The demise of vet­eran hu­man rights cham­pion Jus­tice Ajit Singh Bains touched the lives of many na­tion­al­ist move­ments who in their grate­ful­ness have paid hum­ble trib­utes to him at his re­cent pass­ing away. The Naga Peo­ples Move­ment for Hu­man Rights, de­scrib­ing him as “the in­de­fati­ga­ble cham­pion of hu­man rights,” con­doled his death at their re­cent meet­ing. Tamil ac­tivists called him a tire­less hu­man rights cham­pion, the like of which will be dearly missed by Tamils.

JUS­TICE AJIT SINGH BAINS was not only a leg­endary hu­man rights de­fender but through and through a cham­pion of hu­man rights who lived and acted on his prin­ci­ple of main­tain­ing that he was against ter­ror­ists, in and out of uni­form,” said the Sec­re­tary-Gen­eral of NPMHR -Nein­gulo Krome.

The state­ment of the old­est and well-re­spected hu­man rights body in Na­ga­land -the NPMHR, read, “Hu­man Rights De­fend­ers are peo­ple who are mak­ing the world a bet­ter and fairer place by pro­mot­ing and pro­tect­ing hu­man rights”, the United Na­tions De­c­la­ra­tion on Hu­man Rights De­fend­ers says. But in re­al­ity, Hu­man Rights De­fend­ers are the most ha­rassed and of­ten per­se­cuted for pro­tect­ing the lives and dig­nity of fel­low hu­man be­ings and for pro­mot­ing hu­man rights of in­no­cent peo­ple, through­out the world.”

“We fondly re­mem­ber the words of sol­i­dar­ity of Jus­tice Bains for the Naga iden­tity strug­gle.”

Naga Peo­ples Move­ment for Hu­man Rights

Speak­ing to the World Sikh News, Krome said, “We fondly and proudly re­mem­ber that, in the late nineties, at the in­vi­ta­tion of the NPMHR, in sol­i­dar­ity with the cause of Naga rights, Jus­tice Bains par­tic­i­pated in our protest demon­stra­tion at Jan­tar Man­tar, New Delhi. His pow­er­ful words con­tinue to be an in­spi­ra­tion to the Naga move­ment.” 

NPMHR re­called the sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion of Jus­tice Bains, who as the head of the Jus­tice Bains Com­mit­tee in 1985, recorded the il­le­gal de­ten­tion of thou­sands of Sikh youth in Pun­jab and though there was no of­fi­cial ac­tion against the per­pe­tra­tors, all 6000-plus de­tainees were re­leased. 

“We at the Naga Peo­ples Move­ment for Hu­man Rights, mourn his pass­ing away with all his dear and near ones and in sol­i­dar­ity cel­e­brate his life and val­ues with all our Sikh brethren.” 

Like­wise, Tamil ac­tivists and lawyers, call­ing Jus­tice Bains “the tire­less sav­iour of Hu­man Rights” mourned his death and said that it is a “huge loss to Tamils.”

Madras High Court lawyer, Ra­jiv Ru­fus re­called how Jus­tice Bains was ever will­ing to come to Delhi to talk about the tram­pling of Tamil rights in Sri Lanka and the sig­nif­i­cance of Tamil iden­tity in Tamil Nadu.  He also rem­i­nisced the visit of Jus­tice Bains to Mum­bai at the call of the PUCL, where he spoke at length about Tamil rights.

“Jus­tice Bains was al­ways a de­fender of op­pressed, he was with the Tamils dur­ing the dirty phase of geno­ci­dal war in 2009 and stood for us. “

Ra­jiv Ru­fus, Ad­vo­cate, High Court of Madras

Speak­ing to World Sikh News, Ru­fus re­marked, “Jus­tice Bains was al­ways a de­fender of op­pressed, he was with the Tamils dur­ing the dirty phase of geno­ci­dal war in 2009 and stood for us. I re­spect­fully of­fer my con­do­lences to his fam­ily, rel­a­tives, and the mil­lions of Sikh brethren for their loss. I pay my tear­ful trib­utes to Jus­tice Ajit Singh Bains, who ded­i­cated his en­tire life to the poor and needy. He will con­tinue to stay in the hearts of the peo­ple all over the world.”

Both Naga and Tamil hu­man rights ac­tivists vowed to con­tinue the legacy of Jus­tice Bains to work for hu­man dig­nity as hu­man rights de­fend­ers.