On Tueday, the Chhattisgarh Police filed an FIR against DU Professor Nandini Sundar, Archana Prasad (JNU Professor), Vineet Tiwari (of Delhi’s Joshi Adhikar Sansthan), Sanjay Parate (Chhattisgarh CPI (Marxist) State Secretary) and others along with Maoists for the murder of Shamnath Baghel, a tribal villager. The FIR has been filed based on the complaint by Baghel’s wife who is said to have demanded action against the activists and has accused them of murdering her husband. The charges include those of murder, rioting and criminal conspiracy.
Nandini Sundar, Professor of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics spoke to Outlook about the FIR and why she thinks the establishment is gunning for activists in the Maoist-hit region.
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Have you received a copy of the FIR as yet? If so, is there an aberration somewhere in the copy that strikes you?
No I have not seen the FIR, but I have seen the so-called wife's complaint, which is clearly written by the police because it mentions us so many times and lists all our affiliations etc. The poor wife is being used as a pawn.
Why do you think the FIR has been filed?
This is a direct fall out of the CBI charge-sheet of SPOs in the Tadmetla arson of 2011 - Kalluri is implicated because he had directed the operations and tried to cover up afterwards. First the police burnt effigies of some activists including mine (on 24 October) and now they are filing false FIRs against us.
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Reports have mentioned senior police officer SRP Kalluri saying that you had visited the area in June under the guise of 'Richa Keshav'. Could you tell us when your last visit to the area was and what 'meetings' is the police officer alluding to? (He has also mentioned that you admitted to the visit)
A group of us went on a study tour from May 12-16 and met villagers across the division. There is a report of ours which has a section on the vulnerability of villagers in Nama and Soutnar where the police are trying to start a Salwa Judum type operation. In fact, we specifically warned that by promoting coerced surrenders, armed vigilantism and then refusing a police camp, the police were making the villagers vulnerable. We have not been back since.
The report also mentioned that Baghel had issued a complaint against you in May. Are you aware of the complaint and what did it accuse you of?
That was also a police complaint. Reports at the time showed that the villagers did not know anything about a complaint against us. The police claim was that we incited the villagers to support Maoists - and threatened them that their houses would be burnt if they did not. How ridiculous is that?
Recently, the Bastar police had burnt effigies of activists. Do you think the state apparatus is actively clamping down on dissent?
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Absolutely - the police manufactured complaint in May/June 2016, the effigy burning etc. is all part of a long history of intimidation that Kalluri and the Chhattisgarh government have carried out against lawyers, journalists and political leaders like Manish Kunjam and Soni Sori which has intensified over the last year or so.
Finally, the CBI has filed a charge-sheet in the Tadmetla encounter from 2010 but the government has appointed a commission to look into the matter. What do you make of that and do you also think it’s part of a bigger picture?
The police/government are desperately trying to get the TP Sharma commission to exonerate them and blame the Maoists instead for the arson. The TP Sharma commission had declared some time ago that they were not continuing (with its investigation)- now suddenly they have got twenty villagers to say that the police are their best friends. The Supreme Court had warned even in 2011 that a state ordered judicial enquiry could not be trusted which is why they directed the CBI to investigate instead.
