Home Featured Updates Radical Socialist Statement on Ban on PFI and its associate organisations

Radical Socialist Statement on Ban on PFI and its associate organisations

Details
Published on Thursday 
29 September 2022 02:03
Written by Radical Socialist

Condemn and Oppose the Aggressive Anti-Muslim Hate Campaign!

Demand  the Repeal of the Ban on the PFI and its associate  organisations

Yes to Due Process, No to Special Powers and Bans

The ban on the Popular Front of India and its associate organizations is supposedly because the government knows it is trying to “radicalize” a section of the population. The organizations that have above all pushed large sections of the Indian population to violence are the RSS, the VHP, the Bajrang Dal, and other Hindutva organizations. They occupy honoured places, including in cabinets and high posts of various kind. As for the PFI, the action comes in a definite pattern. A number of people are arrested at random. Till now no chargesheet has been filed, let alone cases proved in court. Way back in 2001, the NDA government, then too led by the BJP, had banned the SIMI. Over 125 persons had been arrested by the Gujarat police that year. All were Muslims and charged with being members of SIMI and with being associated with terrorist activities. The case dragged on for twenty years. Many remained in jail, some got bail, but all were tarnished by the image of being terrorists, since the police and the media successfully painted them as such. In March 2021, however, all were found totally innocent. Meanwhile they had lost twenty years of their lives. And even more than just those people, a step had been taken in portraying to  large numbers, especially numbers of Hindus, that Muslims could not be trusted, all Muslims were potentially terrorists. In another notorious incident, eight arrested persons, alleged to be SIMI activists, supposedly escaped  from prison and were killed in an “encounter” that civil rights activists deemed an extra-judicial killing of undertrials.

There is gross misuse of the term ‘terrorism’. Terrorism must not be seen as primarily a reference to any particular category of persons but as a reference to a means or tactic or technique that is used to threaten or carry out actual physical injury or death to innocent civilians. Precisely because of this, there are three kinds of agencies of terrorism—the individual, the group and, of course, the apparatuses of the state. All these agencies can be, and so often are, guilty of ordering or carrying out terrorist actions and those responsible for them, no matter how high up or powerful, must be punished. But this must only be after due and fair process of law is followed, (rather than special laws that deny fairness and justice), and proof established of such behaviour. No democracy can justify arbitrary punishments or bans without following such a process. Nor must we forget that the biggest culprits –in terms of the greatest scale of casualties caused by terrorist acts as well as the ones most able to get away with such terrorist actions– are governments and the groups that enjoy their patronage and protection in civil society. So much so that there is no comparison of scales possible.

The raids in several provinces, the arrests, the bare claim with no incident to back it up, all show that the claim about the PFI is a repeat performance of past practice of intensifying anti-Muslim hatred. Its aim is to portray all Muslims, especially any Muslim who takes part in any social or political activity as actual or potential terrorists. We condemn this unequivocally. We call on citizens to protest and demand a retraction of the ban.

Radical Socialist,  28/9/2022

  •  
  •  
RELATED ARTICLES

Radical Socialist Statement on the Legalisation of the EWS Quota

Details Published on Tuesday 08 November 2022 14:07 Written by Radical Socialist

Radical Socialist Statement on The Karnataka Verdict and the Future

Details Published on Sunday 14 May 2023 09:51 Written by Radical Socialist

Radical Socialist Statement on Women Wrestlers’ Agitation

Details Published on Sunday 14 May 2023 17:06 Written by Radical Socialist

Most Popular

Radical Socialist Statement on Adani

Details Published on Wednesday 01 February 2023 16:53 Written by Radical Socialist

Reject the draft “Role and Tasks of the FI”

Details Published on Tuesday 15 December 2009 12:08 Written by Radical Socialist Brown (USA), Jette (Denmark), Andreas (Greece), Konstanitin (Germany) * Draft Motion (for the agenda item “Role and...

Copenhagen: The rising tide of climate justice

Details Published on Monday 14 December 2009 10:08 Written by Radical Socialist

মণিপুরঃ র‍্যাডিকাল সোশ্যালিস্টের বিবৃতি

Details Published on Sunday 23 July 2023 02:04 Written by Radical Socialist

Proletarian Heroine: Domitila Barrios

Details Published on Saturday 17 March 2012 04:21 Written by Radical Socialist Remembering Domitila: Making Bolivian History Emily Achtenberg Rebel Currents March 15, 2012 (Credit: Ben Achtenberg, refugemediaproject.org) Bolivians paid tribute this week to Domitila Barrios...

ALGERIA “The West prefers a regime subject to its interests

Details Published on Thursday 06 June 2019 16:53 Written by Radical Socialist INTERVIEW WITH HOCINE BELALLOUFI Wednesday 5 June 2019, by Hocine Belalloufi Hocine Belalloufi is a journalist and a...

SYRIA Calling for an end to intervention is not nearly enough

Details Published on Saturday 15 October 2016 14:33 Written by Radical Socialist Friday 7 October 2016, by Joseph Daher The ceasefire in Syria concluded on September 9, 2016 between...

Theses on the “Arab Spring”

Details Published on Thursday 02 February 2012 03:15 Written by Radical Socialist Theses on the “Arab Spring” Gilbert Achcar   1. The gigantic upheaval that is shaking the entire Arab world...

Mobilise Solidarity for the People of Palestine: Radical Socialist Appeal

Details Published on Monday 09 October 2023 05:00 Written by Radical Socialist

Police Violence on Workers Rally in Indonesia

Details Published on Wednesday 11 November 2015 10:29 Written by Radical Socialist Indonesia – LBH Jakarta: Activists Assaulted by Police at Labor Rally Saturday 31 October 2015, by Jakarta Globe Jakarta. The...