Dear Colleagues ,
With reference to the arrest of the Dalit activist in Maharashtra , those
resorting to such acts
in Maharashtra are in deliberate amnesia . Yeshwantrao Chavan , a prominent
leader of Maharashtra
was arrested by the British for what were termed as Seditious activities in the
region of Western
Maharashtra in and around Satara and languished in the jail in Phaltan with is
wife who was apolitical
similarly arrested under British occupation .Tragically to-day many in
Maharashtra became touts of
Enron among other companies which destroyed the finances of the State with
Maharashtra slowly
slipping in all comparitive criteria and Mumbai decaying despite its several
Godfathers presiding over
covert activities , even as they participate in candle light and similar other
hypocritical ceremonies .They will desert Mumbai and Maharashtra like rats when
the collapse takes place and the migrants who have contributed to the city and
who are victimised by fascist political organizations receiving money from
rival corporate houses as per the Radia tapes , start returning to their
homes in the Indo-Gangetic belt historically a region of greater prosperity
,pauperised by British occupation .
To repat we need technology , we need industrial development , we need
agriculture , yet we cannot justify the genocide of the peasantry of the tribal
people and the merciless attacks against Dalits in rural India . In Punjab
under the capitalist development of agriculture every village has people high
on drugs , alcohol or suffering from cancer as the extent of pesticides and
fertilizers used have poisoned the ground water .Kindly read the October 3rd
report in the Tehelka magazine in the Punjab and even the statement of the
leader of the youth congress that PUNJAB WILL NEED A SOCIAL REVOLUTION TO SAVE
ITSELF AND ITS SOCIETY which among other things is suffering from extensive
infertility . This state has one of the closest links to North America and
Britain .
Under such circumstances to arrest people who call for a public debate on
issues is to shoot the messenger when THERE IS A GRAVE CRISIS FACING INDIAN
AGRICULTURE AND THE RURAL COUNTRYSIDE COMPOUNDING THE SITUATION OF HUNGER AND
SLUMS IN URBAN INDIA .
Even as our places of pilgrimage Washington , New York , London among others
are collapsing let us not be short sighted and shut out all debate on the
paradigm and model of development and call everyone disagreeing, a Maoist or a
Naxalite or an impractical Gandhian .
Some of the worst criticism of what is happening in rural India has been made
in reports of official committeess , surely it is not our case that there are
many Naxalites in government departments, among economists and in the Supreme
Court .........
Collapse of Indian agriculture and depletion of water resources in Central and
Eastern India will be a death sentence for the Indian economy as the printing
of notes and exhorbitant salary payments and bonuses are no substitute for
nutrition and quality of life .
Niloufer Bhagwat
----- Original Message -----
From: Niloufer Bhagwat
To: [email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 4:08 PM
Subject: MEETING HELD TO FOCUS ATTENTION ON THE CONVICTION WITHOUT EVIDENCE
OF DR.BINAYAK SEN AND THE UNJUSTIFIED ARREST OF SUDHIR DHAWALE A DALIT ACTIVIST
IN MAHARASHTRA FOR FOCUSSING ATTENTION ON INJUSTICES AGAINST DALITS
Dear Colleagues ,
Increasingly and in the days ahead the citizens of India will have to
remember even as they defend democracy and the right to free speech that "
Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty " and Indian democracy will have to
be vigorously defended as it is facing a serious threat from those who desire
that theConstitution of India which is a manifesto of our Freedom Movement
should be steadily eroded . I earnestly request that wherever you are whatever
your political opinions , if you stand for democracy you must actively defend
it in the days ahead , even if your political party does not agree that you do
so on account of their own compulsions of adjustment as there is a conspiracy
to convert our political system into a authoritarian /fascist state with
liberties only for a few and slavery for the rest , with measures being used
more in the nature of the Police States in the Arab region as against the
political freedom and civil liberties which we have hitherto enjoyed and which
have been stamped out in large parts of the country including Central and
Eastern India .
In the context of serious developments including the conviction of Dr.
