ON 13 SEPTEMBER, THE DAY
OF THE POLITICAL PRISONER!
POLITICAL PRISONER STATUS FOR ALL WHO HAVE BEEN INCARCERATED FOR THEIR WORK FOR ALL FREEDOMS!
POLITICAL PRISONER STATUS FOR ALL WHO HAVE BEEN THE TARGET OF THE COMMUNAL, CASTEIST, BRAHMINICAL PREJUDICE OF THE STATE!
RELEASE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS UNCONDITIONALLY!
POLITICAL PRISONER STATUS FOR ALL WHO HAVE BEEN INCARCERATED FOR THEIR WORK FOR ALL FREEDOMS!
POLITICAL PRISONER STATUS FOR ALL WHO HAVE BEEN THE TARGET OF THE COMMUNAL, CASTEIST, BRAHMINICAL PREJUDICE OF THE STATE!
RELEASE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS UNCONDITIONALLY!
When the prison act was first enacted
by the British in the Indian subcontinent, never for the coloniser
was it an act or necessity to ‘reform’ the prisoner in the
colony. The principle concern for the coloniser who put up the
prison system in the Indian subcontinent was to use it as a tool to
administer/discipline the colonised. When we see a 90 percent
disabled political prisoner like Dr. GN Saibaba being kept in
sub-human conditions in solitary confinement in anda
barracks—allegedly constructed to keep Sikh nationalists—or a
cultural activist like Hem Mishra being brutally beaten up for
citing the rules that prohibit handcuffing of the under-trial
prisoner while taken outside the jail for production in the court of
for medical treatment or when we witness scores of political
prisoners in Presidency Jail West Bengal on hunger strike for not
allowing visitors or their relatives to meet them we are certain
that the post-1947 prison administration in the Indian subcontinent
has changed little in letter and spirit from the days of the British
colonial Raj.
The inhuman, unhygienic, crowded
prison conditions with corrupt officers prevalent in post-47 Indian
subcontinent is an inheritance from the colonial days where the art
of confinement, torture, mistreatment everything has been perfected
as part of a strategy to criminalise communities, dissidents from
among the colonised who became a hindrance for the state building in
the colonial days. No other way can one comprehend the steel
re-inforced concrete room without any windows (a jail within several
jails) in which Mr. Zahibuddin Ansari—allegedly involved in the
26/11 blasts—is incarcerated with a high voltage lamp on 24 x 7 in
the room. All this as claimed by the Mumbai police is for the safety
of Mr. Zahibuddin Ansari and not at all torture or inhuman treatment
of any kind!
As we observe September 13 as the day
of the political prisoner the increasing instances of re-arrests of
political prisoners incarcerated for their alleged Maoist links who
have been acquitted of all cases or have been given bail from just
outside the prison gates when they are released is becoming a
standard practice of the police and the intelligence agencies for
whom impunity has become the law itself.
The art of perfecting the rule of the
colonised with a colonial administrative apparatus that comprised
mostly of the brown sahibs further made the inheritance of the
colonial prison manual as well as the sizeable chunk of the IPC with
all the draconian sections in it easier in the post-47 Indian
subcontinent. The penal state that India is fast becoming today
teethed with the worst kinds of draconian laws has its origins in
the early colonial state apparatus.
It was against the fundamental tenets
of that prison system—a place to mistreat, torture, humiliate, to
criminalise dissent, a place where you are left to die slowly due to
the extremely unhygienic conditions—Jatin Das and his comrades
went on a historic hunger strike in the Lahore prison. We might
recall that Jatin Das and other revolutionaries were lodged in the
Lahore Jail to be tried for the Lahore Conspiracy Case. The hunger
strike was initiated against the pathetic conditions of the local
prisoners in contrast to the strikingly better treatment meted out
to the British prisoners. To have food from the prison kitchen
infested with rats and cockroaches was a health hazard. To wear the
clothes that were unwashed for days together was yet another hazard
for the political prisoner from the Indian subcontinent. Moreover
none of the prisoners from the Indian subcontinent had access to
notebooks, pens, or periodicals/newspapers/books. This hunger strike
which was historic for the number of days it went as well as the
futile efforts of the British to break the will of the hunger
strikers—they beat the prisoners to give up the hunger strike,
tried to force feed them, many times refused even to give them
water—had captured the imagination of the masses of the people as
news started spreading about the revolutionaries who were steadfast
on their demands. The most important demand among others was the
right to be recognised as a political prisoner. It was the historic
fasts-unto-death (1916-1920) by the Irish revolutionaries that shook
the conscience of the world thus inspiring many to resort to hunger
strike inside prison as a means to send a political message or as a
last resort to fight for the rights inside the prison.
In the same tradition Bhagat Singh and
his revolutionary comrades were on hunger for the right to be
recognised as political prisoners. Jatin Das who by then had
acquainted with Bhagat Singh and his comrades joined the hunger
strike on the 15 June 1929. When he joined the hunger strike itself
jatin Das was certain that the British colonisers would seldom
listen to the demands of the political prisoners and that it would
be a fast unto death. Despite persuasions from his fellow comrades
Jatin Das refused to lift his hunger strike. On 13 September 1929
Jatin Das breathed his last as his body failed to keep up with his
indomitable spirit.
As this is being written there are
hunger strikes going on for days in the prisons of Tihar in Delhi,
Presidency Jail in Kolkata, Mumbai as is being reported in the press
and by civil rights activists.
