Ajay TG — Man With A Camera

December 6th, 2008

Ajay TG- Man With A Camera.

http://passionforcinema.com/ajay-tg-man-with-a-camera/

There are places other than this.
Outside of our city of dreams, there are people who worship cinema just as much. Ajay is one of them. But his cinema is not like ours, nor are his aspirations. His life and work are dedicated to other people- people who suffer behind the gigantic screen projecting a Shining India, in silence and darkness. His cinema is their voice. Just as simple, just as fancy-free. Vikalp, an organization of documentary filmmakers who resist censorship, facilitated the screening of his films recently. As I sat and watched DVD after DVD of his untiring passion, an overwhelming sense of hopelessness came upon me. Very few of us would have the courage to abandon all pursuit of personal happiness and ambition to persevere and surrender our life so that some voices from the other side can be heard. If certain authorities put out such a man, what good is the ascent of our cinema to world acclaim? When Mumbai burns we are enraged and rightly so. We brandish the tricolour and scream. But this tricolour also belongs to parts of this country that have been burning for years on end. When we debate high art the next time, when we lament our lack of resources the next time, when we light a candle for our city the next time, might we also remember that there are places other than this?

Here is a longish interview I have conducted with Ajay. He spoke in a characteristic mix of south Indian Hindi and Chhattisgarhi. I have translated his words into English as best as I could. I hope they haven’t lost the essence of goodness and beauty that this man’s voice reflects. It makes for a long read. I hope you will have the patience to listen to him. This is a PFC exclusive! :)
But first a small introduction to the man, his work and his ordeal excerpted from www.releaseajaytg.in

Read the rest of this entry »

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Different Kinds of Silence

November 13th, 2008
DIFFERENT KINDS OF SILENCE (http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081113/jsp/opinion/story_10099798.jsp)

The elections in Chhattisgarh are about a myriad voices: the shrill mikes, the booming, amplified echoes of contestants, the deafening sound of drums, pipes and tape recorders used in campaigns. But there are voices that have no place in a democracy which the State drowns with its might, or is unwilling to listen to.

Two local journalists and I drove along the highway one morning towards Bhilai, 70 km from Raipur, speeding past green and brown fields, dhabas, village markets and management institutes. We were to meet Ajay T.G. (picture, left) — one of the men whom the Chhattisgarh government has been trying to silence — to understand how dissidents perceived democracy.

Ajay had been jailed under the Jan Suraksha Adiniyam or the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act 2005, in May this year, on charges of being involved with the urban Naxal network. In jail, he was also pressurized to sign statements against Binayak Sen, another prized catch for the CSPSA. But the prosecution, expectedly, had not been able to establish his crime in court. The police had produced a letter as evidence in which Ajay is supposed to have demanded that the Maoists return his camera or compensate him monetarily. The truth, said Ajay sitting in his modest house beside a quiet chapel, is that in 2004, he had travelled to Bastar to film a documentary along with Binayak Sen and two others. There, the Maoists confiscated his camera. Two years later, it was returned to him, along with a letter of apology. At the time of his arrest, Ajay had not denied that he had written the letter, and informed the police of the chain of events. The truth landed him in Kendriya Jail.

He is out of prison now, but isn’t a free man. The charges haven’t been withdrawn yet, and Ajay still has to seek the police’s permission to travel outside Chhattisgarh. His personal belongings have not been returned. The reason for this persecution, he said, is that the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, with whom both he and Binayak Sen are involved, had been critical of the excesses committed by the Salwa Judum, the ‘people’s movement’ that the Congress and the BJP both support, in its war against the Maoists.

So I am not surprised when Ajay describes Indian democracy as a two-edged sword. He told me that he had returned from Dantewada district last night, where he heard Mahendra Karma, the Congress leader contesting from that region, say that he would clear the jungles, bring industry, and crush all opponents. The police had also arrested every man in Karampal village recently. “In these parts, the State misused its immense powers to buy silence, destroy the environment and create a divided, unequal land,” he said quietly. Ajay did not sound like a rebel. He merely spoke like a concerned citizen, and looked very tired.

We took his leave and set out for Maana, on the outskirts of Raipur, to meet a people whose voices, although not gagged, had gone unheard. Inside the car, I saw my friend, the local journalist, fiddling with his phone. I asked him whom he was calling, but he smiled and said that he was removing Ajay’s name from his contact list. We laughed, but I thought I saw a shadow pass across his face.

Hours later, Maana unfolded, beautiful and unreal. We travelled through leafy, narrow lanes bordered by low-roofed huts. There was also a recreation club, a picture of Tagore painted on one of its walls. Some shop addresses had been scrawled in Bengali, and I saw dhakis inside a pandal. Maana was a transit camp for Bengali refugees from East Pakistan who had been rehabilitated as part of the Dandakaranya Project in 1964. Some men and women stayed behind in the camp, and were given citizenship and government jobs, but denied the right to own land. After they retired, they were asked to leave their quarters, and settle down in huts by the highway. These waiting men and women, inside their decrepit buildings, were thus refugees even in their new home.

Shefali Mandal and I sat in her tea-shop and talked about the elections. Using her voter’s identity card to fight the flies, Shefali said that she will vote for the Congress in the hope that the party would give her ownership of the land she lives on. She is concerned about the future of her children under the BJP: “Raman Singh does not care for people like us. Otherwise, he would have reserved seats in education and in employment for our children.” Reservation is empowerment, she believes: “Look at what the Gujjars are doing in Rajasthan.” Mandal is a member of the Chhattisgarh Namasudra Kalyan Samiti, a nodal agency that is demanding caste reservations for the community’s children. She pointed to some broken furniture, an old TV and her utensils, and said that her riches would be of no use if she had no land to call her own. She still remembered where she came from, even after all these years, and said she was free there. Here, she is a citizen in chains.

