Open Intimidation

The attack on Teesta Setalvad is part of a larger strategy to suppress dissent.

The Modi government’s relentless harassment and intimidation of human rights activists Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand is symptomatic of a larger strategy to suppress all dissent and dissenters in the country. There can be no justification for the manner in which the government has gone after this couple for what it claims are violations of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA). If they are one amongst around 9,000 non-governmental organisations receiving foreign funds that are believed not to have adhered to the law, why is it that only this couple is being persecuted?

The reasons are apparent. Setalvad and Anand, and the three organisations they represent—Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), Sabrang Communications and Sabrang Trust—have been in the forefront of the fight against communal forces. CJP’s assistance to survivors of the communal carnage in Gujarat in 2002 has been principally responsible for the conviction of around 120 persons who participated in the violent attacks on Muslims. The Bilkees Lateef case, the Best Bakery case and the notorious Naroda Patiya case stand out as instances of the effectiveness of civil society intervention. Without it, there is little doubt that as with so many other cases of communal violence, in which the state or powerful politicians are complicit, the cases would have dragged on indefinitely, or would have been dismissed for “lack of evidence.” Yet, because CJP helped the survivors, protected witnesses, and paid lawyers to represent them, some semblance of justice was possible.

It is also clear that without the backing of such people, a person like Zakia Jafri, the frail widow of former Member of Parliament Ehsan Jafri who was brutally murdered by a fanatical mob, would not have pursued a case of criminal conspiracy against prominent Gujarat politicians, including the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi, and top policemen. She accused these people of being complicit in the attack on her husband and the Gulberg Society in which 69 people died. Even though the report of the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) failed to find sufficient evidence against Modi and others, and Jafri’s petition challenging the veracity of this report was dismissed by the magistrate’s court, she has persisted. The review petition is being heard again on 27 July. Equally important is the conviction of Maya Kodnani, a minister in Modi’s Gujarat cabinet, and Babu Bajrangi in the Naroda Patiya massacre in which 97 Muslims were killed. The former is out on bail and both are trying for acquittal in the Gujarat High Court. The CJP is determined not to let this happen.

As the chief persona against whom Zakia Jafri is pursuing her case happens now to be the Prime Minister, it is clear that everything possible will be done to prevent the case from proceeding. The attack on Setalvad and her organisations is aimed at stopping Jafri and other Gujarat survivors from moving ahead. The government knows that without support from CJP, it would not be possible for any individual to persist with such cases.

In the past year, CJP and Sabrang have had to face numerous inquiries from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) into their accounts ending with a first information report (FIR) filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on 8 July 2015 and a raid on Setalvad’s residence and offices on 14 July. As Setalvad has repeatedly pointed out, her organisations had offered full cooperation and submitted copious documentation to the MHA. Despite this, the CBI raided her place with no prior notice. Its officials spent a full day inspecting documents that had already been submitted. The motive for this could only be to humiliate and intimidate Setalvad and her colleagues on the eve of important court hearings in the Naroda Patiya and Zakia Jafri cases.

Apart from Setalvad, Greenpeace India was also given similar treatment with charges of violating the FCRA. As with Setalvad, its accounts were frozen. One of its activists was prevented from travelling to London to depose before a group of British parliamentarians about environmental violations in the Mahan forest block in Madhya Pradesh where the government has permitted the Essar company to mine for coal. Like its international affiliate, Greenpeace is known for opposing governments and corporates who violate environmental laws. In the current environment in India, when so-called “hurdles,” including environmental concerns, are being cleared to encourage industry and business, Greenpeace is obviously an irritant that the government would rather not have around.

The harassment of Greenpeace and Setalvad are part of the larger picture that is emerging. Increasingly, the space for dissent, so essential in any democracy, is being squeezed out. It is being done through open intimidation, as seen in the CBI raid on Setalvad, or through harassment over funding, or by physical intimidation of activists, often of people who do not belong to large organisations. This incremental but diabolic and organised suppression of dissent and dissenters has to be exposed and opposed. If not, then the remaining spaces for questioning the acts of the powerful in this country will disappear altogether.

Economic & Political Weekly , Editorial

* Vol - L No. 29, July 18, 2015:
http://www.epw.in/editorials/open-intimidation.html

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 CLAMPING DOWN: Modi government’s hounding of Teesta Setalvad is a message to all dissidents

The numerous cases foisted on her have little substance but are intended to paralyse work to seek justice for the victims of the Gujarat riots.

Incredible as it might sound, the government of India is so irritated with the activities of one woman that it is finding all kinds of ways to catch her and lock her up. The woman who continues to be a thorn in the flesh of the Modi government is Teesta Setalvad. The reason the government thinks she should be locked up is because this tenacious woman refuses to allow India, or the world, to forget what happened in Gujarat in 2002.

