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From hate to hope
Committee set up for release of Political Prisoners in India
Jagmohan Singh
Leading
author and activist Arundhati Roy addressing the conference for the release of
political prisoners. On the dais are Hurriyat leader Syed Geelani,
Gursharan Singh
and others.
My husband was
brutally killed by the Punjab
police. My brother-in-law was detained and then killed. I have
been harassed and tortured. My son, Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar is
on the death-row. How do you want me to live my life? Should I cry
my way to death or should I wait for the Indian system endlessly to
become more humane and just? –Upkar Kaur
The only mistake
my engineer son, Perarivalan committed was to go the market and buy
a 9-volt battery. For that heinous crime he is in prison for the
last more than ten years – T. Arputham Kuyildasan
My innocent
husband Birkumar Paswan is in Bhagalpur
prison in Bihar
for the last 22 years and that too in a condemned cell on the death
row. –Chandramani Devi
My husband
Dharmendra Singh is also in the Bhagalpur
jail and on the death row –Lalita Devi.
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Upkar Kaur, the mother of Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar addressing
the political prisoners meet
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My husband
Maninga Majhi is in prison for the last 8 years for resisting land
grab –Maria Majhi, Orissa. My son
Lakhwinder Singh is in Burail jail for more than 12 years. He has
never been let out on parole. He was not granted leave even when his
mother and grandmother died. – Darshan Singh
My husband,
Shamsher Singh is in Burail jail for more than 12 years. There is no
male member in the family. My family life is in ruins. -Baljinder
Kaur.
If you have a
heart and care for humanity, then listen to these voices which were
heard at the inaugural conference for the release of political
prisoners held in Delhi
in the last two days, sending a strong signal to a stone-deaf
government that these voices will not go unheard and unsung
altogether.
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Over the last
one decade or so, a vacuum in civil society work was experienced all
over
India. Barring a few shrill voices of protest from the affected
parties, the activism of Justice Tarkunde, Justice Iyer, political
scientist Rajni Kothari and the dynamism of the PUCL for
country-level work was missing.
So, when
Delhi
university professor and himself a state terrorism victim, S. A. R.
Geelani, Mr. Amit Bhattarcharjea, Mr. Rona Wilson and Mr. Saibaba
brought together a galaxy of civil rights activists from across the
country and convened a two day conference to deliberate and discuss
the problems of political prisoners in the country, there was reason
for hope.
Speaking on the
occasion, in his inimitable style, famous theatre person Gursharan
Singh said that the judiciary does ah-hi-hooh-hah-hi-ha -it
actually does nothing. The judiciary is a fraud on the common man
and there is perpetuation of falsehood and dictatorship. Literary
giant and activist Arundhati Roy said that despite statistical
proof, the world community is unwilling to accept the fact that
India has
the largest number of internally displaced people in the world.
Sounding a note of warning, she said, “no one is going to help us,
we have to help ourselves.”
 Prof. Geelani of
the Hurriyat Conference spoke about the barbarism of the state
giving graphic details of the inhuman torture perpetuated in
Kashmir.
Justice Bains reminisced his college days and said that “we were
told that no one would weep in independent
India, the harsh
reality is that there are hardly none who can hold back tears”.
With Gursharan
Singh as president, veteran civil rights activists Surendra Mohan
and Justice Ajit Singh Bains as advisors and with Mr. Amit
Bhattacharjea as the Secretary General, with an exhaustive team of
Vice Presidents, secretaries and executive committee, the forum
spelled out a long term plan to achieve its objective of release of
detenues and to alleviate prison conditions in the country.
Among others,
the Punjab delegation included Narain Singh who submitted details of
prison reforms including the abolition of the Naqsha system and
Kanwarpal Singh and activists of Dal Khalsa who welcomed the
initiative and distributed details of activists on the death row in
Punjab, namely Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar, Jagtar Singh Hawara and
Balwant Singh.
The Statement on
Political Prisoners adopted by the newly set up Committee for
Release of Political Prisoners says that “the Indian administrative
governance system boasts of prisons as correctional institutions,
despite the hard reality that more than sixty years of history
contradicts the above claim.”
Making a
significant contribution in defining a political prisoner, as the
Indian judicial system has failed to frame one so far, the committee
declared that “whoever has been arrested or detained, for partaking
in struggles of political, social and economic significance, in
whatever form, and were guided not by selfish interest, but by
definite political views or ideologies, irrespective of the charges
that the state have put on them, should be considered as political
prisoners.”
 Expressing
solidarity with all prisoners languishing not only in Indian
prisons, but everywhere, the committee sought the unconditional
release of political prisoners and restoration of rights of those
who are in jails in accordance with international norms including
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and
the UN covenant on Prisoners Rights.
The committee
also sought abolition of death penalty and in a significant
departure to the civil rights movement in the country stated that,
“this committee does not take any position or express opinion on the
ideology of and the path adopted by any political party or
organization that a political prisoner belongs to. It doe not
support or oppose the ideology and methods of struggle in relation
to violence or non-violence of any political prisoner’s
political/social/communitarian organization/party.”
Chastising the
Indian state, the former member of Parliament, Surendra Mohan
summed it all, saying, “agar dil saf nahi hai to insaaf kaise
hoga” -if the intentions are not genuine, one cannot be just.”
2
April
2008
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