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On Knowledge, Dissent and the UAPA: The Precarious State of Democratic Freedom in India

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On December 6, 2024, the Delhi High Court will hear the bail pleas of Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, Khalid Saifi, and Gulfisha Fatima, accused under the UAPA for the 2020 Delhi riots. The continuous rejection of their bail pleas and their prolonged incarceration without trials highlight the precarious state of democratic freedom under India’s current authoritative regime, which thrives off of curbing dissent. 

The Unlawful Activities and (Prevention) Act (UAPA), introduced on December 30th, 1967 was introduced as a tool to combat “anti-national” activities. In July 2019, the UAPA Amendment Bill was introduced, which passed due to a heavy NDA majority in the Rajya Sabha. In the words of Home Minister Amit Shah, “Those are terrorists who attempt to plant terrorist literature and terrorist theory in the minds of the young. Guns do not give rise to terrorism, the root of it is the propaganda that is done to spread it.” However, under the pretence of protecting India’s sovereignty and integrity, the UAPA has morphed into the state’s preferred weapon to stifle dissent. It has become a system that suppresses intellect and fights against any knowledge that challenges the government’s authoritarian agenda. GN Saibaba’s imprisonment under the UAPA, which eventually led to his demise, stands as an institutional murder — one of the many cases where the draconian law has been weaponised to quash ideas and voices, with activists like Stan Swamy meeting a similar fate.

The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), passed by the Indian government in December 2019, grants citizenship to non-Muslim refugees (Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists and Parsis), from the neighbouring countries of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, provided that they have proof of residing in India for five or more years. It was met with nationwide protests owing to its discriminatory anti-Muslim nature, which was paired with concerns over the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC). This culminated in the 2020 Delhi riots on 23rd February 2020, killing 53, mostly Muslims. Shortly after, Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, Khalid Saifi, and Gulfisha Fatima were arrested due to their alleged connections to the riots and charged under the UAPA. The UAPA vests authorities with sweeping powers, including arrest and extended detention without trial. It shifts the burden of proof on the accused and strips away the presumption of innocence and also makes the procedure of obtaining bail increasingly difficult. 

The evidence presented by the Delhi Police consisted of public speeches, WhatsApp texts and extremely vague witness testimonies – it is as if a student’s passionate speech calling for joint action against injustice was deliberately twisted into a “terrorist conspiracy,” just because they dared to use knowledge and words as their weapons. The absurd reality is that the vision for a Viksit Bharat seems to be one where the state labels students using their knowledge as “terrorists”.  The state’s full-blown attack on those who possess knowledge and people’s access to knowledge in the first place is made even more evident in the media coverage centred around the issue.

One news report in a prominent Hindi daily claimed that to leave no stone unturned in inciting the riots, I secretly met Sharjeel Imam in Zakir Nagar, New Delhi on February 16,  2020 –  a week before the riots broke out. In reality, on the night of February 16, 2020 – and even the police would attest to this – I was 1136 km away from Delhi, in Amravati, Maharashtra. And Sharjeel Imam on that night – nobody can dispute this either – was in Tihar jail, as he had been arrested about 20 days earlier in a different case. It seemed that the esteemed journalist who conjured all this up did not care to check even the most basic facts.

Umar Khalid via the Wire

Umar Khalid, who was arrested in September 2020, is still awaiting a trial. His bail plea, similar to Sharjeel Imam’s, was rejected multiple times, with the court and the Delhi Police consistently highlighting his “significant role in orchestrating the conspiracy to incite violence”. Asif Tanha, a student activist from Jamia Millia Islamia was arrested on similar grounds and was granted bail on June 15, 2021 by a Division Bench comprising Justices Siddharth Mridul and Anup Jairam Bhambani, with both the judges pointing out the differences between protests and terrorist activities. In October 2022, Umar Khalid’s bail petition was however rejected by a Division Bench comprising Justices Mridul and Rajnish Bhatnagar. The varying results indicate a subjective application of justice, influenced not only by the details of the cases but also by the political and social environment surrounding the accused. Khalid’s popularity as both a researcher and a student activist paired with a stronger need to stifle dissent by the authorities may have been possible reasons for his rejected bail plea.  Furthermore, the Muslim identity of activists plays a pivotal role in shaping the political narrative, impacting not only legal proceedings but also public perceptions and societal attitudes. This identity becomes a mechanism that delegitimizes dissent and legitimizes severe legal measures in the eyes of the public. 

The outcome of the hearing on December 6th will set a crucial precedent in balancing state authority and individual liberties. Dissent is, after all, the act of realising that you have the power to speak. With the Viksit Bharat vision being hyper-fixated on shaping generations of unthinking students, it becomes important, now more than ever, to keep the right to question alive in spaces around us.

