The Supreme Court which is hearing the plea against the arrest of five activists by the Maharashtra police has put it so beautifully. Justice D Y Chandrachud said “dissent is the safety valve of democracy. If not allowed, the safety valve will burst”.
The police action appears to be a ploy to target dissent, otherwise how can one explain the arrests made for allegedly inciting violence in the Bhima Koregaon violence in January when in the first place these names never figured in the Pune police FIR.
The five human rights activists arrested are Arun Ferreira, Sudha Bharadwaj, Varavara Rao, Gautam Navlakha and Vernon Gonsalves. But who are these five?
Arun Ferreira is a law graduate and is associated with an NGO. He spent six years in Nagpur jail and was arrested in 2007 for alleged naxalite and anti-national activities under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. Eleven cases were registered against him. In January 2014, he was acquitted in all the cases for lack of substantial evidence.
Sudha Bharadwaj is an Indian trade unionist and a civil rights activist against land acquisition.
Varavara Rao is a poet and journalist from Hyderabad. He is one of the most revered critics of Marxist literature and was accused of arranging funding for Maoist attacks in the country. His name had cropped up in one of three letters that surfaced after an alleged plot by Maoists to eliminate Prime Minister Narendra Modi was revealed.
Gautam Navlakha is associated with People’s Union for Democratic Rights and is a Delhi-based journalist. He is also an editorial consultant of the Economic and Political Weekly. He was slapped a notice on August 2 by the Reliance group for a story on Rafale fighter aircraft.
Vernon Gonsalves is a gold medalist from Mumbai University and a former lecturer. Security agencies alleged that Gonsalves was an ex-central committee member and former secretary of Maharashtra State Rajya Committee of Naxalites. He was charged in around 20 cases and has been acquitted in all.
The crackdown against these human rights activists can only be called a brazen attempt to strike terror against those fighting for justice and for the marginalised. The very voices of dissent have been targeted with brutal force and without any propriety with police even flouting standard operating procedures.
In one case, police went to raid Navlakha’s residence without a search warrant and were refused entry into the house. It was only when they returned with the documents that they were allowed to search the residence. Secondly, the letter which the police have stumbled upon targeting Prime Minister Modi during his roadshows is yet to be authenticated.
There is no doubt that the Maharashtra police and the central agencies have used the Bhima-Koregoan violence to launch an offensive against Dalit rights activists and the lawyers who have been taking up their cases.
Accusations of these five activists being in touch with 35 major universities and colleges ‘to recruit young students to take their movement ahead’ will have to be proved. Police are also yet to bring on record how the accused succeeded in inciting violence. But for now, all eyes are on the fresh piece of evidence which the police claims to have stumbled upon.
