Activists’ arrest: The method to the madness

The houses of nine rights activists and some of their relatives were searched and five of them arrested recently over allegations of Maoist links, after Pune Police conducted multi-city raids. These have been rightly described by many as chilling and equated with a virtual declaration of emergency.

The raids and arrests were, according to the police, in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence in January, in which Dalit activists had clashed with upper-caste Marathas. Those arrested include poet Varavara Rao, lawyer activist Sudha Bharadwaj, journalist Gautam Navlakha and activists Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves.

While all of the above-mentioned personalities are well-known, left-leaning rights crusaders, the Pune Police’s contention, that they were linked to the violence at Bhima Koregaon and could possibly be linked to a ‘Maoist’ plan to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seems a bit preposterous.

Earlier in May, five others were arrested in connection with the alleged plot to kill the Prime Minister. But the evidence till now has not been convincing at all. While rabidly right-wing TV news anchors had dangled a letter in support of the arrests then, there were too many glaring loopholes and discrepancies in that letter. It needs to be mentioned here that many of the above-mentioned activists have been arrested earlier. All of them have been acquitted of their charges, specifically of them being linked to the Maoists and their activities.

Surprisingly, Pune cops do not seem convinced by the decision of our courts of law. What is common between these activists, apart from their moorings in leftist ideology, is that they have been extremely vocal against the policies and actions of the Modi government.

The nature in which the arrests have been carried out, one suspects, has more to do with instilling fear in the minds of the critics of the Prime Minister and his government. At a time when the economy is in doldrums; social cohesion has touched its lowest point under the assault of gau goons and anti-Dalit violence; there are no jobs; when the economy is reeling from the effects of demonetisation, high fuel prices and historic depreciation of the Rupee against the Dollar; when the Rafale fighter deal scandal is out in the open; it has become important for the Modi sarkar to find targets to divert people’s attention.

Before the general elections, this is a means for the BJP to consolidate its far-right voter base for whom fake, emotive issues like ‘urban naxals’ outweigh real concerns about the country’s economy and society. And it also diverts attention of the more socially aware from these core issues. By removing those who fight for the rights of the poor, the tribals, the dispossessed, the government is also paving the way for crony capitalists to usurp land and resources that belong to the people of the country. There is a method to this madness. People are not fools. They understand this. And, they are watching everything.