Featured Image Credits: BBC / Nehal for DU Beat

 

Read Also: The Donkey Dance of UAPA: Criminalising Dissent in a Hollowing Democracy

 

By Sakshi Singh for DU Beat

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Looking back on the CJI’s Legacy

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Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, who retired on November 10, 2024, recently reflected on his legacy and the impact of his tenure; the tenure which has been irrevocably sad and painfully disappointing as one sees him lead with a weak stature. 

 

Justice D.Y. Chandrachud’s tenure has been a free fall coupled with multiple comebacks. However, the more radically the CJI tries to be a liberally impactful judge with his put-on image of constitutionalism, it only lands him the titular trope of being a classic big mouthed MUN kid—all talks, no show.

The Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud was appointed and has been serving since November 2022. It is to be recognized here that his appraisal came at a very astute timing. The nation was convalescing with the aftermath of COVID pandemic, the Agnipath scheme had divided the youth’s job security, rampant political arrests had been ensuing with most political prisoners languishing in jails without proper trials and pending verdicts, right-wing extremism and communal clashes had grown manifold, minority rights were under scrutiny, state governments continued being unstable with the arrests of ministers and fall of coalition governments, the UCC, Article 370, and the Citizenship Amendment Act faced an undecided legal fate. The CJI, however, leaves office with a new unblinded saree-clad lady justice and folded hands that ask for forgiveness in case he hurt anyone.

Any criticism of D.Y. Chandrachud comes mostly from the fact of his identifying with morally high, progressive ideas but failing to deliver on any affirmative action that would strengthen them further. It has become a pattern of deceit. Famously, during the Marriage Equality proceedings, the Chief Justice earned his bytes of fame across social media when he corrected the Solicitor General, Tushar Mehta, saying, “There is no absolute concept of a man or an absolute concept of a woman at all. Biological definition is not what your genitals are. It’s far more complex; that’s the point.”  What came from the hearing was a judgment against the legalisation of same-sex marriages under the Special Marriage Act, 1954. 

The bench also unanimously decided that the right to marriage is not a fundamental right; this sounds contradictory to other guaranteed rights such as the rights to equality, dignity, and liberty. A review petition was later filed as the court’s decision has been criticized for violating fundamental rights, ignoring lived realities, undermining constitutional morality, and contradicting international human rights standards.

Interestingly, the more the CJI edges towards his retirement, the more he finds it imperative to testify for a clean character certificate from the public. He recently said, “I have always granted bail from A to Z, from Arnab to Zubair.” The statement sadly comes at a time when the movement and agitation towards Professor G.N. Saibaba’s institutional death is at its peak. The ignorance extended towards political prisoners’ plight is apparent. D.Y. Chandrachud’s judgment on the Bhima Koregaon Arrests under the UAPA is reflective of the larger judicial sentiment harbored towards those wrongly persecuted by the state. The court, in its judgment, ruled over the arrests of five human rights activists under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) by the Maharashtra Police and allowed the investigation to continue. The police had accused the activists of involvement in the Bhima Koregaon violence and sedition. There are several human rights activists and student leaders who continue to be politically incarcerated and framed while legal and political freedom withers. 

Delhi University Professor Nandini Sundar, while addressing a crowd gathered for the memorial meet of Dr. G.N. Saibaba, said,

For a judge to say that he has given bail to some and not the others, sounds akin to a teacher saying I have failed some students but passed the others.”

There had also been large public concern and criticism of the CJI when he openly hosted the Prime Minister for a Ganesh Chaturthi event at his residence. The opposition and citizens raised concern in the matters of division of powers, arguing that it was a display of negation of judicial independence, propriety, and protocol. The CJI, however, dismissed the backlash as he considers there being “absolutely nothing wrong.” 

Furthermore, adding to the populist religious sentiment around the Ram Janmabhoomi case, the CJI is said to have prayed to the “lords” to guide him through the judgment. Such statements disintegrate the secular core of public institutions. The judiciary does not in any capacity have a religion, but what one sees during the tenure of CJI Chandrachud is various judges openly endorsing religion and politics, as we see former Justices Rohit Arya and Abhijit Gangopadhyay joining the BJP.

There have also been judgments from the now former CJI that have effectively been pro-citizens and have sought to ensure and maintain the rule of law, but in a broader observation of phenomena, the CJI has delivered less of the more expected from him. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud’s legacy is a curious case of accepting the unexpected.

 

Read Also: DU Collective comes together in solidarity and remembrance of Professor G.N. Saibaba.

 

Featured image credit: The Hindu

 

Bhavana Bhaskar

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From Killing Ideas to Killing Intellectuals: The Institutional Murder of G.N. Saibaba

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Prof. G.N. Saibaba did not ‘pass away’ on 12th October 2024. He was gradually and brutally murdered by the state, the Indian academia, and our collective silence. The Indian university has become a graveyard, with students and academics being executed for voicing their opinions. Is staying silent the best that we are capable of?

