NEW DELHI: Inder Mohan a Delhi-based human rights activist Jan 24th announced that he was returning the Padma Bhushan India’s third highest civilian award in protest against the growing corruption unemployment and stark poverty rampant in Indian society.
Mohan who was given the award last year said he would be returning the two medals and the citation which form the award to the president’s office Thursday evening.
Mohan told reporters here that his protest was not against any government but against the whole establishment.
The people of the country were being taken for granted or ignored yet if they raised their voice they are subjected to brutal repression he said.
Crime patronized mafia gang’s nexus between politicians officials colonizers and contractors in forests in quarries in coal and steel mines in land deals in big dams protection to smugglers all have become part of the sordid electoral cum power politics in the country he said.
The seventy-year-old activist clarified that it was not any isolated event which had provoked him to take this drastic step but the general decline in politics coupled with growing social injustice that prompted him to return the award.
Mohan said he had spent three and a half years in Lahore central jail during the freedom struggle and had been imprisoned and tortured during the emergency. He was returning the Padma Bhushan because the award had started weighing on his mind with successive governments attempting to crush the people’s movements he said.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 1, 1991
