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Ambedkar for all seasons

South Asia Bulletin

Deconstructing The Unreal Ambedkar

By Anand Teltumbde

05 May, 2015
Countercurrents.org

If the number of statues, memorabilia, pictures and posters; songs and ballads, books and pamphlets, or the size of congregations in memory were the parameters to measure greatness, there may not be any other great in history who can rival Babasaheb Ambedkar. Newer and newer places and events are getting added to the list of his memorials where ever growing congregations take place every passing year. He has been such a phenomenon that after a while it would be difficult for people to believe that such a person who had to struggle to drink water from a public water source, open for cats and dogs, ever walked on this planet. Even the gods in heaven, if they exist, would be jealous of him. What might be behind this miracle? There is no doubt that he has been a messiah for Dalits, initially only a section of them and now the most of them. It is natural for them to be beholden for what he has done to them single handedly and single mindedly. True though, it would be pure naïveté to believe it to be the lone and the entire cause. The catalytic role played by the ruling classes in constructing and promoting Ambedkar icon has been major one and mutually reinforcing.

The recent overtures of the Sangh Pariwar to claim Ambedkar are blatant enough to make Dalits understand the underlying dynamics.

Making of the Icon

The Congress representing political Hindu, was the main adversary of Ambedkar. Recall, Gandhi opposing tooth and nail Ambedkar’s attempt to win Dalits separate electorates during the round table conferences in 1932 and eventually blackmailing him into signing the Poona Pact that annulled the prospective independent political existence of Dalits. After the transfer of power, the Congress tendentiously saw to it that Ambedkar does not enter the constituent assembly. But it soon made a volte face. The folklorish explanations notwithstanding, it was Gandhi’s strategic genius to get Ambedkar elected to the constituent assembly when he had no way left to enter it and then make him the chairman of its drafting committee. Although Ambedkar played a statesman in exchange of safeguarding Dalit rights in the Constitution, this new found affinity did not last long. Ambedkar had to resign from the Nehru cabinet on the issue of retrogression over the Hindu Code Bill. Later, Ambedkar had even disowned the Constitution saying he was used as a hack that it was of no use to anyone and that he would be the first person to burn it down. He called the Congress a ‘burning house’ which could be entered by Dalits only at their peril. But that did not deter scores of ‘Ambedkarites’ from joining the Congress to serve ‘Ambedkarism’.

The Congress skilfully carved out a class of rich farmers out of the most populous band of shudra castes in rural areas with such euphemistic policies as land reforms and Green Revolution. While this class remained its ally for the larger part, it developed its own political ambition, floating regional parties and gradually capturing local to state power bases. The electoral politics became competitive bringing importance to the vote blocks in the form of castes and communities, both skilfully preserved in the Constitution in the name of social justice and the religious reforms, respectively. It was from here on that the conscious cooptation drive of the ruling parties began, of course first with the Congress. Ambedkar’s core concerns were overshadowed and he was systematically iconized into a nationalist, a quasi Congress man, as a statesman and the maker of the Constitution. This propaganda killed many birds with single stone: it won over Ambedkarite masses, accelerated exodus of opportunistic Dalit leaders to the Congress, disoriented Dalit movement along identity lines and gradually de-radicalized Ambedkar. Slowly, other parties also had to enter the competition in projecting their own Ambedkar icon.

Saffronizing Ambedkar

The Sangh Pariwar created by the Hindu supremacist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) by launching outfits for major areas of the public sphere (Jan sangh for political, VHP for religious, etc.) and targeting major sociological categories (Rashtriya sevika sangh for women, ABVP for students, BMS for workers, VKA for tribals) to widen its appeal and to diffuse its ideology also floated second generation outfits to deal with strategic and emergent issues. Samajik Samrasata Manch (social assimilation platform) was to woo dalits into its fold. The RSS born in 1925, around the same time as the dalit and communist movements, banked initially on its imagined Hindu majority but failed to make a mark either socially or politically, until it got its 94 MPs elected in 1977 election riding the anti-Congress wave. Initially scandalized by Ambedkar’s anti-Hinduism utterances, it tacitly despised him and banked upon the non-Ambedkarite Dalits as later professed by Bal Thackeray. However, having tested meat of political power, it realized, it could not ignore Ambedkar who had grown into a pan Indian Dalit icon. It strategized to saffronize him picking up his stray statements sans context and mixing them with its Goebbelesqe lies. First of the strokes of saffron on Ambedkar was in comparing the incomparable: Hedgewar with Ambedkar, calling them ‘two doctors’, as though Hedgewar, just a licentiate medical practitioner, with diploma that comes after matriculation and Ambedkar with two doctoral degrees from the world renowned institutions were comparable. What could really be similar between them?

While Ambedkar’s pragmatism left behind numerous inconsistencies, nobody can miss out the central theme of his life which was to usher in what he himself verbalized as his ideal society based on ‘liberty, equality, fraternity’, insisting on their simultaneity. He saw annihilation of castes and socialism (annihilation of classes) to be its prerequisite; democracy as constituting and Buddhism as the moralizing force. RSS’s world view is diametrically opposed to this on every count. The saffron Ambedkar is a nationalist; the real Ambedkar dismissed India to be a nation, and specifically warned that the ‘Hindu nation’ would be calamitous. RSS’s Ambedkar is a great Hindu despite his vow that he would never die a Hindu. RSS projects Buddhism, which Ambedkar embraced after discarding Hinduism, as just a sect of Hinduism brushing away the entire history that it symbolized the shraman revolt against Hinduism and bloody counter revolution of the latter that completely erased Buddhism from the land of its birth. The statements like Ambedkar wanted Sanskrit to be the national language, a saffron flag as the national flag, that he commended the RSS for its good work and that he was for ‘ghar wapasi’, which tries to dwarf Ambedkar to the levels of VHP monkeys, do not deserve to be even commented on. They have been saying that Ambedkar was against Muslims, throwing stray sentences from his Thoughts on Pakistan. This book was written in a polemical style, Ambedkar donning the robes of both an advocate for Hindus as well as for Muslims. Unless one diligently reads it, one could miss many of the arguments as his own opinions. I have exploded this lie in 2003 in my book, Ambedkar on Muslims: Myths and Facts. But again going by his liberal persona and a plethora of other references where he praised Muslim community to the extent Islam would appear to be his preference for conversion (Mukti Kon Pathe, 1936), he can just not be portrayed as petty minded anti-Muslim person. The RSS better understood, it could cheaply project some Dalit stooges on their stage, but would never be able to show Ambedkar as a pigmy little communalist.

