Articles by Bela Bhatia

Recent judgments of the Bihar High Court have acquitted the perpetrators of organised massacres of dalits and other oppressed groups. What is public knowledge could not be proved in the court of law. It is now over a year since the high court judgment in the Bathani Tola case of 1996 was challenged in the Supreme Court. The hearings are yet to begin. A closer look at this massacre, and the everyday criminal activities that preceded it, shows how absence of timely intervention enhances predisposition to crime and paves the way to repeated massacres. As this case illustrates, the tardy and often biased functioning of the Indian judicial system undermines its basic purpose. Where justice fails, vengeance prevails.

The Supreme Court is to be commended for its order banning the Salwa Judum. But the Salwa Judum was already a thing of the past; its worst phase was in 2005-06. The violence now in the amoral war in Chhattisgarh is being conducted as part of Operation Greenhunt. When will that be banned?

This is with reference to the letter by Hiren Gohain (EPW, 21 August) in response to my article (“Justice Denied to Tribals in the Hill Districts of Manipur”, 31 July).

an uncompromising Fight for Human rights and Values Bela Bhatia to explain everything to his comrades in Telugu. And the extent to which he was loved and respected by his comrades made itself felt to an outsider, more so after his death, when thousands thronged to catch a last sight of him and could do little to control their grief and loss. Balagopal was less KBalagopal

A recent survey in two districts of Jharkhand found many serious flaws in the implementation of the new National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Some of them could be explained as teething problems. As the experience of Rajasthan shows, there is scope for better implementation. All said and done, NREGA has created a sense of hope amongst the rural poor. This sense of hope can be further strengthened if people understand that the act gives them employment as a matter of right, and that claiming this right is within the realm of possibility.