Before leaving to fetch tea, Mandal said that in an ideal democracy, people should take responsibility of the land and its people. I waited for her to return, and, looking around, saw a huge cut-out of the local candidate. Satyanarayan Sharma had a beaming face, and towered over the settlement with his folded hands. I felt a strange sadness. This man made of paper was unlikely to answer Mandal’s prayers. Glasses tinkled behind me, tea had arrived.
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The sinister ways of Chhattisgarh Police

October 25th, 2008

State Repression

http://combatlaw.org/print.php?article_id=1214&issue_id=42

 Binayak Sen was arrested last year under the Chhattisgarh State Public Security Act, and film maker Ajay TG was arrested thereafter. Sen’s trial is going on in Raipur. PUCL’s Kavita Srivastava presents the events in the third phase of Binayak Sen’s trial and the incidents preceding Ajay TG’s bail

he third phase of the trial of Dr Binayak Sen case began on July 29 and lasted till July 31. The key witnesses, the material witnesses had already deposed in the first two phases of the trial and some were tendered off. The subsequent witnesses were to be mostly seizure witnesses or police and jail personnel. Since most of the 20 witnesses who had deposed in the first two rounds of the trial had in no way confirmed the police case, the prosecution in an act of desperation had filed an application for recalling three of the witnesses who had deposed in the second phase between July 1 and July 4. This was slated for argument in the course of these three days.

This was also the period when it became clear that the chargesheet was not being filed in the Ajay TG case and that statutory bail was imminent. There was sudden hope that perhaps the case itself would be closed as Ajay had not committed any criminal act and hence there was no evidence to that effect.

July 29, 2008: No hearing happened as a senior member of the Bar had passed away. Before we reached the court, Binayak Sen, Pijush Guha and Narayan Sanyal had been already taken away to the jail. We were very disappointed that we had missed him.

Earlier in the day, along with Dipankar Sen (Binayak Sen’s brother) and his friends, we met the Chattisgarh DG police. The conversation centred around Dr Sen. Towards the end I asked him about the release of Ajay TG and he told me that as promised he had gone and met Ajay TG in Durg Jail and there seemed to be little doubt that Ajay had any kind of Maoist involvement and thus the case would close eventually. He stated that a few statements had to be taken in order to close the case.

Since Binayak Sen’s trial is disproving the prosecution’s case the police is openly trying to fabricate evidence both inside and outside the court. The police even tried to use Ajay TG’s legitimate release against Sen

That evening Mahendra Dubey, who is the advocate for both Ajay TG and Binayak Sen, was called by one government official in connection with the closure report that had to be presented in the Ajay TG case. I also decided to accompany him. When we reached the place the friendly officer immediately told us that since the seniors had planned to file a closure report in Ajay case, they were keen that Ajay give a statement which could be the basis of filing the report.

When we read the two page statement we were both shocked to learn that the contents of the letter had statements against Ilina, Binayak and the PUCL—sentences which made Ilina and Binayak appear very undemocratic and arbitrary and an ambiguous statement about PUCL being with Maoists. Supposedly it was a statement speaking about Ajay’s association with the PUCL and Binayak and Ilina and how the camera had been borrowed by him to make a film on Laurie Baker, the incident which happened in 2004 when his camera was taken away and the subsequent events that followed it.
We knew that this was no innocent act and that making Ajay sign a statement with such references against Binayak, Ilina and the PUCL, could be used as evidence against the Sen’s and the PUCL at a later stage. It just exposed the murkiness of how police functions. Not only was the police still after Binayak and the PUCL but somewhere they were after Ilina. Even in the court they brought up Ilina’s reference frequently. Now it was being tried through Ajay.

The court room was stunned by Chhattisgarh police’s attempt to tamper with sealed evidence even in such a high-profile case. Present in court that day was Abhay Shukla, a member of the NHRC core group, who had been sent on a reconnaissance visit to examine whether Sen’s trial needed monitoring

Our lawyer firmly stated that there was no need for an “accused” to sign any statement as in any case there was no meaning of a statement taken by the police of an accused in custody and secondly because Ajay was in judicial custody in any case the police would have to apply for it in the court.

He also emphasised that final reports on cases do not happen with a statement of the accused denying his involvement in the crime act but they close because of lack of evidence, a call which the police needs to take.

The official agreed to everything that we said and then revealed that Ajay’s entire case was made from above and given to a middle ranking police official on May 5 to file and arrest the man without delay. He also added that the official argued vehemently that he felt that there was no case against Ajay and he was not interested in fixing anybody. According to this official, if ever there ought to have been a case against Ajay then he should have been booked January 2008 when the letter about the camera had been obtained from the house of Gudsa Husendi (the spoke person of the CPI (Maoists). Lodging the case five months later made no sense. What angered the official when he spoke to us was that now that the top officials wanted the case closed they were making use of that same middle ranking official who would face the brunt of the court of law in case Ajay should decide on legal action against the Chhattisgarh police for his baseless arrest.

We left the place with a sinister feeling that there was much more up the sleeves of the police than we were being told. The Chhattisgarh Police could not be trusted at all. The process of closure of the case involved great manipulation with a view to using Ajay against Binayak, Ilina and PUCL.

What worried us most was the Chhattisgarh state’s desire to continue to harass Binayak Sen. Despite the fact that they had put him in prison for over fifteen months on baseless charges, they had not had their fill. Now even the release of Ajay TG was being converted into an exercise for further fixing Binayak Sen and the PUCL.

July 30, 2008: Tampering of evidence : Seziure packet containing “incriminating evidence” obtained from the house of Dr Binayak Sen has an extra-document.

In the morning we were at the trial court in Raipur and it seemed that the witness to be examined was inconsequential. Shyam Sundar Rao was involved in the body search prior and after the search of the residence of Binayak Sen. But hardly were we ten minutes into his chief examination when the special public prosecutor (SPP) read out the existence of a letter written by the Maoists politbureau to Binayak Sen. This caught the attention of all of us in the court room who knew by heart the list of documents that were seized by the police from the house. Mahendra Dubey, the lawyer, who was keeping track of the items being produced, double checked the seizure memo, which had no such letter and then vehemently objected that a new document had been introduced.

The SPP first defended his stance but when the judge also said that there were only ten items, put it down to the indecipherable handwriting of the chargesheet. He insisted to the court that the Investigation Officer, BBS Rajput be called so that he could get him to read his writing. Our lawyer objected to this and the Court also agreed that there was no need for any assistance.

Then came Dubey’s turn for cross-examination. He placed each document and cross examined Rao regarding his signature. Each seizure document had the signature of Binayak Sen, the Investigation Officer (IO), BBS Rajput and the two search witnesses but this eleventh document had no signature of Binayak Sen or the other witness. It only had the signatures of Shyam Sundar Rao and the IO. Binayak Sen’s signature was conspicuously missing. Interestingly, the letter which they had slipped in was a computer typed letter with no signature of the sender also.

