N. JAYARAM - By attacking activists and NGOs, India is becoming more like China
Among a
few obsessions India and China share is a paranoid distrust of activists of
various hues and of non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In China, activists
and almost entirely home-grown NGOs - whether concerned with the environment,
human rights including labour rights, land-grab, those suffering from AIDS/HIV
or Hepatitis B and so on - are closely monitored, controlled or silenced
through house arrests or other forms of illegal detentions.
India,
which preens itself as the world's largest democracy, is increasingly
resembling China in this respect: Witness the harassment of Teesta Setalvad and
her husband Javed Anand, the curbs put on Greenpeace, the action against
hundreds of anti-nuclear activists in Koodankulam and the jailing of Maruti
Suzuki workers, Dr Binayak Sen and members of the Kabir Kala Manch, to cite but
very few examples from recent weeks and months.
One
oft-repeated canard against such activists and NGOs is that they serve the
agenda of hostile Western forces. Former prime minister Manmohan Singh too
infamously made that charge against the people in Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu.
Never mind that these were mostly impoverished local villagers and indigent
people from within the state and the country. Never mind, too, that the
pro-nuclear lobby's foreign funding and cushy Western connections are rarely
queried. That many human rights activists - such as Irom Sharmila in Manipur,
Dayamani Barla in Jharkhand and Soni Sori in Chhattisgarh - are not merely
Indian but in fact Adivasi, is a fact lost on the jingoist crowd that buys into
such propaganda.
China
disallows foreign NGOs having local branches or representatives. Medecins Sans
Frontieres (MSF or Doctors Without Borders), which does humanitarian rescue
work - after earthquakes and such other disasters - is an exception. But, Amnesty International,
Greenpeace, Human Rights Watch and others have no presence in the country.
The
situation in India is not that much different. MSF is present and works
unencumbered and has done yeoman work upholding India's interests by opposing
multinational drug companies' unreasonable patent requirements. But India makes
it difficult for human rights and environmental organisations to function.
Amnesty International was absent from India for many years and just managed to
get back a foothold a couple of years ago. Human Rights Watch has a
representative and Greenpeace - the worldwide environmental organisation
currently headed by the South African former anti-Apartheid activist Kumi
Naidoo - has become a bête-noire for the BJP government. Priya Pillai of
Greenpeace was prevented from travelling to Britain last month and her passport
stamped 'Offloaded'. And when Greenpeace challenged that move in the Delhi High
Court, the government was told to keep nationalism and jingoism apart. Despite
that the home ministry filed an affidavit claiming that letting Pillai depose
before a British parliamentary committee would have had a "cascading
effect" on India's image.
Greenpeace
highlights the threats to the lives of people living in the margins - the urban
poor and Adivasis for instance - and destruction of their habitat. It bats
solidly on the side of the global poor and against the machinations of mega
corporations and the governments backing them. It has opposed French nuclear
testing in the South Pacific and Japanese and Norwegian whaling. It is a thorn
in the side of Western governments. It is therefore shocking to see a
government in a developing country taking umbrage at its well-founded warnings.
Chinese
officials said in late January that they would file formal charges against Pu
Zhiqiang, one of the country's prominent human rights lawyers detained since
the middle of last year, accused of "picking fights and causing trouble".
Pu is one of several dozen human rights lawyers in China either under detention
or their licences to practice cancelled or under constant threat of
cancellation.
In India
last week, a court in Gujarat refused anticipatory bail to Teesta Setalvad and
Javed Anand, who have done more than any others to try and bring to book those
behind the anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002 in the state in the face of tremendous
odds created by the former Gujarat chief minister and now India's prime
minister, Narendra Modi.
The cases being pursued and supported by
Setalvad and Anand implicated Modi and the current BJP president Amit Shah in
several instances of murder and extra-judicial killings not only in 2002 but
later. While it is gratifying that a large number of people have come together
to support Setalvad and Anand, it is a matter of great concern that sections of
the judiciary seem to be choosing to ignore the stark reality - a clear case of
political vendetta.
Labour
rights, or lack thereof, is an area of growing convergence between China and
India. China prohibits independent unions. The officially sponsored All China
Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) claims more than 200 million members,
many of whom are blissfully unaware of its existence. At places the factory
manager, the head of the Communist Party committee therein and the ACFTU
leader, have been one and the same person. Elsewhere they work in close concert
as the ACFTU's mandate is less to uphold workers' interest than to ensure
"social stability", meaning keeping workers cowed down.
Obviously,
over the years thousands of lightning strikes have taken place all over China
and the brains behind it have usually been picked up and punished. Even as
innocuous an outfit as an academic body looking into workers' issues, the
International Centre for Joint Labour Research based in the southern province
of Guangdong - home to a vast number of industries - was forced to shut late
last year.
In
India, once glorious trade unions, especially in the textile industries in
Bombay and Gujarat, have disappeared. (Political scientist Ashutosh Varshney
credits these unions in part with having long preserved communal harmony. Where
unions have declined, amity has frayed.)
Today, not only in the textile industry but in many other industries, there are
hardly any unions. Unionisation is often sternly opposed with official
connivance. The violence against Maruti Suzuki workers and the continued
detention of nearly 150 of them is just one example of repression.
Land
grab by powerful developers in cahoots with local authorities both in urban and
rural areas is common to India and China. And in both countries, resistance is
put down ruthlessly. China has some peculiar issues of its own - coercive
imposition of the one-child policy and discrimination against HIV and Hepatitis
B carriers, among others. Activists defending those targeted face violent
suppression. A blind "barefoot lawyer" Chen Guangcheng managed to
leave China after repeated and dramatic attempts to escape house arrest.
Those
defending the interests of ethnic minorities in China such as Wang Lixiong and
his wife Tsering Woeser face frequent curbs on their movement or outright detention.
Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti has been jailed for life. In general there
are hardly any assassinations, murders and extrajudicial killings of those
opposed to the regime in China. It can place them under house arrest or get
them jailed. In India, on the other hand, "encounter killings" and
murders are rife. The rape and murder of the Manipuri woman Thangjam Manorama
by Assam Rifles personnel, the rape and torture of Soni Sori by Chhattisgarh
police, the long jailing of Dr Binayak Sen in the same state, the assassination
of the anti-superstition activist Narendra Dabholkar, the killing of human
rights lawyer Shahid Azmi and the recent shooting of Communist leader Govind
Pansare and his wife are but a few instances.
In
China, there is a vast army of paid pro-government commenters whose job is to
counter criticism of the regime. They were nicknamed the "50-cent
army" - a reference to the alleged payment received per post. In India too, a
look at especially the un-moderated comments sections of some Indian news
websites indicates that some well-funded call centres might be behind the
volume and content of the fare seen there. The extent of venom spewed against
not only Setalvad, Anand and Pillai but several other human rights activists
and NGOs is unlikely to be spontaneous.
One can
only hope that when the Supreme Court takes up for hearing the anticipatory
bail plea of Setalvad and Anand on February 19, it will not be swayed by such
questionable ranging of public opinion against activists.
