure of compensation. They were 'invited' to the house of the Salwa Judum leader and the Superintendent of Police, Rahul Sharma, claimed they went 'voluntarily'. They were kept there for some hours and then, as further harassment, a medical test was done so that police could show they were not beaten. SP has told the media - et v [??] that there was a dispute at Injeram and they were taken to Konta for their own safety. The Raipur Bhaskar has said that there was 'tu tu mein mein' [an altercation consisting of "you said..., I said..."] when the truth is that they were stopped and abused and confined and their belongings taken away and copied.

The villagers are in shock, as are all the others, and we are scared that the refugees who are now in AP will be targetted because they have their affidavits."

Meanwhile, the police have reported that the NHRC team itself came under attack from the maoists, who escaped as the police successfully repulsed the attack. No independent corroboration of this has been recorded, although the police are known to concoct incidents for purposes of publicity.

A commission consisting entirely of SERVING policemen, is being taken around isolated concentration camps in armoured personnel carriers armed against land mines, to meet villagers already terrorised - either by maoists into silence, or by Salwa Judum and their sponsors in the police into presenting the officially approved version of events. None of the commissioners speaks the local language. Is this the ideal mechanism to sift and impartially weigh the allegations of the petitioners?

Why do I worry? For two reasons: one personal, the other because it concerns the direction in which my country is headed.

If the NHRC team does its job and affirms the findings of the 2005 report by Dr. Sen and his colleagues, my brother will have been vindicated, and further doubt will have been cast on the state's case against him. No need for worries there.

If on the other hand, the intimidation of the victims of Salwa Judum has the intended effect, and the team reports back in glowing terms on the movement, as I fear they might because of the huge stakes - both financial and political - in it, then the impunity of the state is likely to be further reinforced. Not only can Binayak forget about an early release, barring some unusual turn of events, but the country as a whole will have been set even more firmly on its course towards fascism.

DON'T FOCUS ONLY ON BINAYAK SEN

My brother Dr. Binayak Sen has been joined in jail by a fellow activist at PUCL named Ajay T G. Thanks to Sabu George and BHASKAR Blog  I reproduce below an appeal from Sudha Bharadwaj, Binayak's PUCL colleague and advocate at the time of his arrest, to widen the agitation for Binayak's freedom to include Ajay as well as others who have been held without trial under the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act (2005), which is so absurdly all-encompassing in its definitions of criminality that technically even the Chief Justice of India can be arrested for his recent criticisms of Salwa Judum.

Perhaps this is also a good opportunity to focus on the thousands of under-trials who are held indefinitely in Indian jails without trial. They seem to have dropped out of the justice system altogether, because they are too poor to afford lawyers, or because lawyers will not defend them. Undertrials held without charge were another issue with which Binayak was deeply concerned as a human rights activist. How ironic that he would join them! His inquiries in Chhattisgarh revealed that of every 1,000 undertrials, only one is actually connected with the crimes for which they have been held.

Those who insist that "the law should take its own course" should ponder this fact, and reflect on whether they would have applied this pithy little slogan to themselves or to their loved ones if they had been caught in a similar trap. What is the "law" here, when those who are charged with upholding it break it so often?

If cases like Binayak Sen, Ajay T G, Prashant Rahi and Afzal Guru represent the majesty and not the vindictiveness of our law and justice, then we citizens of India are living through an attack on our democracy far more insidious and lethal than anything a bunch of terrorists could have concocted. Future "travellers from an antique land" called India may well recall  Ozymandias.

A PLEA TO TAKE UP THE CASE OF FILM-MAKER AJAY T G, HELD ON FALSE CHARGES IN CHHATTISGARH

This is an appeal to you to actively campaign for the freedom for film-maker Ajay T.G, who was recently arrested in Bhilai under the Chhattisgarh Special Public Safety Act (like Dr. Binayak Sen) on charges on sedition!

