Condemn strongly fascist designs of the Indian government to silence voices of dissent!

26/10/10

Ever since the historic convention in Delhi titled “Azadi: The Only Way” organised by the CRPP, the media is abuzz with reports of possible cases of ‘sedition’ against some of the main speakers in the convention. The names that are being cited keeps changing with the imagination of the concerned media houses.

The hype has become so high that now rather than discussing the serious issues pertaining to the political aspirations of the people of Jammu & Kashmir that was deliberated by one and all in the convention the issue has got subverted into a conflated, convenient binary of that what is euphemistically called as ‘seditious’ or ‘non-seditious’.

The word ‘sedition’ itself is of colonial descent conveniently used by the British colonisers to prevail upon and browbeat the freedom loving people of the subcontinent into submission. Today the Indian government along with an obliging media and a jingoist communal Sangh Parivar led by BJP on tow is deploying the same words to force through a pigeon hole sense of national chauvinism in the name of the vast sections of the people of this subcontinent.

The act of the Government of India is best summed up by Arundhati herself in her eloquent statement: “In the papers some have accused me of giving ‘hate-speeches’, of wanting India to break up. On the contrary, what I say comes from love and pride. It comes from not wanting people to be killed, raped, imprisoned or have their finger-nails pulled out in order to force them to say they are Indians. It comes from wanting to live in a society that is striving to be a just one. Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice, while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists, and those who prey on the poorest of the poor, roam free.”

We at the CRPP strongly condemn these deliberate designs of the Indian government to target writer activist Arundhati Roy and Chairperson, All Parties Hurriyat Conference, Mr. Syed Ali Shah Geelani for expressing their views which are grounded in the bedrock of history of the relentless struggle of the people of Jammu & Kashmir for their Right to Self-Determination that they have kept alive for decades through their sacrifices. We strongly demand that instead of trying to scuttle the voices of sanity the Government of India should come forthright in addressing the issues that everyone in Jammu & Kashmir is today fearlessly talking about.

In Solidarity,

Gurusharan Singh, President

Amit Bhattacharyya, Secretary General

SAR Geelani, Working President

Rona Wilson, Secretary, Public Relations

COMMITTEE FOR THE RELEASE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS
185/3, FOURTH FLOOR, ZAKIR NAGAR, NEW DELHI-25

 Sedition isn’t all Roy said: VV

Having been one of the speakers at the seminar in New Delhi last week on “Is Azadi the only way for Kashmir?” I am not surprised by the hue and cry over Arundhati Roy’s observation that the people of Kashmir have a right to self-determination and even Azadi. I’m not surprised by the call to book her for sedition either.

She is not the first person who has said such a thing nor is she going to be the last. In fact, all those who participated in the meeting – Prof. Sujata Badro, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and myself – echoed a similar feeling. The reason is simple: this is what the people of Kashmir want and there is no wishing that away.

Consciously or otherwise, quite a few aspects raised by Roy are not being discussed by the media and politicians. It is important to mention them.

While endorsing the right to self-determination, Roy also emphasised that freedom alone does not give everything: she wanted to know what kind of justice would be done to the people of Kashmir if and when they are given the freedom to rule themselves. She also referred to slogans she had heard during a visit to Kashmir: “Bhookha nanga Hindustan, nahi rahenge is desh mein” and took serious objection to such an attitude. Roy pointed out that support for the struggle of Kashmiris was coming exactly from the same classes – the poor and the oppressed in other parts of the country apart from a miniscule section of intellectuals. It is the Indian establishment which is opposed to their fight.

I am also surprised at the changed stance of Geelani who, ten years ago, spoke of nothing short of Islam as bringing an end to the problems of Kashmir. But today he reminded us that Mahatma Gandhi wanted the people of Kashmir to decide where to live, how Jawaharlal Nehru favoured a plebiscite and how BJP prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee made attempts to find a political solution by talking to Pakistan. What none of us should forget is that Hyderabad and Kashmir were among the three princely states that were not part of the Indian Union at the time of Independence. The people of Telangana, of which Hyderabad is a part, are now demanding a separate state within the country but the people of Kashmir, even to this day, str­ongly prefer freedom. Not recogni­sing the demand will not lead to any solution.

(Vara Vara Rao is a revolutionary writer who has faced several cases of sedition and conspiracy. He has been acquitted in most of them.)

* From bharat-chintan email list.

 Sedition case: Civil rights groups back Arundhati

CNN-IBN
Posted on Oct 26, 2010 at 11:16 | Updated Oct 26, 2010 at 13:27

New Delhi: Civil rights groups have protested Delhi Police’s reported move to book writer-activist Arundhati Roy for sedition. Talking to CNN-IBN, National Advisory Council (NAC) member and social activist Aruna Roy defended Arundhati’s right to express her opinion.

“Well I speak for myself and not as an NAC Member. I simply do not believe. Neither for Arundhati nor for any other person, that just by expressing an opinion you become seditious. I think that in this country we have had a long history and tradition, long before Independence and thereafter where all kinds of opinions have been expressed. Just the expression of an opnion without inciting people is not seditious. She has just talked and she has a right to her opinion just as much as anybody else,” said Aruna Roy.

“There are other constitutional rights that protect our freedom of expression and there are many other people who make even more seditious remarks, who are fully ignored by the establishment. I would say that it would be a terrible day, a black day for Indian democracy when they proceed against her legally,” she said.

Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan also said that dissent should not be confused with sedition.

“Every citizen has a right to discuss any issue freely frankly, boldly. Even if the country needs to be reorganised, even Nehru said that there should be a plebicite and Kashmir should be given a right, whether they want to merge with pak or remain in India. Can you say he was guilty of sedition? Only that speech that inscites people to violence and armed revolt can be considered sedition,” said Bhushan.

Other public figures who have been booked for sedition in the past: MDMK leader Vaiko had allegedly made speeches in support of banned organisations in October 2008. In March 2007 social activist Dr Binayak Sen was detained on charges of sedition. He was speaking out against atrocities allegedly committed by the state-backed militia Salwa Judum.