NE NEWS SERVICE
NEW DELHI, AUG 11
The Supreme Court has granted permanent medical bail to an 82-year-old human rights activist and an acclaimed academician P. Varavara Rao who was accused of a conspiracy to engineer caste violence in Bhima-Koregaon in Western Maharashtra.
He is the second person to get bail in the case. The first person to secure bail was human rights activist and lawyer Sudha Bhardwaj who was released on December 7, 2021.
Varavara Rao was granted medical bail for the first time in February 2021 by Mumbai High Court. On April 13 this year, Mumbai HC refused to grant permanent medical bail and asked him to surrender to the police at the end of three months. The Supreme Court has now extended his temporary bail till further orders on a Special Leave Petition (SLP).
Varavara Rao and Sudha Bhardwaj were among 16 persons arrested in connection with the Bhima-Koregaon case. A Jesuit human rights activist Father Stan Swamy (84) was also arrested in the same case in October 2020. He died in judicial custody in a Mumbai jail in July 2021.
Background of the case
What was the background of the Bhima-Koregaon violence that resulted in the arrest of these activists? It was on January 1, 1818, that 800 soldiers of the colonial British Army comprising members of the Mahar caste (presently known as Dalits, or untouchables) defeated 28,000 soldiers of the Peshwa’s army coming from Hindu Brahmin upper castes in the third Anglo-Maratha war. This ended the Maratha rule and established British rule in Western India. The site of the war was visited by B R Ambedkar in 1927. It was after this that Mahars gathered at the Bhima-Koregaon memorial every year to celebrate the victory. The importance of the Battle of Bhima-Koregaon lies in the fact that it was the first time in history that Mahars or Dalits were part of a victorious army.
As in previous years, they also gathered in large numbers on January 1, 2018, to commemorate 200 years of their victory. As upper castes resented the event, the celebrations turned violent due to the clash between the Dalits and the upper castes.
Prior to the commemoration, an event was organized in Pune’s Shaniwar Wada on December 31, 2017. Representatives from 250 Dalit and other NGOs gathered at Shaniwar Wada under the banner of Elgar Parishad. Activists Prakash Ambedkar, Jignesh Mewani, and others delivered speeches at the event.
When Dalits numbering about 25,000 gathered at the Bhima-Koregaon memorial on January 1, 2018, a clash broke out between Dalits and the upper caste Marathas. A 28-year-old Rahul Patangale was killed. Prakash Ambedkar and Dalit organizations organized a nationwide bandh against the violence.
Pune police on January 2, 2018, registered FIR against right-wing activists Sambhaji Bhide and Milind Ekbote for instigating the violence at Bhima-Koregaon.
Accused persons arrested in the case
Subsequently, Pune police on June 6, 2018, arrested Elgar Parishad representative and Dalit activist and editor of Marathi magazine ‘Vidrohi’ Sudhir Dhawale, Surendra Gadling (Nagpur-based human rights lawyer and General Secretary of the Indian Association of the People’s Lawyers), Nagpur University professor Shoma Sen, human rights activist Rona Wilson, and Mahesh Raut under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). The Pune police claimed that the clashes on January 1, 2018 began after alleged inflammatory speeches by the activists at the Elgar Parishad meeting. On August 28, 2018, P. Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves, and Gautam Navlakha were arrested.
Subsequently, the police arrested Anand Teltumbde, Father Stan Swamy, Haney Babu, Sagar Gorkhe, Ramesh Gaichor, and Jyoti Jagtap. The police accused them of conspiring the violence and smuggling weapons. They were also accused of funding the Maoist insurgency. Pune police also claimed that it had found electronic evidence that showed they wanted to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi and wage a war against the nation.
In all, 16 persons were arrested. This happened when BJP government was there in Maharashtra with Devendra Fadnavis as chief minister. While the arrested persons and their colleagues said the arrests were politically motivated, the police claimed they were arrested because of their links with Maoists.
Case transferred to NIA without consulting Maharashtra govt
After the BJP lost power in the state on January 22, 2020, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government of Shiv Sena, NCP, and Congress ordered a probe into the Bhima-Koregaon violence. But the Modi government at the Centre transferred the case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) without consulting the state government.
In April 2021, an American forensic analysis firm – Arsenal Consulting- claimed that it had 30 documents to show that incriminating documents had been planted in the computers of Roma Wilson and others in the Elgar Parishad case. The allegations were reported by Washington Post. It alleged that letters to an assassination plot were planted by the cyber attacker using malware 22 months before the arrest of Roma Wilson.
NIA filed the charge sheet in the case in October 2020. However, the trial in the case has not begun, even after two years of filing the charge sheet before the court. Nobody knows it will take one year or 10 years to complete the trial. The provisions of UAPA do not allow bail even on medical grounds or the age of the accused. But the SC court granted bail to Varavara Rao under exceptional circumstances.
While Father Swamy died in judicial custody, Sudha Bhardwaj and Varavara Rao secured bail, and 13 others are still in jail.
(With special arrangements with indiatomorrow.net)