The cross examination brought on record all these facts but could not go beyond raising doubts on how the packet could have been reopened after it was sealed in Binayak’s house on May 15. The IO would have to be made accountable about the tampering whenever he would come for his witness statement. Important questions got raised about where the tampering happened, whether in the police store room or in the court store room?

When Ajay refused to sign on the statement the SP turned round and issued the bizarre statement that they would register a case against him “on the basis of the evidence that we have from the films that your wife went and gave the DG police”.

The entire court room was stunned by this act of the Chhattisgarh police, who dared to tamper with sealed evidence in a case like that of Binayak Sen which was under everybody’s glare. The court room that day had the presence of Dr Abhay Shukla, a member of the NHRC core group who had been sent on a reconnaissance visit to examine whether Dr Sen’s trial needed monitoring. It left no room of doubt as to how the police must be regularly doctoring evidence in cases of the poor and fixing them.

It also brought back memories of another incident of tampering of evidence which was brought to light on the day when the first witness deposed. Supposedly an “independent witness” who signed the seizure memos after the arrest of Pijush Guha on the evening of May 6. (In reality Pijush was arrested on May 1). In the court room the prosecution and the witness continuously talked about the existence of a black and blue bag on the shoulder of Pijush Guha which the police claimed they had seized and was in the seizure memo. A sealed trunk was brought in and opened in front of the judge by a court employee and much to the amazement of the judge, the other lawyers, the accused and observers present in court, the trunk was empty. The police tried to cover up that too.

July 31, 2008: Ajay TG’s remand hearing was fixed for this date. Binayak Sen’s trial had a crucial witness that day who never came and others too did not make it on time. So before the court closed for the day’s hearing, the Judicial Officer Mr Saluja decided to hear the arguments on the “recall of witnesses” application placed by the prosecution. They were keen to recall (i) Deepak Choubey, the relative of the landlord where Narayan Sanyal lived along with Amita Srivastava (ii) Prakash Magaria the landlord, (iii) Veena Shivpuri the principal of the school where Amita Srivastava had worked.

The argument presented by them was that since Venna Shivpuri was unable to recognise Amita in a group photograph, during her deposition in court, the prosecution wanted her identification done on the basis of a “larger” photo. All this was important for a just decision of the case.

Lawyers Mahendra Dubey for Sen, Bhishm Kinger for Narayan Sanyal and Amit for Pijush Guha, all three vehemently argued that Amita Srivatava was not a relevant person for this case. She was not even made an accused in the case, therefore, proving or disproving her identity did not help the case. Citations from various judgements were provided to back their argument.

Judicial Officer Saluja decided to withhold the order. We were free for the afternoon from Sen’s trial and quickly embarked on our journey to Durg as Ajay was to be produced. We also wanted to understand whether Mahendra Dubey’s insistence that Ajay would sign no statement would have got the police to give up their plan.

Remand hearing of Ajay TG

When we reached Durg court an impressive team of three lawyers consisting of Sudha Bharadwaj, Bose Thomas and Dilip Ingley were already present. The happiest was Aman, son of Ajay and Shobha, who could not believe that he would actually get a glimpse of his father who was in the lock up in the court. He was clucking away happily. A couple of kind policemen earlier in the day had also let father and son hug each other. Three young women stood in one corner of the corridor and later when we were introduced we were told that they were from the Basti where Drksakshi ran its Bal Angan. Shobha, her brother and a few other friends were all waiting for us.

Ajay was brought in for the hearing. An entourage of about fifteen of us followed Ajay, the police and the lawyers through the corridors of the court, up the steps to the court room in one corner. Of course as expected the reader and the clerk tried to tell all of us to stay out of the court room. We insisted and since it was a short business of merely being produced in court and taking Ajay’s signature, we tried to tell them that they should let us stay. But for them it was the remand hearing of a “Naxalite prisoner” so every outsider was suspect including family and friends. We stood outside knowing that it would be over in a few minutes.

The police kept telling us that since they would be filing the Final Report they just needed a couple of more days. So it was not just statutory bail which would become Ajay’s right two days later but he would also be vindicated that he was wrongly arrested. The stipulated 90 days period in which the police had file a chargesheet failing which the dourt could grant bail to the accused was also August 2.
It was in the course of this meeting with Ajay that he told his lawyers that the previous evening, on July 30, the SP of Durg, Kabra had come to meet him in jail and wanted him to sign a statement which had a sentence/sentences against the PUCL. When Ajay refused to sign on the statement the SP turned round and issued the bizarre statement that they would register a case against him “on the basis of the evidence that we have from the films that your wife Shobha went and gave the DG police”. Incidentally the DG police had asked for Ajay’s films from Shobha when we met him on July 3, which she had gone and given to him a few days later.

Ajay refused to succumb to the threat. Instead, he replied, ” che mahine ya ek saal rah jaonga par kisse ke meharbani par bahar nahi aaonga”. ( I will stay for another six months or a year in jail but I do not want to be released because of anybody’s mercy).

Why was Ajay being made to sign a statement? As our lawyers had explained, the statement of the accused had no meaning. And if the police had no evidence then that was sufficient to file a closure report. Then why was this statement being made into such an issue that the SP travelled to jail to meet Ajay? Was it that they were so desperate that since there was no evidence against Sen that they were now trying to create new evidence? We have frequently been told that a supplementary chargesheet would be filed at some stage. Was this part of the process of doctoring more evidence against him?

It was pouring that afternoon that I was unable to meet the SP whom I had thought I would meet and instead we returned to Raipur.

Our journey back with the three women from Drksakshi who had come to court to express solidarity with Ajay, was very interesting. We all sang songs and they talked about the Bal Angan and recited the rhymes that these children are taught there. It was in the course of their conversation in the car that these women told us that the police really harassed them. The police came several times to their Basti and tried to enquire whether Ajay had taken them into the forests areas of Chhattisgarh, whether they been taught by Ajay to make calls of wild animals and that of dogs and cats. They asked whether he had ever brought weapons into the Basti. They said that the only weapon he carried was a nail cutter when he came to the Basti and that he would just put the children on his lap and clip their nails lovingly. The police kept asking for the keys of the Bal Anganwhich they refused and they told the police, “we will not give it to you as you may plant some evidence against Ajay and us”. Even today they had come on the quiet so that the police informers in the Basti would not inform the police about why they were stepping out of the Basti.

