A day after he was arrested from his Delhi residence by the Pune police, vocal human rights activists Gautam Navlakaha was placed under house arrest on 29 August, following a Supreme Court order on a plea against his arrest, along with four others.
Navlakha’s arrest came on Tuesday after his house was raided in connection with a public meeting organised days before Bhima-Koregaon violence that erupted in Maharashtra in January 2018.
Who is Gautam Navlakha?
Navlakha is a Delhi-based journalist, author, civil liberties and human rights activist. He has actively fought for human rights in Kashmir and demilitarisation in the valley. He also writes for the Economic and Political Weekly magazine.
He has also served as a convenor on a report on impunity on display in Kashmir - “Alleged perpetrators: Stories of impunity in Jammu and Kashmir by International Peoples' Tribunal for Human Rights and Justice.
The report was dedicated to “people killed in extra judicial executions, custodial violence and fake encounters, buried in unmarked and unidentified graves, disappeared for countless years, tortured, raped, detained with complete disregard for the law and subjected to numerous other human rights violations.”
Navlakha has argued that there was lack of sympathy displayed by rest of the India when it comes to the militarisation of Kashmir.
In an interview on ‘Freedom, Justice and Resistance in Kashmir’ to Indian Writers Forum, Navlakha explained the need to keep on asking questions against injustice.
We have been brought up into thinking that Kashmir is an integral part of India, territorially only but not as far as people are concerned. We really do not care about the people otherwise we would be out in the streets protesting against the atrocities that are being committed against people in Kashmir in the last 27 years.Gautam Navlakha to Indian Writers Forum
“Pellet guns, blinding of children, arrests of children, detention of children don't bother us. Because the nationalism that guides us blinds us to all these things, it is only the territory (of Kashmir) that we care about,” he added.
In the same interview, Navlakha explains the slippery slope along which the argument in support of militarisation is floated.
“Even protestors in India would be met by pellet guns, which have been used and tried out as a policing measure in Kashmir. We didn't open our mouth when the pellet guns were used but when they start using pellet guns against protestors here, what are we going to do,” Navlakha said.
Navlakha was denied entry into Kashmir at Srinagar airport in May 2011 by state police and it was stated that “his presence could disturb peace and order in the Valley,” NDTV reported.
“I want to know why I have been denied entry into a state where I have travelled freely for the past 22 years," Navlakha had asked in his interview to India Today where he explained that the government was using him to “send a message to all democratic-minded Indians who want to tell the truth about normalcy returning to Kashmir.”
Navlakha has debated on heightened militarisation in Kashmir, which in turn, he explains has brewed trouble in the Valley. Navlakha has also argued that claims of success due to military deployment in Kashmir was dubious and argues for a larger role played by policies in place by Centre to ensure a situation of inducting more armed forces does not surface.
“Why has the army, after 27 years, come out and constantly harped on the theme that people are coming out in hordes and voting, everything is hunky dory, militants are just handful and Pakistan is on the backfoot... (But) then again situation reverts to scenario where we hear of militancy rising (in Kashmir), infiltration rising, killings taking place,” he said.
Delving deeper and explaining the stark difference in the Kashmir of 1990s and now, Navlakha said that there was a time in 90s when the number of armed forces stood at 10,000.
“Today, by all official accounts, the numbers have shrunk to less than 200, yet we see the same military force, the same level of deployment and same harsh, threatening language is used by Generals. Why are we reverting to the 90s? Isn't this a failure of policy,” Navlakha asked.
Highlighting government’s denial on military suppression, Navlakha wrote in his book - Days and Nights in The Heartland of Rebellion -
“Never mind that the government and corporations feel free to acquire land through force and fraud. Those who organise resistance against this either face annihilation through military operations or get incapacitated by charges of sedition and ‘waging war’, stripped of their right to expression and association. And yet, it cannot be denied that it is our people who are being militarily suppressed.”
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