It has been more than 126 years since the famous “open letter” titled, “J’Accuse” by journalist and writer Emile Zola was published in the newspaper L’Aurore on its front page which pointed to the unlawful arrest of French Army General Staff officer Alfred Dreyfus over trumped up charges of espionage. Zola was later prosecuted for libel and had to flee to England to avoid being arrested.
The letter, the article and Zola still serve as inspiration to those committed to question the all-powerful state in its demonising of dissent and its use of power to browbeat and punish those who are critical of it.
Just last Tuesday, a telling statistic was released by the government. As many as 5,023 cases of sedition were filed between 2018 and 2022 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. If trends from 2018 to 2020 are considered — of the 4,690 people arrested, only 149 were convicted — a case can be made that this was less for prosecution for the said crime and more persecution and this trend extended to the next two years. We use the term “persecution” because getting bail for cases filed under the UAPA is enormously difficult.
Draconian provisions
Take the example of Fahad Shah, editor of the website ‘Kashmir Walla’, who was not only granted bail but cases against whom were set aside by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court in November 2023. He was in custody after charges were framed under many offences including the UAPA. Shah and another scholar, Aala Fazili, were booked under the UAPA in a “narrative terrorism” case which alleged that a write-up they came up with in 2011 was aimed at “spreading terrorism and creating a false narrative”.
The J&K High Court tore the case apart, observing that there was no material to suggest that “the article has any content that provokes people to take arms and resort to violence”. It also made observations on how UAPA was being applied and made remarks on the need for circumspection by agencies of the state when enforcing this provision.
It was not uncommon for the British colonial state to arrest dissidents, even members of the press, who were critical of it in India. That several prominent Indian public figures who were subject to this harassment were also connected to the freedom movement, led to the reasonable “freedom of expression” being guaranteed in India’s constitution and also undergirded press and media freedoms. But these came under the severest threat during the Emergency.
The turning point
Quite a few books have been written about the Emergency, but a fairly recent one deserves mention. Gyan Prakash’sEmergency Chronicles: Indira Gandhi and Democracy’s Turning Point, published in 2019, drew from archival records, published material, films and interviews to capture the political crisis in Indian democracy that led to the Emergency. The book sets itself apart by not looking at Emergency as an anomaly in India’s post-Independence democratic history, but links it to the dynamics of India’s popular democracy as it played itself out since Independence. It makes the case that the Emergency marked a turning point in India’s political history, eventually paving the way for caste politics and the rise of Hindutva.
Interestingly, the book begins with the ordeal faced by a then Left student activist in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Prabir Purkayastha, during the Emergency, on September 25, 1975. He was “abducted” by the Delhi Police in what was a case of mistaken identity — the police had set out to arrest the then JNU Students Union President Devi Prasad Tripathi after receiving a complaint from no less than then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s son Sanjay Gandhi.
His wife, Maneka, was a student at the School of Languages at JNU and when she had gone to attend classes the same day, she was asked by the student union leaders to boycott classes in protest against the Emergency. Despite the Additional Division Magistrate initially declining to issue a warrant for this “arrest”, the then Lieutenant Governor instructed him to issue a warrant because the issue involved the “PM’s house”. This led to the arrest and incarceration of Prabir Purkayastha for over a year, under the draconian Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA), first in Delhi’s Tihar Central Jail and then in Agra where he spent nearly a month in solitary confinement.
Remembering the ordeal
Prabir recalls this ordeal in greater detail and goes on to recount the days spent in jail during the Emergency in his memoir, Keeping up the Good Fight that was published recently. After his release from jail, Prabir went on to become a successful power engineer while also wearing several hats as a publicly minded Left activist.
He was one of the founder-members of the Delhi Science Forum, which among other things played a vital role in promoting science and rationality besides taking up causes such as compensation for the victims of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, and intervening in public debates on science and technology policy. He was recently chair of Knowledge Commons, a body dedicated to promoting dissemination of knowledge beyond intellectual property, and played a vital role in the Free Software Movement of India, an organisation that promotes the use and implementation of free and open source software in the country. Prabir is also founder and editor-in-chief of the alternate news and analysis website, Newsclick.in.
In jail, again
Ironically, today Prabir is in jail again. He has been arrested, just like the journalist Fahad Shah was, on UAPA charges for his work in Newsclick after the organisation was subjected to several raids and searches in the last three years for alleged offences related to its funding.
Despite getting relief from a lower court and the Delhi High Court on matters related to the Enforcement Directorate and the Income Tax department, Newsclick was subject to a whole set of fresh allegations related to a “terror case with Chinese links”.
An editorial in The Hindu called the FIR registered by the Delhi police as a “vague amalgam of sweeping accusations that do not actually disclose any offence, leave alone one of terrorism”. Yet, Prabir is still in detention under the UAPA, as he awaits judicial hearing on the case.
As Prabir’s case and that of a score of others who have been booked under draconian laws for their mere acts of dissent recently shows, India might not be under an Emergency today, but the situation faced by dissenters and activists, specifically those opposed to religious fundamentalism today is not any dissimilar.
As Gyan Prakash points out in his book, today’s regime, “supported by ground troops, which Indira [Gandhi’s] Emergency rule never enjoyed, and a largely compliant and corporatised electronic media, which did not exist in 1975–77… enjoys unprecedented power. It is equipped with the powers of the administrative state, including the law against sedition under the British-era Section 124A, preventive detention, and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act for use in the so-called “disturbed” areas… Today, there is no formal declaration of Emergency, no press censorship, no lawful suspension of the law…Today, the courts, the press, and political parties do not face repression. But they appear unable or unwilling to function as the gatekeepers of democracy in the face of state power spiked with Hindu populist ressentiment.”