Neoliberal Compulsion

The competitive Ambedkar icons offered by the political manufacturers in the India’s electoral market have completely overshadowed the real Ambedkar and decimated potential weaponry of Dalit emancipation. While these icons differed in shades, they all painted Ambedkar in neoliberal colour. The Ambedkar-icon nearly dislodged Gandhi as the mascot of the state, which had worked right from 1947 through 1980s. Gandhi suited the regime in managing polity, camouflaging its anti-people strategic intent, its welfarist rhetoric and its Hindu rate of growth. It began to lose its sheen as the capitalist crisis mounted impelling the rulers to adopt neoliberal reforms. The rhetoric of aggressive development, modernity, open competition, free market, etc. necessitated new icon which would assure people, particularly those of lower strata whom it would hit most, ‘rags-to-riches’ hope in free-market paradigm. None other than Ambedkar fitted the bill. It was the same strategic requirement as seen by Gandhi at the time of creating the Constitution for the newly born anaemic India. The social Darwinist ethos of Neoliberalism had particular resonance with the supremacist RSS ideology which is what catapulted BJP to the stratosphere of political power.

While all parties have use of Ambedkar-icon for wooing Dalits, RSS has it most. It is therefore that from nineties the BJP commands more reserved seats than the Congress. The neoliberal regime badly required its balladeers from among the Dalits and they got it. A significant Dalit middle class, led by some of their heroes belaboured during initial years to convince Dalits how Neoliberalism would be beneficial to them; how Ambedkar was a neoliberal and how Dalits have made fantastic progress with these policies unleashing a ‘revolution’ of Dalit bourgeoisie. They find particular affinity with BJP and are found on their platforms off and on. It is therefore that most Dalit leaders today are in BJP-fold. [See my Three Dalit Rams…EPW, 12 April 2014] This year with extraordinary efficiency BJP bought the innocuous building in London for Rs 44 crores just because Ambedkar stayed in one of its apartments as a student; it cleared the Indu Mill land issue for grand Ambedkar memorial in Mumbai and planned an equally grand Ambedkar International Centre at Delhi.

All these intoxicates Dalits, the 90% of whom are relatively at the same place as they were at the beginning of the last century or worse as they had hopes then and now they have none. They wouldn’t understand Ambedkar’s ‘samata’ is not ‘samrasata’ or Ambedkar’s worldview is not the neoliberal social Darwinism that is out to kill them. They even don’t understand that a few hundred crores on Ambedkar memorials is pittance as compared to over Rs. 5 lakh crore the government stole from their share in budgets just in a single decade!

Dr Anand Teltumbde is a writer, political analyst and a civil rights activist with CPDR, Maharashtra.

Ambedkar’s radical message is annihilation of caste

South Asia Bulletin
The Hindu, Wednesday, April 13, 2016

 How to be free of caste

As India marks the 125th birth anniversary of B.R. Ambedkar this week, it must acknowledge the pervasiveness of discrimination and confront it head-on

This year, India has sponsored the observation of the birth anniversary of Babasaheb Ambedkar at the United Nations for the first time. The Permanent Mission of India to the UN shall commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of the Dalit icon on April 13 at the UN headquarters, a day before his date of birth, with an international seminar on ‘Combating inequalities to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)’. A note circulated by the Indian mission says that the “national icon” remains an inspiration for millions of Indians and proponents of equality and social justice across the globe. “Fittingly, although it’s a matter of coincidence, one can see the trace of Babasaheb’s radiant vision in the SDGs adopted by the UN General Assembly to eliminate poverty, hunger and socio-economic inequality by 2030.”

Juxtapose this with a recent report on caste-based discrimination by the United Nations Human Right Council’s Special Rapporteur for minority issues that has stung the Indian government, provoking it to raise questions about the lack of “seriousness of work” in the UN body and the special rapporteur’s mandate. Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian Constitution, would definitely not be pleased. Nor are the Dalit rights activists in India and abroad.

Precept and practice

This is the most recent example of India’s hypersensitivity on discussing the caste issue at any UN forum — the objections raised by the Permanent Mission of India to the UN in Geneva to the March 2016 report of Special Rapporteur Rita Izsák-Ndiaye of Hungary. Her report characterised caste-based discrimination as that based on “descent”, labour stratification, untouchability practices and forced endogamy and said that this was a “global phenomena” that impacted more than 250 million people worldwide — largely in India, but also in countries as diverse as Yemen, Japan and Mauritania. Her report cited India’s National Crime Records Bureau data to highlight that there were increasing atrocities against Scheduled Castes — an increase in reported crimes of 19 per cent in 2014 compared to the previous year. The report mentions that despite legislative prohibition of manual scavenging, the state has institutionalised the practice with “local governments and municipalities employing manual scavengers”.

Earlier, during the 2001 World Conference against Racism in Durban, when there was a major effort by Indian NGOs to include casteism on the agenda, the Indian government had vehemently opposed it. Ashok Bharti, chair of the National Confederation of Dalit and Adivasi Organisations, recently told a Web publication: “The whole government suffers from a mindset of the upper castes, that are victims of their own guilt and will therefore try to hide their faults.” He said that if the Indian government had done so well in supporting Dalits, “why have there been thousands of cases of atrocities in the past 25 years? How many perpetrators have been punished? If domestic pressures and remedies do not work, internationalisation was a viable option to seek improvement in the status of Dalits.”

The lesson from all this which India must learn is what the then UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Doudou Diène of Senegal, said a decade ago to the international conference on ‘Human Rights and Dignity of Dalit Women’ in November 2006 at The Hague: “You have to go beyond the law. You have to get to the identity constructions. How, over centuries, the Indian identity has been constructed. All forms of discrimination can be traced historically and intellectually. One of the key strategies of the racist, discriminating communities is to make us believe that discrimination is natural, that it is part of nature, and that you have to accept it. This is part of their ideological weapon and it is not true. Discrimination does not come from the cosmos. Caste-based discrimination can be retraced and deconstructed to combat it. Please engage in this ethical and intellectual strategy to uproot what is building and creating the culture and mentality of discrimination.”

Even 68 years after Independence, Dalits and Adivasis continue to face mind-boggling social discrimination and spine-chilling atrocities across the country. One in four Indians admits to practising caste untouchability in some form in their homes — this shocking fact has been revealed by a mega pan-India survey conducted by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and University of Maryland, U.S. Indians belonging to virtually every religious and caste group, including Muslims, Christians, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, admit to practising untouchability, shows the India Human Development Survey (IHDS-II) of 2011-12. Mere tokenism and lip service will not do. India needs to jettison the centuries-old dehumanising baggage of caste stigma once and for all. It should have nothing to hide but see the reality as it is and confront the issues involved head-on.

