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By C K Meena A discussion following a screening of Ajay TG’s film on Dr Binayak Sen explored both, the increasing threat to human rights defenders, and the increasing extremism amongst India’s economically and politically disadvantaged adivasis
When Ajay T G made Anjam, a 20-minute documentary on Dr Binayak Sen, he may not have expected that he too, like his subject, would be arrested by the Chhattisgarh police. Ajay, an independent documentary filmmaker and freelance journalist, was arrested on May 5, 2008 and released on August 5, while Dr Sen, who was arrested on March 14, 2007, continues to languish in prison. The Chhattisgarh Special Security Act, which is responsible for Dr Sen’s incarceration and for robbing many like him of their basic rights, came under the scanner at a screening of Ajay’s films and a discussion on repressive legislation. The discussion took place at the Centre for Film and Drama, Bangalore, on August 11, and was organised by Vikalp Bengaluru, Alternative Law Forum and Pedestrian Pictures. The Bangalore screening of five of Ajay’s short films was kickstarted by his first film which he made when he was a student of Jandarshan in 1999: Hathaure Wala (Man with the Hammer), a brief portrait of an 80-year-old lohar (blacksmith) of Bhilai. Three other Jandarshan student films directed/co-directed by Ajay were shown. There was Jeet, on malaria prevention, with a rather stilted script that was apparently a “group effort”. Heads and Tales, co-directed by Alpa Shah (on whose research it was based) and Ajay was a revealing analysis of the interplay of adivasi tradition and electoral politics in the Parha Mela festival in Jharkhand. The Journey (Safar) was a wonderful blend of the personal and the political, directed by Reeta Chandel and Ajay. Jandarshan student Chandel had made a five-minute film, Papa Says, shot by Ajay, and he felt that the gender questions in it needed to be explored. What resulted was this 15-minute film about Reeta’s father, a porter in the hospital of the Bhilai Steel Plant, an affectionate portrait that also brought out his attitude towards his daughters. Anjam, which Ajay shot in 2007 after Dr Sen’s arrest, was shown last, but the screening was preceded by a discussion. Historian Ramachandra Guha, who spoke on the current situation in Chhattisgarh, started by remembering his personal encounter with Shankar Guha Niyogi, the leader of the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha who was “killed in the early-1990s almost certainly at the behest of local industrialists”. Stating emphatically, “I detest the Naxalites,” Guha attributed their continued existence to the plight of adivasis who form 7% of India’s population and 40% of the displaced. “They (adivasis) have gained the least and lost the most in six decades of Indian Independence. They are even worse off than the dalits,” he said. “They are now suffering at the hands of large-scale mining projects in Orissa and Chhattisgarh. They are both economically disadvantaged and politically underrepresented or unrepresented. This gives space for Maoists to work with them.” A geographical reason for Maoists being linked to adivasis was that the terrain in which adivasis lived was “guerrilla-friendly”. Guha spoke of those who have been caught in the crossfire between the Maoists and the State ever since the formation of the state-sponsored Salwa Judum in 2005. Salwa Judum, which some claim was spontaneous, “grew into a monster”, said Guha, pointing out that 6,000 tribals in Dantewara district were displaced as a result of the Naxal-Salwa Judum civil war, and that in this single district in a single year 600 tribals were killed. He proposed a twofold solution to the “menace” of Naxalism: prompt police action, and “proactive, well-defined, honestly executed government policies for the welfare of adivasis”. Arvind Narrain shifted the focus from Naxalism to State terrorism, of which there were two kinds, he said: when the State behaves lawlessly by taking action outside the law, and when the State uses the law to deal with opposition by using “the fig-leaf of legitimacy”. Narrain expounded on the threats to human rights defenders that laws such as the proposed Karnataka Control of Organised Crime Act posed. KCOCA, like its Chhattisgarh counterpart, is an extraordinary Act, and it increases the powers of the police. Under it, voluntary confessions to the police are admissible as evidence. The police can detain a suspect up to 30 days (the current period is 15 days). The time to file the chargesheet is extended from 90 to 180 days. In a bailable offence, limitations are placed on grant of bail; only if the court feels that the person is “unlikely to commit an offence” will it grant bail. The Act expands the notion of who should be guilty. You are guilty if you abet a suspect “by association”, which includes blood relationships (if you are related to him), or “by communication” (if you speak to him). Tracing the origins of most of these extraordinary laws to the colonial context, Narrain said the British framed them to arrest those who were anti-British and fought for Indian independence. Ajay made Anjam after Dr Sen’s arrest and it only shows a brief clip of the man making a public speech on human rights. Much of the film is devoted to the voices of his colleagues at Shahid Hospital where he worked until his arrest. A man who treated poor patients night and day was described, in the FIR against him, as not being a doctor at all! Earlier, Guha had hinted at the reason why Dr Sen and Ajay were targetted by the State: they were both PUCL members who had conducted an investigation into Salwa Judum. Narrain summed up: “If the State fulfils the obligations it has towards the people, implements its own laws in its own land, that’s all that’s needed.” Jandarshan Media Centre Ajay T G, whose joint family migrated from Kerala to the steel town of Bhilai in 1959 (his uncle ran a tea-shop there), dropped out of school to work. The turning point of his life was an encounter in 1999 with British anthropologist Jonathan Parry and his filmmaker wife Margaret Dickinson. Parry, a London School of Economics professor, came to Bhilai as part of his research on the impact of industrialisation in India. Dickinson applied for and got funding from the European Union to run a short-term digital video training centre under the EU-India Economic Cross-cultural Programme. The project was partnered by three European organisations and an Indian one – the Raipur-based Deshbandhu newspaper. Ajay was one of 12 trainees, taught by British, German and Indian media professionals, who successfully completed the course in December 2001. The training unit evolved into the Jandarshan Media Centre, a digital video production and training institution registered in 2002, staffed by former trainees, and headed by Ajay. It conducts a one-year post-graduate diploma course in digital videography and the students, who are charged no fees, belong to the socially marginalised sector. Costs are met from scholarships granted by philanthropic trusts and the state government, and are cross-subsidised from the income generated by the production unit. Jandarshan has made films for international organisations as well as for several departments of the Chhattisgarh state government. Also read: http://infochangeindia.org/200808187287/Human-Rights/Analysis/Reclaiming-the-meaning-of-independence-The-struggle-against-special-laws.html InfoChange News & Features, August 2008
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