They said that the police had tried to vitiate the goodwill that they had in the Basti and tried to tell their families that they must not associate with Ajay and Shobha anymore. They were heart broken that Ajay who had stepped out to do good for the poor was in jail. Nor did they want the Bal Anganto close down. It had become intgeral to their lives and that of their children.

August 1, 2008: I took an appointment with the DG police and lodged a protest in writing regarding the attempt to forcibly make Ajay sign a statement against Ilina, Binayak and the PUCL. The DG police told me that the statement was basically a summary version of his meeting with Ajay on July 19 which he had taped. He said that the statement that had been scripted was the summary of the two hour conversation that they had had. It was jerky as the police had pulled out the questions and just summarised the reply. He said that it could be edited according to our wishes.

So basically the message that was being given to us was that whatever the police was getting Ajay to sign on was on tape. We did not succumb to that pressure knowing that any statement could be pulled out of context with the meaning completely changed in the process. When we asked why Ajay was being pressurised when there was no need for an accused to sign any statement, we were given several unconvincing arguments. We communicated to the DG that Ajay would not sign anything. The meeting ended very cordially but before it closed the DG gave us ample hint that the police would be bringing in a supplementary chargesheet against Sen.

Post Script: Ajay finally got statutory bail on August 5. Even on that day the SHO of Supela police station came with a statement for Ajay to sign. When Ajay refused, the man did not give up.
Two months have passed but neither has a closure report been filed nor has he got his computer and editing machine back. We are being assured that the case will be closed and that the computer will be returned but these are only words. Is Ajay being taught a lesson because he refused to comply with the wishes of the police and sooner or later they will chargesheet him. Or is it that they want to keep up their pressure on Ajay and keep him dangling between freedom and fear.

It is clear that the police is desperate in the Binayak Sen case and thus even in a case which is under the glare of the media and observers from other organisations, the police did not hesitate to tamper evidence. Simultaneously they are using making threats and offering promises to Ajay, so that the closure of his case is contingent on making incriminating statements against the Sens and the PUCL. The Chhattisgarh police can clearly operate in very insidious ways.

Bringing up Ilina Sen’s name every now and then although she is neither an accused nor a witness in the case against Dr Binayak Sen shows the attitude of vindictiveness in the police force.
Getting Ajay to sign a statement with an ambiguous statement about the PUCL’s link’s with Maoists is again a part of the design of the police to discredit PUCL.

The threat of a supplementary chargesheet against Dr Sen, shows that the Chhattisgarh police does not want Dr Sen to be free man.

I delayed writing this up as I was also not sure whether making all this public would add to the victimisation of Dr Binayak Sen, Ilina, Ajay and other members of the PUCL. I am glad that both Rajendra Sail, Ilina and other friends felt that I should write this up and let the world know.

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without a charge, without a reason

September 28th, 2008

without a charge, without a reason

Shevlin Sebastian
28 Sep 2008 01:10:00 AM IST

On May 4, documentary filmmaker Ajay T G, 43, stepped outside his house at Aiyappa Nagar in Durg district, Chhattisgarh, to buy milk for his one-and-a-half-year-old son. Two plainclothes policemen stopped him and told him to accompany them to the Supela police station. “Can I deliver the milk and come?” he asked. “No,” replied the policemen, and took him to the station. From there, following a stopover at the court, he was taken to the Durg Central Jail. On the way, a policeman said, “You wrote a letter, and that has caused the problem.” For the next 93 days, Ajay was in prison over a single letter, not knowing when or if he would be released.He admits he sent the letter, but says it should be seen in context. In April 2004 Ajay, as cameraman, was part of a People’s Union of Civil Liberties team from Delhi that was investigating allegations of fraud in the Bastar, Dantewada and Kanker districts during the Lok Sabha elections in the state. While travelling in the interior, the team was intercepted by a group of Maoists who suspected them of being undercover policemen. Ajay’s camera was confiscated and the team was forced to return to Raipur, the state capital.  On July 1, a man delivered a letter at Ajay’s home. It turned out to be an apology from the Communist Party of India (Maoists). The Rs 2.5 lakh Canon XL1 camera had been buried in the ground, the letter stated; hence it could be unusable. Was Ajay interested in getting the camera back or the money? Asked to whom he should address his reply, the man gave the name of Gudsa Usendi, the spokesperson of the Maoists. In his reply to Usendi, Ajay wrote that he would prefer the camera, but if it was not in working condition, he would like to be reimbursed. This was the letter police recovered following a raid on Usendi’s hideout in January.“But I am not sure, since no letter was offered as evidence in court,” says Ajay. So far, police have filed no charge sheet.Ajay was arrested under the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act (CSPSA), which says “any contact” with a banned organisation is to be regarded as a criminal offence. It has been condemned by every civil rights organisation in India as well as Amnesty International, the International Federation of Journalists, and Reporters Without Borders, but the state doesn’t seem to be impressed.In prison, Ajay slowly got used to the daily routine. Every day, the door of the barracks was opened at 5 am. The prisoners stepped out, performed their ablutions and had a bath. “For 250 prisoners, there is one tap,” says Ajay. “There were always fights and abusive language around the tap. It was difficult to have a bath with all the quarrelling.” During the day, the prisoners talked to each other about their cases. It was then that Ajay discovered that there were several others like him in jail. One was a tailor. “Somebody had given him an order to make khaki uniforms (which are also worn by Maoists). So the police arrested him,” in January because “any contact” is a criminal offence. He was finally freed in May after four months in custody. For most of the poor prisoners, the major worry was how their families would make ends meet. Those whose cases were nearing completion in the courts had a different sort of anxiety. “They were fearful about whether they would be found guilty or not.”At the jail dispensary he came across an Adivasi, Mangalram Masoom, 22, who told him 74 tribals were housed in another barracks. “They had no idea why they were arrested and under what charges,” says Ajay.Rajendra Sail, president of the Chhattisgarh unit of the PUCL, says the first arrest under CSPSA was a tribal girl, Chandrakanti Toppo, a Class 12 student. She was accused of “having illegal relations” — to use the term in the police records — with an electrician, Umesh Prasad Gupta, 28, of Ambikapur town, who was allegedly supporting the Maoists. “Both of them have been released by the High Court, suo motu, on bail,” he says.Sail says that according to Chhattisgarh police records, only seven of the 139 people arrested under the Act are Maoists. “The rest are farmers, tailors, NGO workers, traders, journalists, intellectuals and such.”In July, filmmaker Amar Kanwar set up a “committee for the release of Ajay T G”. “It was clear that the Chhattisgarh police was going to stifle any form of opposition,” says Kanwar. “So it was important to respond.” Posters were released. Press conferences were held. People like Mrinal Sen, Arundhati Roy, Aruna Roy, Habib Tanvir, Harsh Mander, Shyam Benegal and Adoor Gopalakrishnan signed a statement of support. “There is no doubt that I was released because of the pressure on August 5,” says Ajay. After he came out, Ajay read the Raipur newspapers. “They described me as the public relations officer of the Maoists. But no one from any newspaper even asked for my version.” The coverage destroyed his social life.  But for him the worst effect is that he has lost faith in the state. “Before going to jail, I was a courageous person. I felt I had the right to say what was true or false.” Now he has doubts about whether he can continue to live in Chhattisgarh without being harassed. “Yet I want to ensure that such a thing does not  happen to others.”shevlins@gmail.com

