I cannot recall any government in the past that has observed the anniversary of the declaration of Emergency the way the Narendra Modi-led BJP government did last week. Precisely when Prime Minister Modi was singing a paean to Indian democracy abroad, dauntless human rights activist Teesta Setalvad and former Gujarat police officer R.B. Sreekumar were being arrested in India in a manner that boded ill for its democracy.
The charges against them – doggedly pursuing the cause of justice for the victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Cause of arrest – a recent ruling by the Supreme Court. It dismissed a petition that had challenged the final report filed by the SIT (2012) rejecting the petitioner’s claim that the Gujarat riots were the result of a larger conspiracy by senior functionaries including Modi who was the chief minister of the state then.
The Supreme Court gave its ruling on June 24. The arrests followed hot on the heels of the judgment.
Neither Setalvad nor Sreekumar figured anywhere in the case. Those who did figure in the case were citizens who had suffered grave injustice. They had been targets of communal violence – Zakia Jafri, who had seen her husband Ehsan Jafri and other innocent people lose their lives at the hands of bestial Hindutva mobs, and others who had experienced a similar ordeal. It was to help secure justice for them that these activists had been engaged in a decades-long struggle.
Taking cover behind the Supreme Court judgment the state swooped down on them. On June 25, a day after the ruling, copies of the order furnished the basis on which FIRs were registered against both Setalvad and Sreekumar. The FIRs quoted liberally from the judgment. Setalvad in Mumbai and Sreekumar in Gandhinagar were detained by Gujarat Police and taken to Ahmedabad where they were arrested.
That all this started on a day marking the 47th anniversary of the imposition of Emergency, which always brings to mind the midnight knocks and arrests, and suspension of fundamental rights, was telling.
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No sooner had Setalvad and Sreekumar been arrested than journalist Mohammad Zubair was arrested by the Delhi Police. He is a co-founder of the fact-checking website portal Alt News, which has routinely exposed fake news circulated across media to stoke the fires of communal hatred and violence in society. He has been in the crosshairs of the votaries of Hindutva. Charges were filed against him.
On June 27, Zubair was called by the Delhi Police for questioning. It was regarding a 2020 case for which there was a high court order giving him relief against arrest. However, on the basis of an anonymous complaint about a tweet by the journalist in 2018, a new FIR was registered against him, leading to his arrest. Zubair’s colleague Pratik Sinha (co-founder Alt News), who was with him, has stated that the FIR was not made available to them despite repeated requests.
This is the state of our country today. We bemoan the excesses committed during the Emergency five decades ago but are living in a state of undeclared Emergency that rivals the Emergency that was declared in many respects. At a juncture when the politics of communal hatred, polarisation and riots is on the ascendant, along with dog whistle campaign issues – lynching, love jihad, Gyanvapi, Tejo Mahalaya and bulldozer – doughty activists and journalists are being picked out and targeted.
Representational image. A bulldozer demolishes illegal structures during an anti-encroachment drive by the DDA at Khichdipur village, in New Delhi, Wednesday, May 18, 2022. Photo: PTI
One facet of this steady eclipse of democracy is the preparation of a large group of journalists who have but one task. Their raison de’tre 24/7 is to dress up the present regime’s failures, from demonetisation to the Agnipath scheme, as stupendous achievements, in an unending paean to the presiding deity of governance. It is not without reason that on the issue of press freedom, India has been sliding and now ranks 150 among 180 countries. On the issue of human rights as well, several well-known international bodies have been expressing their concern.
Setalvad, Sreekumar and Zubair are not alone in being targeted by the state through its powerful arsenal of charges such as sedition, outraging religious feelings, terrorism, and promoting enmity between different groups. The list is long and ever-growing – Father Stan Swamy, in the throes of a debilitating disease, who was made to wait for so long for a mere sipper and straw and died in captivity; lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj (now out on bail), scholars Anand Teltumbde and Rona Wilson, poet Varavara Rao, activist and consulting editor Gautam Navalakha, student leader Umar Khalid, journalist Siddique Kappan…
While the sections under which Zubair has been arrested also apply in cases that have been registered against Nupur Sharma and Naveen Jindal, among others, none of them has been arrested thus far. Komal Sharma, who prowled the corridors of JNU with an iron rod in her hand, causing mayhem during the attack on students and teachers on January 5, 2020, has been absconding for more than two years. Clearly, they enjoy the protection of the ruling dispensation. They are roaming free.
And what is the basis for the arrest of Zubair? Four years ago, he had tweeted a still from renowned director Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s film Kissi Se Na Kehna (1983). The still showed an image of a local hotel, and the letters of the hotel’s name on the board – originally Honeymoon Hotel – had been moved around to form the words Hanuman Hotel. By posting that photo and indicating that it had become a ‘sanskari hotel’, the journalist was taking a dig at the prevailing state of affairs. In that scene in the film, the hotel owner is telling the leading pair that because there was no honeymoon custom in his time, he had changed the name of the hotel (from Honeymoon to Hanuman Hotel).
Mohammed Zubair Arrested for Tweeting Photo from ‘Kissi Se Na Kehna!’ a famous Bollywood film, for ‘outraging religious sentiments’.
A Hanuman bhakt suddenly woke up to this four-year-old tweet last week and the police registered a case based on his complaint – a tweet that was later deleted – that Zubair’s post showing a photo in which Honeymoon Hotel had been changed to Hanuman Hotel, had outraged the religious feelings of Hindus. The complaint: “linking our God Hanuman ji with honeymoon is [a] direct insult of Hindus because he is [a] brahmachari.” The complainant urged the Delhi Police to “kindly take action against this guy.”
Curiously, not a single tweet had been posted before or after the accusation made on June 19. Also, the Twitter handle from which the complaint was made has been closed down. Nor is the complainant’s identity clear. Yet, taking that ‘complaint’ as the basis, the police arrested a credible journalist. Not just that, the police woke up the magistrate late at night seeking custody of Zubair for a longer period so that the reasons behind his act of tweeting the photo could be investigated. Bless the magistrate for giving them a day’s custody (later extended by the court for four days).
Up in heaven, Hrishi da must be thanking his lucky stars that at least he has managed to escape the Delhi cops’ grasp.
Om Thanvi is a senior journalist who retired as editor of Jansatta, a Hindi daily of the Indian Express group, in 2015. He was the founding Vice Chancellor of HJ University of Journalism and Mass Communication, Jaipur.
Translated from the Hindi original by Chitra Padmanabhan.