It’s another story that the multiple cases being foisted on her have little substance. What one needs to realise is that together they are part of a plan to paralyse her ability to work and eventually to find a way to take her into custody.

The latest in the long list of inquiries and cases against Teesta Setalvad, her husband Javed Anand, and the organisations they established and run – Sabrang Communications, Sabrang Trust and Citizens for Justice and Peace – are so numerous and complex that one would need hundreds of pages just to run through the bare description.

The earliest cases date back to 2006. The latest was just last week when newspapers reported that the Central Bureau of Investigation had filed an FIR against Setalvad under Sections 120b read with Sections 35, 37 of IPC and Section 3, 11 and 19 of the FCRA Act of 2010 (criminal conspiracy and receiving funds illegally). Setalvad has not received any notice but only heard about it from the media.

So how does one make sense of these cases that began almost a decade back but have accelerated in the past year?

Work began in 1993

Setalvad and Anand did not begin their work on communalism after the 2002 Gujarat violence, as is sometimes assumed. In fact, they set up Sabrang Communications in 1993 and began publishing the journal Communalism Combat. After two public-spirited individuals, Jyoti Punwani and Vijendra, printed 500 copies of the Justice Srikrishna Commission Report into the Mumbai communal riots of 1992-’93, Sabrang also published it. This was at a time when the state government would not make it available to the public.

Copies of the report were sold outside Bombay High Court and at all possible venues for as little as Rs 60. It was the only way people in the city read in detail about the culpability of the police, the Shiv Sena and the Congress state government in what happened during the weeks of violence that permanently scarred a city once considered liberal and cosmopolitan.

Between 1993 and 2002, during which period Setalvad and Anand also set up the Sabrang Trust in 1995, they were never questioned for their activities. On the contrary, they won several awards for their work. The trouble began after they established Citizens for Justice and Peace in 2002 and actively pursued the courts cases against the perpetrators of the Gujarat violence.

This work meant collecting testimonies, providing witnesses with protection, getting on board lawyers who could formulate the arguments and ensuring that a couple of cases were moved out of Gujarat because the Supreme Court accused the state government of judicial failure. That this effort resulted in 120 or so convictions in the different cases is a testimony to this work. The record of convictions in communal violence cases in India is so abysmal that it would not be an exaggeration to state only this type of civil society intervention could make convictions possible.

From Gujarat to Delhi

The one case that cut too close to the bone for the Gujarat government, then headed by Narendra Modi, is that of the widow of the Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, who was killed by a mob during the riots. Aided by Citizens for Jusice and Peace, Zakia Jafri filed a criminal complaint for criminal and administrative culpability against top politicians and policemen, including Narendra Modi. This is separate from the Gulberg trial on the killing of Ehsan Jafri and 68 others. That trial is still ongoing and is under appeal in the Gujarat High Court.

Jafri had questioned the report of the special investigations team set up by the Supreme Court to look into the charges about criminal conspiracy in the Gulberg Case. The report is popularly believed to have given a “clean chit” to Modi. In fact, it merely stated that there was not enough evidence to prove his involvement.

Although Jafri’s initial protest petition was rejected on December 26, 2013, in the magistrate’s court, she has not given up and is still pursuing the case. Eight days after this, an FIR was filed against Setalvad and four others, including Jafri’s son, for embezzlement of funds. This was followed by all the organisation’s accounts and Setalvad’s personal accounts being frozen. Despite this, Jafri and Setalvad managed to file a criminal revision to the protest petition by March 15, 2014. This is the case that will now be heard on July 27 before the magistrate’s court in Ahmedabad.

What we need to recognise is that while between 2006 and last year, the cases filed against Setalvad and her colleagues were mostly initiated by the Gujarat Crime Branch, since the Modi government was formed at the Centre, they are now coming from agencies in Delhi.

For instance, in response to a letter sent by the Gujarat Crime Branch to the Ministry of Home Affairs in Delhi in March 2015, raising questions about Setalvad’s organisations receiving funds from Ford Foundation, the ministry sent notices to them about violating provisions of the Foreign Contributions Regulations Act. Ford Foundation also faced the heat and is now required to get clearance before releasing funds to any non-governmental organisation.

Squeeze from all sides

There were a series of inspections of the accounts of Sabrang and Citizens for Justice and Peace. These organisations have sent in over 25,000 pages of documentation answering every query about funding. Despite this, the CBI has reportedly filed an FIR against Setalvad. Why, when the charge is being investigated, and the people charged are cooperating and answering all questions?

What this means, once you wade through the mountain of legalese, is that the government has a single objective: to find a way to get Setalvad into their custody. By filing FIRs and sending out warrants for her arrest, the government has ensured that a large part of her time, at least three or four days a week, is now spent running from one court to another to get anticipatory bail. These applications can only be made before the Gujarat High Court or the Supreme Court. Setalvad lives and works out of Mumbai.