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Brief report of public meeting with Ajay TG in Pune

September 27th, 2008

A brief report of the public meeting with Ajay TG in Pune, organised the day before yesterday.

Public meeting with Ajay TG in Pune on 20th September

Yesterday (20th September 08) the ‘Release Dr. Binayak Sen committee’ in Pune organized a well attended public meeting and also a separate smaller discussion with activists, with Ajay TG as the main speaker. As we all know, Ajay TG is a film maker and PUCL activist from Bhilai who was imprisoned for three months by the Chhattisgarh government, and was released recently since there was no evidence and the police could not even file a chargesheet against him.

The public meeting was attended by over a hundred citizens of Pune and was presided over by Justice PB Sawant, retired Supreme court judge. Besides Ajay, the meeting was also addressed by the noted film maker Anand Patwardhan and the human rights lawyer, Asim Sarode, and was moderated by Anant Phadke. The meeting started with screening of the films ‘New State, Old Problems’ and ‘Anjaam’ (directed by Ajay TG) which graphically depicted the growing repression in Chhattisgarh, the problematic nature of Salwa Judum and of course the background to Binayak’s arrest.

In his address, Ajay TG brought home to the audience very effectively the almost surreal circumstances of his arrest and imprisonment. With no charges, no evidence and no basis to even suspect his doing anything illegal, he was picked up on 4th May and put in jail, without even allowing him to meet his lawyer or family. He described the sub-human circumstances in the jail, the tremendous demonisation by media of himself and his family leading to cutting off all forms of social support, and the highly biased nature of the entire law and order machinery in the state. His only ‘crime’ was that he was persistently attending Binayak’s trial hearings and as a PUCL activist he dared to not be cowed down despite the widespread repression.

When the police finally realized that they had nothing that could be held against Ajay, and he would have to be released, in a last-ditch attempt the police tried to make him sign on a document indicting Binayak of having links with Maoists, which Ajay bravely refused to comply with. Delivered in a simple and straightforward style, Ajay’s story was really chilling since it gave a glimpse of the kind of ‘undeclared Emergency’ that today prevails in Chhattisgarh, and seems to be rapidly developing in many other parts of the country.

Ajay emphasised the fact that major MOUs were signed between the Chhattisgarh government and Tata and Essar groups allowing setting up of major steel industries in the Dantewada-Bastar area in June 2005, and it was exactly at the same time that Salwa Judum was launched in Dantewada. While ostensibly launched to ‘combat Maoism’, in fact Salwa Judum is a land clearing operation on a colossal scale, with over 350 villages having being cleared of their inhabitants, opening the way for the large steel industries to occupy the land of the adivasis, while avoiding any of the genuine issues of people’s rights and rehabilitation.

Asim Sarode made a detailed analysis of the provisions in the ‘Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act’ (CSPSA) highlighting how this repressive act enables the state to imprison practically anyone just on the basis of ‘suspicion’, for upto seven years. Anand Patwardhan noted that making such repressive laws does not reduce terrorism, in fact the victimisation of large numbers of innocent people provides the basis for even more social discontent. Justice Sawant, in his detailed address as a former senior member of the judiciary, tore to shreds the charges being made against Binayak and dissected the chargesheet to demonstrate that there is in fact no effective legal case against Binayak. He also pointed out the genuine social grievances underlying the spread of Naxalism, and the need to address the underlying socio-economic issues rather than resorting to widespread and indiscriminate repression.

The presentation by Ajay TG was an eye-opener for many of us, and struck the audience with the immediacy of the growing reality of overwhelming repression, the seriousness of which we have perhaps not fully grasped yet. It is hoped that before it is too late, all of us will be able to come together to escalate the struggle to defend democracy and human rights, which underlie all human values and without which all our other social endeavors will be in vain.

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Living To Tell the Tale of Tyranny

September 12th, 2008
By Express News Service
12 Sep 2008 02:56:00 AM IST
Living to tell the tale of Tyranny

BANGALORE: It was a meeting of a different kind with the crowd sitting in stoic silence as film maker and human rights activist Ajay T G narrated the tale of his arrest in Chattisgarh.
He was termed a Naxalite and jailed for three months for making films and being involved with Adivasis.
The meeting was held at the SCM House in Mission Road where his movie Anjam was screened.
‘’I made a film on Dr Binayak Sen whom I knew and I was jailed. Besides they wanted to scare me for being involved in Adivasis’ issues,’’ said Ajay.
His film Anjam deals with the life, education, work and arrest of Dr Binayak.
Ajay had no qualms in admitting he came from a communist background.
‘’I live in a free country and I am not afraid of anything. There is transparency in all my dealings.’’ Recalling his tryst with destiny he said, ‘’I was arrested in May 2008 and detained till August. Police stormed into my house and confiscated my computer and cameras when my wife and child were alone. They had no search warrant and they arrested me from the bazaar. I was not allowed to inform my family or my advocate. I was locked up in jail and produced in court. Later I knew I was arrested under the Chattisgarh Public Security Act-124A. Initially, they did not even produce me in the court on the specified dates. I was handcuffed in court with armed police accompanying me for two-and-a-half months.’’ In jail, he was locked up with 103 inmates in a cell which accommodated 40.
His active involvement with 22 slum children was also prevented.
‘’These children were deprived of food and education after my arrest.
After release, my neighbours and friends shunned me. The government does not want me to interact with Adivasis as they plan to give the land to MNCs for minerals.’’
‘’74 Adivasis were languishing in the jail with me. Even the press do not have freedom to write about it as it the ‘Public Security Act’ deals with Naxal cases. I will make a movie on my experiences,’’ he concluded.