Binayak Sen ,I am sending you my report of the meeting held in Mumbai . You do
not have to agree with everything , however you have to defend the democratic
right of honest citizens everywhere in the country and the right to a free and
fair trial for everyone including your political opponents .
At a meeting held at Mumbai's Vanmali Hall by the Committee for the Release
of Dr. Binayak Sen on 17th January 2010, to condemn the conviction of
Dr.Binayak Sen and others charged along with him and to focus attention on the
unjustified arrest of Sudhir Dhawale, a Dalit activist in Maharashtra who had
earlier focussed attention on the Khairlanji case , it was highlighted that
the meeting was being held to focus attention on the fact that Democracy was
in danger and the paradigm or model of economic development adopted was leading
to increased repression of rural India , the tribal people , Dalits , the
peasantry and minorities even though they were the ones who were at the
receiving end of violence from organizations such as the Salwa Judum, among
others . That Justice Krishna Iyer had analysed that the reason why people were
being indiscriminately called Naxalites and Maoists was because the Congressmen
and Communists among others having become respectable after forming
governments and being in power , those who were still hungry and exploited and
their defenders were being indiscriminately called Naxalites . A reference
was made to the analysis of E.V.Rammohan former Director General of the BSF
who has highlighted that majority of the people in Tribal India do not know who
was Mao and that the exploitation of Adivasis and Dalits and the trampling of
their rights by the upper caste was the real reason for the violence in these
regions which could be resolved by land reforms and the cessation of economic
and social injustice .
It was pointed out that the following eminent leaders of India had also been
charged with Sedition or Rajdrohis namely :-
1. Lok Manya Tilak.
2. Mahatma Gandhi
3. The Ali brother prominent in the Khilafat movement and
the Indian Independence struggle .
4. Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan ( the Frontier or Sarhad Gandhi )
5. Bhagatsingh and others in the Meerut Conspiracy case .
6. Members of Subhash Chandra Bose's INA .
However that despite Asimnanda 's confession and the serious siphoning away
of revenues of the State and the commission of serious illegalities in Scams
exposed by the Radia tapes which established without doubt the corporatization
of policy , no one was similarly charged , not even organizations whose members
had covertly organized bomb blasts .
Himanshu Kumar ,the noted Gandhian highlighted that repression on anyone
focusing attention on the grievances in rural India was taking place as the
paradigm and model of development now being adopted ,was on the pattern of the
Western economic model , which was in crisis and Mahatma Gandhi had rejected
the model as unsuitable for human development and specifically for India , that
is why large areas of the country remained outside the pale of balanced
development with villages and tribal India facing serious neglect and gave the
example why the unrest in Central and Eastern India commenced when Companies
such as Essar resorted to using private militias and even para military
formations to clear villages, since they had signed MOUs with the government of
Chhattisgarh among other State governments .Himanshu Kumar emphasized that to
determine what one could read and not read was not compatible with democracy
and the Constitution of India and the government of Chhattisgarh had even tried
to label him as a " Naxalite" in the Supreme Court and tried to justify the
Salwa Judum . Himanshu Kumar forthrightly emphasized that those Corporates
and State governments clearing tribal villages were relying on guns and hence
it was they who were following Mao not the tribal people .
A doctor , Dr. Sanjay Nagraj who was familiar with the worl of Dr. Binayak
Sen highlighted the absolute dedication of Dr. Binayak Sen to the cause of
public health which he had made into a life time mission and stated that
whereas other colleagues had drifted into private practice , Dr. Binayak Sen
was suffering because of his sicerity and dedication which had shocked all
members of the medical fraternity in India and abroad who knew of his life's
work and his dedication to non -violence . That the plight had convinced the
friends Medical circle and other doctors with a conscience as to the injustice
of what had happened to a doctor who had dedicated himself to the medical
assistance of the poorest ,was soft spoken and did not believe in violence .
