CENTURIES ago, Solon asked how a people could preserve their liberties. “Those who are uninjured by an arbitrary act must be taught to feel as much indignation at it as those who are injured.”

Centuries later, in 1652, John Lilburne was banished by a committee of the British parliament for printing unlicensed books. Echoing Solon, he remarked, “What is done unto anyone, may be done unto everyone.” Both were propounding the fundamental principle on which alone a vibrant civil liberties movement can rest.

Sixty-seven years after independence, India is still without a national civil liberties organisation like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) or its British counterpart Liberty. This despite the fact that during the British Raj there was an abiding interest in civil liberties. In 1936 Jawaharlal Nehru set up the Indian Civil Liberties Union. Rabindranath Tagore was its honorary president and Sarojini Naidu was its chairperson. Neither had much time for it. This fate of this civil liberties body at the hands of politicians explains why the movement has languished after independence.

Members of the union were mostly members and sympathisers of the Congress. In 1937, the Congress won power in many provinces. The union was starved of funds. The Congress leaders were unwilling to antagonise the rulers of the Indian states and to interfere in cases of infringement of civil liberties in Congress-ruled provinces.

In the Central Legislative Assembly, Jinnah set an example by championing the cause of civil liberties even in cases where he disagreed with the person affected.

Indifference exacted its toll on the ICLU. Only 38 out of a total of 118 members paid their subscriptions in 1938. Revealing was Vallabhbhai Patel’s reason for submitting his resignation from the union in 1939. “With the advent of the Congress administration in various provinces, the civil rights movement has hardly any useful function to perform.” Patel’s logic prevailed after independence. Civil liberties mattered when the British ruled India; not when Indians had their ‘own’ government.

Nehru was committed to democratic values. But he frowned at the union when it protested against detentions in Kashmir. “Apart from the fact that the Civil Liberties Union is a small organisation, which is opposed to both our government and the Congress, it seems to me a little absurd for such an organisation to sit in judgement over the policies of both the Jammu and Kashmir government and the central government of India.”

After independence an All-India Civil Liberties Council did exist. But its wrath was very selective. Communist causes were unfailingly supported. Others were ignored. It evaporated. Later, Jayaprakash Narayan set up the People’s Union for Civil Liberties. It barely survived.

In contrast, the ACLU and Liberty have a proven record of independence from political parties. The ACLU is a particularly good model to emulate, functioning as it does in a federal environment with a judicially enforceable bill of rights. It was founded in 1920 in the wake of the repressions that followed the First World War and won some ardent adherents whose names are legendary today — Roger Baldwin and Clarence Darrow among them.

Over the years, it espoused such causes as labour organisers in New Jersey in the 1920s, anti-union employers in Michigan in the 1930s, Japanese Americans in California in the 1940s, Communists from coast to coast in the 1950s and civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s.

It is this sincerity of purpose which drew from the late president Kennedy the handsome acknowledgement: “Your voice has always been raised clearly and sharply when our liberties have been threatened. America is a stronger nation for your uncompromising efforts.”

Often enough, the union files a ‘friend of the court’ brief in the US Supreme Court when important questions concerning the bill of rights are involved. As far back as 1940, the ACLU held it “inappropriate for any person to serve on the governing committees of the union or on its staff, who is a member of any political organisation which supports totalitarian dictatorship in any country, or who by his public declarations indicates his support of such a principle”.

A civil liberties union must be scrupulously impartial, non-partisan and with a staff well-versed in the law. In the realm of civil liberties particularly, knowledge is power. In the last decade alone, to go no further, technology has made such enormous strides as to leave lawyers struggling for answers to the problems which have arisen, especially on the right to privacy.

A civil liberties body must keep constant, continuous vigil. Its opinions must carry weight because they are fully substantiated on law and facts and the integrity of its personnel is beyond challenge.

The writer is an author and lawyer based in Mumbai.