state government demonstrates total indifference & apathy towards democratic & peceful protest

Dr. Sandeep Pandey (Activist on Fast for 10 Days)

While the morale of those fasting for the past six days (Dr. Sandeep Pandey, ComPrem Narain Verma, Ram Prakash & Faizal Khan) was very high and hopeful, the BJPGovernment in the State demonstrated its total indifference and apathy towards democratic& peaceful method of protesting through Fasting. Expressing concern at the growing ruthlesscharacter of the State, Dr. Sandeep Pandey (Magsaysay Award Winner) said that the failureof the state to listen to the voices of peaceful protest and respond to the people’s cries arethe major reasons for resorting to extra-parliamentary means by the victims of injustice andviolence.

Dr. Sandeep Pandey also referred to an article entitled “Gandhi! Tum Nikal BhagoChadm Gandhivadiyon ke beech se” (Gandhi! You must escape from the midst of pseudo-Gandhians!) by Sri Vishwaranjan, Director General of Police of Chhattisgarh appearing inthe Hari Bhoomi daily published from Raipur, the capital city of Chhattisgarh. In this article,the DGP has poked fun at the Group Fasting and those participating in it.

He has also categorized Dr. Sandeep Pandey (a known Gandhian Social Workergiven the prestigious Magsaysay Award who has led a very courageous people’s struggle bypeasants and women in Uttar Pradesh against Coca Cola, one of the Multinational Giants),Adv Kanak Tiwari (Senior Advocate, a Gandhian intellectual), and Himanshu (a GandhianSocial Worker of Vanvasi Chetna Ashram working among Tribals in Dantewara for the pastthree decades) as Pseudo-Gandhians. And, of course, he also drags into his “categorizationas pseudo-Gandhians” all those who are opposed to “Salwa Judum” (a state sponsoredmilitant movement arming citizens to combat naxalism), which is presently beinginvestigated by the NHRC at the direction of the Supreme Court of India in a Writ Petitionfiled by Prof. Nandini Sunder & Others, who were part of Independent Citizens InitiativeTeam to study the uprooting and displacement of about 70,000 tribals from their land andvillages due to Salwa Judum.

The timing of this article’s publication authored by the DGP of the State itself reflectsthe BJP Government’s attitude of targeting and branding all those voices of dissent that dono toe the official line, be they human rights defenders, progressive intellectuals, Gandhianworkers, doctors, journalists, lawyers and social activists and organisations committed topreserving and promoting the fundamental rights of the citizens. According to the PUCL,while it should be left to all those targeted by the DGP to respond individually to thevilification campaign against them, it is not lost on all those who have been following the BJPGovernment’s attempt at “targeting” and “branding” of the human rights defenders andrights-based organisations with an ulterior motive to silence their voices of dissent anddemocracy.

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