Convention on 15 July in Delhi
Public Meeting in Ara on anniversary of Bathani Tola Massacre
By TCN News
New Delhi: A range of concerned citizens have come together to form ‘Citizens for Justice for Bathani Tola’ as a platform to take forward the struggle for justice for victims and survivors of the Bathani Tola and other feudal, communal, and state-sponsored massacres.
21 landless poor – mostly women and children from dalit, extremely backward and Pasmanda Muslim communities – were massacred by the RanveerSena on 11 July 1996. In April 2012, in a shocking verdict, the Bihar HC acquitted all those accused for the massacre, overturning a sessions court verdict of 2010 that had convicted 23.
Landless poor at BathaniTola had been targeted because its people had fought for land, wages, and social dignity, and had asserted themselves politically by backing the CPI(ML), which had won two Assembly seats in the region in 1995. This social and political assertion was punished by the formation of the RanveerSena, and the BathaniTola massacre.
The survivors of the massacre – who lost several members of their family, and have bravely stood witness in court – are appealing the verdict in the Supreme Court.
Members of the Citizens for Justice for Bathani Tola include: Filmmakers Anand Patwardhan and Ajay Bharadwaj, noted academics and public intellectuals Bela Bhatia, Uma Chakravarty, Anand Chakravarty, NandiniSundar, Anand Teltumbde, V Geetha, Tulsi Ram, Tanika Sarkar, Nivedita Menon, and Manager Pandey, Simpson (activist of a Tamilnadu based group Odukapattor Viduthalai Munnani), journalists Seema Mustafa, Anil Chamaria, Jaspal Singh Siddhu, Satya Sivaraman, Kiran Shaheen, poets Nirmala Putul and Manglesh Dabral, economist and activist Jaya Mehta, noted critic and social scientist from Assam Dr. Hiren Gohain, Nirmalangshu Mukherjee, PK Vijayan, Sanghamitra Mishra, and Uma Gupta of Delhi University, Kamal Chenoy, Anuradha Chenoy, and KJ Mukherjee of JNU, Ashok Bhowmick, painter and cultural activist, Sucheta De (JNUSU President), Pranay Krishna and Sudhir Suman (Jan Sanskriti Manch), Chittaranjan Singh (PUCL), and Kavita Krishnan (AIPWA).
Statement issued by the new group
July 11th is the anniversary of the Bathani Tola carnage. On that day, a massive public meeting will be held at Ara town, in which survivors of the Bathani massacre will participate. On behalf of the Citizens for Justice for Bathani Tola, Nandini Sundar (Head of the Dept. of Sociology at DU, and petitioner in Supreme Court against Salwa Judum) as well as Kavita Krishnan will participate in the Ara mass meeting.
On 15 July, Bathani Tola massacre survivors will attend and address a Convention called by the Citizens for Justice for Bathani Tola. The Convention will be held at Speaker’s Hall, Constitution Club, on 15 July, from 12 noon – 6 pm. Students from Ara’s dalit hostels, which were attacked by Ranveer Sena supporters this month following the killing of Brahmeshwar Singh, will also speak at the Convention. A documentary film on the Bathani Tola massacre will also be released at the 15 July Convention. .
The acquittal of all the accused in the Bathani massacre case has come about in an overall climate of state patronage and protection for the feudal private army, Ranveer Sena.
• The erstwhile Laloo Yadav regime too failed to arrest Brahmeshwar Singh, the chief of the Ranveer Sena, and after Bathani too, the Sena committed several massacres including the huge Laxmanpur Bathe massacre in 1998.
• In the Bathani case, the 3 police eyewitnesses to the massacre are defence witnesses!
• The Amir Das Commission was set up in 1998 to probe the political backing for the RanveerSena. The RJD regime did not cooperate with it. And as soon as Nitish Kumar became CM, he disbanded the Amir Das commission.
• Brahmeshwar Singh surrendered in 2002. Inside jail, he led agitations for separate food arrangements for upper caste prisoners. In 2010, the police told the Ara sessions court during the Bathani trial, that Brahmeshwar was an absconder – when at the time he was lodged in Ara jail! Brahmeshwar, accused in several cases of massacre of dalit agricultural poor, got bail because the Nitish Government did not oppose his bail plea.
• Brahmeshwar Singh was killed in Ara on June 1 2012. On June 1-2, his supporters openly indulged in arson and vandalism, and even set dalit hostels in Ara on fire and looted belongings of dalit students – with the police taking no action to stop them. Brahmeshwar’s funeral procession to Patna indulged in violence all along the way, again with deliberate police apathy and inaction.
• In a televised interview not long before his death, Brahmeshwar Singh had said he had been an RSS cadre since childhood, and that he wanted to see Narendra Modi made Prime Minister. It is ironic that Nitish Kumar is trying to project himself as a secular pole within NDA against Modi – but his Government has been so open in its support and protection of the Ranveer Sena which is clearly inspired by the RSS and Modi ideology and methods!
The Bihar Government has filed an appeal in the SC against the HC verdict on BathaniTola. But the fact is that the Government has a record of open pro-Ranveer Sena bias, and the bias of prosecution and police has weakened the case all along. Therefore the Bathani survivors will also file an independent appeal and their own case will be argued by a senior Supreme Court counsel, Raju Ramachandran.
We are in the 21st century. And the Bihar Government led by Nitish Kumar has made tall claims of empowering ‘mahadalits.’ But the facts indicate that discrimination, deprivation, and caste bias run deep in Bihar even today.
• The bulk of dalits, especially from the ‘mahadalit’ castes, are landless labourers. Driven by want and unemployment, there is a very high incidence of migrant labour from these castes, that seeks work in other states.
• According to National Crime Records Bureau NCRB’s latest 2010 report, Bihar tops Indian states in atrocities on dalits. Cases of SC/ST atrocities in Bihar accounted for 24.2% of the total cases reported in the country, followed by Andhra Pradesh (14.4%).
• Dalits continue to have poor representation in most institutions including the judiciary. The Citizens for Justice for Bathani Tola plans to file an RTI asking for data on dalit judges in Bihar’s judiciary.
The Citizens for Justice for Bathani Tola will struggle for justice for the victims of Ranveer Sena massacres, and will also take up the cause of justice in other cases of communal and caste massacres. Film screenings, conventions, poster exhibitions, and other events will be held all over the country in support of the Bathani Tola survivors and their struggle.
We appeal to the media to inform people about the Bathani Tola survivors’ courageous struggle for justice while facing physical threats and danger to their lives.
Bathani Tola Massacre Timeline
11 July 1996: A Ranveer Sena mob attacks Bathani Tola dalit hamlet in broad daylight, and massacres 21. Of these, 11 were women, seven were children, two were babies who were a few months old, and one was a man. The victims were Muslim, dalit or from extremely backward castes.
December 1997: the Ranveer Sena killed 69 in the Laxmanpur Bathe massacre, which President KR Narayanan called a ‘national shame.’
1998: Amir Das Commission set up by Bihar Government to probe political patronage and support for Ranveer Sena
2002: Brahmeshwar Singh surrenders
2005: Nitish Government disbands Amir Das Commission.
March 2010: Ara Session Court gives verdict sentencing 3 to death and 20 to life imprisonment in Bathani massacre case.
April 16, 2012: Bihar HC acquits all in Bathani massacre case