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Last week, the Chhattisgarh government ordered the closure of MSF's offices and a halt to all its activities in the state, which is located in India's heartland. It is alleged that MSF was providing medical help to Naxalite cadres in several villages. In a similar act, on May 14 the state government arrested and detained human rights activist Sen for alleged association with members of the Naxalites, an armed leftist rebel group.
Interestingly, the investigators have thus far failed to produce any evidence to link either MSF or Sen with the rebel group. It seems that anyone who cares for the rural populace and tribal people there becomes an eyesore for the state administration.
Ever since the state was created in 2000, land concessions and vital resources have been sold to corporate interests. As part of India's chaotic modernization, economic growth and business development are frequently pursued to the detriment of the human rights and even the lives of large numbers of India's poor population. Rivers and other natural resources are being sold off by the state government to the highest private bidder, leading to the tribal communities being expelled from their natural habitats.
None of these communities are consulted in the process. Once the resources have been sold, the state administration forces the inhabitants to relocate to camps. To prevent anyone from escaping, private armed militiamen guard the camps. MSF and Sen have been engaged in helping these people, who are being turned into aliens in their own homelands.
The role of a state government is to safeguard the interests of its people and to ensure the greater common good. However, in Chhattisgarh, the government seems to have embarked on a road that leads in the opposite direction. What is at stake here is not merely the ownership of natural resources, but the survival of the culture and identity of its people.
The Chhattisgarh government is facing opposition, with several communities conducting protests against its indiscriminate acts of exploitation of natural resources. Most of these people-centered movements are led by small NGOs and rights-based community groups. To keep opposition at bay, the state administration has resorted to various tactics, the worst of which was the passage of a draconian law, the Chhattisgarh Special Security Act, 2006. Even though this law violates several constitutional guarantees, the Supreme Court of India has been avoiding taking a decision concerning its validity by repeatedly adjourning hearings.
In the past, the court resorted to similar tactics while the validity of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958 was being challenged. After several attempts to challenge this law, which began shortly after its creation in 1958, the court finally declared in the mid-1990s that the law as such could not be quashed, but passed directions on how it should be used. However, this law remains in force to date and is the most misused law in India's northeastern states. It has resulted in a large number of gross violations of human rights, including rape, torture, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, all of which are carried out with impunity.
Under cover of such draconian laws, state governments are able to silence any opposition from within. It goes without saying that a law that bestows unbridled powers on any agency is bound to be misused. It is legally correct to say that legislation cannot be struck down on the basis of mere apprehensions of misuse. However, if a law is designed in such a way that its very existence will inexorably lead to misuse and rights abuses, the Supreme Court should exhibit the common sense and discretion to strike it down.
In Chhattisgarh at present human rights activism is at risk. Anyone who speaks up in favor of the victims of violations by the state is targeted and branded as an anti-state activist. The state, which is bound to protect and promote its people's rights and interests, has in practice turned into their foremost violator. Human rights activists who dare to raise their voices against this onslaught have been silenced, notably through the use of threats, arbitrary arrests and detention based on false charges, arbitrary branding as Naxalites, closures of NGOs and other hindrances to their day-to-day work.
The Chhattisgarh state government does not in any way resemble a democratic government. It is instead an autocratic state living under the guise of being a democracy. Democratic values have died there, and the entire state machinery is now geared to serve the short-term interests of the few individuals who are in power.
The international community and the national government can no longer be silent observers concerning what is happening in Chhattisgarh. A lack of action has engendered the creation of "disturbed zones" throughout northeast India, and similar inaction will soon turn Chhattisgarh into another casualty of the country's chaotic modernization.
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(Bijo Francis is a human rights lawyer currently working with the Asian Legal Resource Center in Hong Kong. He is responsible for the South Asia desk at the center. Mr. Francis has practiced law for more than a decade and holds an advanced master's degree in human rights law.)
