Incredible as it might sound, the government of India is so irritated with the activities of one woman that it is finding all kinds of ways to catch her and lock her up.  The woman who continues to be a thorn in the flesh of the Modi government is Teesta Setalvad. The reason the government thinks she should be locked up is because this tenacious woman refuses to allow India, or the world, to forget what happened in Gujarat in 2002.

It's another story that the multiple cases being foisted on her have little substance.  What one needs to realise is that together they are part of a plan to paralyse her ability to work and eventually to find a way to take her into custody.

Setalvad and Anand did not begin their work on communalism after the 2002 Gujarat violence, as is sometimes assumed. In fact, they set up Sabrang Communications in 1993 and began publishing the journal Communalism Combat.  After two public-spirited individuals, Jyoti Punwani and Vijendra, printed 500 copies of the Justice Srikrishna Commission Report into the Mumbai communal riots of 1992-'93, Sabrang also published it.  This was at a time when the state government would not make it available to the public.

Copies of the report were sold outside Bombay High Court and at all possible venues for as little as Rs 60. It was the only way people in the city read in detail about the culpability of the police, the Shiv Sena and the Congress state government in what happened during the weeks of violence that permanently scarred a city once considered liberal and cosmopolitan.

Between 1993 and 2002, during which period Setalvad and Anand also set up the Sabrang Trust in 1995, they were never questioned for their activities. On the contrary, they won several awards for their work. The trouble began after they established Citizens for Justice and Peace in 2002 and actively pursued  the courts cases against the perpetrators of the Gujarat violence.

On the other side, while people like Setalvad are being hounded for pursuing these cases of violence, we are watching the disintegration of the cases against Hindutva extremists in the Ajmer bomb blast case of 2007, where witnesses are turning hostile, and the Modasa case the next year, which has been closed for lack of evidence. In Maharashtra, special prosecutor Rohini Salian went public about the National Investigation Agency asking her to “go soft” on the Malegaon bomb blast case of 2008, in which Hindutva extremists have been implicated. All this has happened in the last one year.

The message is loud and clear.  If you come in the way of this government, you will be hounded till you give up. If you are on their side, even if you are guilty, you have a good chance of getting a reprieve.

So the issue is not just whether the Modi government will succeed in catching Teesta Setalvad and detaining her, but also whether there is any hope for dissent and justice when the state uses its power to crush those who question it.

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:

Yes.... The lesson is dont be agents and stooges of foreign govt and foreign currency.

confuzzled dude wrote:

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:

Yes.... The lesson is dont be agents and stooges of foreign govt and foreign currency.

LOL, A lady is making Modi pee in his pants err pajama

Vakavaka Pakapaka wrote:

confuzzled dude wrote:

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:

Yes.... The lesson is dont be agents and stooges of foreign govt and foreign currency.

LOL, A lady is making Modi pee in his pants err pajama

Not quite. Right now she and Javed are the ones peeing in their pants and CONmen are not helping them.

Merlot Daruwala wrote:

Vakavaka Pakapaka wrote:

confuzzled dude wrote:

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:

Yes.... The lesson is dont be agents and stooges of foreign govt and foreign currency.

LOL, A lady is making Modi pee in his pants err pajama

Not quite. Right now she and Javed are the ones peeing in their pants and CONmen are not helping them.

Are you feeling good about it, Unkil? The way tax payer rupees are being used to bear down the might of the Govt of India and all its investigative and punitive machinery on two individuals who dared to give a voice to the victims of his genocide in 2002? How is NaMo different from Mulayam Singh Yadav who is now going after some cop with similar trumped up charges??