The other part of her time is spent dealing with the multiple inspections into the accounts of the three organisations and preparing the required documents. What time is left is then devoted to cases such as Ehsan Jafri’s and the Naroda Patiya case, in which a minister in Modi’s cabinet in Gujarat, Maya Kodnani, was convicted and sent to jail. Although Kodnani has managed to get bail, Setalvad and her group are fighting hard to ensure that she does not get acquitted.

In sum, the government’s strategy is to squeeze organisations like Setalvad’s from all sides until they give up. On the surface, it would appear that the government is cracking down on all non-governmental organisations receiving foreign funds. In fact, it is carefully picking the ones that it wants to shut down. Teesta Setalvad’s organisations are on top of that list.

Crushing dissent

This attack on Setalvad has also to be placed against what is happening in the country since the Modi government took office. We have not seen a major communal conflagration like Gujarat 2002. But there is a steady stream of incidents of communal violence in various parts of the country. It is more than evident that minorities are being targeted in direct and indirect ways (the beef ban, questioning education in madrasas, attacks on churches, ghar wapasi etc). Modi has remained silent on all this, including the inflammatory statements made by ministers in his cabinet. Against this reality, the effort put in by Setalvad’s team to keep alive Gujarat 2002 in our collective memories, and to get justice for the victims of that period of violence, is relevant.

On the other side, while people like Setalvad are being hounded for pursuing these cases of violence, we are watching the disintegration of the cases against Hindutva extremists in the Ajmer bomb blast case of 2007, where witnesses are turning hostile, and the Modasa case the next year, which has been closed for lack of evidence. In Maharashtra, special prosecutor Rohini Salian went public about the National Investigation Agency asking her to “go soft” on the Malegaon bomb blast case of 2008, in which Hindutva extremists have been implicated. All this has happened in the last one year.

The message is loud and clear. If you come in the way of this government, you will be hounded till you give up. If you are on their side, even if you are guilty, you have a good chance of getting a reprieve.

So the issue is not just whether the Modi government will succeed in catching Teesta Setalvad and detaining her, but also whether there is any hope for dissent and justice when the state uses its power to crush those who question it.

Kalpana Sharma

* Kalpana Sharma is an independent journalist, a columnist with The Hindu and consulting editor Economic and Political Weekly.

* Sroll.in. Jul 13, 2015 · 09:15 am:
http://scroll.in/article/740762/modi-governments-hounding-of-teesta-setalvad-is-a-message-to-all-dissidents

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 Further harrassment and threats against human rights defender Teesta Setalvad

’Teesta Setalvad could soon be arrested’

Modis critic Teesta Setalvad could be arrested “in the next few days”, courts permitting, if she fails to clarify her position against allegations of financial irregularities, CBI sources said on Monday.

On Tuesday, a Mumbai court is slated to decide an anticipatory bail plea that Teesta had moved last Friday. Agency sources said they would oppose her plea on Tuesday and seek her custody for interrogation.

The sources alleged that Teesta was not cooperating with the investigation of charges that an NGO run by her and husband Javed Anand violated the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act while receiving funds from America’s Ford Foundation.

Teesta, who has denied wrongdoing or non-cooperation, appeared at the agency office in Mumbai on Monday and had her statement recorded.

“She did not give straight answers. She evaded several questions,” an agency official said. “If she fails to explain her stand, we’ll have no option but to take her into custody.”

Last Tuesday, the CBI had raided the Mumbai home and offices of Teesta and Javed and claimed to have seized incriminating documents, prompting Teesta to allege a “political vendetta” by the Modi government.

On Friday, after Teesta sought anticipatory bail, the Mumbai court asked her to appear before the agency by Tuesday (July 21) and granted her protection from arrest till that day. Opposing her application, the CBI had told the court she was a threat to national security.

The agency has been probing Teesta and Javed, directors of Sabrang Communications and Publishing, following an order from the Union home ministry last month.

The Gujarat government had alleged that the Ford Foundation was interfering in India’s internal affairs and encouraging Teesta’s Sabrang Trust and Citizens for Justice and Peace to promote “communal disharmony”.

According to the CBI, Sabrang Communications had between 2004 and 2014 accepted $290,000 (Rs 1.8 crore) from the Ford Foundation, which the government put on a watch-list in April this year.

A private organisation can accept foreign donations without government permission only if it is registered under the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act, which Sabrang is not. Teesta has claimed the money was received in consultancy fees but the CBI claims it can prove it was a grant.

About 15 of her supporters, mostly Sabrang employees, protested outside the agency office in Mumbai on Monday. “They held placards and chanted slogans against the Narendra Modi government but dispersed after a while,” a police officer said.

Teesta had earlier filed cases against Gujarat government functionaries, including then chief minister Modi, in connection with the 2002 violence while state police had accused her of embezzling funds meant for the riot victims.

* Source: The Telegraph, Calcutta, Tuesday, 21 July 2015 11:47 AM

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