The global human rights organization Amnesty International may have been accused in recent years of interfering in internal affairs by the ruling central-government-led Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), but there was a time when letters from its supporters across the world gave “strength, confidence and hope” to political leaders like LK Advani and his friends. Advani in his book, Scrapbook of a prisoner, essentially an account of his days in prison during the emergency (1975-77), he records that the letters sent by Amnesty International members or associates gave “strength, confidence and hope to all of us who participated in the struggle.”
In his entry for January 18, 1977, Advani, who was then housed in Bangalore Central Jail, wrote about what was his last day in prison:
“When at 5:30 or so I returned to my room, I found a pile of letters on my table. There are more than 600, all of them from abroad, sent by members or associates of Amnesty International. Most are Christmas or New Year greetings cards, but there is a line or two inscribed on each one, which gave strength, confidence and hope to all those committed against the fight.
LK Advani
Scrapbook of a prisoner
Prabhat prakashan
During the emergency, thousands of political leaders, students and activists from across India were imprisoned by Indira Gandhi’s government. This included several high-ranking members of the RSS and Bharatiya Jana Sangh, a forerunner of the BJP. “Here’s a sample: a Christmas greeting card from Laurie Hendricks from Amsterdam in Holland,” Advani noted, adding that she wrote: “Freedom and hope do not go hand in hand. They can steal your freedom, but they can’t take away your hope. “In conclusion, she recorded:” Yes, they stole the freedom of 600 million, they just couldn’t destroy their hope! “
It should be noted that, around the world, Amnesty International regularly asks its supporters to send letters and messages of solidarity to victims of torture, prisoners of conscience, people sentenced to death and others who suffer human rights violations. Since its formation in 1961, the Nobel Prize-winning organization has been doing this on a regular basis. Annually, they organize the “Write for Rights” campaign, a letter-writing marathon that brings together thousands of Amnesty International supporters and activists from around the world.
Amnesty International says that in the 2014 Write for Rights campaign, hundreds of thousands of people took more than 3 million actions in more than 200 countries and territories around the world. These letters “help us put pressure on the authorities and, over the years, have resulted in life-changing impacts for many,” says the global human rights movement.
On Tuesday, the organization’s India unit announced it would close after the Compliance Directorate froze its bank accounts, blaming the Center’s ‘retaliation’.
Support for political leaders from across the spectrum
Over the years, Amnesty International has campaigned for the release of various activists and leaders from the left, the right and the center of the political spectrum. During the Emergency, he campaigned for the release of political leaders such as Advani, Jayaprakash Narayan, Morarji Desai, and their friends and comrades in the fight against the tyrannical government of the day.
“My colleagues and I warmly recall the efforts made by Amnesty International for the restoration of fundamental freedoms and civil liberties,” Desai, who became the prime minister of the Janata Party-led government after Emergency, was reported to have said. Advani was the minister of information and broadcasting in the Desai cabinet.
Morarji Desai. Photo: Wikimedia Commons / GoI
The organization not only campaigned against the Emergency, but also sent its first official delegation to India after the Emergency was lifted. The delegation visited different parts of the country between December 31, 1977 and January 18, 1978. It presented a detailed report that was published in January 1979. The report covered six major areas of concern: The restoration of the rule of law and the protection. from the human rights; detention in Indian law; the current situation of political prisoners; torture of political prisoners and deaths in police custody; murders of political prisoners in “Encounters” and “while trying to escape”; and prison conditions.
Noting that there have been serious allegations “in the last ten years that police forces have killed political prisoners ‘while trying to escape from prison’ or in ‘encounters with the police’”, Amnesty International in its report said that “ considers that the torture and murder of political prisoners by the police forces are the most serious violations of human rights ”.
The report also stated that “Amnesty International further believes that all persons detained in connection with political activities, including those involving the deliberate use of violence, should always enjoy all the fundamental rights that protect the individual, in particular the right to life, not to be tortured and the right to a fair trial. “
The Amnesty International logo. Photo: Reuters / Carlos Jass / File Photo
A part of the report’s conclusion says:
“Amnesty International believes that the right to life and personal liberty and protection against torture, guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Constitution of India, should always be respected, whether by government forces or groups opposition. Amnesty International is totally opposed to torture and execution, especially when carried out in the name of a political cause and regardless of whether such acts are committed by government forces or opposition groups such as the Naxalites.
In the preface to the report, Thomas Hammarberg, then Chairman of the International Executive Committee of Amnesty International, wrote: “We hope that this report, and in particular the recommendations to the government outlined in the memorandum, will contribute to the current debates on the means to protect and effectively enforce the fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution of India, a debate that Amnesty International considers of utmost importance.
Disclosure: Mahtab Alam worked with Amnesty International India between March 2014 and June 2016, as the lead activist and coordinator of its Human Rights Defenders Project.
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