Bhopal: “Hum, Bharat Ke Log, Bharat Ko… (We, the People India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a…).
About 350 km south of Madhya Pradesh’s state capital, Bhopal, in the deep forests of Nepanagar in Burhanpur district, a powerful scene unfolded on the eve of India’s 75th Republic Day: Antram Awase, a 35-year-old tribal activist, standing next to the bust of Tantya Bhil—a revered tribal freedom fighter of the Malwa-Nimar region of the state—recited the preamble of Indian Constitution.
Wearing off-white jeans, a blue shirt, and a kerchief around his neck, the barefoot Awase, holding a traditional bow and arrow in one hand and a mobile phone in the other, recited the preamble aloud to a crowd of over 500 tribespeople members of the Bhil and Bhilala tribes dressed in colourful shirts, jeans, dhotis, and kurtas, while women in traditional sarees listened intently.
The ceremony was organised at Siwal village in solidarity with Awase, who had returned to his village after a judge dismissed the State’s case, accusing him of being a “threat to public order” and expelling him from Burhanpur district, saying the case was “a misuse of collector’s authority”.
Those listening raised their hands in unison, pledging to protect the Constitution and defend their ancestral lands and forests. They hoisted Awase onto their shoulders, parading him throughout the crowd.
“These charges were nothing more than a smokescreen, a way to stifle the voices of the indigenous activists,” Awase told Article 14, speaking over the phone.
Externment is a preventive legal measure employed by various states in India to control organised crime and restrict the activities of notorious criminals without unduly infringing upon civil liberties. The district magistrate can bar individuals from entering a district or certain areas for a designated period, effectively removing them from their bases of operation or areas of influence.
Although Article 19(1)(d) of the Indian Constitution guarantees Indian citizens the right to move freely throughout the territory of India, Article 19(5) allows the State to impose "reasonable restrictions" on this right in the interest of the general public. This clause provides the legal foundation for externment laws in various states, like Madhya Pradesh, which passed M. P. Rajya Suraksha Adhiniyam in 1990.
States consider data on the number of externments sensitive and there is no national data available.
An ‘Overreach’ Of Authority
Three days before his year-long externment ended on 23 January 2025 on 20 January 2025, Madhya Pradesh High Court's Justice Vivek Agarwal struck down the externment order under the M.P. Rajya Suraksha Adhiniyam 1990, describing it as an “overreach of the district collector”.
The high court also fined Bhavya Mittal, the district magistrate of Burhanpur, Rs 50,000, holding her accountable for “misusing her authority” and “misleading the court”.
The high court also directed the chief secretary of Madhya Pradesh, Anurag Jain, to convene a meeting with all district magistrates in the state, urging them to refrain from "passing orders under political pressure”.
“…orders passed by the district magistrate and the commissioner without application of mind and without explanation. It is evident that the district magistrate has misused his authority,” the court said.
The externment law was passed to “provide for the security of the State, maintenance of public order and certain other matters connected therewith.” The law empowers the district magistrate to remove individuals deemed “prejudicial to the security of the State or the maintenance of public order.”
Awase challenged the externment order in the Madhya Pradesh High Court on 26 November 2024 and fought the case for two months.
While the judgment went in his favour, the fact that he had already completed the externment period rendered his subsequent acquittal “less meaningful,” said Nikita Sonavane, a criminal lawyer based in Madhya Pradesh and founder of the Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project in Bhopal.
Challenging these orders is nearly futile because witness testimonies are seldom available, causing delays,” said Sonavane, an Article 14 advisory board member.
When we asked why the order mattered to him when he had already finished his externment period staying with relatives in Khargone and Barwani districts, Awase said, “The order is important to prove that the DM and the State government not only framed me in false cases for my activism but also banished me in those false cases. The High Court judgement is a testament to my innocence, which may prevent further repressive actions.”
“The order also washes away the social stigma attached to the externment order,” he said.
