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1.Speculation about the Union Cabinet reshuffle shows that identity remains the motive force in Indian politics
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to announce a reshuffle of the Union Cabinet today. Media reports suggest that the reshuffle among governors announced yesterday is a precursor to change in the composition of the council of ministers.
Consequently, there has been speculation in both mainstream and social media about the likely changes. The striking feature of the speculation is that the reshuffle is being largely viewed through the prism of identity, mainly caste and gender. While caste has been an intrinsic feature of the political calculus, gender has acquired salience in the recent past. Results of assembly elections over the last few years show that women can make a material difference in tight electoral contests.
Once in a while, political analysis posits economic or some other factor as the dominant influence on electoral outcomes. They are plausible explanations. But the durable feature of Indian politics is the mobilisation of support on the basis of identities, particularly that of caste.
The probable Cabinet reshuffle will be one of the most important political developments prior to assembly elections in five states early next year. Of the five, UP is the most crucial one in terms of the signal it will send for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that identity, and not domain expertise, will dominate an exercise that changes the composition of the council of ministers.
2. Death of a principle: Stan Swamy’s demise should shake up a justice system, on procedure and on judges’ reading of laws
Times of India’s Edit Page team comprises senior journalists with wide-ranging interests who debate and opine on the news and issues of the day.
Stan Swamy’s death in judicial custody was an entirely avoidable tragedy. And pretty much every part of the criminal justice system is responsible. First, he was not even being tried. He was awaiting further proceedings in last year’s NIA-filed Elgar Parishad chargesheet. Second, NIA arrested Swamy only a day before filing its chargesheet. This showed it didn’t need him for custodial interrogation. Therefore, investigative integrity wouldn’t have been threatened had Swamy received bail. But, and this is the third grave injustice, NIA stoutly opposed bail pleas of an 84-year-old with serious medical conditions, and one who was jailed when a pandemic was raging. Fourth, the trial court failed on counts of common sense, simple decency and judicial principles by stalling the bail of an octogenarian with Parkinson’s, who couldn’t possibly intimidate witnesses or pose a flight risk.
This terrible systemic failure is made worse by a more worrying trend – the freewheeling way serious charges like terrorism are being filed. Swamy, accused of involvement in a Maoist conspiracy, had worked for some of India’s most disadvantaged. His 2017 PIL, which came after painstaking research on SC/STs languishing for years as UAPA undertrial prisoners, as well as his long years of campaigning for Adivasi land and forest rights are not exactly typical of a ‘dangerous anti-national’. Swamy’s is one of many cases where investigators’ definition of what constitutes ‘terrorism’ should attract severe judicial scrutiny.
A strong case now exists for revisiting UAPA provisions defining terrorist acts and discouraging bail. Terror is currently too broadly defined in this draconian law. And UAPA’s onerous bail conditions seem to tell most judges that threadbare dissection of the prosecution case is not warranted. There are a few exceptions to this judicial passivity. Assam activist Akhil Gogoi was discharged last week after a special court didn’t even bother to send his UAPA case relating to anti-CAA protests to trial. Delhi HC’s recent bail order on three anti-CAA activists also rubbished Delhi Police’s UAPA charges. In February, SC granted bail to a UAPA accused incarcerated for over five years. Last month, Karnataka HC granted default bail to 115 accused in a Bengaluru riots case. In these proceedings, NIA’s plea for 90-day extension of probe had been accepted by a trial court, without hearing defendants.
But look at Elgar Parishad. Some accused are in prison for nearly three years. Courts haven’t framed charges to begin trial. Will Swamy’s tragic death give the system the shaking up it needs?
- Stan Swamy: A systemic failure
The Dalit and tribal activist’s death should prompt the executive and judiciary to re-examine their approach
Eight months after he was arrested under the Unlawful (Activities) Prevention Act (UAPA), Father Stan Swamy, an activist who worked with tribals in Jharkhand, died on Monday. The 84-year-old died of cardiac arrest, but had a history of illness, including Parkinson’s and a recent Covid-19 infection. But this must not be treated as a natural death. His death is an outcome of India’s disturbing political climate, where civil society activists are painted as anti-national and the law is abused for partisan purposes. It is an outcome of politicised investigative agencies, which now face allegations of having planted evidence in the broader case (Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad) where Swamy was an accused. And it is an outcome of a broken judicial system which has developed its own extreme brand of bail jurisprudence, where even those who are entitled to it on humanitarian grounds and pose no threat are kept in prison.
The fundamental problem is political illiberalism. And this spans ideological lines. The Congress came up with the draconian anti-terror legislative frameworks, did not hesitate to charge protesters with sedition (remember Kudankulam), and deployed State surveillance on political rivals and civil society leaders. But the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government has built on this, making UAPA even more draconian and showing a deep distrust of civil society. Politically uncomfortable with assertive Ambedkarite and subaltern politics, the government often clubs activism on Dalit and tribal issues within the democratic framework with being a Maoist. The Bhima Koregaon case, where some of India’s finest public-spirited individuals such as Sudha Bharadwaj (arrested in August 2018) and Anand Teltumbde (arrested in April 2020) have been in prison, rests on weak evidence.
