The arrest and continued incarceration of a 93-year-old political activist
in Kerala has raised grave questions about people’s right to protest in the Left-ruled state.

Human rights activist and a former Naxalite, Ayinoor Vasu, popularly known as GROW Vasu, was arrested by Kerala police on July 29 in connection with a protest he had led against the encounter killings of two Maoists by the police seven years ago. His arrest was reportedly recorded as part of executing a long-pending warrant against Vasu after he failed to appear before a court in Kozhikode.

Vasu, who is defending the case himself, declined to opt for bail and went to prison and is continuing there till date.

On Saturday, prominent Malayalam dailies had carried photographs showing policemen desperately trying to silence Vasu by covering his face with their caps as he was brought to a court in Kozhikode which had initiated trial proceedings. Vasu has been talking to journalists and raising slogans against the “dictatorial” Left Front government whenever he gets an opportunity. Saturday was no different.

He had also refused to sit down in the court despite the magistrate offering him a chair. Once again the magistrate requested Vasu to apply for bail and go home, but he refused.

Vasu got his affix “GROW” (Gwalior Rayons Organisation of Workers) after he headed the popular movement against the Gwalior Rayons factory at Mavoor in Kozhikode in the eighties, leading to the closure of the unit which had turned into an environmental disaster for the Chaliyar river that flows through Kerala’s northern districts.

Except for a handful of activists and writers, including former Naxalite K. Ajitha and writer Sarah Joseph, who condemned Vasu’s arrest, political Kerala has turned a blind eye to the nonagenarian’s imprisonment.

The biggest culprit is the Left ruling elite in the state who had been raising its voice against arbitrary detention of innocents elsewhere in the country, notably that of 84-year-old Father Stan Swamy who died while in custody. No one in the government, including law minister P. Rajeev, has even bothered to acknowledge the very existence of Vasu, let alone his detention.

On November 24, 2016, during the tenure of the first Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left government, personnel belonging to the Kerala police shot dead Kuppu Devarajan and Ajitha inside the Nilambur forest in Malappuram district. The police claimed they were Maoists. When their bodies were brought to the mortuary of Kozhikode Medical College, GROW Vasu and his associates staged a protest demanding a judicial inquiry into the killings.

After this, six more persons, all said to be Naxalites, have been gunned down by the Kerala police in encounters during the first tenure of the Left Front government.

The Opposition and activists had alleged connivance on the part of then Kerala police chief Lokanath Behera with the Union home ministry. It is said the state police had received huge amounts of money as reward from the Centre for “killing” Naxalites, urban or otherwise. Vijayan in his second term has made Behera, who had retired by then as police chief, managing director of Kochin Metro, fuelling more speculation about the state government’s tacit involvement in the heinous killing of innocents.

As Kerala celebrates its biggest festival Onam, poet KGS(Sankarapilla) has this to say: Rights activists like GROW Vasu are in prison. Bigger criminals are on the throne. Is it necessary for a locale like this to celebrate Onam?