Khurram Parvez would have known it was coming. Two weeks back, Mr Shah opened his dog-eared copy of the 2019 illustrated edition of The Standard Playbook for Indian Dictators, beamed around at approving looks from his team as he landed on the chapter – “UAPA for Professional Dummies” and promptly got Khurram arrested.
But then, Khurram is no stranger to state excess. His office had been raided by the NIA in October 2020. And earlier in 2016, he was arrested and put under a 76-day detention. This happened on the eve of a planned departure to an international conference. So he’s all too intimately aware of the arbitrariness of a clumsy state trying its utmost to knee-cap every dissenting opinion. His most recent arrest in November 2021 and detention is almost as ham-handed – the NIA’s seizure list accompanying its arrest memo highlights its fixation with his choice of reading material. One wonders which unlucky NIA staffer will be assigned the task of uncovering subversion in “Hindu Nationalism – a Reader”?
Khurram had been working on Human Rights in his native Kashmir since 2000 when he founded the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society [the JKCCS] – and in an interview shortly after his all-charges-have-been-thrown-out-in-court release, this is what he astutely remarked on how the then Mehbooba Mufti Government used the Public Safety Act:
The entire interview is recommended reading. Khurram comes across committed firmly to peaceful means of change who lost close friends to a devastating landmine in which he had to have his own leg amputated as a result. He has spent the last two decades giving his voice to families and victims of the most horrendous human rights abuses anywhere in the world. His most recent focus has been to seek recourse for families whose close ones have been killed by Indian forces who chose to not return the bodies to the families for a burial. In an utterly surreal legal twist, writs of “habeas corpus” are now being filed in Kashmir to return corpses and the Indian government is filing petty vengeful counter-cases against the families under UAPA.
Habeas corpus :=> literally Produce the Body in Latin – a legal term which compels the state to produce (usually living) detainees before a magistrate within 24 hours
Indeed, on his recent arrest, a litany of global voices spoke up calling for his release. The PUCL wrote a despondent letter to the PM, the UN special rapporteur for Human Rights spoke up, as did umbrella organizations concerned about torture, and the NY Times chimed in as well. On cue, the media-run Indian government dusted off its denial-and-pushback file issuing tired trope convincing exactly no one.
It’s not difficult in the India-of-2021 to see how the subsequent trajectory in this case will proceed. First, State-run media apparatchiks will regurgitate approved stenography (If you have electronic devices, you are a terrorist!). Social media warriors will go on the offensive against easy to spot hypocrisies. In the meantime, Khurram will be first sent to judicial custody, then moved out of sight, eminent organizations will issue graveconcerns, days will fade into weeks then months, even years or worse as attention fatigue sets in. So who stands up for him? Neimoller’s internet-famous adage apart, the aam-janta are today locked in an existential survival crisis as the oligarchy extracts every last bit from us as they race us to the bottom and enjoy the benefits of a K-shaped recovery. That leaves us – the intellectuals. As Chomsky presciently wrote that The Responsibilities of Intellectuals are deeper, given the unique privileges that we enjoy being “in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions.” Khurram Parvez epitomises that exhortation – he’s a recipient of the Chevening Fellowship at the University of Glasgow, United Kingdom and used his platform and expertise for adversarial activism. Here read up on him and you’ll understand why he is such a thorn in the kakistocracy that we live in and why he was arrested. Khurram Parvez needs to be released and released now. Just a few weeks back, a wave of in-your face protests resulted in the government forced to doing an about-face and two bodies being returned to their families in Hyderpora, Kashmir. So there is precedence to getting Khurram out. Simply speaking, there are more of us and we can overpower them. Release Parvez now.