More Than Three-Fold Spike In In 8 Years
After the high court order, the externment law has been a topic of contention regarding its application, particularly its misuse for political reasons, especially during election periods.
According to Madhya Pradesh home department data, 31,843 externment (zila badr) orders were issued against individuals between 2016 and 2023, a threefold surge in externment cases and a spike in election years.
Congress was in power from December 2018 to March 2020.
In 2018, when the state was going for assembly polls, it saw 4,719 externment orders, and in the next assembly year, 2023, it surged to 7,319 orders, indicating its misuse as a political tool, as pointed out by the high court in Awase’s case.
"The system targets those who challenge the political or administrative status quo, building cases based on pending or acquitted matters rather than convictions as the law demands,” said Sonavane. “Defendants are rarely given a fair chance to defend themselves."
"The government doesn't just banish individuals from their home district but from the entire administrative zone, encompassing all adjacent districts,” said Sonavane. “This severely restricts their fundamental right to movement and trade."
When Article 14 was questioned Pawan Kumar Shrivastava, additional director general of police, criminal investigative department, said, “This law is being used against habitual offenders or the kingpin of the notorious gangs to control law and order in the district without taking strict action.”
On Awase’s case, Shrivastava said, “Police build the case on the basis of the FIRs lodged against the individual and send it to the district collector. Upon deliberation, the collector's office issues show cause notice to the accused, who is given proper time for defence. And if one fails, the externment order is issued.”
“When Awase was externed in 2023, the law and order situation in Burhanpur was deteriorating, which was the cause of concern in the election year,” he said.
Awase’s Externment
Awase, a defender of tribal rights for the past ten years, was externed from Burhanpur district in January 2024 by the district magistrate Bhavya Mittal, declaring him a “threat to public safety” based on 11 complaints lodged by the state forest department and two FIRs (first information report) filed by the Nepanagar police in 2019 and 2022.
In these complaints, Awase has been accused of being a member of a tribal rights outfit, Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan, inciting protests, running plantation drives in the forest, collecting donations and holding rallies from that money, ‘provoking’ fellow tribals to encroach forest lands, pushing them to secure their land now under the government and manipulating innocent tribals under the garb of raising awareness on tribal land rights.
Awase’s name was also added to an FIR in April 2022.
Awase spent 20 days in prison between April and May in Khandwa jail, 80 km from Burhapur, until he got bail.
The complainant, Pushpendra Singh Jadaun, on whose complaint his name was added to the FIR, has testified in the Burhanpur sessions court that he did not know Awase and added his name to the FIR because others said so.
Three months before the externment on 23 January 2024, the district administration issued a show-cause notice to Awase on 27 October 2023, giving him a week to defend himself.
Awase said he asked for more time, but the district collector of Burhanpur and the police commissioner of Indore never gave him a fair hearing.
After his externment order was passed on 23 January 2024, Awase challenged it in the Madhya Pradesh High Court.
Other activists belonging to the Nimar region of the state—an area covering Burhanpur, Barwani, Khandwa, and Khargone districts, populated by the Bhil and sub-tribes, including the Bhilala, Barela, and Patelia—have faced similar externment notices or were externed from their communities for their activism.
This area is a stronghold of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, with the BJP winning all eight parliamentary seats and 47 of 66 Assembly seats across 15 districts of Malwa-Nimar region.
Awase and his fellow activists received show cause notices of externment between June and October 2023, a month before the state was scheduled for November Assembly elections.
The BJP lost Nepanagar and Burhanpur seats to the Congress Party in the 2018 assembly elections. It won back both seats in the 2023 state elections.
‘This Attitude Is Grossly Inappropriate’
In the judgement order, Justice Agrawal said that although his period of externment would end on 22 January 2025, “the petitioner insisted that the matter be examined on its own merits…”
The court said that the externment order mentioned that 11 offences under the Forest Rights Act were registered against the petitioner from 2018 to 2023. Thereafter, in 2019 and 2022, two cases were registered under the Indian Penal Code, 1860, sections for rioting, deterring a public servant from discharging his duty, and attempt to murder.
