THE one section of the state apparatus which in public perception is most seeped in corruption, is the police. However, it is insufficiently realized that corruption of the police does not merely relate to the extortion practised by them, demanding that palms be greased for an FIR (First Information Report) to be lodged or a matter investigated. It involves a vitiation of the legal processes guaranteeing the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution and the use of brute force to subvert the basic freedoms and the right to life and liberty contained in Article19 and Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.

No discourse on corruption can be complete without addressing the human rights violations carried out by the police, the criminal justice system as a whole, and the general administration. Unless those whose duty it is to protect the rights of the people cease to be predators themselves, there can be no improvement in the human rights situation in the country. Connected with this are also the acts of omission, commission, abetment and negligence of the judiciary, at all levels, in reviewing executive action, including police action and in restoring people’s rights which means restoring the rule of law. This is apart from the design of the government of the day and the ruling establishment to institutionally curtail human rights through laws made by the legislature which by themselves may be anti-constitutional and violative of human rights.

 

Finally, the protection of human rights as stated in the Protection of Human Rights Act 1993, is dependent on the nature of governance, the nature of the economic and social policies the state adopts, and the degree to which they ensure equity and justice, thus making the protection of human rights and governance two sides of the same coin.

In India, at present, the suppression of the people’s freedom of speech and expression and frequent attacks on the dignity of common citizens is assuming alarming proportions. In states witnessing struggles for the right to self-determination, like Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Nagaland and parts of Assam, not only are detentions and encounters normal – Manipur in just a single year, 2009, saw more than 300 fake encounters – but draconian laws like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958 under which anybody can be picked up merely on suspicion, houses searched and so on, are used to violate the basic right to life and liberty. Further, there exists no mechanism of public accountability since the army cannot be questioned and can deny access to any information.

In the name of combating terrorism the minority community is being indiscriminately targeted and profiled. The country’s intelligence and security establishment is now claiming that terror activities have moved from being sponsored by forces across the border to being home grown. This has resulted in the educated professional Muslim being profiled as a disgruntled person who is out to seek revenge. Records show that if you have been charged in one terror case, there is every likelihood that you will be linked to all subsequent terror cases, and there is little chance that you will ever get out of prison.

A large number of violations of civil liberties and human rights are also taking place as ordinary people across the country resist a change in land use, the snatching away of their land, water, forest and grazing lands for mining, industrial purposes, infrastructure development, housing, military use and so on. The development strategy of the state is facing huge opposition from the people as it is happening at the cost of their lives and habitats. There is a strong rejection of the corporate loot of resources. The principle of eminent domain is being challenged by the people. The government, both at the Centre and the states, is using strong-arm methods and colouring a large number of these struggles as ‘Maoist’, although most of them are people’s own democratic struggles without recourse to arms or challenging the basic legitimacy of the state. Several thousand people are in detention and encounters have become the norm.

 

Not only has the central government moved in huge battalions of the CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force), BSF (Border Security Force) and other paramilitary forces in central India in the states of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh in the name of fighting Maoist armed resistance, but some of these state governments too are arming local people in the name of Salwa Judum, SPOs (Special Police Officers) etc. All this has only resulted in entrenching a gun culture, converting society into a dehumanized and violent one. There is a war being waged against the people in that area and the army is now active in training paramilitary forces. More than 22 training schools have been planned.

Every day violations of people’s rights by the police and under common law take place when they seek redress of some grievance which could be in the domestic or public sphere. Those most affected by this are the dalits, minorities, tribals and women who are pitted against a prejudiced police system with its caste, gender and communal bias. Without the backing to negotiate the restoration of their rights, or proper redress for their grievances, they often end up being further victimized. Or there could be instances where everyday democratic dissent – the right to protest, the right to stage rallies and dharnas – is under threat. An assertion of rights, central to democracy, results in the citizen being criminalized through a number of ordinary laws.