 

The first time I came across G.N. Saibaba was in a social media post from 2022 that dealt with his ongoing case and featured the poem ‘I Refuse to Die’ from the collection of his prison poetry and letters, Why Do You Fear My Ways So Much? The poem and his case prompted me to buy the book and read more about him. G.N. Saibaba was the first poet I read after getting admitted to the literature program at the University of Delhi in 2022, and I carried the text with me to my first lecture in college only in the hope that someone would recognise it. The text became my first introduction to the oppression that the DU administration and the state are capable of meting out to a 90% disabled professor, even before I physically reached my college. It was only a matter of a few months before I would witness academic precarity firsthand in my department when my professors would be displaced, and later, Prof. Samarveer Singh of Hindu College would be forced to take his life. 

 

G.N. Saibaba’s death is simultaneously, both a rare case of UAPA in which each institution of the state and even the university administration worked in tandem with each other but led to Saibaba’s eventual bail and also another case of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) imposed on the academic-activist on no solid grounds, except for his alleged “links with the banned Maoist party.” 

 

Though the BJP-led government has made significant amendments to the UAPA and excessively imposed it on students, academics, and activists to curb any criticism of the state in the last decade, it is important to note that the draconian law was imposed on Saibaba by the Congress-led UPA government in 2012. The misuse of the colonial era law by the UPA government, a part of which today stands as an alternative and the opposition to the NDA alliance, allowed the exploitation of the law and for it to be made arbitrary by the latter, to the extent that the law was amended to shift the burden of proof from the accuser, usually the state, to the accused, making bails in such cases extremely rare.

 

Though Saibaba was granted bail, he was not even allowed to visit his mother’s funeral and was physically tortured by the prison authorities during his abduction-cum-arrest from DU campus and in jail that led to the paralysis of his left arm, denied basic healthcare facilities, and even contracted the coronavirus twice while he was in jail. Despite all of these grave concerns, Saibaba was continuously denied bail, even though several high profile individuals were given bail during the pandemic. When he was finally acquitted in October 2022 by the Division Bench of the Bombay High Court, the Maharashtra government filed a petition and challenged the HC’s order at the Supreme Court, and on the very next day, Saturday 15th October 2022, a special bench of the SC comprising Justice Bela Trivedi and Justice M.R. Shah stayed the HC’s acquittal order, citing how the “brain is the most dangerous and integral part of committing terrorism-related offences”. 

 

The profiling of progressive academics, activists, and intellectuals as ‘terrorists’ has been made into a common practice by the state and the university administrations have also been actively complicit in this. It is alleged that a colleague of Saibaba at the Ram Lal Anand College was responsible for helping the state frame him in the case. Prof. Saibaba was also unfairly terminated from his job as an assistant professor at Ram Lal Anand College, DU even before he was proved guilty in the case. 

 

This atmosphere of fear and surveillance in the saffronised university space has not only been responsible for the death of several intellectuals but has also been actively used by the state to break networks of solidarity—in the case of Prof. Hany Babu who was a part of the defence committee for Saibaba and has also been incarcerated under UAPA. Even the lawyer Surendra Gadling who fought the case for Saibaba’s release was charged with UAPA and the judges who had acquitted Saibaba have faced consequences for the same. 

 

In conversation with DU Beat at a memorial organised for Saibaba, Professor Jenny Rowena, wife of Hany Babu, said,

We always talk about issues when somebody dies, then it becomes a viral thing. We saw Rohith Vemula when he was alive. How much attention do we give to these people? Even now, people who are in jail because they campaigned for Saibaba, like Hany Babu, Rona Wilson, and Surendra Gadling, who was their lawyer, are still in jail. These people also have a lot of health problems, so are we waiting for the same to happen to them? We all should really protest against UAPA. All condolence meetings that we have should also be against UAPA. There should be a mass movement against it, because they [the state] are using it ruthlessly now to crush any kind of opposition and dissent.”

 

The law has been reduced to a tool of state repression and is being increasingly used to arrest students, young activists, academics and other intellectuals who criticise the state under the garb of ‘national security’ and by labelling them as terrorists. Not only is it absurd that young students and 90% disabled professors are labelled as ‘terrorists’ and potential ‘threat to the nation’ but it is against the constitutional values that promote critical and free thinking. In fact the very structured and systematic manner in which each institution of the state and each public institution including the universities and the media is working in complicity with the state to corner dissenters is in itself a symptom of a regime of terror that the UAPA supposedly seeks to counter. 

 

It is also important to take into cognizance the notions of ‘terrorism’ that UAPA seems to be against. Is fighting for the rights of Adivasis and against their killings terrorism? Is peacefully opposing state operations such as Operation Green Hunt and Operation Samadhan an act of terrorism?