© Copyright 2008 ExpressBuzz

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Meet Ajay TG and his films, Mumbai

September 10th, 2008

Vikalp invites you to screenings and interaction with Ajay TG, filmmaker recently released from Chhattisgarh jail

Venue: Bhupesh Gupta Bhawan, 85 Sayani Road, Prabhadevi (diagonally across Rabindra Natya Mandir)

Time and Date: 6pm on Friday, 19th Sept.

In June 2008 Ajay TG, journalist, filmmaker and human rights activist was arrested by the Chhatisgarh police and held without trial for over 3 months without a single charge being framed. His crime? He had made a film about and attended the trial of Dr. Binayak Sen. Dr. Binayak’s crime? Binayak worked for decades as a  doctor amongst adivasis in an area where no doctor dared to tread. Their joint crime? Both Binayak and Ajay worked with the People’s Union for Civil Liberties and questioned the State-sponsored “Salwa Judum” under which vigilantes in Chhattisgarh are trained and armed to fight Naxalites and end up terrorizing the entire local populace.

43 years old, from a modest Kerala family, Ajay settled in Chhattisgarh, worked with the youth wing of CPI and with the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties and later learned to make films with “Jan Darshan” a voluntary video training group. Since then Ajay has made several valuable human rights and development films including the one on Dr. Binayak Sen.

Dr. Binayak’s dedicated medical work amongst the poor won him many national and international awards. Yet he has now spent over a year and a half in jail as a suspected “Naxalite” without bail and without evidence. His case became internationally known after 22 Nobel laureates wrote a letter to the PM and President of India asking for his unconditional release. Amnesty has spoken up for him. Yet there is no response from Chhattisgarh, nor from the Government of India and the gross injustice continues.

It is obvious that the State had no case against Ajay either and the real attempt was to intimidate all those who stepped forward to support Dr. Binayak Sen. At the time of Ajay’s arrest one of the stories circulated to the local media was that Ajay had been caught with a deadly modern weapon as he went to attend Binayak’s trial. In reality the “weapon” was a tiny Swiss pocket knife that Ajay had forgotten to remove from his rucksack!

Slowly but surely the filmmaking and civil liberties movement began to take notice of Ajay’s unlawful arrest. A website (www.releaseajaytg.in) was launched and his films began to circulate across the country. Finally after three months in prison Ajay was released on bail without any logical explanation of why he had been
arrested in the first place! The story of harassment does not end here as Ajay is only out on bail and must report regularly to the police, necessitating constant vigil on the part of the civil liberties movement.

Ajay will screen a selection of his films on Friday, September 19th at 6 PM and interact with the audience. The following day he will travel to Pune for further screenings, information for which which will be
announced soon.

Anand Patwardhan
September 2008

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This is not freedom

September 1st, 2008
Paramita Ghosh
Hindustan Times
August 30, 2008

‘This is not freedom. I might be sent to jail again’

Ajay TG doesn’t want to be Kafka’s Joseph K. But there’s a reason why his story has started moving in that direction. As a filmmaker in Chhattisgarh, Ajay had lionised Binayak Sen in his 21-minute documentary Anjam and had evoked anti-establishment activists like Shankar Guha Niyogi of the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha, who was murdered by Big Industry goons in the 90s. He had also shown his state’s unprincipled land-grab in the interests of capital.

Niyogi was trying to build a new Left with grassroots mobilisation. Sen, who had joined Niyogi, was arrested in May 2007. And after his anti-Salwa Judum critique, ‘When a State Makes War on its Own People’, Sen became a marked man.

As a member of PUCL — the civil rights group of which Sen was, and is, general secretary — Ajay was witness to the raid at Sen’s house. After Sen’s arrest, he attended court hearings with Ilina, Sen’s wife. Through his other films such as New State-Old Problems and Aisa Kyon, Ajay had also begun talking of building alternative institutions. Not by force, but by community effort.

In a girls’ school he built, Ajay had taught children use of the camera. “In the beginning they would just shoot themselves. Later they started making films,” said Ajay. Letters and Learning is, for example, a ‘student film’ on a man who got a job at the Bhilai Steel plant by giving up his land. In a state where even traders are reportedly picked up for selling ‘green coloured cloth’ to so-called Maoists, Ajay’s attempts to engage the poor to question the status quo were looking increasingly ‘criminal’. He was jailed in May 2008, the 43rd person arrested under the draconian CSPSA, a year after Sen.

“After the CSPSA was passed, I knew it would be difficult to make films,” says Ajay, out on statutory bail in Delhi. Even after 93 days in custody, the police are yet to file a charge sheet. His ‘crime’? He’s believed to have ‘made contact’ with an unlawful organisation by having written a letter to a Maoist. He says he has not done so. He has also not been shown a copy of the ‘letter’. Sen is still in jail for having helped an exchange of letters. And in Chattisgarh, letter-writing is, of course, a very dangerous thing.

http://hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print.aspx?Id=64575bb2-ae45-4996-9d24-d14ba29c9a71
© Copyright 2007 Hindustan Times

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Documenting Reality

August 29th, 2008

Date:29/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/29/stories/2008082955951100.htm

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Opinion - Interviews

Documenting reality under a tarpaulin sky

Chitra Padmanabhan

Bhilai-based documentary filmmaker Ajay T.G. says his life has changed unbearably since his arrest and subsequent release, but his faith in the power of the concerned gaze remains unshaken.