The court ordered deputy advocate general Yash Soni, representing the State (respondents), to show how the offences under the Forest Rights Act will come under the preview of section 6 of the MP externment law.
The government counsel admitted that those cases didn’t fall within the ambit of externment law, but the two IPC cases were lodged in 2019 and 2022.
Justice Agrawal pointed out that only cases in which the person has been convicted in a criminal case are admissible under section 6 of the externment law, and the trial has yet to begin in both police cases.
In the externment order, district magistrate Bhavya Mittal mentioned that 16 people gave statements to the police that the “presence of the petitioner is a danger to the safety and security or to the public order.”
When the court asked government advocate Soni to show statements of witnesses, the advocate admitted that statements could not be recorded because the locality in which the petitioner is operating is a “tribal infested area”, and none of them came forward to depose against the petitioner.
When the court sought the names of the persons approached for recording of their statements and who refused, Soni failed to provide any name.
The court criticised the district magistrate for “misleading” the court by saying that none of the witnesses came forward to record statements.
“This attitude is grossly inappropriate,” the court said.
Justice Agrawal said, “Two things are crystal clear. Firstly, forest offences are not mentioned in Section 6 of the Adhiniyam of 1990. Secondly, the petitioner is not convicted in the IPC cases which is mandatory to pass a banishment order. Therefore, the order of externment is apparently illegal and is set aside.”
More Externed
Lawyers and activists said that other activists are externed on similar flimsy ground, and their matters are pending before the Jabalpur bench of the high court.
Ratan Barela (49), Dilip Barela (42), and Madhuri Krishnaswamy (48), who has been working in the Nimar region for tribal rights, were also externed for a year between 2022 and 2024 for disrupting peace and “threat to public safety”.
Ratan Barela, a farmer who is facing three criminal cases and three cases under the Forests Right Act, is the latest victim of the externment law.
On 27 November 2024, the Burhanpur district administration sent him a show-cause notice. Since then, he has been running pillar to post, from the district magistrate’s office to the Indore police commissioner, to defend himself.
Dilip Barela, who is facing 10 cases of forest offences and three police cases and was served notice on 3 May 2024, said he was externed two months later without being given a proper chance to defend himself.
Madhuri Krishnaswami, who is facing 21 forest offences and four criminal cases for “carrying out rallies without permission, or obstructing work of the government,” was also externed on 7 July 2023.
“Like Awase, Dilip and Madhuri have also challenged the order, and the matter is subjudice,” said lawyer Quazi Fakruddin, advocate for all three. “It’s a law which is rarely used and is now becoming common. The government and administration’s respect for human rights violations has been eroding.”
Close to 300 km west of Nepanagar, Mathiyas Bhuria, a tribal leader from Ranapur block in Jhabuia district, was externed on 10 September 2024, linked to five cases registered after he opposed the smuggling of liquor from the shops on the border of MP and Gujarat causing damage to the indigenous population.
Bhuria held a press conference on 24 June 2024 “exposing” the enforcement agencies' involvement with the liquor syndicates and organised a rally in Ranapur block on 5 August 2024.
Zaid Pathan, a social activist from Indore, and nine others were served externment notices for protesting outside a police station on 21 August 2021 in Indore to demand a case be registered against the assailants who attacked Muslim bangle seller Tasleem Ali (32) for selling goods in a Hindu locality of Indore.
They were slapped with a criminal case for rioting and criminal intimidation. They served externment notices from the Indore district administration within a week, saying they were “threats to public peace” for allegedly “attempting to incite riots” in the city.
“I was served an externment notice within three days of the FIR,” said Pathan, 40. "We were harassed for over six months under the garb of hearings for the externment notice.”
“They didn't intend to extern us because they have no grounds,” he said. “It was done to teach a lesson to those who stood up for Tasleem Ali."
(Kashif Kakvi is an investigative journalist who covers Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.)
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