1. In Tihar Jail, Mr. Mushtaq Ahmad
Lone, an accused in case National Investigation Agency v. Syed
Salahuddin & Ors. (RC-11/2011/NIA-DLI) is on an indefinite
hunger strike demanding that his case be shifted to Srinagar as
there is no justification for a case to be tried in Delhi when out
of the 285 witnesses cited by the prosecution in this case, 203 are
the residents of Jammu & Kashmir state and it is likely, if not
certain, that bringing more than 200 witnesses from Jammu &
Kashmir to Delhi will inordinately prolong and hopelessly delay the
trial. When it takes most of the under trial Kashmiri Muslim
political prisoners lodged in several prisons in the Indian
subcontinent years to finish their trial—in most cases acquitted
after long periods of detention as under trials with some having
served more than 14 years for the judiciary to declare them
innocent—the indefinite hunger strike of Mr. Mushtaq Ahmad Lone
gains credence as his apprehensions of the criminal delay in trial
let alone justice is based on concrete experiences of fellow
Kashmiri Muslims.
2. About 30 political prisoners lodged
in the Presidency Jail have been on hunger strike for the more than
10 days in protest against the violation of their rights by jail
authorities. For about two weeks the political prisoners were
confined to their cells and not allowed to mingle with others.
Further they were not even allowed to make routine calls to their
relatives or well wishers.
3. Mr. Zahibuddin Ansari has been on
indefinite hunger strike for than 35 days demand an end to isolation
in the most inhuman conditions that can be.
Some of the instances cited above form
only the tip of the iceberg of a situation prevalent in the Indian
subcontinent today, especially the conditions prevalent in the
prisons. The circumstances that exist today are perfect for the
criminalisation of all forms of political dissent once again
reminding us of the heroic sacrifice of Jatin Das who till his last
breadth fought undauntedly for the right to be recognised as a
political prisoner.
As the legacy of Jatin Das lives on,
today inside the prisons political prisoners are fighting for the
general improvement of the prison conditions while raising their
demand to be recognised as a political prisoner. It is important to
note that the political prisoners have been incarcerated for their
political beliefs and activity among the masses to build a new world
free from all forms of oppression, exploitation, mistreatment and
discrimination. A world free from all forms of violence, domination
and killing. For whatever rights Jatin Das and his comrades fought
for inside the prison, today after 66 years of so-called
independence, hundreds of thousands of political prisoners are
continuing the fight—for the right to be recognised as a political
prisoner; against discrimination; humiliation; torture; confinement;
for hygienic food and cleaner surroundings.
The growing divide between the rich
and the poor, the increasing miseries of the masses of the people in
the form of rising unemployment, waning purchasing power,
diminishing income, lack of social security, of displacement from
their livelihoods, from forest dwellings, of land grab, all have
resulted in rising indignation among the people. Hundreds of
thousands of people who have resolutely stood against the
pro-imperialist, pro-rich policies of the Indian state have been met
with the worst kind of state repression and incarceration. Prisons
are breeding diseases due to the worst kind of hygiene. Deaths in
prisons are on the rise. High rates of deaths of prisoners have even
been recorded from Tihar Jail which the government touts as the
‘State-of-the-Art’ Prison in Asia. Torture and custodial deaths
are going unreported or left unnoticed by the courts. Political
prisoners who are struggling inside the prisons for the rights of
the prisoners in general and the right to be recognised as a
political prisoner are met with the worst kinds of mistreatment so
as to dissuade them from their struggle. Adivasis, Muslims, people
belonging to oppressed nationalities, dalits, workers, and
whomsoever fighting for a better world branded as
terrorists/Naxalites/Maoists abound the prisons of the subcontinent.
Highlighting the jail conditions, mistreatment and discrimination as
well as the general plight of the masses of the people in the Indian
subcontinent, political prisoners in various prisons have been
observing 13 September as the Political Prisoners’ Day.
As the world economy is moving from
one spiral of crisis to another with hardly any signs of real
recovery the Indian economy which is ever more integrated with the
industrialized West is reeling under the tremors of the faultering
imperialist economies. This has further ridden the ruling classes of
India into deeper turmoil unable to bail them out of wrath of the
masses of the people who are forced to bear the brunt of the
deepening crisis. As people pour out to the streets protesting
against the failure of successive governments to take care of their
well being more and more of the masses are framed under the worst
draconian laws and put behind bars. Further those who are arrested
and kept behind bars are condemned to stay there forever as various
intelligence agencies of different states and the notorious NIA
indulge in framing huge number of cases on the political prisoners.
At a time when a lawless police/paramilitary/intelligence agencies,
armed with the worst kind of draconian laws—such as the UAPA,
AFSPA, PSA, NSA, and a surfeit of state-wise special security
acts—designed to exercise impunity it becomes significant and
decisive on the side of the progressive and democratic sections of
the society to come forward and raise their voice against the
increasing atrocities on the people. It becomes significant for the
people of the subcontinent to demand to do away with all draconian
laws meant to suppress the people. It becomes decisive and
significant for all of us to demand the unconditional release of all
political prisoners. 13 September in this sense is a milestone that
gives us the necessary direction in this regard to tread a path to
reclaim our fundamental rights, to deepen democracy. Demanding for
the unconditional release of all political prisoners thus becomes
one with our struggles to demand a better world for all of us where
the real values of democracy can sprout and flourish.
In Solidarity,
SAR Geelani
President
President
Amit Bhattacharyya
Secretary General
Secretary General
Rona Wilson
Secretary, Public Relations
Secretary, Public Relations
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