Looking into the future: Ajay T.G with the children of the school started by him in the Dabrapara slum. At a recent press conference in Delhi, Bhilai-based independent filmmaker Ajay T.G. was the cynosure of all eyes. Imprisoned for 93 days on sedition charges under the draconian Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act (CSPSA) and accused of being a Naxalite, Ajay was released on August 5 on conditional bail, as the police was unable to produce a charge-sheet in court against him within the stipulated 90 days.

“I believe in the Indian Constitution,” said an emotional Ajay surrounded by the press and members of the Committee for the Release of Ajay TG who had campaigned for his release. He seemed restless, as was his two year-old son Aman. Once he was ensconced in his father’s lap, on the podium, they both relaxed. Aman doesn’t let his father out of his sight these days. There was a screening of Ajay’s film on eminent rights activist Dr. Binayak Sen, General Secretary People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Chhattisgarh, in prison for over a year now, under the same Act.

In an interview, the 43-year-old filmmaker gave a glimpse of his universe and of his urge to dignify lives deemed insignificant, by ‘seeing’ them — Dashrath the ageing blacksmith whose hammer is no match for the belching lungs of Bhilai Steel Plant; Mangtu the Dalit, with a lifetime of organic knowledge but labeled an illiterate fool by a lettered society; the labouring women of the Chhattisgarh Mahila Mukti Morcha who speak out on Women’s Day; construction worker Chanda’s daughter whose death inspired him to start a school in a slum. Excerpts:

Who is Ajay T.G? I belong to a village in Trichur district in Kerala. My father, one of eight siblings, was a beedi worker. He went wherever work took him — from Kerala to Sri Lanka and back. In 1969 he shifted to Bhilai where his brother ran a hotel. The Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP) was taking shape. My father started a small poultry business. In 1979, when I had completed my 10th class, he asked me to join him.

How did it change your life? Bhilai was a foreign land, with a totally different language and culture! But I picked up Hindi in school.

Still, my writing skills continued to be weak. I failed my first year B.A exams even though I had answered every question correctly, while students who had studied from kunjis (guidebooks) sailed through.

That changed my attitude to studies, to learning and to life.

How? I started learning by myself. I read Malayalam and Hindi literature, painted, and explored photography with relatives’ cameras, facing their ire if something went wrong!

I learnt from the culture and seedhapan (simplicity) of Chhattisgarh’s villages, with open spaces so unlike Kerala. People spoke of their experiences, the changes in their lives.

I would discuss issues with my father, a Communist. I also joined the All-India Youth Federation.

I observed life around me constantly.

Even without a camera, you were registering images in your mind? Absolutely. In 1979, Bhilai was a small city — not too many cars; largely two wheelers and mostly bicycles.

In 1985-86, construction activities boomed. Salaries rose. After a jump wage labour stopped at Rs. 35-40 a day. Even two years ago, people were working for Rs. 50 a day.

The disparity between BSP employees, the private sector, government staff and contract labour, which was not that apparent earlier, became glaringly visible.

Market prices soared. In 1990 we closed down our poultry. It was unviable. I did not even have one or two rupees to renew my membership of the CPI!

What was the turning point in your life? Briefly, I worked as liaison agent for a Kolkata company. I carried cigarettes in my briefcase to soften BSP officers into placing orders with my employers. In 1993 at BSP, I ran into social anthropologist, Prof. Jonathan Parry, from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He was in Bhilai to study the impact of industrialisation vis-À-vis caste and kinship ties. I became his research assistant. What was a one-year association continues and we are planning a collaborative book.

From observer you became a documenter… It’s what I had always wanted. Since visuals were needed, I started taking photographs with a second hand camera given by John.

I read up on photography and learnt on the job, wanting to do the best I knew I was capable of.

But the research job was temporary and financial insecurity omnipresent. In 1996 I enrolled for an animation and graphic design course in Bangalore.

From animation to documenting lives on camera is a big jump. Call it luck! In 1999, back in Bhilai after the course, John’s wife Margaret made me project coordinator in a European Union-India cross-cultural project to image social changes.

Under the project’s Jan Darshan programme, several of us enrolled as trainees and learnt to make documentary films.

What insights did you gain into documentary filmmaking? Certain developments made me wonder about the meaning of documenting.

We were to make a film on our families. As cameraperson I helped a colleague who wanted to focus on her father, with ideas. Thereafter, the trainees shunned me. My colleagues felt that I put reality on view, exposed shameful family secrets.

The girl’s film had a mention that on her birth, one of five daughters, her father did not eat for three days. Today, those very daughters care for their parents, not the pampered son.

Another trainee blanked out her father, who ran a roadside tea shop, in her family saga.

You saw the act of seeing and the camera eye in a seamless relationship… Exactly! Jan Darshan had tried to equip individuals who could not afford a Pune Film institute course, to learn. But once they started learning, what a sea change there was in their attitudes! Loneliness enveloped me.

Yet, my experiences taught me the power of the medium. They brought a powerful change within me.

What was this powerful change in your life? During our research, John and I had met Chanda, a construction worker from Dabrapara slum. In 2005, she earned Rs. 35 daily with which she fed her husband, immobilised in an accident, and five children.

When Chanda’s 14-year-old daughter Lakshmi — a lively girl who wanted nothing more than to study — died of cancer, victim of initial medical callousness, I decided to act. Too often people had asked John and me how our questions would improve their lives.

In Chanda’s courtyard, I started a “bal angan” for out-of-school children — 28 out of 33 such children from 35 homes, were girls. Local women volunteered in shifts from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tyre swings and clay toys made up the play equipment.

One day, I left some slates behind. Days later, the children pestered one of our volunteers Damini to teach them to read and write! At their insistence I found out about a bridge course to enable them to go to school.

Of 16 regular children, many had only one meal a day and were malnourished. Academic friends like John and Murli Natarajan funded a glass of milk and a meal for them.

Alongside I started teaching photography to girls above 12.

So that they could ’see’ their situation with new eyes? Precisely — in a week they had learnt about the frame and appropriate lighting. Initially they clicked each other in fancy poses but soon started photographing their surroundings — women, children, construction work.

Next I taught them to handle the video camera. They assisted me in filming Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha’s functions on child labour issues.

When I told them to make a two-minute film, without dialogues, they started off with saas-bahu-Bollywood plots but chose an issue close to their lives — our brothers go to school, why not us? The film was screened in the slum and distributed in other places too.

Enthused, the girls wanted to make a film on their mothers’ plight and on the scourge of liquor.

