The prisoners’ courage seems to grow the more it is quenched
… “The publication of 27 profiles made us understand how urgent it was to articulate a more complex and nuanced understanding of the situation of political prisoners,” Recchia tells THE WEEK over Zoom.
She is right, because the book truly is an eye-opener. One might have known the rough outline of what happened to these political prisoners, from the 16 accused of abetting the violence that broke out in Bhima Koregaon in 2018 to those arrested in the anti-CAA protests of 2019. Yet, the true extent of their agony is intricately fleshed out in the book. Read more
As per an order issued recently in this regard by the home department, the Bhima Koregaon Commission of Inquiry has been given an extension of another three months.
The Maharashtra government has granted yet another extension to the commission of inquiry, tasked with probing the Bhima Koregaon violence, till November 30. This is the fifteenth time that an extension has been granted to the commission since it was formed. Read more
I heard about Bhima Koregaon when it was all over the news channels in January 2018. The only thing that I knew were the reports of violence after a clash between Dalit groups and Marathas in and around Bhima Koregaon village in Maharashtra. By 2018, the media had lost all its credibility and most of them were toeing the government line, so I was not sure what is shown on TV news is even correct. I tried to find more information about the Bhima Koregaon event, its history, and its significance. I found some, but it was still not enough and then the book “Bhima Koregaon – Challenging Caste” came out, which takes a deep dive into the whole event, its history, and what happened after the January 2018 violence. It dispelled a lot of doubts and half-truths. Read more
‘The violence, to me, seemed scripted against Dalits,’ says Ajaz Ashraf
23/08/2024
The Hindu / by Sobhana K. Nair
Different castes remember the incident on January 1, 2018, and the reasons for it differently
In Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste, senior journalist Ajaz Ashraf relooks the events that led to the Bhima Koregaon violence on January 1, 2018. Ashraf sees the incident as a clash between two worldviews, one striving to flatten the social hierarchy and the other perpetuating it, as he says in this interview. Read more
Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste. Brahminism’s wrath against dreamers of equality
Author: Ajaz Ashraf
Publisher: AuthorsUpFront
Publishing Date: June 2024
Binding: Paperback
Language: English
Pages: 496 This book rips apart the Maoist conspiracy theory and the Urban Naxal narrative. It points out the ironies underlying the State’s charges against the sixteen, and the flimsiness of the evidence that is said to have been planted on their hacked computers. The conspiracy against the sixteen that inflicted untold miseries on their families is retold here in their voices. Read more/order
Supreme Court to hear bail pleas of Jyoti Jagtap, Mahesh Raut together
22/08/2024
Bar & Bench / by Anadi Tewari
While Jagtap was arrested in 2020, Raut has been in jail since 2018.
The Supreme Court on Thursday said that it would hear the bail pleas of Jyoti Jagtap and Mahesh Raut, accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, together. (Jyoti Jagtap v. National Investigation Agency and anr) Read more
Supreme Court To Consider Hearing Jyoti Jagtap & Mahesh Raut Matters Together
22/08/2024
Live Law / by Debby Jain
On being apprised that challenge to the bail granted to co-accused Mahesh Raut is pending before another bench, the Supreme Court bench dealing with the bail plea of activist and Bhima Koregaon case accused Jyoti Jagtap asked the Registry today to obtain orders for conjoint hearing of the two cases. Read more
SC adjourns hearing on bail plea of Bhima Koregaon case accused Jyoti Jagtap
22/08/2024
Hindustan Times / by Abraham Thomas
The Supreme Court on Thursday adjourned hearing on the bail plea of Bhima Koregaon accused Jyoti Jagtap upon request by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to have the matter heard with another pending bail plea pertaining to co-accused Mahesh Raut. Read more
India’s civic space is rated as ‘repressed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor. In recent years, the government has misused the draconian anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and other laws to keep activists behind bars and fabricate cases against activists and journalists for undertaking their work. Read more
by Live Law / @LiveLawIndia (Aug 21):
#SupremeCourt to soon hear Dalit rights’ activist and advocate Surendra Gadling’s bail plea in the 2016 Gadchiroli Arson Case. The Nagpur-based lawyer is also among the 16 accused in the Bhima Koregaon case. Bench: Justices MM Sundresh and Aravind Kumar Gadling filed a special leave petition challenging the Bombay High Court’s decision to reject his bail application in the Gadchiroli arson case, which involved around 80 vehicles transporting iron ore from Surjagarh mines in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district from allegedly being set on fire by Maoists in December 2016.
How Supreme Court has liberalised bail jurisprudence under anti-terror law UAPA in last three years
16/08/2024
The Print / by Akashat Jain
Section 43D(5) of the Act lays down stringent provisions for grant of bail, but there has been a gradual shift in giving bail to UAPA accused over past few years.
From bombing accused K.A. Najeeb to Bhima-Koregaon accused Vernon Gonsalves, the Supreme Court has allowed bail to many accused of terrorism in the last three years. It has allowed bail despite its 2019 order which pegged the standard for allowing bail under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), 1967 to be higher, a decision which has rarely followed. Read more
UAPA no exception to the rule on bail
15/08/2024
Hindustan Times / by HT Editorial
Taken together, SC’s pronouncements underline the draconian nature of the law. It is time this is addressed by the legislature of a mature democracy.