 

Is mere ‘links with Maoist organisations’, as Saibaba was accused of, or ‘possession of Marxist literature’ terrorism? If yes, do students of the humanities and social sciences, particularly literature and history, who study Marxism as a compulsory part of their course, pose a threat to the nation and are terrorists? Does mere engagement with or belief in a particular ideology that may or may not be critical of the state’s beliefs, constitute as terrorism? Today, even asking these questions can lead to the imposition of a UAPA case. In fact, academics who have worked on such topics for their PhDs are often harassed by prestigious academics and labelled as anti-national in job interviews. 

 

The law is being increasingly used to destroy public universities by imprisoning students such as Umar Khalid, Gulfisha Fatima, and Sharjeel Imam, among hundreds of other students for peacefully protesting against divisive laws, an undeniable law of each citizen. The incarceration of these students under UAPA have also been orchestrated so as to ‘set an example’ for dissenting students and to silence them, developing a disquiet culture of suppression and destroying the culture of resistance that India’s public universities have been known for. 

 

The constant ‘red-flagging’ of individuals who identify with the Left or are in opposition to the state policy and may or may not identify with the Left, in conjunction with the profiling of individuals as “urban naxals” by state authorities, including the Prime Minister, not only qualifies as discrimination on the basis of ideas and leads to connotations of anti-state and anti-national individuals, but also leads to anti-intellectualism that has been identified as one of the most important factors behind the development of a fascist state.

 

Though the judges at the Supreme Court have been citing how “bail is the rule and jail is the exception”, it does not seem to apply to UAPA cases, more than half of which are not being investigated, as per the National Crime Records Bureau. In Saibaba’s murder and the human right violations as a part of it, the state did not merely attempt, though unsuccessfully, to kill his ideas but also take away his life, as it did with Father Stan Swamy, Pandu Narote, and SAR Geelani. By unfairly terminating his contract with the university, it was ensured that Saibaba does not get to teach his students ever again and one of his most heartfelt desires to teach students after being released from prison, was left unfulfilled. As Saibaba remarked in one of his letters to his students and colleagues from the prison:

I hope none of you should feel sympathetic to my condition. I don’t believe in sympathy; I only believe in solidarity. I intended to tell you my story only because I believe that it is also your story. Also because I believe my freedom is your freedom.”

 

Even in solitary confinement, his desire for freedom was not restricted to himself. The campaign against him was not only unfair to him but also his family and also his students, who were not allowed to be taught by a brilliant scholar, teacher, and translator whose translations of Kabir have been the most significant and timely in English so far. 

 

Though we have been reduced to observing birthdays, death anniversaries, and anniversaries of arrests of activists and students as they remain incarcerated without trials and more than a handful of unsuccessful hearings, the outrage at the murder of Prof. G.N. Saibaba is both a culmination of our complicity in his murder and simultaneously a rupture in the amnesia surrounding state repression under UAPA. That should pave the way for a movement against UAPA and the larger culture of saffronisation-infused anti-intellectualism. For the message should be clear: the state should not and cannot kill ideas, let alone individuals. As Saibaba himself claimed and rightly so, he and his ideas and struggles refuse to be forgotten and to die..

 

Read Also: DU Collective comes together in solidarity and remembrance of Professor G.N. Saibaba

 

Featured Image Credits: Shahid Tantray’s Instagram 

 

Vedant Nagrani

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DU Collective comes together in solidarity and remembrance of Professor G.N. Saibaba

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On 15th October, 2024, a tribute was paid to Professor G.N. Saibaba at Arts Faculty Gate, University of Delhi, posthumously. A public meeting and a candlelight vigil were observed by students’ and teachers’ organizations, which were joined by civil society members, colleagues, and activists who worked alongside Saibaba. 

G. N. Saibaba, former Assistant Professor at Delhi University, passed away on October 12 at the Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences in Hyderabad due to postoperative complications after a surgery to remove gallbladder stones. Saibaba was arrested in 2014 under the “draconian” UAPA for charges of working alongside members of the banned CPI (Maoist) and its alleged frontal organization, the Revolutionary Democratic Front. In 2021, Delhi University terminated his employment following the UAPA case against him. However, he was not reinstated after his acquittal in March 2024. It was claimed by many that Saibaba, a 90% disabled academic and human rights activist, was “wrongfully incarcerated” for a decade and “tortured” by the state during court trials and also during the period of jail time where he was forced to live in solitary confinement, declined proper medical care, and even prohibited from meeting his mother after her passing away. Sai’s death was received as an institutional murder by fellow academics, students and others.

The solidarity and remembrance event at Arts Faculty included speakers who highlighted Sai’s resilience, his revolutionary spirit, and his long struggle against exploitation and oppression. The speakers included Professors Karen Gabriel, N Sachin, Abha Dev Habib, Vikas Gupta, Jitendra Meena, and Saroj Giri. Kamal Singh from PUCL, Jagdish from DGMF, and representatives of student groups also shared their memories and thoughts.

Addressing the people, Professor Karen Gabriel said,

The term Urban Naxal has been structured against those who have understood the logic of the system and move through it and destroy it…UAPA not only destroys individuals but also families and communities.