The Dalit activist Kirti Dhawle of the Bahujan Samaj at the meeting and
Darshana the wife of Sudhir Dhawale illegally arrested by the State of
Maharashtra referred to the Dalit question and the mandate of Dr. Ambedkar that
it was necessary to struggle against what the Dalits had faced for centuries
and were still facing and that the unjustified charge of " Naxalism" was
levelled against Dalit andolans after the Khairlanji Case which had resulted in
Dalit protests all over Maharashtra . That Sudhir Dhawale had dedicated his
life to Dalit struggles for which he was being victimised by casteist elements
of the upper castes .The objective and purpose of such arrests was to all
reflection on injustices of society and stamp out intellectual dissent and the
spread of ideas even though their propagation was within the framework of the
Constitution of India . Both emphasized that Dr.Ambedkar and Jotirao Phule had
stressed that mass movements for change and democratic protest was the way
forward .However anti-democratic forces were against Dalit political awareness .
Niloufer Bhagwat , highlighted that historically several prominent leaders
of the freedom struggle had been unjustly charged with Sedition and that
Justice Krishna Iyer among others were concerned that those who worked among
the exploited and hungry in rural India were increasingly all being labelled as
Maoist or Naxalites and that even Communist parties in parliament were
committing the same error as they worked mainly with organized Trade Unions
in urban centres. Advocate Bhagwat dissected the evidence ,highlighting tthat
there was no evidence whatosoever to convict Dr. Binayak Sen and other
Co-accused , that the so called letter delivered allegedly was a print out ,
not even in the list of seized docuemnts nor attached to the charge sheet
,with jail officials testifying that Dr. Binayak Sen and Sanyal had exchanged
no letters , the evidence hearsay and seriously tainted as there were no eye
witnesses , even the site for the arrest of Piyush Guha contradictory as per
affidavits before the Supreme Court and Raipur Court , stressing that any one
espousing causes in rural India of the peasantry , dalits , tribal people and
peasantry was being termed as " Maoist" even though the situation in India was
very different from China ,and that the texts of Dr. Karl Marx , Lenin and
even Mao Tse Tung which could not be easily understood ,as they were written in
a different historical context at a different stage of capitalist development
of those countries ,could not provide the answers to the conditions of India 's
tribal population and dalits and the peasantry facing a different economic and
social situation .Even Communist parties who had only the experience of Trade
Union functioning in urban centres were calling those who were focussing on
grievances of land seizures in rural India as " Maoists" or Naxalites.Condeming
the arrest of Sudhir Dhawale for keeping books of Marx , Lenin and Mao and for
downloading of articles from the internet and keeping charge sheets which are
public documents as absurd , in the context of the fact that openly anti
national activity of establishing Salwa Judums , defrauding the national
exchequer by subverting political parties and creating a religious divide was
not being tried for their anti national and Seditious activity and those
concerned about the state of Indian society and rural grievances in the face of
peasant suicides and land seizures in tribal and other regions were being
arbitrarily arrested and tried for Sedition and being labelled as Maoist and
Naxalite even as massive corruption at all levels was eating into the body
politic of India .Advocate Niloufer Bhagwat stressed that Dr. Binayak Sen was
in fact being victimized due to his exposure of those behind the Salwa Judum
who had with violence evicted the Adivasis from hundreds of villages which he
did as President of the PUCL in Chhattisgarh and that even the Committee on
Land Reforms established by the Ministry of Rural Development had exposed those
behind the establishment of the Salwa Judum an illegally armed private army to
seize land of the tribals.
This meeting was held to to focus attention on the the clear and present
danger and threat to Indian democracy, evidenced by the unjustified conviction
of Dr.Binayak Sen and other accused by the Raipur Sessions Court despite the
absence of evidence and the unjust arrest of Sudhir Dhawale ,a journalist who
has been focussing attention on the injustices perpetrated on Dalits in several
areas of Maharashtra . Sudhir Dhawale had earlier focussed attention on the
Khairlanji collective murder of a Dalit family over a land dispute .
Increasingly the modus operandi of the unjustified arrests is to search
computers and books and public documents and then frame the individual
questioning as to why books of Dr.Karl Marx , Lenin and Mao along with the
books of Dr.Ambedkar were found in the collection of books and why articles
are downloaded and read from websites despite the fact that the Constitution of
India does not provide for prohibiting reading of political texts of different
countries .
