Open Democracy: National: Wednesday,
June 01, 2016.
The middle
ground for human rights work throughout India is eroding fast. Social
activists, civil society leaders and “right to information” activists—who have
always stood against the exploitation of Dalits, tribes and other marginalised
communities—are increasingly facing the wrath of the state, despite it being
the largest democracy in the world. Instead of treating these activists as
partners in a very vibrant democratic process, the state more often perceives
them as threats to “national security” and “national interests”. As a result,
the state is increasingly targeting, harassing, imprisoning—and sometimes even
killing—many of these defenders.
The situation
is even worse in the conflict zones of central and northeast India, as well as
in Kashmir, where anyone critical of the state is immediately subject to
suspicion, intimidation, harassment, torture and death.
It is against
this backdrop that Human Rights Defenders Alert – India (HRDA) intervened in
104 cases of human rights defenders with the National Human Rights Commission
of India (NHRC) and various United Nations (UN) human rights mechanisms in
2015. During the same year, HRDA intervened in 11 cases of murder, 60 cases of
harassment, physical assault, physical and verbal threat, and 33 cases of
arbitrary arrest and detention. Nearly 80% of these cases were of human rights
defenders working on protecting land, natural resources, tribal rights and
exposing corruption. Twenty-four cases were those who used Right to Information
(RTI) applications and 11 cases were reprisals against journalists, writers and
socio-political thinkers. In seven cases, peacefully protesting citizens faced
severe crackdowns and excessive use of force by state officials. The most common
tactic that the state uses to threaten and silence human rights defenders is
arrests in false and fabricated cases.
In the first
quarter of 2016, HRDA has intervened in more than 60 cases. This period has
witnessed systematic attacks on journalists, lawyers, researchers and activists
in the state of Chhattisgarh. In other parts of India, crackdowns on student
movements are becoming common, including charging them under fabricated cases.
HRDA was
initially conceived as a national desk on human rights defenders, which matured
to become a national network of human rights defenders with a membership of
more than 1,000 individuals and organisations. HRDA is a network of concerned
citizens, acting as volunteer human rights defenders, who are willing to stand
up for human rights in the country, while focusing on strengthening and
protecting human rights defenders.
People’s
Watch, a national organisation with headquarters in Madurai, initiated HRDA in
2009 based on engagements with human rights defenders in 18 states. People’s
Watch itself faced reprisals from the government when its Foreign Contribution
Regulation Act (FCRA) license was wrongly suspended for 540 days in 2012-2014.
It needed an order of the Delhi High Court to restore the license.
HRDA has five
regional desks run primarily by volunteers and part-time workers, functioning
from New Delhi, Pune, Bhubaneshwar, Bangalore and Guwahati. Volunteerism in
HRDA strengthens the solidarity among human rights defenders, building a
network that is engaging in human rights protection as a political choice
rather than a career path. Each desk identifies and fact-checks cases of
attacks, threats, detention and disappearances of human rights defenders in
their regions. The desks then send urgent appeals for action to the NHRC,
concerned police and administrative authorities at the state level and in
severe cases, to the concerned UN Special Rapporteurs and specialised
international organisations working for human rights defenders. The goal is to
create a nationwide network of human rights defenders reaching to every corner
of the country, so that monitoring of human rights defenders’ cases becomes
accessible and human rights defenders can connect to each other in solidarity
and support.
HRDA also
conducts periodic regional and state level trainings for human rights
defenders, to create awareness and knowledge with regard to available national
and international protection mechanisms. HRDA identifies human rights defenders
from each district in a state and train them to document and disseminate
information about human rights defenders in distress. This enables grassroots
human rights defenders working to connect and communicate issues to a larger
audience which otherwise find no or very limited space in media. HRDA also
initiates fact-finding missions and trial observations in selected cases. Based
on a needs assessment, HRDA facilitates pro bono legal, medical and relocation
assistance to the defenders.
Interventions
by HRDA, with the NHRC and UN Special Rapporteurs, have made significant
inroads in certain cases. However, the majority of the cases with the NHRC
continue to be pending given the bureaucratic nature of the institution.
Recently, based on HRDA’s interventions, NHRC has ordered an independent
investigation into the systematic attacks on human rights defenders in the
state of Chhattisgarh. In many instances, communication by NHRC alarms the
state and can provide immediate relief to human rights defenders—such as
releasing them from custody or moving them to a safer location. But the NHRC still has a long way to go to
shed its image of just another toothless government body.
Given the
severe shrinking of democratic space in India, HRDA, along with several other
organisations, is conceptualising a people’s commission that will attend to the
issues of attacks on human rights defenders, freedoms of expression,
association, assembly, protest and dissent, through a people’s tribunal. We
will finalize and publicize the procedures and structure of this commission
during the first national convention later this month.
For HRDA,
using the national and state human rights institutions strategically means
recognising their powers and roles, despite the fact that they are politically
influenced by the government. A collective effort, keeping aside all
differences, is critical for human rights defenders. Initiatives like HRDA can
only be successful when they are led by human rights defenders themselves and
not by one organisation or group.