Professor N. Sachin urged the masses to rise in “remembrance and rage” for Saibaba “against a system of induced apathy.”

Professor Vikas Gupta held that,

It is in Saibaba that we see a commitment to social justice” and also that “it is not possible to fight against one kind of inequality; the struggle is against all violations of social justice.

In conversation with DU Beat, Professor Abha Dev Habib said,

Sai’s death is an institutional murder because his minimum needs such as medical care were not provided. The state could not prove anything against Saibaba even after 10 years. He was denied bail every time he approached the court, and even when the high court was to set him free, the state would go against it; he couldn’t get justice from the state. All those who are opinion-builders, those who can speak for a more equal society and democratic rights, are being put behind bars. Sai Baba has been taken away too early from us. The University also did not give him justice. Even before it was proved he was guilty or not guilty, the university terminated his employment. By terminating his employment, his right to livelihood was also taken away. The state, the society, and we as people have wronged him by not speaking up.

The cause of all other political prisoners facing, what the participants maintained to be, “wrongful incarceration” was put forward, and it was demanded that they be released. They foregrounded the cases of activists such as Hany Babu, Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, Gulshifa Fatima, and Rona Wilson who continue “languishing” in jails, undergoing extended trial periods, and face “terror litigation”.

Further, instances of “state-structured violence” and “physiological torture” of political prisoners jailed under UAPA was recounted, where people like tribal rights activists Stan Swamy and Pandu Narote, passed away in jail after their bails were denied on several counts.

Speaking to DU Beat, Professor Jenny Rowena, wife of Hany Babu, said,

We always talk about issues when somebody dies, then it becomes a viral thing. We saw Rohith Vemula when he was alive. How much attention do we give to these people? Even now, people who are in jail because they campaigned for Saibaba, like Hany Babu, Rona Wilson, and Surendra Gadling, who was their lawyer, are still in jail. These people also have a lot of health problems, so are we waiting for the same to happen to them? We all should really protest against UAPA. All condolence meetings that we have should also be against UAPA. There should be a mass movement against it, because they [the state] are using it ruthlessly now to crush any kind of opposition and dissent.

Further, slogans against the “genocidal” Operation Kagar and Surajkund Scheme were raised. The public meeting was followed by a candlelight vigil in which all friends, comrades, and students of the revolutionary Saibaba paid a tribute to him.

 

Read also: Of Separation, Solidarity, and Sustenance

 

Featured image credit: Shahid Tantray’s Instagram

 

Bhavana Bhaskar

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1000 Days in Detention: No Defender for Kashmiri Human Rights Activist Khurram Parvez

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The ongoing incarceration of human rights defender Khurram Parvez for over 1,000 days under UAPA charges showcases the severe crackdown on human rights advocacy in Jammu and Kashmir.

The abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution on 5 August, 2019 served as a medium to trample down the civil society and human rights defenders in Jammu and Kashmir. While the region has never been a haven for independent, unbiased journalism, the repression of media and civil society has only gotten more brazen after stripping the state of its special status and downgrading it into a Union Territory.

Khurram Parvez, the most prominent human rights defender, has time and again been targeted and silenced by the Indian government for documenting human rights violations in the region and seeking accountability for the said violations. He is the founding member of the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) and the chairman of the Philippine-based Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearance, an international organisation that looks into forced disappearance in Kashmir and elsewhere in Asia.  Parvez received the 2006 Reebok Human Rights Award and the 2023 Martin Ennals Award. He has also been named one of the 100 most influential people of 2022 by Time magazine. However, all of the accolades and international recognition could not stop Parvez from being incarcerated at the Rohini High Security Prison, New Delhi, for 1000 days and counting.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) registered a case against Parvez in October 2020. On 22 November, 2021, the JKCCS office in Srinagar was raided, and Parvez was arrested on charges under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, (UAPA) 1967.

The most astounding fact about the case is the chargesheet, which cites two of the reports produced by his civil society organisation. The chargesheet claims the reports to be “false and fabricated” and tarnishing India’s image at the international level. By using the reports as evidence for the arbitrary detention of Parvez, the NIA criminalised human rights research and fact-finding, which otherwise is internationally recognised work. This can have alarming consequences for human rights organisations doing similar work elsewhere.

Whether any particular incident in the report is wrong, I don’t know. If you don’t agree with a particular incident, you give your alternate argument. But you can’t criminalise fact-finding as a whole

-Mihir Desai, senior counsel in the High Court of Bombay and Supreme Court of India.

While the region continues to be suppressed and the voices clamped down, the veil of normalcy is being propagated all over the mainstream media. Instead of taking accountability and investigating the claims of human rights violations, the authorities have arrested, manhandled, and intimidated those who have voiced their findings and sought justice. The press and civil society organisations in the region for decades have been the cornerstone of the Kashmiri public sphere and their pleas. The large-scale crackdown on these organisations has left the people of the region helpless and their atrocities quashed. 

