Article 14 / by Chitrangada Choudhury
Adivasi rights defender, a former fellow of a prestigious prime ministerial programme, and son of a police official, Mahesh Raut is the youngest of the ‘Bhima-Koregaon 11’, accused of spreading Maoist ideology and encouraging ‘unlawful activities’. He’s been in jail without trial for two years.
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The Campaign Against State Repression (CASR) calls on all democratic organisations and individuals to come together and condemn the denial of relief for Prof. Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha, stand in solidarity with all such voices of democracy and demand the immediate release of all political prisoners. Our unity at this time of crisis is all the more urgent and necessary for our silence in the time of injustice is bound to render us voiceless in the days to come. Let us unite and demand:
1. Immediate reprieve from arrest of Prof. Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha.
2. Immediate release of all political prisoners lodged in jails all over the country, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
3. Immediate release of all under-trial prisoners and persons convicted on minor charges to decongest prisons.
4. Action (with restraint in light of COVID-19) against the perpetrators of violence in the Bhima Koregaon case including Sambhaji Bhide and Milind Ekbote.
5. Repeal of all draconian laws like UAPA, NSA and PSA, among others.
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Huffpost / by Pavan Dahat
The Maharashtra government’s flip-flop over giving the Bhima Koregaon case to the National Investigation Agency suggests Union Home Minister Amit Shah has a lot of hide in this case.
Pune: The Maharashtra government refused to hand over the Bhima Koregaon case to the National Investigation Agency, until it did. The state home ministry under the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)’s Anil Deshmukh was opposed to the NIA, but the Shiv Sena Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray wasn’t.
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The Indian Express / by Gargi Verma
The commission made the comment while declaring an order on September 23, 2019, in the matter of the killing of seven people and burning of 95 huts in the Kondasawali, Karrepara and Kamaraguda villages of Sukma district in 2007 …
PUCL secretary Shalini Gera said, “The case was filed on a complaint by Sudha Bharadwaj, who is in Pune jail because she was working for the tribals and filing complaints like these.”
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Nov 2019
Maaysha, Sudha’s daughter: “If fighting for the rights of adivasis, fighting for workers and peasants, fighting against repression and exploitation and giving up one s whole life for them is being a naxalite then I guess naxalites are pretty good.”
“The 6th Annual Harvard Law International Women’s Day Portrait Exhibit showcases the astounding contributions of women around the world to the areas of law and policy. The honorees — each of whom were nominated by HLS students, faculty or staff — are powerful voices in their respective fields, whether they are sitting on a high court bench, standing in front of a classroom, or marching in the streets.”
Or whether they are sitting in jail.
Advocate Sudha Bharadwaj is a 2019 honoree of the Harvard Law International Women’s day exhibition and is sitting in a jail cell in Pune. How did these conflicting positions come about?
Sudha grew up to illustrious parents, and spent the first part of her life as an American citizen. In the next 30 years of her life, she worked tirelessly in Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha (CMM) as a trade unionist and eventually as a lawyer after the CMM, hamstrung in their legal battles by unscrupulous lawyers, found in her the courage and integrity needed to challenge powerful opponents in the courtrooms.
She founded Janhit, giving rigorous legal aid to several industrial workers, villages fighting acquisition and mining, Adivasi communities fighting for forest rights, environmental cases and PIL litigation. Janhit led cases against powerful industrial houses such as Jindal, Vedanta, BALCO, Lafarge Holcim, D.B. Power, Vandana Vidyut, SECL, Bhilai Steel Plant, Monnet Steel, Adani, Hindalco, Grasim, Ultratech and others.
Sudha was instrumental in rebuilding the PUCL group after the arrest and incarceration of its then-President, Dr. Binayak Sen. During this time, she was appointed as the General Secretary of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and worked on issues of human trafficking and attacks on minorities. She also assisted families of victims of human rights violations looked upon as casualties in the conflict zone of Bastar and supported journalists and activists who dared raise their voices and pen against the State excesses in Bastar. She was elected recently as Vice President of the Indian Association of Peoples’ Lawyers (IAPL) and was active in campaigns against attacks on Dalit and human rights lawyers in Chhattisgarh and facilitated an IAPL fact-finding into it.
