“History repeats itself – first time as tragedy/
Second time as farce.” (Karl Marx. 1852)
Political commentators, while observing the present situation quite often – and rightly so – describe it as an `undeclared Emergency’ (recalling the horrors of the 1975-77 Emergency when social activists, journalists as well as common citizens faced persecution – similar to that being suffered by the present generation today). But there is a difference. Indira Gandhi’s police and intelligence agencies were more efficient in selecting the targets when carrying out her agenda. They mainly aimed at politicians and activists from the Opposition parties, and journalists and social activists who supported them. But the Modi regime, while trying to re-enact the Emergency by copying the notorious methods of the Indira Gandhi regime, is indulging in a game of indiscriminate assaults on every section of civil society. The present successors of the police and intelligence operatives of the 1970s, lack the cunning skills of their predecessors of that era. As a result, Modi’s plans to impose a mini-Emergency has turned out to be a farcical parody of the past – thanks to the egregious acts of utter incompetence of the ignoramuses who run the police establishment and the investigative and prosecuting agencies under his rule.
While trying to re-enact the Emergency by copying the notorious methods followed by Indira Gandhi, these present agents of Modi – lacking the cunning skills of the their predecessors of the Emergency regime – have turned Modi’s experiment into a farcical parody. So, there is also a comic edge to the tragedy that we are going through in these distressing times. Let us laugh at these bumbling cops and spies who, thanks to the media publicity, are turning out to be stand-up comedians – although unwittingly. Let us remember Abraham Lincoln’s brave words: “I laugh because I must not cry.”
Indian police personnel have earned world-wide notoriety for committing atrocities like picking up innocent citizens, torturing and killing them, raiding villages and raping women, instituting false cases against social activists – always supported by the intelligence agencies. But both the cops and the detectives often land up in situations of their own creation, where they become butts of ridicule. Two recent police operations have exposed the lousy methods they adopt to persecute social activists and journalists, which have reached farcical proportions.
NIA raids in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh
The first was carried out in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. On October 2, the NIA (National Investigation Agency) celebrated Gandhi Jayanti by raiding sixty two locations across these two states in the name of probing alleged activities of Maoists. Incapable of apprehending their actual targets – the so-called Maoist activists – the NIA operatives pounced upon human rights activists and lawyers, who have taken on the mantle of Gandhi’s life-long struggle to defend the poor. In a paranoid mood, they raided the house of K. Sudha, assistant professor in the Damodaram Sanjivayya National Law University in Sabbavaram, Anakapalli district, who happened to be a functionary of Human Rights Foundation. Unable again to find any evidence of her links with Maoists, the NIA operatives took revenge on her by seizing her mobile phone and hard disk. Among other social activists whose houses were searched by the NIA team, were Anita and Shantamma, leaders of Mahila Chaitanya Mandali in Warangal; Ellanki Venkateswarlu, president of the Civil Liberties Committee at Usman Saheb Peta; and Annapurna and Anusha, leaders of Mahila Sangham in Nellore. The NIA also targeted lawyers like K. Kranti Chaitanya in Tiruchanoor who was served notice under the draconian Unlawful Activites (Prevention) Act, and raided the house of Suresh, an advocate working in Vidyanagar. (Re: Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad. 3 October, 2023) .
The NIA team which carried out these raids was led by one C. Prasanth, assistant investigation officer based in the Hyderabad office of the agency. Till now, he has not been able to provide any clinching evidence to prove that those whom he targeted are accomplices of Maoist activists. A bunch of printed material that he has produced so far as evidence is what he claims to be `Maoist literature’ seized from these residences. What are the contents of this vaguely defined `Maoist literature’ ? Do they include works of Mao Tze Tung ? Are they pamphlets issued by the present generation of Indian Maoist activists ? But does mere possession of them by citizens amount to a crime ? Academics in Indian universities who are engaged in research in Sino-Indian relations, surely need to delve into Mao’s collected works, in order to understand the historical background. Journalists who are assigned to cover the activities of Maoist guerillas in the Telangana-Andhra Pradesh zone have to collect the underground pamphlets of the Maoists to understand their strategy and tactics, in order to provide their readers with a holistic account of the conflict at the ground level. Mere possession of these pamphlets, used as sources of information, should not be treated as a ground for persecution of the journalists.
The other evidence that C. Prasanth has produced is a bag of Rs. 13 lakhs, that he claims to have seized from the house of Chandra Navasimhulu, who is the State Executive Committee member of a civil society group of activists called Pragatiseela Karmika Samakya (PKS). According to Navasimhulu’s family, that money was kept in their home for expenditure on the approaching marriage of their daughter.
Neither the printed documents nor the cash seized by the NIA officer, can be held as proofs of complicity with Maoist activists – the allegation made by C. Prasanth. If the victims of his vicious operation challenge him in the courts, any judge who is committed to his/her professional duties (unlike others in their fraternity who toe the line of the ruling party) should throw away these charges against them. They do not stand the test required by strict judicial standards. The NIA raids in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh thus turn out to be yet another case of bungling, where its officers have made fools of themselves.
Delhi Police assault on NewsClick web portal and its journalists
The second police operation was carried out on October 3, just a day after the Telangana-Andhra Pradesh raids. The location this time was Delhi, and the targets were again social activists and journalists who were voicing their concerns over violation of human rights through the web portal NewsClick. Were the two raids merely co-incidental, or a part of a strategy framed by the Union Home Ministry ?
