Civil Liberties Movement In India
From Colonial Times to the Present
Foreword: A Civil LibertyDossier
By Ranabir Sammaddar
Prologue
‘…if the English could do these things in cold blood’
The campaign against Torture in Madras 1852-1856
‘Struggle there must be’
The birth of organized Civil Liberties movement in India 1917-1918
Rights and Restraints
Civil Liberties and the Nationalist Agenda: 1919-1931
‘This Important National Work’
Situating Civil Liberties in the Anti-Colonial Struggle: 1931-1936
Liberty to some ‘license’ to others
Dreams and Dilemmas of the Civil Liberties Unions in Bengal and India 1936-1937
Campaigning and Credibility
‘To expose and explain before the people…’ 1937-1938
‘No perceptible decrease in breaches’
Report-cards for rights during provincial autonomy 1937-1939
‘…difficult causes of liberty and peace’
Keeping the flame alive through the war and transfer of power
‘TO make or mar the nation’
The Civil Liberties Committee and the ‘Infant state’
‘To maintain continuous vigilance’
An All-India network emerges again
Organizing Amid ‘Orgy of Repression’
Rights bodies formed before and during the Emergency
The Only Way Is the Way Forward
Towards ‘a wider appreciation of the rights agenda’
Epilogue
Sources