It must be emphasized that police seizure of books and literature including
articles is prima facie evidence that the Indian political system is being
sought to be taken over by fascism under corporate advise . As fascist
literature spreading religious hatred and in justification of the murder of
Mahatma Gandhi and others are in open circulation and bomb blasts planted by
fascist organizations of the upper castes receiving funds from external sources
.
Dr. Ambedkar in militant prose had focused attention on the merciless nature
of upper caste/upper class atrocities on Dalits and maintained that democracy
and constitutionalism would be seriously endangered by vast inequalities . Dr.
Ambedkar Had openly revoted and changed his religion , to-day he would be
charged with illegal conversion and some may feel that it is Seditious to
read his works .
Jotirao Phule decried the serious neglect of the peasantry his famous book "
Kisan ka Koda ", yet lakhs of farmers have committed suicide since 1995 in
Independent India due to the withdrawal of support to agriculture in view of
policies imposed on India by agribusiness companies in conspiracy with the
leaders of more than one political party which is seditious activity and which
has now resulted in a country known for its rich agricultural heritage to
decline into negative growth in agriculture.
The last book Bhagat Singh was reading before he was hung was Lenin's " State
and Revolution ", yet he is a national hero of the country .
It is necessary to recall in the context of the Asimnanda confessions ,that
political leaders from Maharashtra had stated that anyone found stating that
individuals owing their loyalty to the RSS and Hindutva organizations may be
responsible for the Pune Bakery bomb blast will be arrested and detained .
Indicating that instructions had been given that in Maharashtra no reference
should be made to the possibility of these organizations being behind the bomb
blasts despite the investigation of Shahid Hemant Karkareji , Joint
Commissioner of Police who was killed by the criminal underworld operations
which had penetrated Mumbai and who had been threatened before his
assassination . Thereafter this was followed by the assassination of Shaheed
Azmi the brave young lawyer who defended scores of innocent Muslim youth
unjustly charged , including for the Malegaon blasts now confessed to as being
the work of Sangh Parivar activists by the Asimnanda judicial confession which
is confirmed by Shahid Karkare's investigation .
All the speakers highlighted that the situation of the Indigenous tribal
people of India , the Dalits and minorities (who together constitute
approximately 37 % of the population of India along with the peasantry and the
agricultural workers was increasingly required to be highlighted, as these
sections together comprise more than 60 % of the total population of the
country not including unorganized labour who are migrants between rural India
and the urban area, even the Girni Kamgar workers in Mumbai had to leave for
their villages when they lost their jobs with few staying on in Mumbai
unemployed .) There was unanimity that those who focussed attention on the
situation in rural India and raised questions of the peasantry , tribal people,
Dalits and the minorities ,were increasingly being loosely and without any
justification being referred to either as " Naxalites" or Maoist and innocent
Muslim youth as ' jehadis ' . When in fact most of those being
terrorized in tribal India or committing suicides namely the peasantry , or
being falsely arrested namely hundreds and thousands of youth in India for so
called " Jehadi" activity of bomb blasts ,do not know who Mao is and are not
associated with any violent religious or fascist activity of any kind .
On the other hand those who defamed the late Jt. Commissioner of Police
Hemant Karkare as anti-national claim that they are nationalist and patriotic .
A Resolution was passed condeming the arrest of Dr. Binayak Sen and his
co-accused and the arrest of Sudhir Dhawale , the Dalit activist ,calling for
their release and seeking an amendment of the Indian Penal Code ,in respect of
the crime of Sedition and for the repeal of the Chhattisgarh Special Public
Safety Act and the Unlawful Activities Act and action against those officers
and others who have falsely charged innocent persons for Sedition and other
crimes such as bomb blasts which they have not committed .
Our country achieved freedom from colonial rule when Indian citizens did
not enjoy freedom and political rights after a struggle of over a century in
which many lost their lives and were tortured and incarcerated . Behind our
Constitutional rights there is painful struggle , if you allow these rights to
diminish they will be difficult to restore .A few consumer goods can never
subsitute for the right to speak up against injustice .
Niloufer Bhagwat
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