Ajay, who would be about 35, hails originally from Kerala. Coming from a very ordinary family, he has been involved in CPI politics and is still an office-bearer of the local youth federation. He learned film-making at "Jan Darshan" an effort of journalist Lalit Surjan (of Deshbandhu fame) to train local youth in the audio-visual media.

As a research assistant of the well known sociologist Jonathan Parry of the London School of Economics, Ajay made several films on the interface of caste and class among the permanent workmen of the Bhilai Steel Plant, which were widely appreciated

As a member of PUCL, he had the courage to accompany several fact-finding teams including into fake encounters, and capture on film the statements of victims. (Presumably it is this activity of Ajay's that is being dubbed "sedition"?)

He had started a foundation called "Drk Sakshi" (Eye-witness) to make socially relevant films and under this banner he made a number of films for various people's movements and organizations. For instance "Phool Nahi Chingari Hai" a film capturing the 8th March programme of the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha, and a film on the rich diversity of rice varieties in Chhatisgarh for social organization Rupantar. Ajay had also made an interesting film on the lathi charge on the Honda workers at Gurgaon in the wider context of liberalization based on TV footage, which proved invaluable material for educating workers. Just before his arrest he was planning a documentary on displacement.

Ajay also ran an informal education centre for women and children in one of the bastis of Bhilai. This unassuming, sensitive and courageous young man was the much loved "Bhaiyya", and always there for the people of Dabrapara - taking a cancer patient to hospital, intervening on the behalf of the girl children against patriarchal attitudes, helping to deal with insensitive authorities....

In the year 2004 Ajay had accompanied a group of researchers to Dantewada and there his camera was snatched away from him by youthful villagers, possibly frontal organization members of Maoists. Later an unknown young man came to him and offered that the camera or its cost would be returned and asked him to write down information about the make of the camera and its cost. Ultimately neither the camera nor its cost were returned to him, but it is possibly the seizure of some such letter that forms the flimsy basis that Ajay was the member of a the banned organization CPI (Maoist). It is pertinent that the Act under which this organization was banned itself came into existence in April 2006.

Of course, the real crime committed by Ajay was that he insisted on standing in solidarity with Dr. Binayak Sen even after his arrest. He made a film on Dr. Sen, ironically called "Anjam". In a recent hearing he had been unduly harassed when a pocket knife (cum nail cutter cum corkskrew - one of those handy kits) was found in his rucksack while entering the court. This was splashed in the media as a "weapon"! Interestingly the so-called "incriminating letter" is said to have been seized in January. It took the police five months to decide whether or not to book Ajay. There could be no greater evidence that there is no evidence!!

Be that is it may, Ajay is now in a jail. Clearly the Chhattisgarh government is hell bent on clearly giving the message: "Speak about the conditions in Bastar and you go to jail. Of course we know you are not Maoists, but so what .... rot in jail till you prove your innocence!"

And it’s not only Ajay. The journalists who tried to expose atrocities of the police or Salwa Judum were sacked, bashed up or otherwise threatened. Many TV journalists had their cameras and footage snatched away. Out of the 52 detainees under the Chhattisgarh Act, two are journalists.

If you think you can take up the campaign for the release of Ajay, we can send a detailed profile, a list of films and selected CDs etc.

The campaign of doctors in favour of Dr. Binayak Sen has gone far beyond the borders of Chhattisgarh, and even India, and has forced them to think deeply over their Hippocratic Oath which tells them to "treat a patient irrespective of political affiliation". It has also made them question "How should a doctor act in a conflict situation". This time it is the turn of the film makers to turn their attention to Chhattisgarh.

