In Chhattisgarh, the only criminal appears to be the law. For instance, Salwa Judum leader Soyam Mukka was part of a state-sponsored mob that protested against Medha Patkar and a contingent of human rights activists and social workers in January 2009.
Soyam Mukka has a warrant for his arrest, for kidnapping a young woman, who was raped in 2008 by Special Police Officers in Konta police station. Previously, they hadn’t even accepted the FIR of the girl who was raped. And when she was taken to the magistrate’s court in Konta by human rights activists police did their best to harass the girl.
But the police could not uphold the law. It was difficult for them to fight the Maoists as they were too busy trying to save their own skins.
So they now harass, arrest, and chase away all those who talk about constitutional rights. They appear to think the messengers must be shot, these people calling for the law.
Doctor and human rights activist Binayak Sen has already been sentenced to life for sedition, but others, less known, have been in jail for long periods. There is human rights activist Kopa Kunjam who has been in jail for over a year now for the murder of a man that every witness has so far claimed he tried to save. He has the company of many CPI workers, some of them elected representatives — Lala Kunjam, Sukul Prasad Nag, Sudru Ram Kunjam, Bhima Kunjam and Kartam Joga.
Kartam Joga was one of the first petitioners to the Supreme Court regarding the illegal killings by Salwa Judum. He believed in upholding the law. He believed in the courts.
When the CPI called for a rally on November 25 to protest against the police and the administration, the previous night numerous reports surfaced about police beating up CPI protestors around Katekkalyan, Pondum and Jhirum villages on Dantewada road.
On December 8, the CPI along with other organisations under the banner of the Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan, was part of a rally of over 10,000 people who submitted a petition by one lakh people to the Chhattisgarh State Assembly asking for better implementation of PESA, Forest Rights Act, the end of fake environment hearings, harassment of activists and displacement from land. Almost everyone in Chhattisgarh seems to want the law. Except perhaps its guardians.
That includes the journalists. So they too are under threat. Recently, the new avatar of the Salwa Judum, the Maa Danteswari Adivasi Swabhimani Manch, called for the deaths of three local journalists in the Bastar region.
Anil Mishra, previous district head of New Delhi-based Hindi daily Nai Duniya, NRK Pillai, vice- president of the Working Journalists Union, and Yashwant Yadav of Deshbandu were mentioned in the press release. ‘Journalists and NGOs who are befriending the Naxals, be it Himanshu Kumar or Arundhati, or even for that matter NRK Pillai, Anil Yadav or Yashwant Mishra, all of you will face consequences. Leaders of CPI, BJP or Congress, in jail or outside — who have been on your side will not make any difference. Under the garb of human right activists you should know that you cannot last too long. If you do not leave Bastar you will die like a dog.’
This is not the first time the state apparatus or the state-backed counter insurgent group has attacked journalists in Bastar. NRK Pillai has long complained in Delhi about the persecution of the press in Dantewada. Yet there is nothing but silence from Delhi. In October 2009, at the onset of major operations that would then be known as Operation Green Hunt, the police had ‘requested’ all the local journalists not to go and work in the jungles. Almost no one did. When others accompanied national and international journalists into the field, they were warned, ‘tere koh yah rahna hai, yeh log nikal jayenge.’ (you live here, these people (outsiders) will go away.)
Anil Mishra lost his job at Nai Duniya because he accompanied international and national journalists into the area. And he moved out of Dantewada. The first report of the Maa Danteshwari death threat came out on citizen’s news portal CGNet Swara. Young adivasi journalist Mangal Kunjam only had to call the CGNet Swara number (080) 4113 7280, to record his report. A few days after the recording was made available to the world, he was called to Kirandul police station where he was threatened.
Is this about silencing dissent? The inference seems obvious, but whatever the motive, for the Adivasis in Dantewada the only law they encounter is the jackboot. All those fine words such as equality before the law, ‘let the law take its course’, and so on, are sounds without meaning. The one reality they face is repression, and their voices are rarely heard because no one knows their names.