Baba Ramdev's arrest condemned

Human rights organizations and political parties have condemned the arrest and removal of Baba Ramdev from Ramlila Grounds wher he had begun an indefinite fast on Saturday.

The following is a statement issued by the People's Union for Civil Liberties:

PUCL condemns in the strongest possible terms the arrest of Baba Ramdev and use of force against the people who had peacefully assembled at Ramlila Ground to demand declaration of black money as National Asset and severe punishment to the guilty. The action is anti-democratic and is an act in defence of corruption and the corrupt. The UPA government has a record of dragging its feet to shield the corrupt till it is compelled by the Apex Court or some other circumstances, and in the future also it is not likely to act to curb corruption till compelled by the people.

The PUCL is also of the firm opinion that attacking the tip of the iceberg of corruption overlooking the its ‘Gangotri ‘(Source of origin), as is being done, will have very little impact on the evil of corruption. PUCL demands that a law should be enacted immediately to disclose and regulate the source of funding and mode of spending by the political parties on the line of such laws in the U.K. U.S.A. Canada and put a limit on donations because the rich have become virtually the master of almost all governments in the country by financing the political parties and politicians with black money and have been making them do their bidding in running the State. To save our democracy, it is necessary to break the nexus between the rich and the political class and ensure that our political system is fuelled by clean white money instead of the dirty black money as the case at present.

The PUCL further demands that all coercive action against Baba Ramdeo and the people fighting against corruption must be stopped forthwith

Pushkar Raj
General Secretary, PUCL.

The following is a statement issued by the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist):

The UPA Government’s draconian midnight crackdown on anti-corruption protestors at Ramlila Maidan and must be condemned in the strongest terms. The Prime Minister and the UPA Government at the highest levels must answer for this shameful assault on democracy and the right to peaceful protest.

While on the one hand the Government was conducting negotiations with Baba Ramdev, it launched an underhand and arbitrary police action in which sleeping protestors were lathicharged, several severely injured, the protest venue forcibly cleared, and Ramdev himself detained and flown out of Delhi. Such an assault is a blatantly unconstitutional assault on the freedom of expression and protest.

To justify the crackdown and divert from the burning issue of corruption, Congress spokesperson Digvijay Singh has launched an irresponsible and personalized attack on Baba Ramdev. Digvijay Singh’s intemperate allegations cannot explain why top Congress and UPA Government leaders rushed to the airport to placate the same Ramdev and why they have been negotiating with him?

It emerged yesterday that the public had been kept in the dark about a written agreement between Baba Ramdev and the Government, arrived at even before Ramdev’s agitation began. Moreover, the backing of communal forces for Baba Ramdev’s agitation, capped by the presence on his dais of those notorious for inciting communal violence, cannot be condoned in any way by those struggling for a democratic, corruption-free India. But this cannot justify the central Government’s unwarranted and unprovoked police assault on sleeping protestors including women and children. The Congress-led UPA Government, by conducting behind-the-scenes deals and talks on the one hand and brutal crackdown on the other, is only ending up bolstering communal forces while marginalizing the forces of democratic protest.

With the crackdown, the UPA Government (which has several Ministers and coalition leaders in jail on charges of 2G and CWG scams) is trying to sweep the issue of scams, corruption, corporate plunder and black money under the carpet. At the same time, the Government is trying to block the effort to create an effective anti-corruption law, by attempting to keep the PM out of the purview of the Lokpal. Corporate loot of land and minerals through corrupt means and violation of laws is underway at the POSCO project in Odisha, while the threat of a severe repression hovers over the protesting tribals. Such repression cannot possibly weaken the determination of the awakened people to struggle for a democratic India free from corruption.

Prabhat Kumar
for CPI(ML) Central Committee