Towards a transformation

If India has to move ahead to a caste-free nation, the need is for an all-embracing, inclusive pan-India social movement of social and cultural transformation. Ambedkar showed the way: “Turn in any direction you like, caste is the monster that crosses your path. You cannot have political reform, you cannot have economic reform, unless you kill this monster.” In fact, the Dalit political vision today not only encompasses the most oppressed, exploited and marginalised sections of the caste system but also other sections which took on the Brahminical hegemony in 1970s and 1980s — the backward castes and Adivasis. The Dalit political vision has now moved beyond the rhetoric of the Bahujan Samaj Party and the factions of the Republican Party and the decorative Dalit politicos in the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party, Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (United) et al or even the low-caste-based Maoist organisations. New social movements like SEWA (Self Employed Women’s Association) in Gujarat, NBA (Narmada Bachao Andolan) in Madhya Pradesh and MKSS (Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan) in Rajasthan among others have fundamentally broadened the Dalit political vision.

The suicide of Rohith Vemula has exposed why attempts to co-opt Ambedkar as a ‘Hindu reformer’ cannot succeed due to inherent ideological contradictions. The challenge posed by the Ambedkar Students’ Association at the Hyderabad Central University to the Brahminical hegemony of Hindutva represented by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad is in the very logic of the Dalit political vision.

Now, integrating social and cultural transformation with an economic alternative is critical. Our tryst with destiny can go on and on. But let us grab this moment of truth. So that we can “redeem our pledge”, which has remained unredeemed for more than 68 years, to make conditions for the last men and women representing the Adivasis and Dalits, the marginalised and poor people of India to give unto themselves what is truly theirs. That is the challenge before the people of India.

Suhas Borker is Editor, Citizens First TV (CFTV), and Convener, Working Group on Alternative Strategies, New Delhi.

War on students and faculty in India–continued

South Asia Bulletin

 

http://kafila.org/2016/03/25/a-fig-leaf-called-vandalism-by-uoh-students-sc-and-st-faculty-forum-and-concerned-teachers-of-university-of-hyderabad/

A Fig-leaf Called ‘Vandalism by UoH Students: SC and ST Faculty Forum and Concerned Teachers of University of Hyderabad

For the past three days the news media has been circulating widely, stories about ‘vandalism’ by students of the University of Hyderabad that led to the police crackdown. Surprisingly little information is actually there on the actual context, timing, duration and nature of the vandalism. It appears that the claim that a group of students indulged in acts of vandalism is enough to justify a full scale war on the entire campus community of over 5000 students.  Yet this charge of vandalism is no more than a fig leaf .

  •         Mera Name plate dekhega? Chal main tere ku sabak sikhata hoon! (You dare look at my         name badge? Let me teach you a lesson)
  • Naam kya hai tera? Acchaa tu Pakistani hai. Chal main tere ku sabak sikhata hoon! (What is your name? Oh, you are a Pakistani? Let me teach you a lesson)
  • Tu kahaan ki rehne wali hai? Itti kaali hai! Aa tere ku sabak sikhata hoon! (Where are you from? You are so dark. Let me teach you a lesson)
  • Kiskaa Fotu khenchraa re tu? Abhi bataata hoon tere ku! (Whose photo are you shooting? Let me show you …)

This was how the police read out the rights to the students and faculty member of University of Hyderabad as they were ‘arrested’ on March 22. Arrested from different places all over the campus much later in the day when most of them were nowhere near the lodge that morning.

Two teachers Prof. K Y Ratnam (Centre for Ambedkar Studies) and Dr. Tathagatha Sengupta (School of Mathematics and Statistics) known for their commitment to social justice were targeted, roughed-up, and arrested. Prof. Ratnam, who was in a selection committee meeting till 2pm and then came to the VC Lodge saw the police beating up the students sitting on the lawns and went to dissuade them was himself roughed up and thrown into the van. When a female faculty member rushed there to urge the policemen to stop beating up Prof. Ratnam, she was told that she was welcome to jump into the van. When a female student tried to intervene when a male student was being dragged into the van, she was told she would be raped. Thus began a three-track ordeal for the University of Hyderabad community.

Track I- Denial of food, water and basic amenities

Electricity, water, food and internet were all shut off for two days by the non-teaching staff who, according to the Vice-Chancellor, were on strike. 14 hostel messes were completely shut down affecting the 5000 odd students on campus. For 48 hours, volunteers from across the city were desperately trying to supply food and water to the students through the barricaded gates. Many students protected themselves from dehydration by drinking water from the bathrooms. On March 23 some students tried to cook food on the campus. They were stopped from doing so.  D. Udaya Bhanu, a research scholar, who was cooking for the starving students at the shopping complex was beaten up brutally despite him pleading that her was just recovering from a surgery. In fact, he was then hit at the spot of the surgery and on his head, and had to be rushed to a hospital in a critical condition. The police taunted him about his political views and activities on campus, and indicated that he was receiving his just desserts. A security officer of the university who was watching the events told the police personnel to beat the excess fat out of Uday. All this while the ‘nationalist’ students affiliated to ABVP were circling them on motor cycles shouting slogans cheering India’s win in a cricket match and taunting the others.

The University of Hyderabad campus could easily have been any of the police camps that dotted Telangana region in the 80s.  The younger generation of students who are not familiar with such images have been describing it as Jallianwala bagh, surrounded as they were, by armed, hostile men.

For full article: http://kafila.org/2016/03/25/a-fig-leaf-called-vandalism-by-uoh-students-sc-and-st-faculty-forum-and-concerned-teachers-of-university-of-hyderabad/

Panel on intolerance in India

SANSAD Events

 

 Friday, April 15th, at 7:00PM, in room 7000, SFU Harbour Centre.
Panel Discussion: “Targeting Universities in Authoritarian India”
Organized by SFU Institute for the Humanities.
Co-sponsored by Indian Summer Festival, MARU, SANSAD, SFU’s J.S. Woodsworth Chair in the Humanities, SFU’s School for International Studies, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement, and UBC’s Asian StudiesIndia is often referred to as the “world’s largest democracy,” and its economic promise has made it an attractive target for foreign investment. Recently, however, India’s democratic legitimacy seems to have come into question.On February 12, 2016,  Kanhaiya Kumar, President of the Jawarhalal Nehru University Students Union was arrested and charged with sedition according to a law dating back to the British Raj. Kumar and several other students who were subsequently arrested and similarly charged have been widely proclaimed “anti-national” because slogans at a meeting held at the university to commemorate the third anniversary of the hanging of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri convicted of attacking the Indian parliament in 2001. The speakers had questioned the justice of this execution as well as the justice of the more recent execution of Yakub Memon, who had been convicted of involvement in bomb blasts in Mumbai in 1993. The meeting had also protested the summary expulsion and eviction of some students engaged in a similar event at the University of Hyderabad that had led to the suicide of a promising Dalit student, Rohit Vemula. Some at the meeting had shouted slogans in solidarity with the people of Kashmir.