The fact of the matter is that human rights violations at the hands of security forces have been rampant in Kashmir for the past 30 years. That’s a fact. AFSPA and PSA have been used in a very discriminatory manner. People have been tortured. People have been encountered.

said Desai

One of the JKCCS reports, used as evidence for Parvez’s detention, was published in 2015. It aimed to investigate the role of the state in Jammu and Kashmir, which had resulted in more than 8,000 disappearances, 70,000 deaths, 6,000 unmarked mass graves, and countless cases of torture and sexual violence. NIA claimed that the said report was fabricated and gave away sensitive details regarding the military deployment. However, the report has been readily available on the internet since it was published. Instead of communicating with the organisation regarding the sensitive material back then, it is being used in a supposed terrorism case after nine years. 

It is not the only time Parvez has been incarcerated. In 2016, one day after Parvez was impeded from travelling to Switzerland to attend the 33rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, he was arrested and charged under the Public Safety Act (PSA). Besides Parvez, several other Kahmiri journalists and human rights activists have abstained from travelling and collecting their awards.

Asif Sultan was unable to collect his Press Freedom Award from the American National Press Club in 2019 due to being imprisoned. Sanna Irshad Mattoo also could not collect her Pulitzer Prize due to the administrative orders restricting her from leaving Delhi in 2022. Further, Irfan Mehraj recently won the Human Rights and Religious Freedom Journalism Award while incarcerated with Khurram Parvez.

The systematic use of UAPA allows the Indian administration to chase down human rights defenders by mobilising the anti-terrorism discourse. This impunity, harnessed by the UAPA, has accelerated the demise of human rights in India, which can only be reversed with the amendment of the said law.

Khurram Parvez being arbitrarily detained for more than 1000 days and any voice of “dissent” being trampled before it is even heard is a testament to a flawed democracy. How normal is the normalcy when you have to silence the voices of people from within? 

Read also: The Donkey Dance of UAPA: Criminalising Dissent in a Hollowing Democracy

Featured Image Credits: The Leaflet

Reeba Khan

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From the Dissent Stifling Toolkit

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With the recent acquittal of former Delhi University Professor G.N. Saibaba after a torturous 10 years of imprisonment under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), we take a look at one of the most important tools in the market of India’s barely-there-democracy: the UAPA.

In the Athenian State of 621 BCE, lived a statesman named Draco. Draco prescribed death for all criminal offences. Laws that were written in blood, not ink. Think of the word ‘draconian’ named after this infamous statesman, but in the Indian context, and perhaps what comes to mind is the notorious Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) of 1967. 

Student activist Umar Khalid spent a total of three years behind bars in Tihar, with his bail pleas rejected consistently. The case moved from bench to bench. 84-year-old Stan Swamy, booked under the Bhima Koregaon case during his imprisonment, had asked for a sipper and straw in jail, citing Parkinson’s disease. It took the authorities a month to approve his request. On July 5, 2021, he passed away in jail, still awaiting trial. Journalist Siddique Kappan, on his way to cover the Hathras rape case, was arrested and detained similarly for a period of two years without trial. 

What brings these cases together is UAPA. Stringent conditions for bails (the accused will not be given bail if the first impression of the court is that they are guilty), the ability to declare an individual ‘terrorist’, and detention without producing any incriminating evidence have ensured the overturning of the precept of innocent before proven guilty. The investigating agencies are allowed to take up to 180 days even to file a chargesheet, which, in the case of Kappan, he claims to never even have received firsthand.

The process thus becomes the punishment. The asymmetrical power balance between citizen and state is clearly exploited to the citizen’s disadvantage. Dissecting the acquittal judgement of Professor G.N. Saibaba, Karen Gabriel, and PK Vijayan write for The Quint that the law comprises both the set of legislation that the state has to enact and uphold as well as the rules of procedure that the state must adhere to while doing so. They assert, “Procedure is an invaluable protective measure, not an incidental convenience.”

A Brief History

In the year 1967, the Indira Gandhi administration sought to bring out a law against the secessionist activities that the government observed in the country. The Parliament thus passed the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. What initially emerged as legislation to counter the problem of secessionist tendencies, however, would quickly assume an altogether different colour. 

After the Prime Minister’s death and with the advent of the Punjab insurgency, the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Prevention Act (TADA) was introduced. Criticised widely by human rights organisations for its arbitrary tendencies to centralise the onus of justice, it was later withdrawn. TADA trickled down in 2001 to POTA (the Prevention of Terrorism Act) in 2002, which met with concerns of misuse and was scrapped by the UPA government in 2004. The provisions of POTA, however, were in essence transferred onto the UAPA, which was the first introduction of anti-terrorism into the primarily anti-secessionist legislation. The central government could now overlook rules of evidence when it came to interception of communication and vested in its hands the power to declare any organisation as a terrorist organisation without trial. 

