The Opposition Must Demand the Release of all Political Prisoners

(This article has been republished from The Wire)

By Partho Sarothi Ray

The results of the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, although quite unexpected and surprising for many, has brought a fresh breath of life to the sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic Republic of India. Nay, it might have brought it back from the brink of the precipice into which it would have tumbled with another outright victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Although Modi has been able to form another government, with the support of parties which constitute the hitherto nonexistent entity called the NDA, there is a great chance that the authoritarian and repressive agenda will soon be put back into action. It is the role of the reinvigorated opposition which, we hope, will keep it in check. And with even more hope, manage to reverse some of the inequities heaped on the body politic of India over the last 10 years.

One of the first tasks of the revitalised opposition should be to demand the release of all political prisoners. A general amnesty and nothing less. Among the most repressive actions taken by the Modi government was been to accuse and imprison anyone standing in opposition to it, including students, democratic rights activists, academics, journalists, advocates, poets, cultural artists, environmental activists, stand-up comedians, social media fact-checkers, and leaders of opposition parties, including sitting chief ministers.

Civil society activists have been the conscience-keepers of India. Their efforts and sacrifices have greatly contributed to the people’s resistance to the misrule and authoritarianism of the Modi regime, which was reflected in the electoral verdict. They have been accused under various draconian laws that tarnish our code of criminal procedure, including the ominous Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), Sedition (which has been refurbished and reintroduced in the new Nyay Samhita), and the National Security Act (NSA), among others. These laws have been weaponised to target the regime’s opponents and crush dissent.

While they have been accused under various criminal laws, they are in fact political prisoners or “prisoners of conscience” as their only crime has been conscientious opposition to the government’s policies or actions. Many of them continue to be in prison several many years after their arrest. Some, who have obtained bail, live uncertain and insecure lives under the threat of conviction and further imprisonment.

On July 20, 2022, in reply to a written question in the Rajya Sabha, then minister of state for home affairs, Nityanand Rai, revealed that a total of 24,134 people were accused in 5,127 cases under UAPA between 2016 and 2020. He also said that, as of 2020, there were 6,482 undertrial prisoners under UAPA in various jails in India. This is possibly the largest peace-time population of undertrial prisoners accused under an anti-terror law anywhere in the world.

To put this number in context, there are currently around 9,500 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails amidst Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians. In contrast, in a supposedly democratic country like India, during a time of no declared wars or major terrorist attacks, a comparable number of people are imprisoned under an anti-terror law.

And who are these people jailed under UAPA?

While the minister declined to provide a breakdown in the Rajya Sabha, information collected over years by several organisations and individuals, including this author, clearly show that a vast majority of the prisoners are Muslims, Adivasis and Dalits.

What the Modi regime has effectively done is imprison thousands of people from the most downtrodden and marginalised sections in India for years under a draconian anti-terror law. While the names of a few well known activists in jail accused under UAPA are known to the public, the vast majority of the prisoners are nameless and unknown, trying to fight legal battles under a system where the process itself is punishment. If India is to make a decisive turn towards the democratic path, the political opposition needs to take up their unconditional release as their first priority.

The last two Modi governments have followed a clear trajectory of accusing critics, dissenters and opponents under undemocratic laws while a pliant media has branded them variously as “anti-nationals”, “urban naxals” and even “anti-Hindu” to rationalise their unjust imprisonment.

The first to be targeted were Jawaharlal Nehru University students. Umar Khalid, Kanhaiya Kumar, Anirban Bhattacharya and seven others were charged under the Sedition Act (Sec 124 A) for organising a protest poetry session in the university in 2016. They were labelled as the “tukde tukde gang” by a section of the media. This epithet has been hurled by the BJP troll army at numerous others over the last eight years.

This was followed by large-scale targeting of human rights defenders and members of the civil liberties-democratic rights (CL-DR) groups which formed the backbone of the civil society in India. It culminated in the arrests and imprisonment of the Bhima Koregaon 16 or BK16, comprising 16 prominent democratic rights activists, academics, advocates, journalists and cultural activists accused under UAPA in the fabricated Elgar Parishad case.

