Indian activist Sudha Bharadwaj has been charged with caste-based violence Human Rights News

New Delhi, India – An Indian court has granted bail to rights activist and lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj, who was accused of conspiring to instigate caste violence in a town in the western state of Maharashtra, along with more than a dozen others. .

A week after the Bombay High Court granted Bharadwaj a “default bail”, the NIA (National Investigation Agency) on Wednesday set the terms of the bail and asked the 60-year-old activist to submit a 50,000 rupee bond ($ 663). his passport will be handed over and he will stay in Mumbai for further investigation. The court also barred him from speaking to the media about the case.

Bharadwaj zen He was arrested in August 2018 In the case of Bhima-Koregaon, it refers to a town of the same name in Maharashtra, about 170 kilometers (106 miles) southeast of the Indian capital Mumbai.

Every year on January 1, members of the marginalized Dalit (formerly “intangible”) community in India gather in Bhima-Koregaon in 1818 to defeat the Peshwa Hindu upper caste rulers who sided with the Dalits in the British colonial army.

The 2018 celebrations, however, were hampered by violence, as Dalit-led rallies were allegedly attacked by Hindus of privileged castes, usually disgusted with the celebration of the 200-year-old war. At least one person was killed and many others were injured in the violence protests across Maharashtra and elsewhere in India.

‘Amazing delay’

The NIA has accused 16 activists, including Bharadwaj, of giving inflammatory speeches at the Bhima-Koregaon event and accused them of being under a “draconian” ACT to prevent illegal activities (UAPA). They were also accused of having ties to the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) and making plans to oust Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Attorney General Colin Gonsalves told Al Jazeera that the case against Bharadwaj was a “pure and simple case of victimization.”

“Although I am happy to be given a legal bond [to Bharadwaj], I have to report a three-year delay, ”Gonsalves said.

Bharadwaj was born in 1961 in Boston, USA, to a well-known academic parent. After finishing school, he studied mathematics at Technology-Kanpur in India, a major university in the northern state of India.

As a trade union and civil rights lawyer, Bharadwaj has spent almost 30 years working with the most marginalized in India, especially in the conflict-ridden state of Chhattisgarh.

Activist and author Harsh Mander Al Jazeera Bharadwaj said he was “a strange citizen who decided to be young and then began to dedicate his whole life to ensuring the dignity and justice of his people.”

“Accusing Maoist violence is a parody,” Mander said.

While the Bombay High Court granted Bharadwaj bail, he denied eight other defendants in the Bhima-Koregaon case: Rona Wilson, Varavara Rao, Sudhir Dhawale, Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira.

With the exception of 81-year-old Rao, a renowned Telugu poet who is currently on medical bail, all other defendants are in Taloja Central Prison near Mumbai.

In July this year, 84-year-old tribal rights activist and Jesuit priest Stan Swamy was also arrested in the Bhima-Koregaon case. died He was due to be heard in a private hospital in Mumbai on the day his bail application was to be heard in court.

Swamy was suffering from Parkinson’s disease and was repeatedly denied bail. His death caused great public outrage The saying of the United Nations he was “very sad and upset” at the death.

The government is “misusing” the UAPA.

Supreme Court lawyer and activist Vrinda Grover told Al Jazeera that rights groups refer to the UAPA as a “draconian law” because it “deviates from the common rules and principles of criminal law and gives greater basic control to the state and its actors.” rights and freedoms ”.

Grover said the trial in Bhima-Koregaon had not started and that three and a half years had passed and no charges had been brought, despite the arrest of several human rights defenders.

“But the accused continues to faint in prison because he is charged with crimes under the UAPA,” he said.

Although the UAPA has been in force since 1967, the Modi government changed the law in 2019, allowing the authorities to label people as “terrorists”. Previously, the government could only appoint organizations, not individuals, under the terrorist law.

Last week, Indian Interior Minister Nityanand Rai told parliament that at least 7,243 people had been arrested under the UAPA since 2016. In the same period, only 212 people were convicted under the law, less than 3% of arrests, according to government data.

Legal experts and activists are calling for the repeal of the UAPA, saying it has a “cold effect” on freedom of expression in democracy.

“It simply came to our notice then [an] anti-freedom of speech legislation, ”lawyer Gonsalves told Al Jazeera.

“It is the only piece of legislation being used to intimidate freedom of expression, and people across the country who are critical of the government are being booked under this law.”

Grover’s lawyer said the Bhima-Koregaon case is a “classic case study” to find out how the UAPA conducts the “same process as punishment”.

“Stan Swamy’s death in prison is an example of that,” he told Al Jazeera.

“The state has excessive and broad powers under the UAPA, and they mistreat people for long periods of pretrial detention.”

Meenakshi Ganguly, director of Human Rights Watch in South Asia, told Al Jazeera that the UAPA is “repeatedly misused” by rights activists and protesters against government policies that they see as unfair.

“It is an anti-terrorism law, which suggests that the authorities cannot distinguish between those who want to promote human rights and those who actually abuse those rights with their acts of violence,” he said.

Activist Mander said it was “ironic” that the freedom movement against British Indians, led by Mahatma Gandhi and other leaders, was against the laws that allowed the colonial government to permanently imprison its critics and dissidents.

“Today, the UAPA and colonial sedition laws are doing the same. India’s so-called democratic government is being heavily used to threaten and arrest its critics: rights activists, academics and journalists, ”he said.

“The misuse of these laws undermines India’s claims to be the world’s largest democracy.”