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print versionInfochange News & Features, January 2011
India’s well-known human rights activist and eminent lawyer of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, K G Kannabiran, died on December 30, 2010. He breathed his last quietly at his home. Before his death he told his family he wanted no sloganeering over his corpse. He was born in 1929.
In 1976, Jayaprakash Narayan formed the People’s Union for Civil Liberties and Democratic Rights (PUCLDR). His aim in the formation of the PUCLDR was to establish an organisation free from political ideologies, through which people connected with different political parties could be brought onto a common platform for the defence of civil liberties and human rights. K G Kannabiran was one of the National Executive members of the PUCL along with Justice V M Tarkunde, Asghar Ali Engineer, M M Thomas, Girish Karnad, P G Mavalankar, Nani Palkhiwala, Nikhil Chakravarty, Arun Shourie, Surendra Mohan, Ram Jethmalani, Madhu Limaye etc. Kannabiran remained President of the PUCL for 15 years from 1995 to 2009.
Kannabiran did a lot of work for the poor working class. He worked as a human rights activist to defend victims of state persecution, and simultaneously fought cases in the lower courts as well as in the Andhra Pradesh High Court.
As a lawyer working for the defence of human rights, he played a prominent role in the case related to Shankar Guha Niyogi’s murder. Pleading his case in the lower court, he ultimately succeeded in getting the murderers convicted and punished by the High Court. At the state level in Andhra Pradesh, his contribution as a human rights activist has been noteworthy. He played a prominent role in mediating between the Maoists and the government through talks on many occasions. His second biggest contribution was in connection with fake encounters. He insisted that whenever there is an encounter, an FIR should be registered and a magisterial enquiry should be conducted in the case.
Kannabiran had a profound knowledge of history and was a specialist in laws related to civil and democratic rights. He also wrote many books. Following the leftist ideology, he continuously fought for the democratic rights of the people. He also appeared before the Bhargava Commission constituted to consider the matter of fake encounters and put forth the arguments of the Naxalites. But when his pleas were not heard, he thought it wiser to resign from that committee. He had been appointed on the committee as an advocate on behalf of the government.
Because of his commitment to human rights in the legal and social context he was in touch with all the prominent human rights activists of the country. It was at that time that I also came into contact with him. My relations with him were quite informal. He called me Rajindar and I called him Kanna. Whenever he wrote something, he gave it to me to read before its publication.
Kannabiran was against bringing caste into the fight for human rights. In fact, he was one of those intellectuals who believed in humanism. He continuously wrote in favour of human rights. For him the question of defence of civil liberties was very important. He looked at all such cases sympathetically. He was a lawyer who never met the Chief Justice or any other Judge in favour of any party in any case. He believed in the capabilities of individuals and institutions. He was adept at settling matters with honesty, ideological commitment and in an unbiased manner.
Kannabiran followed the path of democratic ideals. He sympathised with the Maoist ideology and was for a long time a supporter of the People’s War Group’s right to revolution. His experience led him to the slow understanding that revolution is unavoidable in life, although he was a strong opponent of the very nature of the state as well as of Naxalite violence. To understand Kannabiran’s ideology it is essential to know that once he said that he was neither a Gandhian nor a hypocritical fool.
With Kannabiran’s death at the age of 81 the country has lost a social warrior of civil liberties.
(The writer has been the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court and National President of the PUCL. English translation of the article ‘Kranti Jiske Liye Apariharya Thee’, published in the Hindi newspaper Dainik Bhaskar dated January 3, 2011. Translation by Mahi Pal Singh)