Father Stan Swamy, one of the 16 accused in the case, died in custody due to the sheer negligence of his medical condition, while seven are currently out on bail after painfully protracted legal processes. Eight of them continue to remain imprisoned, some since 2018. Numerous other activists have been harassed, intimidated and even forced into exile in the course of the Elgar Parishad case.

While the Elgar Parishad case was used to target activists focused on fighting for the rights of Dalits and Adivasis, the Delhi riots case of 2020 was used to imprison mainly Muslim activists who had strongly opposed the Citizen (Amendment) Act (CAA), the first law which made religion a basis of citizenship in India, in violation of the Constitution. The police filed 690 FIRs and arrested 2,200 individuals in the aftermath of the riots instigated by BJP leaders in which 53 people, mostly Muslims, were killed.

Among the arrested were many activists and even elected representatives who were charged with conspiracy and imprisoned under UAPA. At least 18 of those accused under UAPA continue to be in jail since 2020, including Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, Khalid Saifi, Gulfisha Fatima and Meeran Haider.

Kashmir is a place which has faced massive repression under the Modi regime. Since the reading down of Article 370 in 2019, thousands of people have been detained and imprisoned under Sections 107 and 151 of the Criminal Procedure Code, UAPA, and the Public Security Act (PSA).

Between 2019 and 2021, more than 2,300 people were arrested under UAPA in Kashmir. Among those still in jail under UAPA charges are well-known democratic rights activist Khurram Parvez, journalist Aasif Sultan (who was rearrested immediately after being released from five years of imprisonment in February 2024), and politician Engineer Rashid, who won the recent Lok Sabha elections from the Baramulla constituency while continuing to be in prison.

The list of people who have been arrested and imprisoned over the last 10 years for opposing government policies, criticising the BJP or for even trying to do their jobs as journalists, doctors and advocates, is a long one. Many of them have been specifically targeted because they are Muslims, Dalits, or Adivasis. This includes Siddique Kappan, who was imprisoned for two years under UAPA for attempting to report on the rape of a Dalit woman in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras. It also includes Dr. Kafeel Khan, who was imprisoned multiple times between 2017 and 2020: first, he was falsely charged in the Gorakhpur hospital deaths case, and then under the draconian NSA for speaking against the CAA. Another example is Hidme Markam, an Adivasi woman activist who was imprisoned for two years from 2021 to 2023 under UAPA for opposing mining projects that led to the displacement of Adivasis and for protesting against the killing of Adivasis by security forces in Chhattisgarh.

Even after obtaining bail, many continue to face harassment due to legal processes and the threat of further imprisonment. Meanwhile, the list of individuals harassed by the government has grown to include Prabir Purkayastha, editor of the news portal Newsclick, who was arrested in October 2023 under UAPA. He was charged with receiving “Chinese funding” to publish “paid news” criticising Indian government policies.

The trajectory of the Modi governments has been clear. Starting with arresting students, followed by civil society activists, academics and journalists, it has tried to crush all dissenting voices and clear the coast for an ultimate takeover of the entire country. Over the last two years, leaders of multiple political parties have been arrested under a plethora of cases by central agencies like the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation. Just before the elections, two chief ministers, Jharkhand’s Hemant Soren and New Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal, were arrested under corruption cases and continue to be in prison.

When the civil society activists were being imprisoned, the response from the opposition political parties was muted. They were scared of being labelled as “anti-national” if they supported the activists whom the government and the media had already labelled as such. Often, this silence was justified with the excuse that “the law will take its own course,” even as it became evident that the legal system was being undermined and weaponised to target critics of the regime. Consequently, the situation mirrored an “undeclared emergency,” with the political opposition itself becoming targets for arrests and imprisonment.

The people of India have finally demonstrated their rejection of this state of affairs through their electoral verdict. Therefore, it is the opposition’s responsibility to demand the release of all political prisoners, and the withdrawal of all cases against them, as a priority both inside and outside Parliament. This is essential to prevent the continuation of, and rectify, some of the grave injustice that the people of India have been subjected to over the last decade. In the coming days, the BJP might intensify repression to divert attention from its electoral debacle. Therefore, it is the duty of a vigilant opposition to prevent the continuation of the darkness that has descended over India in the last 10 years.

Partho Sarothi Ray is a scientist and democratic rights activist.