Aheli Moitra
Young programmer and open information activist Aaron Swartz (pictured right) committed suicide on January 11. Or so they say. The 26-year-old, who co-developed RSS and Reddit, was found hung in his apartment in New York.
As of the day he died, the US government was pressing charges against him that would lead to a maximum of 35 years in federal prison. His crime? Making available, for free, to the public what academics are writing for the public on public funds. So, couple years back, Swartz hooked up his computer to the internet and downloaded millions of JSTOR (a limited-access database of academic journals) articles through a computer archive at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and distributed them. It was a simple act of civil disobedience. The aggressive legal tactics deployed by the US prosecution against this act, accused his family, contributed to his suicide.
Neither MIT nor JSTOR pressed charges against him. It was the US Department of Justice that was out to get someone who posed a threat to the system. It was an act of intimidation and threat towards his voice of dissent which called for a repeal of internet censorship, the corrupting influence of big money on institutions including nonprofits, the media, politics and public opinion.
Activist persecution is not uncommon in this part of the world either. Take Dr. Binayak Sen, for instance. He spent three decades treating patients, working a hospital and documenting human rights violations as a “logical outcome” of his work in Chhattisgarh. The state government termed his work “a war against the state” and put him behind bars for 2 years. This, while the Chhattisgarhi government’s negligence of its population, catering only to industrial conglomerates, has led to vast poverty, hunger and displacement of tribal people of the state.
Or Kamayani Bali Mahabal, lawyer and human rights activist, who was brutally assaulted by the Mumbai police for silently protesting Binayak Sen’s continued incarceration.
Or Himanshu and Veena Kumar who, through their Vanvasi Chetna Ashram in Dantewada (in Chhattisgarh), taught tribal people of their entitlements, doing the state’s job—bringing the democratic system to isolated communities—for 17 years. In 2009, the government awarded them by razing the Ashram to dust. Their message was becoming too democratic; too many undeserved masses now knew how to hold leaders accountable and access schemes meant for them.
Or Soni Sori, a 35-year-old Adivasi teacher who was jailed in 2011, having asked for minimum wages for tribal people. This was termed as Naxalite propaganda. In Raipur jail, she was stripped naked, given electric shocks and stones inserted into her vagina and rectum under the supervision of Superintendent of Police (SP), Ankit Garg. Garg was awarded the President’s Gallantry Award while Sori continues to be in jail.
Or Luingam Luithui, the Naga activist who initiated the Naga Peoples’ Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR) in 1978 from Delhi. His work led to the internationalisation of the Indian abuse of Naga human and political rights; the abuse of people by the army. His work laid the basis for the current peace process. This, in turn, led to the cancellation of his passport in 1995 without any stated reason by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. He has remained in exile ever since.
And these are just some of the popular activists.
After his death, the US Department of Justice dropped the charges against Aaron Swartz. An expert witness claimed that Swartz’s actions were not illegal, they amounted to a little pile of ‘rude’. For this, the state launched a war against a young activist who asked for a society where rights belong where deserved. Where information and knowledge is for all, not just the elite.
If the state, or the people, cannot comprehend how activism has helped progress society and broaden democracy/rights, and sees it only as a threat to its power and position, it is time to make an activist out of every citizen. Activism cannot, anymore, survive through initiatives of small groups or isolated individuals. If activism has died slightly with Swartz, it is time for every individual, as part of the system, to demand a change, to demand progress and to demand rights for all.