 

Governments are increasingly becoming so intolerant that there is an arbitrary use of sections called ‘offences against the Indian state’ in the IPC (Indian Penal Code). For instance, the law on sedition, Sec 124(A) of the IPC, is one of the most vaguely defined and abused draconian sections of the Indian Penal Code wherein no crime needs to be committed in order to be booked and sentenced for life. The manner in which it is being applied by the police in various states of the country, clearly shows that it has become the latest tool to silence dissent and any interrogation of the government’s policies and actions. Special laws are increasingly being enacted in the name of security, like the central law called the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 2004 (which replaced POTA, that had earlier replaced TADA) or state laws like the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, the various Goonda Acts and the National Security Act which are used indiscriminately. Many argue that these laws are intrinsically violative of the Constitution as they mostly criminalize intent, treat a mere statement to a senior police officer as admissible in court, and place onus of proof on the accused to prove his/her innocence. The people who are increasingly being booked are local and other human rights activists supporting people’s struggles.

Of late, a section of the judiciary, in the lower courts and the High Courts, has actively endorsed and put its seal of approval on the actions of the government even though the official actions overstep limits imposed by the Supreme Court on the use of such laws. Far more disturbing is the tendency of endlessly detaining people in jails, without even framing charges and continuing to deny bail to the accused on what appear to be flimsy grounds. The entire mechanism of the National Human Rights Commission, which through its state commissions, was expected to restrain state excesses, appears either defunct or co-opted.

What does all this mean to people who are involved in the struggle? Here, I discuss a case from Rajasthan, which demonstrates how legal corruption and constitutional subversion criminalizes democratic dissent like in many other parts of the country. So far this struggle has not been declared seditious or unlawful under UAPA, but activists continue to fear the worst.

 

This case study of a people’s struggle against illegal mining and stone crushing in their area exposes the nexus between the mining and stone crushing mafia, the local political leadership, and the bureaucracy led by the collector and higher authorities of the state, and the police which is routinely used as an instrument of repression.

Dabla is a small village in the Neem ka Thana tehsil of Sikar district of Rajasthan, about 70 kms. off the Delhi-Jaipur NH8 from Kotputli. Like several villages which are located at the foothills of the Aravallis, the people of this area, spread over the districts of Alwar, Jaipur, Sikar and Jhunjhunu, are under siege by the mining and stone crushing lobby ever since the Supreme Court stopped mining in the Haryana section of the Aravalli hills. In the last six years since 2005, the entire region has been ravaged by blasting, mining, stone crushing and bajri washing. In just Dabla alone, as many as 49 mining leases have been granted by the department. There are five stone crushers and more than 22 bajri washing plants in the little rivulet called the Dabla river that runs through the village. And now a road runs through the grazing land to take truckloads of stone and bajri from the area.

 

The Aravallis have been ripped apart and are fast disappearing with the continuous blasting, damaging people’s houses, including the prized Indira Awaas Yojana ones, destroying lives and livelihoods, along with their cattle, sheep and goats. Stone crushing is not only destroying agriculture, water sources like rivers and ponds and grazing lands have also been rendered useless by stone dust. Since the process involves digging of deep tubewells and drawing groundwater, including in the river bed, the wells in the area cannot be recharged and are fast drying up. Huge truckloads of explosives, including ammonium nitrate, which is used for blasting, is transported openly, mostly without permission, exposing a close nexus between ammunition factories, the mining lobby, the police and the administration.

For an economy so heavily dependent on agriculture and livestock, this has resulted in the worst kind of suffering for its population. The villagers of Dabla decided to fight it out and not surrender their land, forests, fields and water to this mafia. Initially, despite running from pillar to post, the villagers were not given a hearing. They decided to fight for their rights peacefully and began with petitioning their gram panchayat and gram sabha, to negotiate a just decision. These institutions passed unanimous resolutions against the developments and sent letters of protest to the authorities at the district and state level. They asserted that the lease for mining, stone crushing industry, bajri washing plants, and permission to build a road through grazing land was given without their permission.

Since this had no impact, in April this year, the villagers decided to cut off the lifeline of their exploiters. They blockded their village pasture land where the administration had decided to build a road to help the trucks take away the stones and bajri. What further worried the people was that the proposed road would also pass through the river bed. The then SHO (Station House Officer) of the police station at Patan village, widely perceived to be in cahoots with the MLA and the local administration, pressurized the people by lodging false cases against them for allegedly criminal acts like cutting electricity wires, fighting the liquor mafia, obstructing public work and even attacking officials.

