Grieving for Teesta

Julio Ribeiro

I had great faith in the judiciary. Alas, I have lost it. Like other institutions, the media in particular, it has caved in or is in the process of doing so. I did not expect the court to swim against the tide and hold our powerful PM complicit in the attack on Zakia Jafri’s husband, but no sensible Indian expected the topmost judicial authority to make extremely disparaging remarks against Teesta Setalvad and RB Sreekumar and accuse them of a pre-planned conspiracy to harm PM Modi!

These remarks were immediately picked up by BJP stalwarts and a politicised Gujarat Police to register an FIR against these two for conspiracy to harm an innocent man, who incidentally had not received the clean chit from his own senior at that time — PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a man of principles.

I have known Teesta and Sreekumar for many years. Teesta was responsible for the conviction of a BJP minister in fomenting the riots in Ahmedabad in 2002. Another one jailed for leading the mobs was Babu Bajrangi, a notorious Muslim baiter from the Hindu far-Right. Teesta went about her mission relentlessly and succeeded. The courts, especially the Supreme Court, saw the justice in her pleadings and helped the process of delivering it.

Perhaps the steady support of the courts had made her believe that she would succeed again but this time the target was one that even the most intrepid of today’s judges would hesitate to touch. But to pass those unnecessary strictures that an eager leadership was bound to pounce on to extract revenge was not expected.

Teesta belongs to an eminent jurist clan known for its integrity and passion for justice. Her marriage to fellow journalist Javed Anand strengthened her desire to take up the cause of a minority under siege. Anti-Muslim sentiment has always been a feature of existence in our land. It was accentuated when Rajiv Gandhi overturned the Supreme Court’s sensible judgment in the Shah Bano case.

The allegation that the Congress was pampering the Muslim minority for electoral gain was now firmly embedded in the Hindu mind. The Congress only conceded the demands of the mullahs on religious matters. That was not the designated role of government, any government in power. It should keep religion out of its purview. The charge of pampering for electoral consideration could hold only in the party’s dealings with the Islamic clergy. The party could have helped a poor minority if it had diverted attention to education and health instead.

At a gathering of Muslim leaders, I voiced this opinion and I was promptly berated. Only Javed Anand supported me. He, too, was shouted down. That experience made me aware that a common meeting ground to ensure communal harmony was not going to be easy.

Just as I believe that Teesta’s campaign for justice for a beleaguered minority has its origin in compassion, the Gujarat Police’s swift action against their own one-time senior surprised me. Sreekumar, the son of a freedom fighter from Kerala, spent more than a decade in the Intelligence Bureau before reverting to the state. He was promptly made head of the state’s Intelligence apparatus, for which he was eminently suited.

When the Godhra train burning took place, Sreekumar was on leave. Otherwise, as a senior officer in charge of Intelligence gathering and analysis, he would have been present at the meeting called by Modi at the CM’s residence that night. His assistant, Sanjeev Bhat, was too junior to be given access and had to wait in another room till the instructions were handed down to him by the DGP. A contingent of the Army requisitioned in aid of civil power, led by a Lt General, was kept twiddling its thumb on the tarmac as no instructions for deployment were given to the General, despite his personal call on Modi at his residence.

I learnt that the instructions were to go slow for a day. This piece of information was enforced by the non-deployment of the Army contingent. Any expectation that riots will stop at a given signal is misplaced. Once the mob assumes an identity of its own, separate from that of the individuals that compose the mob, there is no way to control the insanity till, like the eye of a storm, it dissipates.

There are very few officers with spine, like Sreekumar, left in the service today. After this judgment and the action initiated by the Gujarat Police, there will be even less. Those who enter the IPS will have to be trained in a different form of jurisprudence that tells them to follow the master’s orders, ignoring truth, justice and the rule of law.

Another development that will follow Teesta into police custody is the reluctance of activists to cross swords with the powerful force that has taken over the governance of the country. I remember the words of NSA Doval in his address to IPS probationers at the last passing-out parade in Hyderabad. He told them that the next big enemy to be combated was ‘civil society’!

We now know what he meant. NGO activism should stop at the Laxmanrekha. It should not touch the PM, as Teesta tried unsuccessfully to do. India is not the same type of democracy like the US or the UK. Our PM is too sacred a figure! In a recent statement, he even mentioned that Indian democracy preceded that of the British! I had not heard that one before. Even the unemployed youth, too numerous to count, can do nothing to shake the public perception of him as a messiah sent to save the country from perdition.

Never try to bang your head against a wall. It is your head that will crack. Teesta should have been briefed by her advisers before embarking on this project. I know her as a person who bashes on regardless. Her venture against such a powerhouse was bound to end as it did.

(Courtesy: The Tribune and CJP.)

