No detention camps in Assam? Gandhian activists barred from 'verifying' Modi claim

By Faisal Khan*
Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared from the Ram Lila ground before the Delhi elections that there are no detention centres in the country in the context of nation wide anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) protests. But there were media reports of temporary detention centres being run in various jails of Assam and a permanent one being constructed in Gwalpara district.
To verify the claim of the Prime Minister a yatra was organised from Rajghat, Delhi to Matia in Gwalpara in the last week of February. At the end of the yatra a human chain was to be formed outside the under construction centre to sympathise with people who're in detention centres.
The Delhi-Assam yatra was organised by Khudai Khidmatgar, National Alliance of People's Movements, Justice Forum, Assam and Socialist Party (India) with 18 yatris**, from eight different states of India. The yatra started from Rajghat, Delhi on 23 February but was stopped by Uttar Pradesh police as soon as it entered the Aligarh district border.
The UP administration would not allow it to go through Aligarh or Mathura. Finally, on the condition that yatra would not hold any meetings on the way to Bihar, it was allowed to proceed to Kanpur and by next night it had already crossed the Bihar border from Chandauli into Rohtas.
In Kanpur the local host Mahesh, who runs a home for underprivileged children, was pressurised by the police to not let the yatra stay overnight and yatris were kept under strict police vigil in almost detention like condition. The driver of the bus was taken away for the night to police station.

The yatra was not allowed to take a stop at a Lok Samiti centre run by Nandlal in Nagepur, a village adopted by Narendra Modi in his parliamentary constituency. The yatra which was scheduled to traverse through UP over 4 days was fast tracked to cross the distance in 2 days. Police jeeps escorted it to ensure there was no contact with people or media in UP.
The yatra went through smoothly in Bihar visiting protest sites at Patna, Lakhminiya, Jalkaura, last two in Begusarai district and two meetings in Narayanpur and Kharik in Bhagalpur district. The host in Patna was Nashur Ajmal and in Bhagalpur Gautam Kumar Pritam.
In West Begal the police stopped the yatra at Samuktala in Alipurdwar district but upon arguing with the police that the West Bengal assembly has passed a resolution against CAA-NRC, they allowed it to proceed to Assam border.

Assam administration and government had made up its mind to not let yatra enter Assam. Yatris had no option but to court arrest

At the Srirampur border there was heavy police present along with para-military fully armed to take care of any eventuality. There was full media presence from both sides Alipurdwar and Kokrajhar of the West Bengal-Assam border. SDM, Gosaingaon of Kokrajhar and the district SP informed the yatra that section 144 of CrPC was in place in all three Assam districts, Kokrajhar, Dhubri and Gwalpara which fell on its way and that it would have to go back.
Interestingly, contradicting the PM's statement that there are no detention centres, the District Collector, Gwalpara in his official order prohibiting the formation of human chain there admitted that there is a 'Detention Centre (under construction)' in Matia. The yatra demanded that in order to prove the PM right the detention centre(s) under construction at Gwalpara and elsewhere in country should be converted into schools or hospitals.

While the SDM and SP would not allow the yatra to proceed on the pretext of section 144, the yatris were arguing for their fundamental right of freedom of expression, free movement within the country and peaceful assembly.
The yatra was even ready to move and form the human chain in police protection and be brought back to WB border on its return. Justice Forum and Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti activists of local organisations were to join the human chain in the beginning but because of the administrative order nobody was allowed to assemble at the site.
Advocate Shiv Kumar from Tamil Nadu, who flew into Guwahati to join the human chain was detained at police station in Gwalpara on 28 February and not allowed to proceed to Matia.
The administration and government in Assam had made up its mind to not let the yatra enter Assam. The yatris did not have any option but to court arrest for violation of section 144. Later in the day they were released on personal undertaking. However, it has been decided that activists part of yatra should visit the detention centre in Matia, if possible, with the help of a court order.
---
*Convener, Khudai Khidmatgar, a Gandhian NGO, prepared this report on Samvidhan Bachao, Nagrikta Bachao, Bharat Banao Yatra, from Rajghat, Delhi, to Detention Centre in Matia, Gwalpara, Assam Yatra, February 23 to March 2, 2020
**Those who participated in the yatra included Sandeep Pandey, Faisal Khan, Syed Tehseen Ahmed, Sahil Ahmed, Jawed Malik, Azam Malik, Chand Mohammad and Kartik Arora from Delhi, Balwant Yadav from Haryana, Dharamveer Singh and Mukhtiyar Singh from Punjab, Javeed Chopan from Jammu & Kaahmir, Kripal Singh Mandloi from Madhya Pradesh, Bilal Kagzi from Gujarat, and Maya Raj and Shiv Kumar from Tamil Nadu

Comments

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

India's health workers have no legal right for their protection, regrets NGO network

Counterview Desk In a letter to Union labour and employment minister Santosh Gangwar, the civil rights group Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India (OEHNI), writing against the backdrop of strike by Bhabha hospital heath care workers, has insisted that they should be given “clear legal right for their protection”.

Uttarakhand tunnel disaster: 'Question mark' on rescue plan, appraisal, construction

By Bhim Singh Rawat* As many as 40 workers were trapped inside Barkot-Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi after a portion of the 4.5 km long, supposedly completed portion of the tunnel, collapsed early morning on Sunday, Nov 12, 2023. The incident has once again raised several questions over negligence in planning, appraisal and construction, absence of emergency rescue plan, violations of labour laws and environmental norms resulting in this avoidable accident.

Women's rights leaders told to negotiate with Muslimness, as India's donor agencies shun the word Muslim

By A Representative Former vice-president Hamid Ansari has sharply criticized donor agencies engaged in nongovernmental development work, saying that they seek to "help out" marginalizes communities with their funds, but shy away from naming Muslims as the target group, something, he insisted, needs to change. Speaking at a book release function in Delhi, he said, since large sections of Muslims are poor, they need political as also social outreach.

Job opportunities decreasing, wages remain low: Delhi construction workers' plight

By Bharat Dogra* It was about 32 years back that a hut colony in posh Prashant Vihar area of Delhi was demolished. It was after a great struggle that the people evicted from here could get alternative plots that were not too far away from their earlier colony. Nirmana, an organization of construction workers, played an important role in helping the evicted people to get this alternative land. At that time it was a big relief to get this alternative land, even though the plots given to them were very small ones of 10X8 feet size. The people worked hard to construct new houses, often constructing two floors so that the family could be accommodated in the small plots. However a recent visit revealed that people are rather disheartened now by a number of adverse factors. They have not been given the proper allotment papers yet. There is still no sewer system here. They have to use public toilets constructed some distance away which can sometimes be quite messy. There is still no...

Sardar Patel was on Nathuram Godse's hit list: Noted Marathi writer Sadanand More

Sadanand More (right) By A Representative In a surprise revelation, well-known Gujarati journalist Hari Desai has claimed that Nathuram Godse did not just kill Mahatma Gandhi, but also intended to kill Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Citing a voluminous book authored by Sadanand More, “Lokmanya to Mahatma”, Volume II, translated from Marathi into English last year, Desai says, nowadays, there is a lot of talk about conspiracy to kill Gandhi, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, but little is known about how the Sardar was also targeted.

Bihar’s land at ₹1 per acre for Adani sparks outrage, NAPM calls it crony capitalism

By A Representative The National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) has strongly condemned the Bihar government’s decision to lease 1,050 acres of land in Pirpainti, Bhagalpur district, to Adani Power for a 2,400 MW coal-based thermal power project.

Counterview

Search This Blog