The event at JNU  is part of a growing authoritarianism overseen by Hindutva (Hindu nationalism), politically represented by the  Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Indian society at large going back to the destruction of the Babri Masjid (Mosque) in 1992, and with roots in  the nationalist movement itself in the early twentieth century. This Forum seeks to examine the historical context of the rise of Hundutva in general, consider the targeting of  leftist students opposed to the Modi government’s neo-liberal project (the so-called “Gujurat Model”) and to draw the connection to parallel processes in Canada under the aegis of “authoritarian neo-liberalism.”

PANELISTS:

Ajay Bhardwaj, JNU Alumnus, PhD candidate at UBC, and filmmaker (The Punjab Trilogy).

Dionne Bunsha, Journalist, author of “Scarred: Experiments with Violence in Gujarat,” and SFU.

John Harriss is a social anthropologist and Professor of International Studies at SFU. He has lived and done research in India for long periods over the last forty years, and he is the co-author of ‘Reinventing India: Economic Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and Popular Democracy’.

Gurpreet Singh, Journalist, author of “Fighting Hatred With Love: Voices of the Air-India Victims’ Families,” and host of Spice Radio.

Moderated by: Samir Gandesha, Director, Institute for the Humanities at SFU.

In the meantime:

From Dilip Menon:

Please send name and affiliation to aditya@csds.in if you would like to add your name to this expression of support and call to action on the part of the VC JNU STATEMENT AGAINST VICIOUS CAMPAIGN AGAINST FEMINIST SCHOLAR 

We, the undersigned, wish to express our shock and indignation at the vicious right wing media campaign has been conducted over the past few days against well-known feminist scholar and Jawaharlal Nehru University professor Nivedita Menon. This media campaign mischievously decontextualizes her lecture at the public teach-in programme in JNU with the use of selective clips and inflammatory commentary. The television channel Zee has led the main campaign by branding Professor Menon as ‘anti-national’ and instigating viewers to take action. Such branding is tantamount to a television channel acting as both judge and jury, and directly placing an individual’s rights and safety under threat. The use of television media to attack intellectuals and instigate vigilante action is a feature of authoritarian regimes worldwide. Similar tendencies are visible in recent months in India. Singling out individuals and creating a mass-frenzy against them by using the medium of TV is a dangerous trend that directly incites and encourages violence. This is a deep disregard for any process of law. We saw Zee TV do this earlier when doctored videos became the basis of arrest and harassment of JNU students. In this case, Twitter and social media campaigns have thus followed that personally attack Professor Menon, demanding the framing of sedition charges against her and wielding open threats of rape. Most disturbingly, there are media reports of police complaints filed by interested parties demanding ‘action’ against Professor Menon. Professor Menon is a renowned scholar and feminist thinker; her texts are used in university syllabi worldwide. As a prominent scholar and activist she has intervened in academic and public debates for decades. Professor Menon has also been known as an inspiring teacher for thirty years, guiding generations of students who now work in India and abroad. She has never shied away from intellectual debate in academic and public forums, passionately intervening in debates on feminism and social theory. This is the first time that her own freedom to articulate her ideas have been so viciously attacked in an orchestrated media campaign. The freedom to articulate ideas is the basis of a university. When opinions voiced in a public lecture by an academic are made part of a selective media campaign that seeks not to debate but simply to malign, both democracy and the university are under threat. What is under question are not just Professor Menon’s ideas but also the very freedom for academics and citizens. We condemn this media campaign and associated threats, urging all academics and intellectuals to stand with Professor Menon at this time. We call on the Vice Chancellor of JNU to swiftly defend Professor Menon from such attacks and protect the sanctity of university debate. The JNU administration must stand by its faculty’s right to hold individual opinions and condemn all efforts to diminish this. The university must immediately ensure that freedoms that form its very academic basis are not eroded in this moment. We call further on every censure and action against the unlawful actions of the television channels in question. Finally, we urge all well wishers of a democratic India to stand by Professor Menon for their own freedoms, and not just hers.

 

Retired civil servants protest rising intolerance

Solidarity Links
The Hindu
thehindu.com
March 21, 2016
Updated: March 21, 2016 18:37 IST

Retired officers express concerns over rising ‘intolerance’

Seventeen retired officers of the All India and Central Services have made a public appeal regarding the general spirit of intolerance that pervades the atmosphere.

Citing examples of recent clamp downs in various educational institutions, murder of rationalists Kalburgi, Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare, and explicit comments made by ruling party leaders against minorities, the former IAS officers wrote: “We add our voice to the multitude of dissents already expressed and call upon all right-thinking people to register their protest at the current goings-on.”

They have sent the appeal to the President and the Prime Minister’s Office.

Full text of the public appeal

We, the persons listed below, a group of retired civil servants belonging to different All India and Central Services who have worked in the Government of India (GoI), State Governments and a wide range of governmental and other institutions would urge all Constitutional institutions in India, the media and the general public to reflect upon the deeply disquieting trends visible in the public sphere and in our polity today. These developments are causing deep anguish to us as they question some of the fundamental Constitutional principles and legal safeguards we have long taken for granted. Some of these are mentioned below:

1) The discrimination against Scheduled Caste students and an attempt to clamp down upon Ambedkar study groups as found in IIT, Chennai, and in the University of Hyderabad. The tragic suicide of Rohith Vemula has highlighted the unwarranted interference of the GoI in the University of Hyderabad and its targeting a group of students, who did not subscribe to a narrow concept of nationalism.

2) There is a systematic attempt to silence dissent using the outmoded law of sedition against young idealists like Kanhaiya Kumar and his colleagues, who have given India a wake-up call to address poverty and all forms of exploitation.

3) Law and order agencies like the Delhi police used doctored videos in a blatantly partisan manner against JNU students while an MLA and certain lawyers – who were widely caught on camera beating up Kanhaiya and journalists – were treated with kid gloves. Even the team of senior lawyers nominated by the Supreme Court to monitor the situation reported the atmosphere of threat and intimdation.

4) The atmosphere of intolerance is growing what with the murder of the rationalists and the regular threats of violence against minorities and all who do not accept a very narrow version of ‘nationalism’. Such a concept of nationalism is itself grounded in a biased view of history. This intolerance is a direct attack upon the freedom of speech and expression and is anathema to the pluralism of the Indian Constitution.

5) A Minister in the Central Government, a ruling party MP and local leaders have recently issued terrifying threats against Muslims but the GoI does not find anything objectionable in the Minister’s statements. Other minorities have also expressed their sense of insecurity.

What is listed above is only illustrative. We feel that all told, there is a clear and present danger to the values of the freedom of speech, thought and expression as also the pluralism and the secularism that are basic to the Indian Constitution. We add our voice to the multitude of dissents already expressed and call upon all right-thinking people to register their protest at the current goings-on.