Time and again, the Supreme Court (SC) has pronounced that bail is the rule and jail the exception. But Tuesday’s ruling, that this holds true for special statutes such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, or UAPA, is of special import. Not because the apex court reiterated its protection of the personal liberty of citizens, but because in ruling so, it implicitly outlined how the law lends itself to strategic misuse. Read more
Freedom Of Fantasy | Chinki Sinha In Conversation With Anand Teltumbde
Anand Teltumbde’s room has a single bed, a large window and a bookshelf. This is where he lives and writes. The old building is inside the premises of the famous Rajgruha, a memorial and a museum dedicated to B. R. Ambedkar at Hindu colony of Dadar in Mumbai. Teltumbde, who was arrested in the Bhima-Koregaon violence that happened on January 1, 2018, was released jn November 2022. In an interview with Outlook, he talks about freedom of fantasy and class and caste in India. en | 01:09:37 | 2024 Watch video
The Freedoms Our Martyrs Won Are Under Seige
15/08/2024
Outlook / by Anand Teltumbde
This Independence Day, we are in an age in which we need assurances from our leader that the Constitution will survive
Seventy-seven years ago, our martyrs won freedom from British colonial rule. Three years later, we gave ourselves a Constitution that guaranteed a plethora of freedoms, inspired not by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) but the indigenous ethos of our own freedom movement. Today, having traversed into the Amrit Kaal, these guarantees appear to have expired, needing a new guarantee from our supreme ruler that the Constitution itself will survive. If the likes of Bhagat Singh were to see the state of India’s freedom today, they would certainly ask themselves what was wrong with the British rule that they went to the gallows fighting them. Read more
Sagar Gorkhe and Surendra Gadling seek jail reforms, action against ‘corrupt’ officer
Elgaar Parishad accused seeks jail reforms, action against ‘corrupt’ officer
15/08/2024
The Indian Express / by Express News Service
Gorkhe’s letter also called for better regulation of the prices for vegetables and chicken provided to prisoners, and requested that access to the canteen be increased from twice to four times a month.
Elgaar Parishad case accused Sagar Gorkhe wrote a letter to the DIG, Prisons requesting better access to jail canteen and action against a jail officer who was accused of corruption. Read more
Exorbitant Prices of Food, Corrupt Officials Divert Ration to VIP Prisoners: Jailed Activists
14/08/2024
The Wire / by The Wire Staff
Earlier this month, Gadling sent his complaint letters to the prison authorities and the local Panvel police station, under whose jurisdiction Taloja Prison falls, naming senior jailor Sunil Patil as the person behind the rampant corruption.
In a detailed complaint to the police and the court, human rights defenders Surendra Gadling and Sagar Gorkhe, both arrested for their alleged role in the Elgar Parishad case, have exposed the ongoing corruption in the functioning of the canteen facility inside Taloja Central Prison on the outskirts of Mumbai. Read more
Special food for the rich, infested curries for others: Lawyer on graft in Taloja canteen
08/08/2024
Hindustan Times / by Revu Suresh
Sumit Gadling, lawyer and son of Surendra Gadling, said that they are planning to move the Bombay high court for a larger investigation into the matter
Surendra Gadling, a human rights lawyer and activist arrested in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case, has complained to the state anti-corruption bureau regarding widespread graft in the functioning of the canteen at Taloja Central Jail in Navi Mumbai. Read more
New complaint alleges Taloja prison underbelly: ‘Mutton meals for RS 8.000 per kg, 40% cuts, zero record’
06/08/2024
Newslaundry / by Prateek Goyal
Surendra Gadling’s complaint comes a month after Bhima Koregaon co-accused Sagar Gorkhe raised similar concerns in a letter to authorities.
Fried chicken for Rs 2,000, Hyderabadi-Muradabadi biryani for Rs 1,500, Schezwan rice for Rs 500, prawns biryani for Rs 2,000, mutton masala for Rs 8,000, and mutton curry for Rs 7,000.
This may sound like an egregiously overpriced menu of a five-star hotel, but these are prices per kilogram offered allegedly through VIP canteen services for wealthy prisoners lodged at Maharashtra’s Taloja central prison. Read more
What Freedom Means For India’s Political Prisoners
15/08/2024
Outlook / by Apsksha Priyadarshini
For political prisoners, freedom becomes a longing for small mercies that make us human
Maryam was six—the youngest of three siblings—when her father, Khalid Saifi, was arrested following the sectarian violence in northeast Delhi in February 2020. The violence took place against the backdrop of months of protests led by Muslim women at several sites across the national capital and in the country, against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the proposed updates to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR). Maryam’s mother Nargis recalls the day as the beginning of “a dark, endless night” that has been written into their fates. Read more
The Freedoms Our Martyrs Won Are Under Seige
15/08/2024
Outlook / by Anand Teltumbde
This Independence Day, we are in an age in which we need assurances from our leader that the Constitution will survive
Seventy-seven years ago, our martyrs won freedom from British colonial rule. Three years later, we gave ourselves a Constitution that guaranteed a plethora of freedoms, inspired not by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) but the indigenous ethos of our own freedom movement. Today, having traversed into the Amrit Kaal, these guarantees appear to have expired, needing a new guarantee from our supreme ruler that the Constitution itself will survive. If the likes of Bhagat Singh were to see the state of India’s freedom today, they would certainly ask themselves what was wrong with the British rule that they went to the gallows fighting them. Read more
India Cries for Freedom!
13/08/2024
Countercurrents / by Cedric Prakash
India cries for Freedom: Thanks to the relentless struggles and sacrifices of our freedom fighters, on 15 August 1947, India made her tryst with destiny! After years of colonial rule, she finally became an independent nation. Ever since (during these past 77 years), India has made rapid strides in every sphere, and this fact must be applauded; however, one must also humbly admit that, India still has an unimaginable long way to go in the internalisation and actualisation of her freedom!
…
India cries for Freedom for Human rights defenders (HRDs), right to information seekers and others who take a stand for truth, justice and human rights. They are at the receiving end of a vicious and vindictive system. The are intimidated, incarcerated and even killed! These include those in the Bhima Koregaon conspiracy case; Jesuit Father Stan Swamy is a case in point. Read more
