India's climate for free expression severely deteriorated under Modi government: PEN International
Pune/New Delhi, Sep 29 : India has witnessed a rising tide of violence, impunity, extended pre-trial detentions, and surveillance under the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government, PEN International, said on Saturday as it wound up the 84th PEN International Congress with representation from 80 countries in Pune. The International writers body called upon the Indian government to safeguard freedom of expression in the country.
It released a report "India: Pursuing truth in the face of intolerance" that outlines how dissenting voices, by journalists, writers, academics or students "face intimidation, harassment, prosecution, online abuse, and physical violence."
The report brings together voices of writers, journalists, lawyers and academics, illustrating the varied ways in which critical voices are targeted and silenced.
It highlights "the use of overbroad laws; directed attacks online and offline; the systematic stifling of academic research and freedom; and the continued marginalisation of and hostility towards women's voices."
"Laws that stifle speech; an environment hostile to dissenting views; and emboldened critics online and in the real world have cast a chill over free expression in India. Journalists and writers have been sued, intimidated, threatened, and sometimes murdered. There is little political will to amend the laws that prevent free expression or to enforce laws that protect the writer," said Salil Tripathi, Writers in Prison Committee Chair.
PEN International said in an official statement that it "calls on the Indian authorities to protect its writers, journalists and all others exercising their right to free expression" and to "bring its legislation in line with its obligations under international law".
"While this gathering has been about the promotion of peace-building and celebrating the power of the written word, it is also about protecting free expression and remembering those of us who pay the ultimate price for exercising this fundamental right. Today we honour Gauri Lankesh, who was shot to death outside her home a year ago. Even though we welcome the progress that has been in the investigation, we're still waiting for justice. Unless the cycle of impunity is broken, those who want to use violence to silence will be embolden to do so," said PEN International President Jennifer Clement.
Asked about the views and findings of the PEN as far as worsening of situations under the Modi regime is concerned, Clement unequivocally said there has been "a rising tide of violence, impunity, extended pre-trial detentions, impunity and surveillance".
"We have quite a few recommendations to the Indian government. To ensure the safety of journalists and make sure that there is no impunity against them, to ensure that they are not harmed, as has been seen in several high-profile cases, train the police, launch public information campaign to inform citizens of their legal rights in the face of online harassment and threats," Clement told IANS over telephone from Pune.
She added that the PEN International felt "very strongly", especially in a country like India, as "the differences are what unites people and not what divides them".
"The government should be thinking about the things that bring people together and not tear them apart. I think what PEN is concerned about is that India has always been a country that one could uphold for being tolerant and being democratic. It used to be that India could be held as an example to the rest of the world. It's very sad to see this turn. What would the future of such a democracy look like," she asked.
The 15-page report "India: Pursuing truth in the face of intolerance" is highly critical of the Modi government and opens with a poster of the firebrand journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh.
The report contends that "future generations will likely look back at the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) win in 2014 elections" as "the beginning of a drastically different era in independent India".
Notably, of the three new Vice Presidents, chosen for their "literary merit", two are dissenting voices from India: Tamil writer Perumal Murugan, who was himself hounded by right-wing activists, and Nayantara Sahgal, who has been at the forefront of protests by writers and intellectuals against the Modi government.
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Nitish likely to resign as Bihar CM after last meeting of cabinet on April 14
Patna (PTI): Bihar inched towards a political transition on Sunday with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar convening a meeting of his cabinet on April 14, following which the JD(U) president is likely to relinquish the post to make way for a BJP-led government.
According to a notification issued by the cabinet secretariat department, the meeting will take place at 11 am, after which the longest-serving CM of the state, who got elected to the Rajya Sabha last week, was expected to submit his resignation to Governor Syed Ata Hasnain.
Earlier, Kumar's close aide and JD(U) national working president Sanjay Kumar Jha had told reporters that the process of formation of a new government was likely to "roll out after April 13".
Meanwhile, the BJP, which has been approaching the prospect of having its first- ever chief minister in the state with considerable restraint, got down to business and named Shivraj Singh Chouhan as a "central observer", who would oversee the change of guard.
A statement issued by the BJP headquarters in Delhi said the parliamentary board has appointed Chouhan, a Union minister and a multiple-term former CM of Madhya Pradesh, as “central observer for electing the leader of legislature party in Bihar”.
Senior JD(U) leader and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, had said here earlier in the day "the new chief minister will be elected by the NDA, upon the recommendation of the BJP, which has a big role to play".
Speculations are doing the rounds that Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, who holds the crucial Home portfolio in the outgoing government, is the frontrunner among contenders for the top job.
BJP leaders in the state, who have been making frantic visits to Delhi in the recent past, are keeping their cards close to the chest.
"Who will be the next CM is a decision to be taken by our central leadership," minister Dilip Jaiswal, who is a former state BJP president, had said a day ago, adding, "I am not at all in the race".
Other than Choudhary, who had joined the BJP less than a decade ago, those whose names are doing the rounds include Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai and state ministers Lakhendra Paswan and Shreyasi Singh.
According to BJP sources, all these leaders fit the bill in different ways. Choudhary is a ‘Koeri’, and his elevation could ensure that the ‘Luv Kush’ (Kurmi Koeri) equation nurtured by Kumar during his 20-year-rule remained intact in favour of the NDA, after the JD(U) supremo's departure.
Rai is a Yadav and brings the promise of support of the largest caste group in Bihar, which has been with Lalu Prasad's RJD, the BJP's principal rival in the state, for decades.
Paswan is a Dalit and his elevation could help the BJP transcend its "pro-upper caste" image, which brings its own disadvantages in the Hindi heartland, where the Mandal agitation of the 1990s has cast a long shadow, the sources said.
Singh, in her 30s, is an upper caste Rajput, but her elevation could be projected as the party giving preference to young blood.
Moreover, the party has also been trying to present itself as a champion of gender equality, by pushing through the ‘Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam’ that ensures 33 per cent reservation to women in both Houses of Parliament.
However, the BJP sources admitted that there was a strong possibility of the central leadership springing a "surprise", citing examples of many states ruled by the party, where less fancied leaders have landed the top job in the recent past.
Actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha, a Trinamool Congress MP who spent nearly three decades in the BJP, had said, while commenting on the political situation in Bihar that "we have plenty of deserving people here but we must be beware of a baba who may arrive with a parchi".
The allusion was to Rajasthan, where Bhajan Lal Sharma was named the chief minister two years ago at a legislature party meeting, where Defence Minister Rajnath Singh was seen on camera taking out a piece of paper with the name of the first-term MLA written on it.