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When Accused Become Innocent and Innocent Are Made Accused

Sandeep Pandey

Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by Nathu Ram Godse. There are some people subscribing to Hindutva ideology who idolize Godse. Various leaders, and activists associated with the Hindutva ideology from time to time have portrayed Godse as a patriot. The question is Gandhi was the tallest leader of India’s freedom movement and even before India achieved independence Godse was making an attempt to kill Gandhi, so, how could Godse be a patriot? But by describing Godse as a patriot Mahatma Gandhi’s sacrifice is belittled. A school in Gujarat in 2019 asked its class 9 students in a question paper as to how Mahatma Gandhi committed suicide? If Hindutva ideology had its way, it may even convince people of the country one day that Gandhi committed suicide and was not murdered just as students in present-day China do not learn anything about the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. Also, the Sangh Parivar would like to wash this taint as Mahatma Gandhi is globally the most respected Indian. This is the reason Narendra Modi chose him as an icon for the Swachcha Bharat Mission and at least pays him token respect abroad whenever it suits him.

When Babri Masjid was going to be demolished on 6 December 1992, both Prime Minister P.V. Narsimha Rao and Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Kalyan Singh swore allegiance to the Constitution and vowed to protect the mosque. However, after the mosque was demolished Kalyan Singh claimed that he was a member of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh first and a Chief Minister later. A number of leading politicians of the Bhartiya Janata Party including Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti, etc., were made accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case. In 2019, the Supreme Court of India (SC) while admitting that the demolition of Babri Masjid was a criminal act awarded the land on which the mosque stood for the construction of a Ram temple there. As expected, the accused in the Babri Masjid demolition were also let off by a court in UP. Hence a criminal act was justified and now it is made to appear as if there is a consensus in the country on building a Ram temple in Ayodhya where the mosque stood once with even politicians of opposition parties like Congress contributing towards the construction of the temple.

More recently, Teesta Setalvad, R.B. Sreekumar, and Sanjiv Bhatt, who were trying to get justice for the victims of 2002 communal violence in Gujarat and bring to book the culprits are being made to appear as conspirers. Narendra Modi, the then CM, has been given so-called ‘clean chit’ by the SC about whom Sanjiv Bhatt, in an affidavit submitted to the court, has said that in a meeting on the evening of the Godhra train burning incident, Narendra Modi had told senior police officers to let the Hindus vent their anger for some time. Even if this meeting did not take place senior IAS officer Harsh Mander and IPS officer Vibhuti Narain Rai have claimed that any riot cannot go on beyond a few hours without the complicity of the government. The same SC which has pronounced judgment in 2019 in the Bilkis Bano case asking the Gujarat government to pay Rs. 50 lakhs and provide a government job to the gang rape victim of 2002 violence has now come down so heavily on an activist and former police officers who were helping the courts earlier so as to suggest that action should be taken against them. Question is, is Zakia Jafri wrong in seeking justice for the murder of her husband and former Congress Member of Parliament Ehsan Jafri, and is Teesta Setalvad wrong in helping Zakia Jafri? Are we to forget that communal violence took place in Gujarat in 2002, are we to forget that Maya Kodnani and Babu Bajrangi were convicted for having participated in the Naroda Patiya massacre during the 2002 communal violence, even though the former was acquitted later and the latter given a bail, are we to forget that Narendra Modi was denied visa by the United States and some European countries for 9 years for his complicity in the 2002 violence?

Are we to forget that several police officers and Amit Shah were arrested in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife Kausar Bi, and Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter case and the case had to be transferred from Gujarat to Bombay High Court, even though all accused were acquitted when BJP came to power at the centre, are we to forget the Justice B.H. Loya who wanted Amit Shah to appear in court died under mysterious circumstances?

A case has now also been registered against Medha Patkar for financial embezzlement in a trust Narmada Nav Nirman Abhiyan by a Hindutva office bearer. One V.K. Saxena, about whose background very little is known, published an advertisement against Medha Patkar and Narmada Bachao Andolan and since then has been embroiled in legal cases. V.K. Saxena’s affiliations became clear when he was elevated first as Chairperson of Khadi Village and Industries Commission and then as Lieutenant Governor of Delhi by the BJP government and Medha Patkar, who has committed her life to the struggle of marginalized sections of society facing any injustice, is facing a First Information Report and legal cases.

The latest is SC has asked activist Himanshu Kumar to pay a fine of Rs. 5 lakh for filing a petition seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the alleged killing of 16 tribals by police and security forces in 2009 at Gompad in Chhattisgarh. Himanshu Kumar has stated that seeking justice is not a crime and therefore he will not pay the fine.

Welcome to the new India where the accused will be made to appear as innocent and the system will try to protect them and the innocent will be portrayed in a bad light. Activism, fighting for human rights, and speaking the truth have become liabilities.

[Sandeep Pandey is General Secretary of Socialist Party (India).]