 |
July 2000
|
|
July 2000
|
|
Campaign Appeal
In what amounts to gross human rights violations and the abuse of the freedom of association, expression and movement, leading activists of the non governmental organisation, Sahyog, working for over a decade in the Uttarakhand district have been arrested and refused bail, even as local advocates have unilaterally decided to refuse to act on their behalf. This appeal by academicians highlights the case that amounts to little short of an abuse of state power strengthened by mob rule in the guise of people’s sentiments. "On Thursday, 20th April, eleven members of Sahyog, a ‘society for participatory rural development’, based in Almora, Uttar Pradesh, India, were taken into police custody on charges of purveying ‘obscene’ literature. About six months ago, the organization had conducted a survey on AIDS in the region and a report titled AIDS aur Hum had been printed for circulation among other NGOs in the region. A copy of the report was leaked to the local press and since then, there has been a systematic campaign by interested parties to defame, harass and intimidate members of the organisation. Recently, a meeting of Sahyog was disrupted and two workers beaten up. This was followed by the ransacking of Sahyog’s registered office. When the members of the organization appealed for police protection, arrest warrants were issued in their names. Five of those held were subsequently released but the six chief office bearers of the organisation continue to be behind bars. Bail has been refused at least thrice though no criminal charges have been made against the Sahyog members. Local parties are exerting tremendous pressure not to grant bail, on the local administration. It may be pointed out here that the campaign against Sahyog is being orchestrated solely by the residents of Almora town. The villagers among whom Sahyog worked are solidly behind the organisation and have even raised a large sum of money for the bail amount. The members of Sahyog have repeatedly apologised for the allegedly obscene language used in the report. They have said that certain words are unavoidable in a document concerning AIDS but they are ready to apologise if local sentiments have been hurt. This has, however, cut no ice with the protesters, who refuse to spell out what form of apology or recantation will satisfy them. They demand that the NGO be derecognised and it’s funding stopped. Meanwhile the human rights of the Sahyog workers continue to be violated as they are repeatedly denied bail. Write in protest to: President of India Rashtrapati Bhavan New Delhi - 110 004 Fax: 91-11-3017290 The Prime Minister of India, Atal Behari Vajpayee 7, Safdurjung Road New Delhi - 110 011 National Human Rights Commission Sardar Patel Bhavan, Parliament Street, New Delhi 110 001. Among the signatories to this appeal are Supriya Chaudhuri (professor of English, JU) Sukanta Chaudhuri (professor of English, JU), Sibaji Bandyopadhyay (head of the department of Comparative Literature, JU), Subha Chakraborty Dasgupta (faculty, department Comparative Literature, JU), Sajni Mukherjee (faculty, department of English, JU), Amlan Dasgupta (faculty, department of English, JU), Nilanjana Gupta (faculty, department of English, JU), Indira Chowdhury (faculty, department of English, JU), Paromita Chakravarti (faculty, department of English, JU), Abhijit Gupta (faculty, department of English, JU), Aveek Majumder (faculty, department of Comparative Literature, JU), Suman Ghosh (faculty, department of Comparative Literature, JU), Abhijit Roy (faculty, department of Film Studies, JU), Manabendra Bandyopadhyay (professor, department of Comparative Literature, JU) Anjum Katyal (Seagull Publishers), Kavita Panjabi (faculty, department of Comparative Literature, JU) Ananda Lal (faculty, department of English, JU), Rimi B. Chatterjee (Stree Publishers), Moinak Biswas (faculty, department of Film Studies, JU). Appeal to the Friends of the Sarvodaya Movement Save the Gandhian Institute in Varanasi The Gandhian Institute of Studies was founded in 1960 by three stalwarts of the Sarvodaya Movement: Jayaprakash Narayan, Shankarro Deo and Nabakrushan Choudhuri who wanted to enrich the Sarvodaya Movement by the knowledge about human societies gained by the social sciences. It was meant to integrate field work and action programmes for social change with researches in the social sciences so that both gained from the mutual interaction. It has been facing threat of closure since August last year because the Indian council of social science Research, on orders from the human resources development ministry, has stopped all financial assistance until and unless one of the faculty members- Kusum Lata Kedia, who is closely associated with Rashtriya Swayam sevak Sang and a known favourite of HRD minister Murli Manohar joshi- plays a leading role in the institute’s administration. Miss Kedia enjoys in abundance the personal affection and patronage of the HRD minister, said institute president Bimal Prasad in a recent letter to the Prime Minister. The Uttar Pradesh Government, which gives an annual matching grant of Rs 22 lakh, has also stopped funding the Institute for the same reason. But worse, the U.P. government, with the HRD ministry’s approval, on 17 February organised a police raid on the Institute and sealed many papers. The Institute believes the police action is an RSS plan to cancel its registeration which will provide both Indian Council of Social Science Research and the U.P. government with a ready excuse to terminate all financial assistance no government grant can be given on a regular basis to an unregistered body.... We appeal to all friends of the Sarvodaya Movement, individuals and institutions, to contribute generously to the creation of a corpus fund for five crores, so that the institute can function independent of government finance. (This is an appeal from Dr.Sandeep Pandey of Asha–India. Pleas contact Lehar ([email protected]) or Sandeep ([email protected]) for complete details on this issue).
|