Hoping you will respond. With warm wishes,

Sudha Bharadwaj,
Advocate,
on behalf of Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha, and Chhattisgarh PUCL

THE STATE'S "RTI" VS CITIZENS' RTI

Democracies are not just regimes for which voters elect their representatives every few years. They are also regimes that are - at least in theory - supposed to be accountable to them. Moreover, the people who vote them into power expect the state to be their servant, not their ruler. No state can function effectively as a democracy unless there are four PARTS that define its governance:

• Participation by the people (the electors), but not only in elections
• Accountability of the elected and their agents (the bureaucracy) to the electors
• Responsiveness of the state to the electors
• Transparency of the state's policies and procedures to the electors

Without all four of these elements, democracies in practice quickly degenerate into autocracies, or corporatocracies. In fact, there is an interdependency between them, but you can have limited participation (in elections) without any of the remaining elements, as the experience of our country shows.

So what is a safe and legal way of keeping watch on the activities of the state? If the Indian experience is any guide, here is how it's done:

Agitate for years for a law guaranteeing the Right To Information (RTI), as Aruna Roy and her colleagues did in Rajasthan, pioneering the legislation for this right in India. This allows for an unprecedented degree of transparency, even though it still does not make any information that one asks for entirely free and easy to access.

Then when the law is finally passed, use it to bring to light information that the state has an interest in concealing.

Ask NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) activists who have been trying to use the RTI Act to ensure that the funds allocated under the NREG schemes reach their intended beneficiaries  - the poor and landless, rather than state or political apparatchiks gorged with years of corruption.

Well, tragically, you can't ask Lalit Mehta, Somay Gagarai, Kameshwar Yadav, and Narayan Hareka. They are all dead, and not by accident. They were not killed by the state because they were terrorists.
They were killed by or at the behest of people who were benefiting illicitly from the kamadhenu that is the NREG Scheme, and who would have been exposed by the information gathered by these activists. This is where the application of the RTI law becomes dangerous, even lethal.

This almost makes me feel grateful that my brother Dr. Binayak Sen is in prison, although the jail too is no guarantor of safety, as the latest NHRC statistics indicate. ("In the year 2004-2005, out of total of 1493 custodial deaths reported to the Commission, 136 deaths [occurred] in police custody and 1, 357 deaths in judicial custody.")

Like Lalit Mehta's, Dr. Sen's "crime" too was to expose the government's misdeeds, not in NREGS but in "abetting murder" (the Supreme Court's opinion, not mine) by supporting Salwa Judum, that other great Kamadhenu.

Killing or locking up activists is a tendency that occurs in most states, irrespective of the ruling party. Lalit Mehta, Somay Gagarai and Kameshwar Yadav were killed in Congress-ruled Jharkhand, Narayan Hareka in BJP-ruled Orissa. The police in other states too are no less active in harrassing human rights activists.

In that paradise of good governance which is my home state of West Bengal, the Communist Party of India (Marxists) have reigned unchallenged since 1977, and have eventually decided that There Is No Alternative to Capitalism. But many people are now beginning to see through their charade.  This has elicited a good old-fashioned stalinist response from our comradely state in the form of torture. The state police is going out of its way to harrass an activist whose organization (MASUM) created a People's Tribunal against police torture that was attended by police officials (both serving and retired), former judges, and other luminaries from the legal profession.

I have in the past had occasion to differ with some who are interested in upholding the absolute legitimacy of state violence, or those worshippers of state power who take it as axiomatic that the state can do no wrong when it comes to dealing with terrorism. Perhaps the deaths of these activists will serve as a salubrious warning to them that irrespective of which party is in power, we have in our country a mafia state, too often enjoying impunity from prosecution for its crimes. This state seems to regard itself as having a  RTI of its own - the Right To Intimidate - to counter the citizen's Right To Information. The deaths of these activists, and the manner in which they have been investigated, clearly show that we do not yet have a state that allows for the Participation of all who exercise their franchise, Accountable for its actions, Responsive to the needs of the people whom it serves, and is Transparent with information that affect them. If the state sees any legislation that enjoins Transparency, Responsiveness, Accountability or Participation as a TRAP to be avoided, it is only because its intentions resemble those of a mafia.

All the more reason for another Independence Movement for a Second Republic, where the state is the servant of the people, and actually strives to uphold the Constitution and the rights enshrined in it.