Tribute to Tapan Bose | Sagari Chhabra

Tapan Bose (8 June 1946 – 30 January 2025)

Tapan Bose the well-known documentary film-maker and human rights defender died on 30th January ’25 also known as Shahadat or Martyrs Day. He spent his life defending the people on the fringes of society and despite his frail health and being on a portable respirator, he could not be silenced and worked for Indo-Pak peace to the last. He was gregarious, warm and personable and started his activism during the Emergency when so many prisoners of conscience were put behind bars. However, as many put the dark years of the Emergency behind them and forgot the findings of the Shah Commission that there had been both sins of commission and omission, Tapan made it his creed to give a voice to those whose voices were being silenced.

Along with the talented and dynamic Suhasini Mulay, he co-directed several documentary films which are landmark films for they are witness to the dark events and what the poor have gone through. These films are major acts of remembrance and records which independent India must show as these films reveal what the powers that be do to our very own. These films were on fighting human rights violations in Punjab, the victims of the horrific blinding of undertrials and Bhopal – Beyond Genocide.

The documentary on Bhopal is significant for it records how the Chief Commissioner, Mr M.N Buch had advised that such a lethal gas, Methyl Isocynate not be manufactured within the city limits. His advice was ignored. When the poisonous gas leaked from the Union Carbide plant on the night of 2/3rd December 1984, the plant officials sounded a siren which was assumed as a fire and the workers actually rushed towards the plant to save the factory! One of the workers spoke in the film, that if they had just announced there had been a leak, so many lives would have been saved. Estimates vary on how many died, but at the very least 3787 died and there have been over 574,366 injured by the toxin.

Tapan always had problems with the censors and in obtaining a censor certificate but he fought on relentlessly. At some point he stopped making documentary films and launched full-scale into human rights work and peace activism. Along with Sumanta Bannerji, Kamal Mitra Chenoy, Dinesh Mohan, Deenabandhu and several others he ran the Secretariat of the Citizens’ Tribunal on Ayodhya. This was based on deep fact-finding and depositions on who demolished the Babri masjid and who were the forces behind it and with what intent. The Tribunal exposed many a myth and the communal agenda behind the destruction and killing of innocent people. Tapan was a brave man who lit a candle in the darkness and worked for peace not allowing events to silence him.

He was also a frontrunner in the formation of the Pakistan India Peace Forum and had the ability to engage and work with multiple people for peace with very little ego. He was friends and worked with Kuldip Nayar, Asma Jehangir, Mubashir Hasan, I.R Rahman, Admiral Ramdas, Nirmala Deshpande, Mohini Giri and Sayeeda Hameed all in a bid to create peace. He believed that peace by the state only was susceptible to political pressures, but understanding between the people led to lasting peace. He was also extremely generous with his time and resources bonding with younger people who called him Tapan da and encouraged them to volunteer for the cause.

He was a pillar of the Pakistan-India’s Peoples’ forum for Peace and Democracy and a founding member of the South Asia Forum for Human Rights. He worked amongst the people in Kashmir and for the Rohingyas always calling out human rights violations.

Tapan is survived by his wife, Rita, his daughter,Mishti and grandsons Rudra and Somansh but most of all by a legacy of peace. May his foundational work be strengthened by all who believe in peace within India and across the borders and who have a vision of South Asia as a zone of peace, love and fraternity.

Rest in peace Tapan da!