On August 28, 2018, the Maharashtra police arrested some of India’s finest human rights crusaders from five cities across the country on charges under various provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and the IPC. They are being systematically targeted and maliciously charged with an intent to strike terror in the hearts of the people of India. The orchestrated harassment is meant to terrorise intellectuals and subdue any form of dissent. It is widely believed that these arrests are part of a well planned conspiracy to divert public attention from BJP’s failure in delivering on its 2014 election promises such as bringing back India’s black money stacked abroad and distributing it among citizens; creating two crore jobs every year, etc. The investigating agencies which are on the murder trial of Narendra Dabolkar, Dr Kalbughi and journalist Gauri Lankesh have substantially proved the involvement of the Sangh Pariwar outfits. All these thinkers/rationalists were shot in the head (temple) in the same spot so as to give a message to society that if you begin to think like them then this will be your fate. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) was quick to issue a notice to the Maharashtra government and the states’ police chief, saying that it appears that standard operating procedure (SOP) was not properly followed in the arrests of the five activists and this may amount to a violation of their human rights.
Speak up for your right: In recent times, most democracies have not been brought to an end by a coup, but by a steady erosion of fundamental rights and civil liberties. It is time for every citizen who values democracy and liberty to stand up at this moment and signal the intention to resist the Fascist onslaught which in many ways is more dangerous than the emergency of 1975. Instead of arresting those who publicly lynch people, the police are now on a rampage like a bull in a China’s shop arresting poets, lawyers, priests, students, artists, journalists and human rights activists who fight for Dalit and tribal rights. These arrests which are politically motivated are all a gross abuse of police power, intended to stifle, if not kill, these independent voices.
Over 10 years ago during UPA I, we were concerned with the issues such as the right to food, to employment, to education, to information and to land. We were hopefully moving towards a social democratic state through civil society activism. Today there are few organisations that are fighting for the right not to be lynched, or who struggle for the right to life and liberty. Democracy cannot survive without people’s dissenting voices. The recent crackdown on activists is apparently another attack on the Constitution and on democracy. People at large are asking whether the country is in a state of undeclared emergency imposed by the nation’s PM Narendra Modi at the behest of the larger than right wing forces led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sang (RSS). Is it all a part of a larger design of undermining our democracy and replacing the Constitution with Manusmriti and creating a fascist state?
Bounce back effect: This is the latest blow inflicted on civil society by a party stricken with Narcissism – that wishes to see only its own organisation dominating the space of associations. The well known Italian theorist, Antonio Gramsci, jailed by the Mussolini government in the 1920’s, set out to answer a crucial question. Why had a revolution occurred in semi feudal Tsarist Russia and not in the Western Capitalist world as predicted by Marx? He concluded that revolutions only happen when the government directly and unashamedly exercise brute power as in Russia. This does not happen in countries which possess civil societies. Citizens just do not simply revolt. There is a lesson here for the ruling dispensation and all despots. Our Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs to learn from this profound wisdom?
Urban Naxalism: The recent arrests represent a new and extremely dangerous phase in the steady erosion of civil liberties and fundamental rights. According to Susan Abraham a human rights activist herself and wife of Vernon Gonsalves, the term “Urban Naxal” is an expression that has been created by the RSS. All this is only a ploy to divert the attention from the gravity of the Sanathan Sanstha conspiracy to carry out serial bomb attacks during Ganesh Chaturthi.
A few months ago a BJP lawmaker from Karnataka even advocated the murder of “intellectuals”. ‘Urban Naxal/Maoist’ is a catch all description for all those who disagree with the powerful and the majoritarian way of life and world view. Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan said in the course of his arguments before the SC that one of those arrested was working with an organisation that he was funding.
In conclusion: With the hounding of civil society activists accused as urban-Naxalites, the nation today is in the ‘cusp’ of an undeclared emergency.
One of the allegations is that these people supported “anti-fascist thoughts”. What is wrong with expressing dissent? How does it become an act against the country? Government has created a range of draconian laws expressly to deal with the Naxalite menace. When a law is draconian and the politics itself turns intolerant, it surely falls on the SC to safeguard and uphold the Constitution.
The SC did not get daunted by a law that permits no questions even while it gives a right of way to the State to brazenly trample on individual liberties. In the coming days the nation will keenly observe, the unfolding of the ‘theatre of the absurd’ and the games rulers play. We have witnessed the first chapter on how to lynch democracy!
(The writer is a social scientist and criminal lawyer)