 

It is interesting that police cases against the people were lodged whenever the talks failed or when the people gathered in large numbers to protest or when they sought some important document through the RTI (Right to Information) window. They did not even spare a Veer Chakra winner and hero of the Kargil war who had come home on vacation. Several false cases were lodged against him as well. What really helped the villagers were the powers enshrined in the Rajasthan Panchayati Raj Act and the Right to Information Act. Several young men in this village became RTI activists, filing a number of FIR applications.

When people showed resistance, the local patwari, the lowest level revenue official, found it difficult to oppose them. Soon, and expectedly, the patwari was transferred. On 30 April 2011, three revenue officials – the patwari, the tehsildar and the SDM – altered the land use of grazing land, clearly demonstrating the desire of the local bureaucracy to serve the mining mafia. The district collector approved this the very next day (1 May). But the people refused to vacate the road and sat on continuous dharna, with several youngsters and women actively participating.

 

This pitted the people directly against the police. When they refused to move, there was lathi charge and arrests on 4 May. New police cases were lodged against the frontline activists, including several dalit women. They were subjected to custodial violence, detention in jail, and more threats from the police and mafia led by the local MLA. The police did not even spare the old. Of the 12 people arrested in the first instance, as many as seven were over 60 years of age. Of the six women arrested, two belonged to the same family, depriving the children of their care. The arrested were asked by the tehsildar to produce securities worth Rs 50,000 for bail, which they could not and hence were kept in jail for five days. Two of the men, both ex-army persons, were brutally beaten by the police and also sent to jail. Though now released, action has yet to be taken on their illegal detention and custodial violence.

The entire machinery, right up to the top, refused to act, further emboldening the local police to violate the law. Eventually, since the people refused to give up their struggle despite the use of brute police force and held large public meetings in their village and neighbouring areas, the local administration was finally forced to withdraw the order allowing the building of the road through the grazing lands.

 

The state government also came under a lot of flak, and was forced to direct the various agencies of pollution control and mining department to review the leases granted in the months of May and June 2011. The pollution control department recommended the closure of stone crushers. However, on 23 June, the mining lobby managed to get a stay on the road withdrawal order of the collector, and immediately resumed blasting, mining and stone crushing, although there was no permission for that.

The repression continues. When a group of law and social work students from well-known institutions went on a study tour of the area, they (including two girls) were illegally detained in the police station at Patan and beaten up. Another local activist was picked up, more false cases were filed against him and he was brutally tortured at the police station.

The nexus between the SHO and the MLA did not stop here. They let the mining lobby carry out a smear campaign against the activists and organizations, including the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, calling them extortionists and blackmailers. Despite the people of that area obtaining orders from the local court to file cases against the police and the SHO, as also members of the mining mafia against the violence that they were subjected to, the SHO refused to comply with the court orders. Despite the complaint of the judicial magistrate to the superintendent of police regarding non-compliance of his orders, the SHO refused to comply as he had the protection of the higher authorities. The nexus between the SHO and his men, the mining mafia, the local MLA and the topmost political leadership, is borne out by the fact that despite orders of disciplinary action by the vigilance department of the police against the SHO, which mandated his transfer, he continued to stay on till the people once again came out in protest. With great difficulty he was finally removed and transferred out.

 

While the people’s struggle continues against this corrupt nexus, one wonders how long it will be before they too are declared anti-state and their rights curtailed as we see today in other parts of India. It is also a moot question as to how long the people’s faith in, and commitment to the constitutional path, will last; how long before constitutional options are exhausted and they resort to other means, as has happened in some parts of central India. If the people of Dabla succeed in getting the mining and stone crushing mafia off their backs, it will strengthen faith in democratic and constitutional struggle in the entire area; otherwise the character of the struggle in the region is likely to change.

In sum, the fight against corruption cannot remain confined to issues of petty extortion, bribery and harassment. It must further evolve to also struggle against the corruption and abuse of legal processes that subvert the constitutional guarantees to protect each and every citizen’s right to life and liberty, and the fundamental human right of democratic dissent and struggle for justice.