At the same time, we would like to point out that we do not condone similar transgressions by other groups – particularly on the extreme left – which try in like manner to silence opposing views by vicious attacks on social media and/or violence.

We urge a return to the civilized and civilizational discourse of the Constitution of India and a renewed public commitment to the freedom of speech, thought and expression.

Yours faithfully,

1) Niranjan Pant, IA&AS (R), former Deputy Comptroller & Accountant General, GoI

2) EAS Sarma, IAS (R), former Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, GoI

3) Ruchira Mukerjee, Indian P&T Accounts & Finance Service (R), former Adviser (Finance), Telecom Commission, Department of Telecom , GoI

4) Kalyani Chaudhuri, IAS (R), former Additional Chief Secretary, Govt. Of West Bengal

5) Keshav Desiraju, IAS (R), former Secretary, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, GoI

6) Amitabha Pande, IAS (R), former Secretary, Inter-State Council, GoI

7) Ardhendu Sen, IAS (R), former Chief Secretary, Govt. Of West Bengal

8) Pranab Mukhopadhyaya, IAS (R), former Director, Institute of Port Management, GoI

9) Surjit Das, IAS (R), former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Uttarakhand

10) Anup Mukerji, IAS (R), former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Bihar

11) Vibha Puri Das, IAS (R), former Secretary, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, GoI

12) SS Rizvi, IAS (R),former Joint Secretary to the GoI

13) Sundar Burra, IAS (R), former Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra

14) Harish Chandra, IAS (R), former Prinicipal Adviser in the rank of Secretary, Government of India (GoI)

15) Kamal Jaswal, IAS (R), former Secretary, Ministry of Information Technology, GoI

16) Meena Gupta, IAS (R), former Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests, GoI

17) Hirak Ghosh, IAS (R), former Principal Secretary, Govt. Of West Bengal

SANSAD Events

 

Panel Discussion: Targeting Universities in Authoritarian India
Friday, April 15 at 7 PM – 9 PM

Rroom 7000, SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC

Organized by: Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University

Co-sponsored by SANSAD, MARU, SFU’s J.S. Woodsworth Chair in the Humanities, SFU’s School for International Studies, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement, and UBC’s Asian Studies.

India is often referred to as the “world’s largest democracy,” and its economic promise has made it an attractive target for foreign investment. Recently, however, India’s democratic legitimacy seems to have come into question.

On February 12, 2016, Kanhaiya Kumar, President of the Jawarhalal Nehru University Students Union was arrested and charged with sedition according to a law dating back to the British Raj. Kumar and several other students who were subsequently arrested and similarly charged have been widely proclaimed “anti-national” because slogans at a meeting held at the university to commemorate the third anniversary of the hanging of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri convicted of attacking the Indian parliament in 2001. The speakers had questioned the justice of this execution as well as the justice of the more recent execution of Yakub Memon, who had been convicted of involvement in bomb blasts in Mumbai in 1993. The meeting had also protested the summary expulsion and eviction of some students engaged in a similar event at the University of Hyderabad that had led to the suicide of a promising Dalit student, Rohit Vemula. Some at the meeting had shouted slogans in solidarity with the people of Kashmir.

The event at JNU is part of a growing authoritarianism overseen by Hindutva (Hindu nationalism), politically represented by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Indian society at large going back to the destruction of the Babri Masjid (Mosque) in 1992, and with roots in the nationalist movement itself in the early twentieth century. This Forum seeks to examine the historical context of the rise of Hundutva in general, consider the targeting of leftist students opposed to the Modi government’s neo-liberal project (the so-called “Gujurat Model”) and to draw the connection to parallel processes in Canada under the aegis of “authoritarian neo-liberalism.”

PANELISTS:

Ajay Bhardwaj, JNU Alumnus, PhD candidate at UBC, and filmmaker (The Punjab Trilogy).

Dionne Bunsha, Journalist, author of “Scarred: Experiments with Violence in Gujarat,” and PhD candidate at SFU.

John Harriss is a social anthropologist and Professor of International Studies at SFU. He has lived and done research in India for long periods over the last forty years, and he is the co-author of ‘Reinventing India: Economic Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and Popular Democracy’.

Gurpreet Singh, Journalist, author of “Fighting Hatred With Love: Voices of the Air-India Victims’ Families,” and host of Spice Radio.

Moderated by: Samir Gandesha, Director, Institute for the Humanities at SFU.

SANSAD Events

Celebrate International Women’s Day in solidarity with indigenous women in Canada and India.

Sunday, March 20: 1.00 PM – 4.00 PM

Room 120, Surrey City Centre Library

10350 University Drive, Surrey, B C: Unceded Coast Salish Territory

Speakers:

Cecilia Point, Musqueam Nation

Joyce Galuska, BC Federation of Labour

Kat Norris, Residential School survivor

Parminder Swaich, East India Defence Committee

Sunera Thobani, Race, Age, Gender, and Autobiography (RAGA) Centre, UBC

Itrath Syed, PhD candidate, SFU

Music: Sejal Lal

 

Join us in celebrating International Women’s Day by expressing solidarity with Indigenous women in Canada and India. Indigenous and Adivasi/tribal women have been victims of systemic violence in these two nations for years. While the struggle for national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women of Canada continues, an Adivasi female activist Soni Sori,a leading champion of human rights and of Adivasi women against the violence of the state in India was recently a victim of a brutal attack.

Radical Desi and South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy(SANSAD) bring the voice of the South Asian community to support the struggle of marginalized women who are especially vulnerable to violence rooted in colonialism and racism. Join us in fighting sexism, racism, and the heritage of colonialism in Canada and India.

For more information call Chinmoy Banerjee: 604-421-6752 or Gurpreet Singh:778-862-2454.

Condemning the murder of Berta Caseras

Statements/News Releases

SANSAD News-release March 8, 2016

Grief and condemnation for the murder of Berta Caseras

On this International Women’s Day, 2016 South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD) grieves for and condemns the murder on March 4 of Berta Caseras, a great human being and champion of environmental and indigenous rights in Honduras, in her sleep in her hometown, La Esperanza. She was shot in her bed in a house where she had gone for the night as a safety measure against the death threats that she had been receiving as a part of her practice of not sleeping in the same place. We condemn the police for their attempt to cover up this assassination by claiming that it was a result of a robbery.