In 2008, the Act was further amended to include longer police custody, longer jail time, and harder bail provisions. The latest and most important amendment in 2019 empowered the NIA further and gave the government powers to declare individuals terrorists. 

But It Works, Right?

The hardlined stringency should then naturally warrant efficiency in curbing the “disturbances” that it claims to protect us from. The Home Ministry’s 2020 report, on the other hand, tells us that only 212 of the 24000 convicted in UAPA cases in 2016–2020 were found guilty. As Kappan puts it, “a conviction rate of less than 3%.”

Acquitting DU professor G. N. Saibaba, who has been in prison for 3600 days, the Bombay High Court noted:

No evidence has been led by the prosecution by any witness to any incident, attack, act of violence, or even evidence collected from some earlier scene of offence where a terrorist act has taken place, in order to connect the accused to such an act…

The court further stated that there had been an evident “failure in justice” in the flouting of mandatory provisions in Saibaba’s case. The appalling conditions of his imprisonment, along with those of many others, lead one to wonder whether the crushing impact that callous state persecution has on an individual’s life can ever be undone with mere acquittal. 

The persecution of intelligentsia, which asks difficult questions of institutions, is no new phenomenon. Considering, however, that as we function under that nimble concept of what is known to some of us as a democracy, the state would do well to clothe its atrocities better and be less conspicuous about them. The UAPA, with its in-your-face authoritarian tendencies, does not seem to be helping in that front. 

Read also: The Donkey Dance of UAPA: Criminalising Dissent in a Hollowing Democracy

Deevya Deo
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DUB Speak

The Donkey Dance of UAPA: Criminalising Dissent in a Hollowing Democracy

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Fifty-three years ago, Atal Bihari Vajpayee called this law a “donkey that had been made to look like a horse.”
Today, it still remains horrifyingly omnipresent in the working machinery of the present regime, flexing its muscles by using the criminal justice system and draconian laws to strike terror against journalists, human rights activists, students, or for a matter of fact, anyone opposing its fascist policies.

“For the longest time, I would pray for his release. But now, I am praying that he doesn’t die. The way he is being treated, and with his worsening condition, I worry he might die in jail,”

said Sanjida, wife of the 28-year-old Atikur Rehman who was arrested along with Kerala journalist Siddique
Kappan while on their way to Hathras in 2020 to report the incident of the gang-rape and death of a Dalit
teenager by upper caste men. Rehman now lies “partially paralysed” and “highly disoriented” in a ward
at Lucknow’s King George’s Medical University (KGMU) hospital, and Kappan still remains in jail, two years
with no sign of bail. The “sensitive nature of the case” could be the reason, says his attorney, why no one
is willing to act as his surety

Furthermore, Mohammed Zubair was arrested after a complaint alleged that the AltNews co-founder had hurt religious sentiments, while Umar Khalid and numerous other anti-CAA activists were implicated in fabricated criminal charges related to the Delhi riots. These are only a few of the numerous incidents of attacks on media professionals, particularly the independent media, that have occurred in India during the past few years. Since the BJP came to power in 2014, the number of persons who are being persecuted for their identification and commitment to fighting for democratic and progressive rights has dramatically increased. From the 2018 Bhima Koregaon arrests and the 2020 CAA protests to the most recent arrests of Teesta Setalvad and Mohammad Zubair, the current leadership is hell-bent on locking up anyone who speaks unpleasant truths and exposes their lies.

According to some, democracy is not just a pipe dream; it is a real idea whose fundamental components are listed in the preamble: social, economic, and political justice; freedom of speech and religion; and equality of status and opportunity. This regime has discovered that, rather than explicitly abolishing democracy, another, less obvious way to do so is to completely deny the people’s rights to social, economic, and political justice, to
severely restrict their freedoms of expression and thought, to suppress their right to practice their religion, and to give up their commitment to the ideal of a society in which everyone is treated equally.

UAPA, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, has been abused by successive governments for decades, transitioning from an anti-secession law to an anti-terrorism law. Criminalising dissident views and actions, this act blurs the line between political dissent and criminal behavior, while engaging in a violation of the fundamental right to association. Due to this, political opposition is severely criminalised as some ideologies, groups, and opinions end up being labelled as unlawful. As a result, certain organisations that contest the legitimacy of the State and the ruling classes become targets of political witch hunts.

