The BJP government in Chhattisgarh has imposed a ban on the indigenous organization “Moolvasi Bachao Manch” this month. The government has stated in its official order that this organization opposes police camps and government schemes. Therefore, a one-year ban has been imposed on it. It is concerning that the government has now declared opposing the government as a crime.
According to democratic values and Indian law, opposing the wrongdoings of the government is not only a citizen’s right but also their duty to protest against wrong actions happening around them, even if carried out by the government itself.
Along with issuing this government order, the BJP government in Chhattisgarh has arrested a large number of indigenous youth, women, and male activists connected with the Moolvasi Bachao Manch from the tribal regions of Bastar, and the arrests continue.
It is true that the indigenous people of Bastar do not want police camps in their villages and oppose them. However, the government wants to hide from the rest of the country what the government has done to the indigenous people in Bastar with the help of the police, which is the reason for their opposition to the police.
In 2005, the BJP government in Chhattisgarh gave guns to five thousand youths and made them Special Police Officers (SPOs). Along with the regular police and CRPF, they set fire to houses in almost six hundred and fifty villages, killed innocent indigenous people, and raped women on a large scale.
In 2011, the Supreme Court declared these actions unconstitutional and ordered their immediate cessation. It also directed the confiscation of weapons from the SPOs, the filing of cases against the police officers, the rebuilding of the burned houses of the indigenous people, and the payment of compensation. However, the BJP government in Chhattisgarh did not comply with this order, and no indigenous houses were rebuilt, nor were any reports filed against the police officers.
The government renamed the Special Police Officers as the DRG (District Reserve Guard) and continued to allow them to kill indigenous people and rape women. As a result, these police officers carried out the mass rape of forty women in Pedda Gelur and squeezed the breasts of women in Kunna village to check if they were married.
At the same time, the police, DRG, and CRPF continued to kill indigenous people in villages. The situation worsened because the courts failed to provide justice in cases of human rights violations. In 2023, the Chhattisgarh High Court dismissed seven hundred such cases within three months. Even after the investigation reports in the Sarkeguda and Edsameta cases proved that the victims were not Naxalites but innocent indigenous people, the government did not file any report against the police. Similarly, after the report confirmed the police officers’ involvement in the gang rape and subsequent murder of Meena Khalko, no police officer was punished. The police also filled stones in the private parts of Soni Sori, but no action was taken. In Gompada village, the police killed sixteen indigenous people, but the court instead imposed a five lakh rupee fine on the applicant.
In the face of continuous attacks and the lack of justice, the indigenous community chose to resist and protect themselves. The police shot at the indigenous people protesting the police camp in Silger, killing three on the spot, and a pregnant woman lost her child after returning home. Following this, indigenous youth formed the Moolvasi Bachao Manch, and peaceful protests began in around thirty places in Bastar. They protested the setting up of police camps, mining transportation by large companies, the construction of wide roads, and tree cutting for such projects.
The police repeatedly attacked these unarmed indigenous people, injuring them, imprisoning them, but the indigenous community continued their movement with determination.
Now, in November, the BJP government has issued an order to impose a ban on this organization and has accelerated the imprisonment of its activists.
This move by the government is brutal, illegal, and undemocratic. Crushing the human rights of indigenous people with the help of guns and imprisoning them when they protest is a situation we imagine happens in authoritarian countries. Prime Minister Modi declared India as the “Mother of Democracy,” but the way his party’s government is openly crushing democracy with the power of guns and jails is terrifying.
The most terrifying aspect is the unbearable silence across the country on all of this.
Himanshu Kumar is a social activist