On that day, cops of the Special Cell of the Delhi police – who are under the control of the Union Home Ministry – raided some one hundred residences of journalists and others associated with NewsClick, and arrested its editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha, and its human resources head Amit Chakravarty. They have been accused of illegally receiving funds from an active member of the propaganda department of the Communist Party of China, Neville Roy Singham, and of disseminating Chinese propaganda. The CBI also filed an FIR against Purkayastha and Chakravarty, for violation of FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act), adding the name of Neville Roy Singham as another accused. Here is yet another case of cops and investigating agencies making fools of themselves, not only in the Indian public glare, but also under international scrutiny.
To demystify the entire case that is being framed against NewsClick through the FIR that has been filed against it – let us get back to the beginning. It all started with a NYT (New York Times) reportage in early August this year, with the sensational title: `A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a US Tech Mogul.’ The so-called `US Tech Mogul’ who was targeted by the newspaper was Neville Roy Singham, a Sri Lankan businessman who started his career in the US, and has now shifted to Shanghai in China from where he runs his business. The reportage accused him of acting as an agent of the Chinese government by funding the Indian web portal NewsClick, which was alleged to be propagating pro-Chinese and anti-Indian news. Debunking it as “misleading” and an “innuendo-laden hit piece,” Singham came out with a full statement, explaining his background as a philanthropist, and how he sold his company in 2017, and from the proceeds, donated a small amount to NewsClick. Everything was in compliance with the law (Re: The Wire. October 17, 2023). Thus, the funding had nothing to do with the Chinese government. Just because he is operating as a businessman from Shanghai – as do many other non-Chinese entrepreneurs – it does not make him into a Chinese agent. Remittances by Indian expats working in the Gulf states do not make them agents of those states.
Now that Singham has exposed the falsity and dismantled the NYT’s misinformation campaign, will the Delhi police acknowledge that all its allegations in the FIR against NewsClick which are based on this single reportage by a US newspaper are false ? Funnily enough, while the Modi government always dismisses reports in other US newspapers that are critical of his policies, in this case it has lapped up this piece of lousy journalism of NYT – just because it suits its interests. Its cops have claimed it as evidence of Chinese government’s funding of NewsClick, in their bid to persecute its journalists who expose Modi’s misdeeds. But since that basis of the police allegation has now crumbled, what new evidence can the Indian investigative agencies provide to justify their persecution of the NewsClick journalists ? Till now, they have failed to submit any fresh proof. A foolproof evidence – essential for any conviction – is missing. It is yet to be seen whether the judiciary accepts the arguments of the prosecution, which is framing charges based on misinformation.
The incompetence of both the investigative agencies and the cops in this case is another instance of their role as stand-up comedians, although they themselves are unaware of the entertaining role they are playing. Their acts of faux pas and failure to submit hard evidence, are raising guffaws from the citizens. One such joke making the rounds is about the story of a corpse-less murder trial – where a person is hauled up for murder in the court, but the police fails to produce the corpse of the murdered. Similarly, the Indian cops today are persecuting the NewsClick editors and journalists without being able to produce any corpse of the crime that they are being accused of. Is it a fictional corpse imagined by a maniacal police force ?
The tragi-comic record of India’s police and intelligence system
Let me end my article by recalling some very prescient observations made by K.S. Subramanian, a retired officer of the Indian Police Service. He was the Assistant Director of the Intelligence Bureau from 1967 till 1972, and later Director of the Union Home Ministry’s Research and Policy Division from 1980 till 1985. Looking back at his vast experience of working in the intelligence agencies as well as supervising the police forces, he today thinks that the “Indian police system” suffers from “organizational, political and managerial crises….which inhibits its effective role performance.” (Re: K.S. Subramanian – Political Violence and the Police in India. SAGE Publications. 2007. p. 80).
He elaborates his arguments by first taking up the performance of the IB (Intelligence Bureau) – where he worked for years. Based on his experiences, he concludes: “ …the IB has become politicised after Independence and is unable to discharge its basic national security tasks in a professional manner.” (p. 104). Turning next to the police, he observes: “Over 90 per cent of policemen are constables and head constables…The end of colonial rule in 1947 did not change the role of the constable nor did it reduce their predatory disposition towards the people.” (p. 227).
This deadly collaboration between a `politicised’ intelligence apparatus and a `predatory’ police force is wreaking havoc on our civil society – as apparent from the incarceration of social activists in the Elga Parishad case (where the NIA has not only failed to produce any fool proof evidence against them, but it itself stands accused of illegally seizing their electronic devices and planting fabricated documents on these devices in order to implicate them), and the latest case of imprisonment of Prabir Purkayastha and Amit Chakraborty of NewsClick, where the basis of their prosecution has collapsed – as mentioned earlier.
Watching the tragic consequences of the comic acts committed by our intelligence agencies and police force, we the common Indian citizens feel that the only weapon left with us now to defeat them is – laughter. Let us reduce their acts of persecution to objects of ridicule, laughing at their incompetence and bungling.
Sumanta Banerjee is a political commentator and writer, is the author of In The Wake of Naxalbari’ (1980 and 2008); The Parlour and the Streets: Elite and Popular Culture in Nineteenth Century Calcutta (1989) and ‘Memoirs of Roads: Calcutta from Colonial Urbanization to Global Modernization.’ (2016).