As a leading human rights activist and a founder of the Council of Indigenous Peoples of Honduras (Copinh), Berta Caseras had been opposing mining and hydroelectric projects that were destroying the lands of her Lenca people. In particular her organization was opposing the construction of the Agua Zanca dam in the community of Rio Blanco that would have flooded large areas of indigenous land and cut off water for hundreds of people. For this opposition people from her organization were being harassed and threatened by the energy company DESA that was operating the hydroelectric project, the mayor, the police, and the military. She and her family of five children had been receiving threats of sexual violence and murder for several years, about which the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights and the UN special rapporteur for indigenous rights had notified president Hernandez of Honduras last year in their appeal for her protection.

Berta Caseras’s work had pitted her against local landlords and international corporations that were engaged in mining and the Agua Zanca project, including Siemens, Voith-Hydro, Dutch FMO, and Fin Fund. The Honduran government, which enabled these projects was brought into power by a military coup in 2009 with the covert support of the United States under the guidance of then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. The US since then has been training and funding the police and the military in Honduras while the country has become the most dangerous place on earth for human rights defenders and environmental activists.

Berta Caseras was awarded the Goldman Environment Prize, the highest prize for grassroots environmental activism in the world, in 2015. Mindful of the atmosphere of threat she lived under, she had said in her acceptance speech, “giving our lives in various ways for the protection of rivers is giving our lives for the well being of humanity and of this planet.” We, members of the South Asian diaspora in British Columbia, Canada, where strong resistance is taking place against pipelines, fracking, and the construction of the Site C dam on indigenous lands, stand in solidarity with the people who have protested her assassination, the students at the University of Honduras who have clashed with the police in anger, and the thousands who have marched in her

funeral to celebrate the life of Berta Caseras, condemn the forces that brought it to its untimely end, and demand an end to the destruction of the environment, genocidal displacement of indigenous people, and the regime of terror against human rights and environmental activists in Honduras.

Board of Directors

SANSAD: www.sansad.com

 

Chaman Lal, JNU alumnus returns award

Solidarity Links

 

To protest against attack on JNU,the best academic institution of the country and one of the best in world,As an alumnus and retired faculty member from JNU,I am returning MHRD award given to me by Former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee,with then MHRD minister Dr. M M Joshi on 30th April 2003 for year 2000-01. Reasons in detail given in letter to MHRD minister in attached file.

  Honourable President and Chief Justice of India   

   For your kind attention                           

     I also know full well that by returning the award, I am again putting myself to danger of a vendetta at the hands of MHRD minister and this government, which is known for not showing any respect to even Vice Chancellors of the Universities. Thus I will be sending copies of my letter to the President of India and the Chief Justice of India, so that if anything happens to my life or limb, because of my protest against the attack on JNU, this government shall be held responsible.                                                  

 

Professor Chaman Lal (Retired)                                           Dated: — 20th February

Professor& Former Chairperson

Centre of Indian Languages (SLL&CS)

Former Visiting Professor, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad Tobago

Former President JNUTA

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi-110067

 

MHRD, Shastri Bhavan

New Delhi

 

Director

Central Hindi Directorate,

New Delhi 

Subject: Return of 2000-01 ‘Non Hindi speaking area Hindi writer Award’

  Dear Sir/Madam,

I have no idea who is heading the Directorate these days, so am addressing this letter unnamed.

You can see from your records  that I was given the ‘Non Hindi speaking area Hindi writer Award’  on 30th April 2003 by the then Prime Minister, Sh. Atal Behari Vajpayee. The then MHRD minister Dr. M M Joshi had presided over the function. I am attaching some photographs of the event for your convenience.

This award was given to me for my translation of selected poetry of Punjabi poet Surjit Patar – ‘Kabhi Nahin Socha Tha’ – in Hindi from my mother tongue Punjabi. Incidentally Surjit Patar returned his Sahitya Akademi award along with other 12 Punjabi writers last October to protest against the assassination of Dr. M M Kalburgi.

This was my first state award.  Later, I was awarded the ‘Sahitya Akademi Prize for Translation’ for the year 2001 for the translation of the Punjabi poet Pash in Hindi (Pash was assassinated by Khalistanis) and the ‘Punjab State ‘Shiromani Hindi Sahitkar’ Award for year 2003, apart from innumerable honors from public institutions in India and abroad.

With the social conditions in the country worsening day by day the assassination of Dr. M M Kalburgi, Sahitya Akademi award winner, by some extremist religious body activists led many of our writers to protest by returning their state awards, especially Sahitya Akademi awards. I also joined my fellow writers in solidarity and returned my prize on 12th October 2015. Incidentally, all three awards came to me during the NDA regime in the centre -1999-2004. These awards were returned because of the atmosphere of extreme intolerance created in country after 2014, in the name of ‘Cow’, ‘beef’, ‘nationalism’ etc. Govind Pansare and Dr. Narender Dabholkar and many more had already become victims of these extremist religious groups, as was Punjabi Poet Pash in 1988 at the hands of Khalistani terrorists. No effort was made to check and control these elements, rather many ruling party MP’s were aggravating the crisis by supporting these elements, which included glorification of Mahatma Gandhi’s murderer, Nathuram Godse.

Incidentally Mahatma Gandhi may be dubbed as the ‘first anti national’ of independent India, as he fasted for releasing 55 crore rupees due to newly created state of Pakistan, with the partition of India in 1947. In fact, slogans now being heard on Delhi roads – ‘Desh Ke Gaddaron ko goli maro’(Shoot the traitors of the country) against  JNU students these days  were raised against Mahatma Gandhi in those days and ultimately he was assassinated by those who were  inciting people with these slogans. Ironically Mahatma Gandhi had not joined the celebrations of independence in Delhi on 15th August, as he was fasting in Noakhali with his loyal followers like Bibi Amtus Salam to control the devil of communal riots. Mahatma Gandhi who at one time wished to live for 125 years, expressed his wish at that time ‘not to live anymore’ after seeing the level of communal clashes in country. The assassin of Gandhi is a hero of today’s Hindutva forces, patronized by this government despite paying lip service to Gandhi.

We hundred plus awards returning writers/artists/filmmakers and other citizens were hoping that things will improve after our protest, but our hopes proved illusory. Not only were we derided and insulted, including 88-90 years old respected writers/scientists-Krishna Sobti, Nayantara Sehgal and P M Bhargava, we were charged with being Congress agents, favourites and leftists, who got undue awards during previous regimes and were now ‘intolerant’ of new the government. In my case, if at all I was ‘favoured’, it was not during the Congress regime, but the previous NDA regime.

