The Hindu : Harsh treatment

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 10, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

Harsh treatment

By Aruna Roy, Bela Bhatia, Jean Dreze, Nikhil Dey & Prashant Bhushan

Indian democracy today is the site of two contrary tendencies. One is a healthy trend towards higher standards of transparency and accountability in public life. A culture of public vigilance has begun to develop, and the civic credentials of political leaders are coming under closer public scrutiny.

However, there is also a counter-trend of suppression and subversion of the people's right to information and related civil liberties. To illustrate, political leaders have craftily resisted a creative attempt to make it mandatory for them to disclose their criminal antecedents and economic assets. The state has tightened its grip on NGOs, academic bodies, and other independent institutions. And repressive legislation such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) has been freely used to defuse political opposition and stifle public criticism.

A routine method of ideological control is to hunt and harass the leading voices of dissent. Instead of addressing the concerns raised by the dissenters, the spotlight is turned on whatever fault can be found in their public activities or even personal lives. This witch-hunt serves the dual purpose of diverting attention from the real issues, and eliminating the source of the nuisance. For instance, immediately after the Tehelka expose, Tarun Tejpal and his associates became the target of relentless persecution by investigative agencies. Similarly, Arundhati Roy's gentle criticism of the Supreme Court's lack of sensitivity towards the underprivileged swiftly landed her in prison. More recently, Sandeep Pandey's tireless work against communalism, and for amity between communities in Ayodhya and elsewhere, made him a target of state harassment. Ironically, he was booked under section 153A of the Indian Penal Code, which should have been used against those who were inciting communal passions.

Intimidation tactics have also been intensively used against those who have exposed the complicity of the state with the instigators of last year's massacres in Gujarat. This applies first and foremost in Gujarat itself, where Hindutva outfits have aggressively usurped the use of all public spaces, suppressed constitutional rights of free expression, and hounded those who work for communal harmony. The long arm of these outfits, however, extends well beyond the borders of the State.

Among recent targets of the ideological police is Harsh Mander, who stirred the conscience of the nation last year with his early report on the Gujarat massacres. Ever since he dared to step out of line in this matter, Mr. Mander has been troubled by state authorities, Hindutva organisations, and their supporters. Many attempts have been made to tarnish his reputation and thereby discredit his testimonies on Gujarat. In addition, he has been the target of a relentless e-mail campaign. Among other allegations, Mr. Mander has been accused of distorting the facts, of acting on behalf of foreign interests, and of seeking publicity or other personal advantage in his incisive reports and subsequent quitting of the IAS.

These charges are bound to sound patently absurd to anyone familiar with Mr. Mander, his life and his values. Mr. Mander is a person of exceptional selflessness and integrity, who strictly followed his conscience in this matter, as he had done throughout his eventful career as an IAS officer. This career often led him to confront powerful individuals and institutions as he stood unflinchingly on the side of the underprivileged. The system responded by transferring him 20 times in 18 years. Mr. Mander was always ready to move, knowing that subordinating one's conscience to the demands of power was the first step towards collaboration with authoritarianism. It is the same conviction that led him to speak out on Gujarat.

In short, the real aim of these grave insinuations is not just to discredit Mr. Mander as a person, but also to undermine the principles of equity, justice, humaneness and secularism that he has championed. The same applies to further calumnies that were subsequently aimed at individuals and organisations that stand in solidarity with Mr. Mander and uphold similar values.

Ironically, the suppression of dissent has often been done in the name of the right to information. Under the cover of scrutinising particular individuals and organisations in the public interest, the voices of dissent have been submitted to facetious and intrusive interrogations. For instance, the direct and indirect links of the target organisations with foreign institutions have been scrutinised to absurd limits, in a vain attempt to expose some "foreign hand" behind their activities.

We, members of the National Campaign for the People's Right to Information, stand in solidarity with all the victims of these propaganda activities. We also call for united action to resist the growth of anti-democratic tendencies in Indian politics and society.

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