Dr. Garga Chatterjee is a Harvard educated scholar and a world-renowned academic. He is an activist for equal treatment of various languages that are spoken in different parts of India. He also advocates for minority rights and states’ rights.  He was invited as a special guest in FeTNA 2018 convention.

Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America (FeTNA), the umbrella organization of 57 Tamil Associations in the US and Canada which represents a major share of Tamils who migrated from India, greets India at this time of celebrating its 73rd Independence Day. We recollect the suffering of ordinary Indians across the various states, languages and religions under the British rule for more than a century. Indian leaders were denied freedom of speech and imprisoned for decades.

We were all happy that all the above sufferings came to an end with Indian Independence on this day in 1947. However, Indian governments take away this freedom of speech very often, either illegally violating the law of the land or manipulating the constitutional sections. We are sad to learn about one such manipulation that has been planned in the past few weeks to arrest and eliminate one of the outspoken human rights activists, Dr. Garga Chatterjee who is also a physician and a world-renowned Harvard educated scholar. A tweet made by him on 17 June 2020 based on few historical facts, is being used as an excuse for a witch-hunt against him with the objective of getting him jailed, tortured and killed.

If at all, the tweet made by Dr. Chatterjee was not right and had any malicious intent against the government or an individual occupying government position, there should be a trial in the court where historical documents must be presented and discussed to determine the truth.  Instead, the ruling establishment has chosen a path of systematically poisoned victimization of Dr. Chatterjee in the media and manufacturing wide public consent and demand for punitive extra-judicial actions. Subsequently law may be misused as a cover for eliminating Dr. Chatterjee in an encounter or in jail. Since there is a serious fear for his life in Assam as per his statement, we request the case has to be conducted outside Assam to safeguard his safety.

We appeal to the President of India Mr. Ram Nath Kovind, the Prime Minister of India Mr. Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of West Bengal Mrs. Mamata Banerjee and the Chief Minister of Assam Mr. Sarbananda Sonowal to protect Dr. Chatterjee and allow any further action through a fair trial according to the law. We also request all the party leaders to support and ensure Freedom of Speech beyond regional and party affiliations which is the fundamental fabric of the any democratic system.