In October 2015, JNU and other university students started #OccupyUGC campaign which was dealt with by a rather heavy hand and then Central University of Hyderabad students started an agitation against discrimination of Dalit students, which were dealt so harshly that one of the brightest research scholars of the University, Rohith Vemula was forced to commit suicide on 17th January 2016. Support for Rohith Vemula engulfed the whole country. Earlier, FTII Pune students were being treated very harshly. In this connection, when after a function in Jawaharlal Nehru University was held on 9th February, about which some controversy arose, JNU Students Union’s elected President Kanhaiya Kumar was picked up by the Delhi police and charged with Sedition! This naturally led to a massive student protest not only in JNU, but all over the country and JNU Teachers Association (JNUTA) also extended its support. To make the things worse, irresponsible statements were given by Home Minister, MHRD Minister and Delhi police chief, which led to brutal attacks on not only Kanhaiya Kumar inside the court, but on media men also by some black coat wearing goons. Most dangerous was the open violation of Supreme Court’s directions and mistreatment of six lawyers sent by Supreme Court by certain black coated hooligans inside the court. This has never happened even during British colonial regime. Bhagat Singh was beaten inside the court by British police, but never by unruly hooligans with police patronization.

Even in JNU history, such horrible police interference never took place. I myself have been victim of emergency, spending seven months in prison and getting my admission to JNU delayed for two years, despite being selected. Yet I can say today that despite Indira Gandhi’s authoritarianism, she was correct in her understanding of certain Hindutva groups, as was her father,Jawaharlal Nehru. These groups collaborated with British colonialism during the freedom struggle and played the game of dividing Indian national unity by creating communal rifts, which was criticized by none else than Bhagat Singh. These are the people who have now come to power by deceiving people with deceptive slogans and playing the same colonial days game of dividing people and creating communal violence, just to acquire and preserve power.

The most ominous sign of their dangerous game is of involving army people and inciting their families in the name of ‘nationalism’ and pitting them against JNU. Worse still people not related to JNU were incited by BJP MP Sadhvi Prachi and they entered the University with the University officials’ shameful collaboration and tried to terrorize the JNU community. At least Jadavpur University faculty and students foiled such attempt by ABVP directly patronized by MHRD minister, which has already caused the suicide of Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad, by making a massive human chain at the University gate. I am afraid that  with the kind of head hunting going on for JNU students, if another tragedy like that of Rohith Vemula occurred, I shudder to think of its reaction all over the country.

I have not only retired as Professor from JNU, I have been JNUTA President during year 2007, I am also a JNU alumnus, remaining a student during 1977-82 and getting my PhD degree from this University. It was but natural that I got disturbed, upset and anxious at the happenings in JNU and outside, vilifying my ‘alma mater’ in the worst manner. Further, the MHRD minister’s own conduct during the Rohith Vemula movement and during the attack on JNU has been most vindictive towards the University. She was having a grouse against the students of JNU due to their #OccupyUGC and #StandWithRohith movements, which has embarrassed her own self and her government throughout the world. She could not attack JNU, during the term of outgoing VC Prof. S K Sopory, who never allowed police to enter campus and dealt with such problems, even like the present one of alleged ‘anti national’ sloganeering, at the University level itself. That is why the whole University – students, faculty and staff – supported him for his democratic and dedicated administrative conduct.

The MHRD minister was itching for revenge so she got a new VC of her choice, pliant to her whims and within two weeks of his taking over, he allowed police to enter campus, on the basis of a controversial video complaint filed with Delhi police, without even any preliminary enquiry at University level. He violated even the JNU standard procedures of taking into confidence Deans and Chairpersons of Schools/centers. Four senior Deans protested on his allowing the police in campus and they joined the JNUTA call for solidarity with JNUSU.

In a similar situation at Jadavpur University, the Vice Chancellor categorically declared that he would not file any complaint with the police nor allow police to enter campus and settle the issue at university level. He rather stood with the Jadavpur faculty and students in a human chain to stop anti-social elements entering the campus. In contrast, JNU VC allowed the police with open arms, following the example of his ideal Hyderabad University VC, Appa Rao. In fact, sending police inside JNU campus on the basis of a suspicious video of a discredited news channel, directly interfered with the autonomy of the university. The JNU administration could have dealt with this problem using JNU’s internal mechanism without creating a national crisis. It seems the Central government was rather keen to create this crisis and they did it through their pliant new VC.

Under such circumstances, my conscience has been pricking me since the arrest of the JNUSU President and I can no more bear the burden on my conscience. I am thus returning the award given to me directly from MHRD with the signature of then MHRD Minister Dr. M M Joshi, since the Central Hindi Directorate is a branch of higher education section of MHRD. When the MHRD with the Govt. of India’s express wish, is bent upon destroying my alma mater JNU, which is considered the best University of the country and which is appreciated by world renowned scholars like Noam Chomsky, Nobel prize winning writer Orhan Pamuk and innumerable scholars from hundreds of Universities from India and abroad, then the least I can do is to record my protest by returning the award, which was given to me by MHRD itself 15 years ago, by the same NDA govt., which is in power today!

I shall hand over the plaque and a cheque of fifty thousand rupees given to me as part of the award to your office. I understand, you have no role in all this tragic happenings in JNU, but I request you to forward my letter and cheque to the MHRD, so that my protest is registered in records of MHRD. Since the procedure of award is through your office, I am submitting my award back to your office for necessary action of either forwarding or dealing with it at your own level. Since your office declined to accept cheque, memnto, shawl and certificate, I have sent ti through speed post on 25th February.

   I also know full well that by returning the award, I am again putting myself to danger of a vendetta at the hands of MHRD minister and this government, which is known for not showing any respect to even Vice Chancellors of the Universities. Thus I will be sending copies of my letter to the President of India and the Chief Justice of India, so that if anything happens to my life or limb, because of my protest against the attack on JNU, this government shall be held responsible. 

 Returning state awards and honours form is considered the most decent form of protest the world over and people are respected for it, even by those in power. Yet during the return of my first award, I have been subjected to all kinds of indignities on television and on social media by trolls. This happened despite the fact that out of my fifty plus books in Hindi, Punjabi and English, some translated into Urdu, Marathi, Bengali, Telugu, Gujarati etc, nearly fifteen books are related to Bhagat Singh and other revolutionary freedom fighters. But my ‘nationalism’ is under question under this government, which has no record to show of its ‘nationalism’ by way of any role in freedom struggle of its party or its ancestors! I have my own ‘Nationalism’, based on Bhagat Singh’s ideas of exploitation free Socialist India, further based on Gandhi’s nationalism of ‘Communal Harmony’, Nehru’s nationalism of ‘Scientific Temper and Knowledge’, Ambedkar’s nationalism of ‘Social Justice/equal rights/status/dignity for Dalits/Adivasis’, Subhas Bose’s nationalism of ‘Socialist India, all of whom have fought for the freedom of this ‘Nation’ from British colonialism. I certainly disapprove the so called ‘Nationalism’ of RSS/Hindutva thinkers like Golwalkar and Savarkar, who either did not participate in the freedom struggle or abjectly apologized ample times, of ‘Communal Divide and violence against minorities/Dalits’, leading to one BJP MLA in Rajasthan having the audacity to demand Rahul Gandhi ‘be shot dead/hanged for treason’! And another BJP leader asking for ‘beheading him and putting his head at JNU gate’! I don’t think that there is any difference between ISIS statements and actions in their Caliphate in Syria-Iraq,  and these statements if not yet turned into action!

