RAIPUR: Lawyer activist Sudha Bharadwaj ’s arrest has once again brought to focus the blurring of lines between activism and politics.

Over the years, friction between activists and the state has been a constant theme.

While activists are relentless in their fight for justice in alleged civil and human rights violations, the administration tries to counter it with the ‘urban Maoist’ narrative.

Even during the time of undivided Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh region — known for its backwardness, exploitation of tribes, poverty among mine workers, labourers — was in the limelight with a number of activists taking up the cause of marginalised sections.

Legendary labour leader Shankar Guha Niyogi founded Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha (CMM) — which Sudha Bharadwaj joined in 1986 — to fight for miners and factory workers of Dalli Rajhara. Niyogi was shot dead by a hired assassin and police investigation led to the arrest of some prominent industrialists of Bhilai.

For years, social activist Swami Agnivesh was at the forefront of a campaign for liberation of bonded labourers in undivided MP.

After the formation of Chhattisgarh, the first high-profile standoff between activists and the government was the arrest of pediatrician and human rights activist Dr Binayak Sen on the charges of sedition in 2007 after he strongly criticised the government on rights violations during anti-Naxal operations.

Booked for supporting Maoists, he got bail in Supreme Court two years later. In 2010, he was convicted and sentenced to jail by a Raipur sessions court. Sen’s appeal in high court is pending.

The ripples of Binayak Sen episode were still being felt when Soni Sori’s horrific story of custodial torture shocked the nation.

An Adivasi school teacher, Soni Sori became a tribal rights crusader and was arrested in 2011 on charges of acting as a conduit for Maoists. During her imprisonment, she was allegedly tortured and sexually assaulted by cops.

Nandini Sundar, a sociology professor in Delhi University, and Bastar police have always been at loggerheads as she relentlessly raises at the national level human rights violation of tribals by security forces. Matters came to a head when police filed an FIR, naming her in a conspiracy to murder a villager.

