The International Human Rights Organization, in a letter to Bihar Chief Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav on Sept.10, 93, sought the release of eight peasant activists, who were sentenced to death by Aurangabad Sessions Judge on the charge of murdering landlords belonging to Jotedar and Mahajan families of Daleichnk Baghuara villages. These activities are Keshar Yadav, Rampravesh, Brahmadev, Baburam, Chandradeep, Rajaram, Jaganarayan and Chitavan Yadav. On Nov.4, 92, Additional Sessions Judge of Aurangabd district, Hari Shankar Prasad sentenced them to death by hanging. These activists are among the leaders of the peasant movement, now sweeping large parts of Bihar. They inspired the Ordinary peasants to rise above caste and communal considerations and mobilized them in the struggle against the divisive policies of the Jotedars and Mahajans, according to the Committee against Repression on Peasantry in Bihar. As THRO understands, the case is pending before the Patna High Court.
According to the committee against repression, the eight persons were picked up from among nearly one thousand peasants gathered in retaliatory protest against repeated acts of murder, arson, loot and rape by the private army of landlords: which, the committee adds, were committed with the connivance of the local administration.
Amnesty International affirms: “Dalits and advises are frequently tortured for political reasons to deter them or punish them for involvement in organized resistance to economic exploitation. Often advises and Dalits villages have been raided, and their inhabitants tortured and raped, by police acting in collusion with local ruling groups, such as landowners. Such abuses are common in Bihar, where most torture victims are landless laborers and their families campaigning for land reform and minimum wages. Landlords have often resorted to violence to suppress such campaigns with the assistance of criminal gangs or private army, whose growth is believed to have been encouraged by the police since 1970s.” In number of cases local police officers are alleged to have cooperated with such groups or even participated in attacks on landless people” (India Torture, Rape & Deaths in custody, p.16).
Because of this, the people of Bihar, particularly the landless and the oppressed, have lost their faith in the established order and started believing that, given the situation, socioeconomic justice cannot be given to them. Thus they opt the politics of retaliation through violence. In April 1987 at Chotki-Chechani under Madanpur police station, a special task force killed seven persons of a landless family. Many huts were set on fire by private senas. Retaliating against this, the toiling masses under the leadership of the Maoist Communist Center (MCC) on May 20, 1987 killed 52 persons belonging to seven landlord families. The retaliatory violence has its roots in social oppression, economic deprivation and political failure. Unfortunately the Sessions Judge ignored this social reality and adopted a very narrow legalistic approach to the case and sentenced to death the eight peasants. While, on the other hand, those men whose names figure in the police reports (FIRS) as killers, rapists and arsonists of poor peasants and the woman roam about freely allover Bihar.
IHRO in its appeal urged the Bihar chief minister to treat the eight peasants condemned to death as political activists and start the process of setting them free because they cannot defend themselves in courts as the judicial process is frightingly expensive and the judiciary class biased.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 24, 1993