                I may disagree with Rahul Gandhi’s politics, but his great great grandfather Motilal Nehru, his great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru,his great grand-mother Kamla Nehru, his great grand aunti-uncle-Vijaylakshmi Pandit/Ranjit Pandit, his grandmother Indira Gandhi- all suffered imprisonment during the freedom struggle in contrast with these ‘phony nationalists’! So much for their zeal to kill people in the name of their own concept of ‘nationalism’, which means subjecting citizens to their narrow and sectarian religious kind of nationalism, which has no place for secular enlightened knowledge based scientific temper, so dear to Jawaharlal Nehru, on whose name JNU was established and which is being destroyed by present dispensation by all means, as already Nehru Memorial Museum and Library(NMML), National Book Trust(NBT), and ICHR have been destroyed by anti-knowledge ministers of HRD and Culture! Yet, like thousands of JNU alumnus, present faculty and students, I #StandWithJNU and am ready to pay whatever price this government wants me to pay, even getting killed by some of their patronized ‘nationalists’!

Yours Sincerely,

 

(Chaman Lal)

Winner of 2000-01 award for Non Hindi speaking area Hindi writer

  1. no. 2690, Urban Estate, Phase-2, Patiala (Pb.)-147002

Prof.chaman@gmail.com 09646494538

 

     

               

      

 

 

 

 

H.No.2690, Urban Estate, Phase-II, Patiala (Pb.)-147002

 

Email: – prof.chaman@gmail.com mobile no 09646494538

 

 

Chaman Lal,

Professor(Retired), JNU, New Delhi

Former President JNU Teachers Association(JNUTA)
Cell no. +919646494538

Blogs-www.bhagatsinghstudy.blogspot.com
www.drchaman.wordpress.com
www.twitter.com/ProfChaman
www.facebook.com/Dr.Chaman.JNU
http://in.linkedin.com/in/chamanlaljnu

https://jnu.academia.edu/ChamanJNU

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chaman_Lal2

https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&imq=Chaman+Lal

State attack on Adivasis

Statements/News Releases

SANSAD News-release February 24, 2016

Stop genocidal atrocities against Adivasis (tribals) in India

South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD) condemns the “acid” attack on Adivasi human rights activist, Soni Sori by unknown persons in Bastar  district of Chattishgarh on February 20 and the eviction from their home and office of the lawyers in Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group (Jag-LAG) through police intimidation earlier on the same day. We further condemn the driving out from the state by police intimidation of the journalist Malini Subramaniam a few days earlier and the continuing police harassment and intimidation of social scientist, Bela Bhatia, formerly teacher at Tata Institute for Social Sciences, Mumbai, for her writings on the sexual harassment and gang-rapes of Adivasi women by security personnel.

These events are a part of the war the Indian state is waging against Adivasis in Chattisgarh to “pacify” this region of largely forest lands rich in mineral resources for mining, though the overt character of the operation is that of a counter-insurgency against the armed struggle led by the CPI (Maoist). A major aspect of this operation is the intimidation and incarceration of people on the charge of being associated with or sympathetic to the Maoists, who spearhead the resistance of adivasis, while others include individual or mass killings under the guise of fake encounters, looting, rapes, and gang rapes. Following the colonial textbook of counter insurgency one section of the Adivasis is privileged and organized as an arm of the state for violence and intimidation. Also following the textbook of such operations of state violence information is strictly controlled and observation and reporting are violently discouraged.

Soni Sori, a school teacher, had been arrested in 2011 on the false charge of being associated with Maoists and spent two years in prison, where she was brutally  tortured, till she was released on bail by the Supreme Court in 2013. At the same time Lingaram Kodopi, her nephew a journalist who had exposed a massacre, was also imprisoned, served two years, and was similarly released. Since their release both Sori and Kodopi have been active in the defense of the human rights of Adivasis. Soni Sori, who has been leading the campaign for human rights in the region has faced continuous harassment and intimidation, including threats of being burnt alive. None of these incidents have been investigated. The  attack with chemicals on February 20 that led to Sori being taken to hospital emergency in New Delhi  with burns and swelling on her face followed a failed attempt by  her to lodge a police complaint against the Bastar Range Inspector General of Police S. R. P. Kalluri for intimidation.

The case of Soni Sori had alerted lawyers to the plight of Adivasis in Chattisgarh, four of whom were activated to move from New Delhi to Jagdalpur, where they set up the Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group in 2013. They were the only lawyers the Adivasis had had to take up their cases. The Jag-LAG lawyers discovered that hundreds of Adivasis were held in appalling conditions in severely overcrowded jails for many years without any legal representation, without bail, and without ever understanding the charges and proceedings that were in a language they did not understand. One jail with a capacity of 65 held more than 600 inmates, another with a capacity of 150 held 500. Between  2005 and 2012 ninety five percent of the cases had been dismissed, with most people being held in prison for 6 years before acquittal. These lawyers, who offered the only hope for the Adivasis of Chattisgarh and were currently working on 40 cases in addition to the defense of two journalists, Somaru Nag and Santosh Yadav who had been arrested in July 2015, were hounded out on February 20 when their landlord was intimidated by the police into evicting them.

Malini Subramaniam, who had lived in Jagdalpur since 2011, first as an aid worker with the International Committee fro the Red Cross and then as a journalist writing for Scroll.in, was similarly hounded out after relentless harassment by the police and Samajik Ekta Manch, a vigilante group associated with the police. She had been reporting on the protests against fake encounters, rapes and sexual violence by security forces, and fake surrenders by alleged Maoists. After weeks of intimidation by the police and the vigilante group she was given an immediate eviction notice by her landlord and forced to leave with her husband and two daughters on February 18. The crisis was precipitated by the publication in the Caravan magazine of the link between the police and the Bastar Samajik Ekta Manch the previous day.

We utterly condemn the atrocities of the Indian state in Chattisgarh that amount to what is today recognized as colonial and post-colonial genocide perpetrated in the course of counter-insurgency measures. We further condemn the systematic campaign of terror used to suppress the struggle for human rights and maintain an information blackout in the area. We demand that the human rights of the Adivasis and their democratic rights as citizens of India be respected, the paramilitary groups be disarmed and restrained, the rule of law be established, an independent investigation be conducted into the abuses by the police and security forces, and journalists and lawyers be assured the safety they need to perform their essential role in a democratic society.

—Thirty—

Board of Directors, SANSAD: www.sansad.org