Most people are not aware of the perfidies resulting from the massive centralisation that is a characteristic of modern societies. It is only when one works with people who have to bear most of the brunt of the bad effects of such modernisation and centralisation that one comes to know how deeply anti-human modern civilisation is. Naturally the people who suffer most from the ill effects of centralisation are those who live an anarchistic life at the opposite end - the adivasis.
Nowhere are the negatives and insensitivity of centralisation more in evidence than in the judicial system and the state uses it to the hilt to keep the populace in control. In 2001 the state in Madhya Pradesh decided to crush an organisation of Bhil adivasis that had mobilised very well to actualise The Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 which makes the tribal Gram Sabha or village body very powerful in the Fifth Schedule Tribal Areas. Heavy police force was deployed and four members of the organisation were killed in police firing, houses looted and destroyed and dozens of people arrested and jailed under false criminal charges including that of the serious one of waging war against the state.
The organisation fought a long legal battle and succeeded in getting the charge of waging war against the state quashed at the beginning in the High Court and the other charges after a prolonged trial in the lower court. The judgment of the court stated clearly that there was no evidence to support the charges. Yet the state went in appeal preparing a flimsy petition and the High Court admitted the appeal. If a common citizen had prepared such an appeal it would have been thrown out by the court but since the state had filed the appeal it was admitted.
So now the accused have had to get themselves bailed out once again and will have to attend court dates for five years before the case comes up for hearing as there is a long line of pending criminal appeal cases. So innocent tribals have to go on suffering because the system is tailored to make them suffer and discourage them from daring to protest.
In another case in which an adivasi member of the organisation was killed by forest guards the organisation recently won a long battle to get compensation for his widowed wife in the High Court. However, the state has not paid the compensation and so the organisation has to move the court once again.
The worst part is that the judiciary is so loaded with cases that it does not have the time to apply its mind to every case on merits. The clerks too work mechanically and issue arrest warrants without thinking about what is going to happen as a consequence to poor adivasis.
Justice is hard to come by in a system that is centralised especially for quintessential anarchists like the poor adivasis. We will have to go to the Supreme Court against this injustice of the Judges of the High Court. Which means some more bother and expense.
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