Activists sucked into Maoist mire
The State has to protect itself against anarchists but it cannot extend the battle to cover all those who publicly express themselves as sympathisers.
The sense of outrage has been overwhelming at the arrest and subsequent incarceration at home as ordered by the Supreme Court on five well-known human rights activists. The manner in which the police have acted in serial raids would suggest this is more of a fishing expedition, the motive probably being to pile pressure on activists and intellectuals who are not in sync with the ruling forces.
The fact that some of them had been arrested before by previous regimes years ago for sympathising with Maoists does not alter the scenario of persecution against those with leftist leanings. The conspiracy angle has always been a hard one to prove in court though that does not absolve the highest sounding intellectuals from taking up the cause of those who wage war against the nation as the Maoists do.
The simultaneous state-wide arrests are a dangerous sign of a government that fears it is losing its mandate and is falling into panic. That lawyers, poets, writers, Dalit rights activists and intellectuals are being arrested on ludicrous charges while those who make up lynch mobs and threaten and murder people in broad daylight roam free, tells us very clearly where India is headed. Murderers are being honoured and protected. Anybody who speaks up for justice or against Hindu majoritarianism is being made into a criminal. What is happening is absolutely perilous. In the run up to elections, this is an attempted coup against the Indian Constitution and all the freedoms that we cherish
— Arundhati Roy, writer and activist
Close to 7,000 civilians and over 2,500 security forces have been killed in cold blood by Maoist guerrillas since 2001. The point is, would sympathy for their cause on the grounds that they are underserved in society amount to condoning their murderous activities?
The State has to protect itself against anarchists but it cannot extend the battle to cover all those who publicly express themselves as sympathisers. Such hamhanded police action against civilians only spoils the image of government in its fight against the real guerrillas. The hashtag #UrbanNaxal is an interesting spinoff from this ugly episode of arrests of activists and writer-poet Varavara Rao.
Ramachandra Guha@Ram_Guha
As a biographer of Gandhi, I have no doubt that if the Mahatma was alive today, he would don his lawyer’s robes and defend Sudha Bharadwaj in court; that is assuming the Modi Sarkar hadn’t yet detained and arrested him too
Rahul Gandhi@ RahulGandhi
There is only place for one NGO in India and it’s called the RSS. Shut down all other NGOs. Jail all activists and shoot those that complain. Welcome to the new India
Kantilal Rathi@KantilalRathi
They support naxals
They suport Kashmiri separatists
They go to Supreme court at midnight to save terrorists
They dislike vandematram
They love Pakistan
& all of them hate one person - Modi
tkb@bhatvicky73
@ReallySwara ma'am you are our honorable PM so, why not you make 5 star jail for these our special guests? plzz special request from a poor 'Janta'
Oldtimer@auldtimer
Irony comes a full circle. Single-malt Socialist Ram Guha once called Arundhati Roy ‘the Arun Shourie of the Left’. She called Naxals ‘Gandhians with guns’. Now Guha also dubs Naxals as Gandhians. Is comrade Roy the soul sister of comrade Guha?
Keshav Vats@aslipandit
Hey swara.. The arrested people have connection with the violence in koregaon. A criminal is a criminal whether he is a writer, human rights activist or anything else. Why don't u let the police do their work in order to prevail the justice to the victims of that violence..
Shashi Tharoor @ShashiTharoor
I have no sympathy whatsoever for Maoism but freedom of thought, belief & expression are fundamental rights in any democracy. To arrest activists who have neither committed nor facilitated violence is to betray our democracy. This is not the India that Gandhiji fought to free.
Narayanan Subramania@KalpathiSN
??@Ram_Guha?? So your point is, a liberal posthumous biographer has the eerie responsibility of doing proxy thinking for the dead protagonist. I shudder to think what woe would befall this nation if it starts to seek direction from loony hallucinating liberals
tejsvi raj @TejsviRaj
Arun Ferreira jailed - 2007, UPA
Vernon convicted under UAPA - 2007, UPA
Gautam Navlakha detained in Srinagar - 2011, UPA
Rona Wilson interrogated in Geelani case - 2005, UPA
Binayak Sen arrested, convicted - 2007 & 2010, UPA
But "undeclared Emergency" - 2018, Modi
Sucheta Dalal@suchetadalal
Arrest of activists, lawyers and intellectuals is a bad move in an election year, especially after the silence on lynchings! A government out of touch with public sentiment is what had led to the Emergency in 1977! No lessons learnt by those who were on the other side then!
Rajeev Mantri @RMantri
Normal citizens wait for years on end for honourable Supreme Court to hear their cases, cough up tens of lakhs in legal fees. Maoists and urban naxals gets instant audience with the Court, five-star senior advocates take their case for free
Shekhar Gupta@ShekharGupta
Arrests of Left activists/intellectuals is McCarthyism taken to another level. Playbook: use commando-comic channels to malign those you want to ‘fix’ with zero evidence, then arrest them on nothing charges but draconian laws. Courts will be tested for their wisdom & spine
Booby Prize
This week’s prize goes to all of us who instinctively picked Tripura CM Biplab Deb as the winner the moment he said ducks automatically improve oxygen levels and water quality in ponds. Apparently, his idea of reinvigorating the Rudrasagar Lake was not as wonky as his comments on an internet in times of the Mahabharat etc.
His thought of arming the lake with 50,000 ducks sounds bizarre but could work ecologically as the creatures are known as aerators and their droppings help feed fish. Maybe, this one time we accept the prize rather than give it to a serial winner.
HT06