The National Investigative Agency (NIA) is India’s premier counter-terrorist body. But in this case, despite no incriminating evidence of Swamy’s complicity in violence, and based on flimsy charges, NIA not just arrested him but opposed his bail and didn’t factor in his age and health. The NIA special court rejected his bail petitions, including on the grounds that “collective interests of society”, a vague, legally untenable category, must prevail over personal liberty and didn’t enable his medical care early on. The Bombay High Court too didn’t cover itself in glory in delaying his bail, not allowing Swamy’s final wish to be in Ranchi. Swamy’s death must force the regime to revise its ways, courts to have a hard look at their evolving jurisprudence, and citizens to speak up for prisoners of conscience
4. A death foretold: On activist Stan Swamy’s death
There is a pattern of institutional oppression behind the demise of Father Stan Swamy
It was a death his well-wishers feared would happen and one he had anticipated. Father Stan Swamy, an 84-year-old Jesuit priest, known for his service and activism in the cause of Adivasis, died nine months into his unjust imprisonment on tenuous charges. A death that was simply allowed to happen despite being foretold by his deteriorating health in prison will weigh on the country’s collective conscience for long. His age and frailty drew no sympathy from either the prosecuting agency or the trial court, which clung to the state narrative of there being grounds to believe that he was part of a Maoist plot to overthrow the government. Despite being a fit case for bail, he was denied bail, mainly due to the statutory bar on bail under the anti-terrorism law invoked against him. The best the diffident judiciary could do for him was a spell of hospitalisation, even as the octogenarian pleaded that he be given interim bail to be with his friends or allowed to die in prison. The Bombay High Court did issue notice on his bail petition, observing that he was entitled to bail, but his end came in a hospital even before the matter could be taken up for final disposal. Much of the blame and accountability for his death should be on the NIA, which perversely opposed his release, and the court which could have granted interim bail weeks earlier.
It was fairly obvious that his prison stay, especially during the pandemic, was detrimental to his well-being. A good two months elapsed between the High Court seeking the NIA’s response to his bail plea on medical grounds and his death. The same court had intervened to grant interim bail to Varavara Rao, another elderly co-accused, holding that bail can be granted “purely on the grounds of sickness, advanced age, infirmity and health conditions”, especially if incarceration amounted to endangering life. It is systemic and institutional failure that another undertrial placed in similar circumstances did not get the benefit of this humane approach. A pattern of institutional oppression can be seen in the events, from the denial of a sipper in jail to his death while in custody. Two larger issues here are the questionable legality of the bail-denying feature of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the validity of the Bhima-Koregaon case itself. It is time the higher judiciary examined these; especially the attempt to link a simple case arising out of violence a day after the Elgar Parishad, a commemorative event held in Pune, and an alleged Maoist plot involving lawyers, activists and human rights defenders. To make matters worse, credible reports that some of the electronic evidence gathered in this case could have been planted remotely by malware were never investigated. The call for accountability for Fr. Swamy’s death rings painfully true.
5.Cultural genocide: On discovery of hundreds of graves in Canada
Canada should ensure justice for indigenous community who suffered systemic violence
The recent discovery of hundreds of graves in Canada has put the spotlight back on its dark past, when indigenous people faced systemic discrimination and violence. In June, the Cowessess First Nation, an indigenous organisation, found 751 unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school in Saskatchewan. This came a month after another indigenous organisation discovered the remains of 215 children at a closed residential school in British Columbia. Canada’s residential school system was a telling example of how indigenous people were treated. Between 1882 and 1996, an estimated 150,000 children were sent to residential schools, that were funded by the federal government and run mostly by the Catholic Church. Most of these students were forcefully taken away from their families. And thousands never returned. In 1883, Canada’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, defended in Parliament the system of residential schools, saying indigenous students should be kept away from their parents, “who are savages”. The children were not allowed to speak their languages or practise their culture. Many were abused. An estimated 4,000 children died, mainly due to TB, malnutrition and other illnesses resulting from the squalid conditions in the schools. Despite these horrors, the residential school system continued for over a century.
In 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology. The Government also set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to document the history and the lasting impact of the school system on the indigenous communities. In 2015, the commission called the violence against the indigenous students a “cultural genocide”. It has made 94 “calls to action” to different levels of the government and communities that included independent investigations and steps to protect Aboriginal rights and culture. It also asked the Catholic Church to apologise and take steps toward reconciliation. The Vatican is yet to formally apologise for the schools. Justin Trudeau, who came to power in 2015, had promised that addressing the grievances of the indigenous communities was a core agenda. But six years later, indigenous organisations say the authorities are half-hearted. The back-to-back discoveries of unmarked graves strengthen indigenous organisations’ claims that the actual number of the dead is way above the estimates of the commission. Mr. Trudeau has expressed “guilt” over the abuses. But that is not enough. His government should assist indigenous organisations to find unmarked graves. He should order investigations into the residential schools with graves to get to the bottom of the matter. Mr. Trudeau should also accelerate steps to implement all the recommendations of the Reconciliation Commission to ensure reparations are done to the country’s indigenous community.