Human Rights Defenders in India:
Stories from the Trenches

• This webinar was held on 31 July 2021 with a continued conversation on 5 August 2021 with Dayamani Barla and Father Tony

• Listen to the recording on our YouTube channel (click on video link below)

• See the webinar summary below

• See additional resources list below to read more about Father Stan Swamy's work and his arrest, as well as the work of our panellists

Webinar Summary

As a growing number of human rights defenders are being incarcerated using charges of sedition, terrorism and anti-national activities, the movements and causes they have stood for and struggled with through constitutional means, now, in turn, are fighting for their release. It is clear the state is determined to silence these activists by any means necessary, framing them in false cases and denying them bail repeatedly.

We mourn the institutional murder of Father Stan Swamy that has fully exposed to the world the machinations of Indian state agencies and a compromised judiciary.

• Why was Father Stan and his centre in Ranchi, Jharkhand (Bagaicha) such a threat to the state?
• How are corporations/commercial interests complicit with the state in trying to suppress the movements of such grassroots organizations and eliminate these activists?
• How does the Indian legal system enable those in power to rule by law instead of governing under a rule of law?

This webinar shines a light on how these grassroots organizations and activists have stood up to the carceral state and its allied interests, and what support the international community can provide.

Panellists

Dayamani Barla, Adivaasi, Moolvaasi, Astitva Raksha Manch, Jharkhand, India

Jerome Kujur, Social Activist, Jharkhand, India

Nikita Sonavane, Lawyer and Co-founder, Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project (CPAProject), Bhopal, India

Father P.M. Tony, Freelance Researcher, Social Activist, and Colleague of Late Father Stan Swamy, Ranchi, India

Nihalsing Rathod, Defence Lawyer for the Bhima Koregaon Arrestees, Nagpur, India, and Human Rights Law Network

Hear the recording available on our YouTube channel

This webinar is co-hosted by India Civil Watch International

Further Reading

I Am Not a Silent Spectator, Stan Swamy, Indian Social Institute, Bangalore, 2021 
Why truth has become so bitter, dissent so intolerable, justice so out of reach
An autobiographical fragment, memory and reflection

Deprived of Rights Over Natural Resources, Impoverished Adivasis Get Prison,
Bagaicha Research Team, Ranchi, 2015
A study of undertrials in Jharkhand

Framed to Die: The Case of Stan Swamy,
Peoples Union for Democratic Rights, Delhi, 2021

State of Power 2021: Settled Habits, New Tricks, Ameya Bokil, Avaneendra Khare,
Nikita Sonavane, Srujana Bej and Vaishali Janarthanan, Transnational Institute
Casteist policing meets big tech in India

Countermapping Pandemic Policing, Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project,
Thakur Family Foundation
A Study of Sanctioned Violence in Madhya Pradesh

Dayamani Barla's blog: https://dayamani-barla.blogspot.com/

The Adivasi cannot live without the forest: Dayamani Barla, Sabrang India, May 2020

Dayamani Barla: A tribal’s tale of struggle and why she can’t stop, Dayamani Barla herself,
Vikalp Sangam, August 2015

Hindi media platform for which Dayamani has been a regular contributor: https://www.prabhatkhabar.com

For last 27 Years, Adivasi in Jharkhand fighting for their land, Citizens Together, March 2021

आज भी हमें डर है [Even today we are fearful], Jerome Kujur, Yuvaniya, June 2021

Poem on Adivasi struggle at Netarhat Field Firing Range

Several articles by Nihalsing Rathod's in The Leaflet: https://www.theleaflet.in/author/nihalsinghrathod/

The video recording played at the start of the webinar is an edited and clipped version of an interview of Father Stan Swamy by Tapan Bose in 2018, released by The Wire on 11 July 2021 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJyJENDcVE4). Permission was granted for editing/clipping and embedding by InSAF India. Copyright: Cinemart, 2018.

Other webinars available as educational resources

• The criminalisation of student activism and the idea of academic freedom in India

• Why academics should be part of the farmers' protest in India

• The criminalisation of anti-caste research and activism in India

• Ideas behind bars: The Bhima Koregaon case of imprisoned civic activists and India's autocratic turn

• Jailed to Die? India's Human Rights Defenders and the Covid Emergency

Co-hosts for the above webinars include Ambedkar King Study Circle (California), India Civil Watch International, British Association for South Asian Studies, Scholars At Risk, the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis (ASCA), University of Amsterdam, The Forum on Education in Asia (UCL), and the SIU University Honors Program