Sudha was arrested from her Faridabad home which she was sharing with her daughter, Maaysha. During this time, she was a Visiting Professor at the National Law University Delhi, taking Seminar Courses on tribal rights, land acquisition, and the Fifth and Sixth Schedules. This year she was to have taught “Law and Justice in a Globalising World”. Sadly, and ironically, she can’t teach the class as she is in jail. The loss, the students inform us, is all theirs.
Her daughter Maaysha, has in several letters candidly brought to fore Sudha’s tireless spirit and her commitment to her work, “If fighting for the rights of Adivasis, fighting for workers and peasants, fighting against repression and exploitation and giving up one’s whole life for them is being a Naxalite then I guess Naxalites are pretty good.”
Guneet Ahuja, Advocate, Delhi, in an open letter writes about Sudha, “On my first meeting with Sudha ji, I asked her about the competing narratives regarding the condition of indigenous communities in Bastar. Her reply left a deep impact on me: “For a pedestrian on a narrow lane, the car driver is causing the trouble. For the car driver, the pedestrian is the nuisance. Your perspectives change based on where you are placed.”
Sudha is the pedestrian along with all the people she fights for. She believes the road belongs to us. The State is the car who doesn’t want nuisance pedestrians in the way, believes the road belongs to it, and wants it lined with the businesses of its cronies. To the State, Sudha belongs in jail. To us, she is a defender of human rights.
“If you try to be safe and in the middle, you will never succeed.”
Sudha, The Wire
Publisher: Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL)
Edition: January 2021
Language: English
Sudha Bharadwaj’s interview by: Darshana Mitra and Santanu Chakraborty
Pictures credit: PUCL
Cover Design / Layout: Vinay Jain
Paperback: 316 pages
PDF copy: Sudha Bharadwaj speaks – A Life in Law and Activism (PUCL, Jan 2021)
…
In one of her letters to her daughter, Shoma writes, “They can keep me locked inside, but my mind is completely free”
A reputed academician, a Dalit and Women’s Rights activist, a teacher and dissenter, Shoma Sen is all of the above and more. Born and raised in Mumbai, she moved to Nagpur with her partner and daughter with a strong resolve to protect and promote democratic rights of the most marginalised people in the society.
Shoma has been a respected academic for almost three decades. She has been actively involved with the Women’s Department of Wardha Vishwavidyalaya and taught in various colleges across Nagpur. During the time of her arrest she was the Head of the Department of English at Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University. She has written extensively on post-colonialism and women’s studies for several decades. …
The Hindu / by Gautam Bhatia
Last month, the news website Scroll revealed that more than 10,000 people in the Khunti district of Jharkhand had been chargesheeted by the police for sedition. These people are overwhelmingly Adivasis. Then, in early December, a judicial probe completed a seven-year long investigation, finding that a so-called encounter of “Maoists” in Chhattisgarh by security forces, in 2012, had been a “fake encounter” all along. The people killed had not been Maoists, but innocent villagers.
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The Indian Express / by Dipankar Ghose
On June 28, 2012, 17 people were killed in Chhattisgarh in what was then called “the biggest Maoist encounter”. With a judicial commission now punching holes in the official version of the incident, The Indian Express travels to Sarkeguda and finds that while much has changed in these years, some things haven’t — the memories of that night, and the wounds that refuse to heal.
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The Wire / by Mahtab Alam
The inquiry report has found that there is no proof that any of the villagers killed or injured were Maoists. However, it has not recommended any compensation for the 17 villagers killed and 10 injured …
Sudha Bhardwaj had played a pivotal role in campaigning for this inquiry to reach a logical conclusion. Bhardwaj, who was subsequently arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case and is now lodged in Pune jail on charges of being a Maoist sympathiser, was instrumental in submitting the villagers’ affidavits to the commission.
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Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff
A judicial commission has indicted security forces for killing 17 civilians, including seven minors, in Sarkeguda village in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district in June 2012 …
The villagers were represented by a team of lawyers, including Yug Chaudhry, Shalini Gera and Sudha Bharadwaj, who was arrested last year in the Bhima Koregaon case and is currently in jail.
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