In December 1990, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution titled “Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners”. Among the ten principles that the UN said should be enforced “impartially” is this: “Prisoners shall have access to the health services available within the country without discrimination on the grounds of their legal situation.”
Over the last week, this cardinal principle has been shredded to pieces in Maharashtra. Disturbingly, the judiciary, the pis aller of the citizens seeking protection for his or her fundamental rights, looked away.
This week, the family of jailed poet and activist P Varavara Rao detailed a wrenching scene they witnessed at Mumbai’s JJ Hospital, where the 81-year-old was admitted on July 13. This followed days of public outrage at Rao being denied medical aid at Mumbai’s Tajola prison. He had been hallucinating in jail and was in no position to even brush his teeth, his family said.
The judiciary’s failure to protect his rights to medical treatment is disturbing.
But when his relatives visited him in hospital on Wednesday, they said that they had found him during a pool of his own urine, with nobody caring to even change the sheets.
On Thursday, news emerged that Rao has tested positive for Covid-19.
As the Supreme Court has often said, bail is that the norm and jail should be the exception. But within the case of Rao and other activists arrested for his or her alleged role within the violence in Bhima Koregaon in December 2017, the jail has become the norm because of the invocation of the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.
However, while UAPA has been wont to keep Rao in jail for on the brink of 22 months, even the imposition of this anti-terror law doesn’t explain the shortage of medical aid for the elderly activist. On display is that the vengeance of a vindictive state, which has identified Rao as a dissenter who should be punished for opposing the govt.
It is not as if the govt was unaware of Rao’s condition or that his health deteriorated suddenly. As early as June 19, several members of Parliament wrote to the Maharashtra government asking it to shift Rao to the hospital due to his failing health. the govt didn’t budge.
The judiciary has not handled this case far better . Rao has been denied bail five times over the last 22 months. The last time was on June 26, at the height of an epidemic when the overcrowded conditions in India’s prisons were causing alarm. albeit the Supreme Court in March had asked state governments to release undertrial prisoners to decongest jails, political prisoners like Rao had no respite.
On the contrary, the National Investigation Agency inquiring into the Bhima Koregaon case has continued to act with great negligence. In May, it moved detained activist Gautam Navlakha from Delhi to a crowded jail in Mumbai hurriedly. Earlier in the week, it issued a Delhi University professor summons to visit Mumbai to seem before it, despite the shortage of proper cause. This at a time when governments across India have asked people to not undertake any unnecessary travel.
Earlier this month, the death of a father and son in custody in Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu outraged the conscience of the general public, resulting in the supreme court recommending that a case of murder be registered against the cops. But custodial torture isn’t almost brutal assaults in police stations. The violence of custodial mistreatment can take several shades, including denying medical help to someone visibly deteriorating.
By keeping Rao in jail despite knowledge of his precarious health, the state is imposing execution on an octogenarian whose crimes are still only allegations and who has not been convicted by any court.