Take the case of Umar Khalid, who is “so dangerous an offender that he cannot be released on bail” and has been kept in jail for the last two years without any concrete evidence except for an alleged “meeting of minds”
which schemed the Delhi riots. Other police evidence includes a speech that is available to the public but does
not incite violence, testimonies from witnesses that differ from the police, and communications from WhatsApp groups that discussed organising protests against CAA, where he was hardly active. The irony that remains is that the riots that Khalid is accused of starting claimed the lives of over 53 people, the majority
of whom were Muslims. Similarly, the majority of the 18 people who were accused of hatching a plot to foment
racial unrest and were charged with terrorism under the UAPA, as well as murder, sedition, and over two
dozen other crimes under the Indian Penal Code, 1860, are also Muslims. Additionally, some of the remarks
made by several Delhi courts about police investigations into these riots stated these investigations to be ‘absolutely’ evasive,’ ‘lackadaisical,’ ‘callous,’ ‘casual,’ ‘farcical,’ ‘painful to see,’ and ‘misusing the judicial system.”

One also comes across bizarre cases, like in Kashmir, where 10 young men were booked in September under the same law because the police alleged that they were playing a cricket match in the “memory” of a militant
who was killed last year. Explanations like these boggle one’s normally functioning brain in ways not known
to humankind. What UAPA simply means is jail without bail and without a trial, on the grounds of little to no
evidence. One section of the Act says, “The accused must be informed of the grounds of arrest as soon as may
be,” meaning that the person who is being arrested might not even know why they are being arrested and the
arresting officer can take their sweet time in informing them as to why to they are being sent to jail.

The pattern is evident. Not merely actions, but also any anti-government beliefs are being criminalised. The state cynically employs investigations as weapons, turning an already unjust criminal justice system against those who oppose the state’s unlawful policies. As a result, the so-called inquiries into the Delhi Riots actually
result in the targeting of anti-CAA activists, while Bhima Koregaon is used as a cover to attack Dalit
intellectuals as well as human rights advocates and attorneys.

Aayat Farooqui

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No Vakeel, No Appeal, No Daleel: Breaking Down UAPA

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An overview over previously amended UAPA, aimed to counter terrorists, has resulted in terrorised dissidents instead.

Free speech, political dissention, and even mild criticism, might get anyone designated as ‘terrorist’ by the Centre, ever since Home Minister Amit Shah, in a sovereign state, proposed the amended version of an already ‘draconian law’ called, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), and it somewhat suits the ‘rishta vohi soch nayi’ narrative with its uncanny resemblance to the Rowlatt Act of 1919 set by the colonisers to criminalise protests.

What is UAPA?

In 1967, UAPA was passed for the first time in the parliament, and it gave the entitlement to the government to designate any ‘organisation’ as ‘unlawful.’ It further defined and criminalised what it seemed as unlawful. However in 2004, Manmohan Singh led Congress further amended it without getting it scrutinised by the special committee. The government was disposed with more power, defined terrorism, and could declare any organisation as ‘terrorist.’ It also empowered the police with enhanced power of interrogation, which was often abused as a harassment tool.

What does the 2019 amendment say?
The recent changes proposed by the Home Minister Amit Shah, which were passed in the Lok Sabha owning to heavy NDA majority and smooth relations in Rajya Sabha, allowed the interference of National Investigation Agency (NIA) to mess with the federal system, and most importantly declare any ‘individual’ as opposed to what was ‘organisation’ as ‘terrorist.’ This too was passed sans the scrutiny of the select committee.

Who are the categorically individual terrorists?

The Home Minister made it very clear that individuals who participate, fund, or engage in raising funds for terrorist activities, shall be treated along the lines of this act.

Most importantly he said, “those are terorists who attempt to plant terrorist literature and terorist theory in the minds of the young, guns do not give rise to terrorism, the root of it is the propaganda that is done to spread it.”

The Problematic Aspects

At no point does the law define what is terrorist literature and theory, for all one may have a copy of The Communist Manifesto and the Centre can use that as evidence.

Also what is the urgent need of the government to go after individuals specifically, when under chapter four of the same act provides for the accused to be prosecuted and punished if found guilty by the courts? Perhaps it’s that ‘if’ they want to win over, by curtailing a person’s right to get bail, or proper redressal. On average 75% cases under UAPA ended in acquittal over three years ending 2016 as per Business Standards’ analysis of NCRB data. It only raises skepticism if the Centre is trying to overstep this trend by removing the redressal system all and for once.

Who all are booked under this so far?
Jaish-e-Mohammad founder Masoor Azhar, Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed, Lashkar-e-Taiba leader Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. However, individuals with no organisation backing who were arrested post the amendment included Kashmiri photojournalist Masrat Jahan, Kashmiri journalist Gowhar Geelani, peasant leader Akhil Gogoi, student leaders, Meeran Haider, Safoora Zargar and Umar Kahlid.

Conclusion

There’s scope of some appeal in this contentious law which would take minimum 100 days and maximum uncertain days, for the heeding to go through the Home Ministry which itself labelled the accused as terrorist in the first place, and review committee, until then, one is a terrorist until proven otherwise, without grant to bail, or lawyer, and it’s all because the State with enhanced centralised power in a democracy simply believed so without any evidence.

Featured Image Credits: The Quint

Umaima Khanam

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