That is when I was arrested by the police….

© Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu

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Barefoot Warriors (Harsh Mander, Hindu)

August 24th, 2008

BAREFOOT

Warriors against the State

BY HARSH MANDER

The story of two men charged with the grave crime of treachery…

Both are bemused at the charge of support of violent terror because both have life-long fought violence…

Two men were charged in recent months with one of the gravest crimes on the statute books of the nation, of treachery, waging war against the Indian State, sedition and abetting terrorism. This is their story.

It is alleged by the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh that Lateef Mohammed Khan is what the local police like to describe as a “jehadi” terrorist. Ajay T.G. is accused by the BJP government of Chhatisgarh of abetting Maoist Naxalite insurgency. There is much that these two men share in common. They both come from relatively modest backgrounds. Unsung and relatively unknown, in quiet ways they have effectively strived fearlessly and with passion to find ways to work for what they believe to be justice, using the law of the land and constructive social resistance.

A Block Development Officer, Lateef’s father employed a Hindu Pandit to educate his children in his postings in backwater settlements where there was no school. Ajay’s father was a bidi worker in their village in Kerala. Poverty drove him to seek his fortunes in Sri Lanka, and later the steel town Bhilai in Chhatisgarh. Ajay and his mother and siblings followed their father to Bhilai, where the family first set up a tea stall, and then a small poultry farm.

Lateef was selected by the government as a school teacher, and has ever since then earned his living teaching high school children science. Ajay had a more chequered career. His father’s poultry farm fell into bankruptcy and had to close. A purely chance encounter in 1991 with an anthropologist from the London School of Economics, Jonathan Parri, landed him a job as a guide and research assistant for his investigation into the impact of industrialisation on caste and kinship. It is an association and vocation that has endured the passage of years to the present day.

Fighting for rights

His teachers’ union inducted Lateef into left liberal politics. He joined the AP Civil Liberties Committee with legendary human rights activists like Kannabiran and Balagopal, and took part in several of their fact-finding enquiries, mainly into fake encounter killings of alleged Naxalites. In the wake of the 2002 Gujarat carnage, the Gujarat police alleged terror links between men detained under POTA in Gujarat and covert terrorists in Hyderabad. The police in both States joined hands to detain Muslim youth from Andhra Pradesh. Lateef felt that many civil liberties organisations were hesitant to take up strongly the cause of these Muslim youth, because of allegations of their links with Pakistan’s ISI. He therefore established a fraternal civil liberties organisation, calling it the Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee, focussed specifically on the injustices faced by Muslims. It fought not just State repression, but gender injustice within the Muslim community, against ageing Arab Sheikhs who bought young girls as brides, domestic violence and harassment for dowry; and against usury by private moneylenders.

Meanwhile, Ajay T.G. in Chhatisgarh also joined the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, investigating, again, staged encounter killings of alleged Naxalites. The newspaper Deshbandhu established a course in film-making for local youth with less formal education, called Janadarshan. It was a dream come true for Ajay, who graduated from its three-year programme, borrowed money from friends for a camera, and began making films. It helped him find his voice. One of these films was on fake police encounters.

Lateef antagonised the police more and more as he fearlessly took them on in many ways. He petitioned for a CBI enquiry into the role of the Hyderabad police in the infamous encounter killings of Sohrabuddin and his wife Kauser, for which the Gujarat police was already indicted. He urged the High Court that murder charges be filed against police officials who had fired indiscriminately and unprovoked after the Mecca Masjid bomb explosions in 2007. When around 25 Muslim youth were illegally abducted and tortured by the police, he helped build a national coalition which used the courts and media to end further abductions. Most of the youth were released on bail as a direct result of these endeavours, and some have even been acquitted. With Teesta Setlavad and me, he also filed a suit for compensation by the police for the torture of the young men.

Life-changing incident

In the meanwhile, Ajay’s life was to change for ever when he accompanied with his video camera social scientist Nandini Sundar, for a fact-finding investigation during the 2004 elections. They drove into the forest interiors of South Bastar, where the Naxalite insurgency rages most fiercely. They found their jeep suddenly surrounded by men with bows and arrows, who snatched Ajay’s camera and held them hostage for several hours. They finally let them go, but kept the camera.

Ajay was devastated. The camera was his most precious belonging. With it alone, he could speak to the world, and hold up a mirror to its injustices. He doubted he would ever be able to afford another camera. Some months later, he had a visitor at his home, a young man with a letter from what described itself as the Central Committee of the Maoists. The letter stated that the party regretted that the camera had been buried under the soil and was damaged. He could have it back, or take money to buy another camera, but he should write to them for this officially. He wrote a letter accordingly, as guided by his young visitor, to the senior Naxalite leadership, pleading for the return of his camera or its costs.

This was in 2004. He never heard from them again, and did not get back his camera. He slowly reconciled himself to his loss. But in 2008, months after the arrest of his comrade from the PUCL, Binayak Sen, his house was raided, and his computer confiscated. He was bewildered, and was told eventually by the police that his letter to the Maoist Central Committee had been confiscated from a Naxalite woman insurgent. This was taken as conclusive evidence of his engagement with the Naxalites.

Ajay was arrested a few months later, and lodged in the Durg Central Jail for three months. In a barrack built for 40 inmates, 103 men were incarcerated. He could meet his wife — whom he had met in the Janadarshan film course — and son — whom he called Aman or Peace — only briefly through a screen, under the watchful eye of a guard. A national campaign convened by documentary filmmaker Amar Kanwar helped secure his release 93 days later on bail, because the police had not been able to present the charge-sheet against him in the statutory 90 days. Lateef is still awaiting arrest at the time of writing.

Not alone

These two mild-mannered men are not alone in having been accused of terror and treason. The Chhatisgarh police have imprisoned a motley crowd including cloth traders, for selling olive green cloth to Naxalites for their uniforms, tailors for stitching these uniforms, and electricians for allegedly aiding bomb making. The police in Gujarat and Andhra show a marked preference in terror arrests for working class youth, students and peace-makers.

The spirit of both arrested men is remarkably unbroken. Both are particularly bemused at the charge of support of violent terror that the State has thrust on both of them, because both have life-long fought violence and sought resistance against injustice only with democratic instruments of the law. But then it is maybe precisely this that makes them appear so dangerous to State authorities.

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