Bhima Koregaon – free them all

Celebration to Incarceration: The Bhima-Koregaon Case So Far

17/09/2025 Asha

Outlook / by Pritha Vashisth

What began in 2018 as a commemoration of anti-caste resistance turned into an eight-year-long legal ordeal, with 16 lawyers, poets, professors and activists jailed under anti-terror laws—many without trial, and some still behind bars today
Summary
◦ The Bhima-Koregaon event in 2018, a Dalit-led commemoration, was followed by violence—leading to the arrest of 16 activists, academics, and lawyers.
◦ All accused were charged under the harsh UAPA law, allowing long detentions without evidence or trial—Fr Stan Swamy died in custody.
◦ Eight of the 16 have been granted bail, but some remain jailed as courts have not yet ruled on their discharge petitions.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Why caste Hindutva, not an Elgar conspiracy, is at the root of the Bhima Koregaon violence (The Polis Project / Feb 2025)

▪ 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
Read more/order
▪ Book Excerpt | How Bhima Koregaon Became a Trope for Dalit Pride and Assertion (The Wire │ by Ajaz Ashraf │ June 2024)

▪ The Incarcerations: Bhima Koregaon And The Search For Democracy In India

Author: Alpa Shah
Publishing Date: March 2024
Publisher: Harper Collins Publisher
Pages: 672
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▪ Book Excerpt: The story of an ‘Urban Naxal’ (Deccan Herald | by Alpa Shah | April 2024 )

Koregaon Bhima Probe: Spotlight on Uddhav Thackeray

03/09/2025 Asha

Booklet: “Salaakhon Mein Qaid Avaazein” (Access PDF)

Pune Mirror / by Swapnil Hajare

Committee asks former CM to submit Sharad Pawar’s letter by Sept 22
The ongoing Koregaon Bhima Commission of Inquiry has taken a decisive turn, putting former chief minister and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray into the spotlight. The commission has formally requested Thackeray to produce a letter allegedly written to him by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar in January 2020, which, according to claims, blamed the then BJP-led government of Devendra Fadnavis for orchestrating the January 1, 2018 Koregaon Bhima violence.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Bhima Koregaon commission gets 18th extension (Hindustan Times / Aug 2025)
▪ Alternative reading of Bhima Koregaon: A Maharashtra outfit is trying to advance Dalit cause from Hindutva orbit (The Indian Express / Apr 2025)
▪ Why caste Hindutva, not an Elgar conspiracy, is at the root of the Bhima Koregaon violence (The Polis Project / Feb 2025)
▪ Book Excerpt | How Bhima Koregaon Became a Trope for Dalit Pride and Assertion (The Wire │ by Ajaz Ashraf │ June 2024)

Bhima Koregaon commission gets 18th extension

03/08/2025 Asha

Graphic by Arun Ferreira & Vernon Gonsalves

Hindustan Times / by Nadeem Inamdar

The latest extension was granted via an order dated July 30 by Chetan Nikam, deputy secretary in the home department, who allowed the panel time until October 31, 2025 to complete its work.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Alternative reading of Bhima Koregaon: A Maharashtra outfit is trying to advance Dalit cause from Hindutva orbit (The Indian Express / Apr 2025)
▪ Why caste Hindutva, not an Elgar conspiracy, is at the root of the Bhima Koregaon violence (The Polis Project / Feb 2025)
▪ Book Excerpt | How Bhima Koregaon Became a Trope for Dalit Pride and Assertion (The Wire │ by Ajaz Ashraf │ June 2024)
▪ On the trail of Sambhaji Bhide: Ahead of Bhima Koregaon riots’ 3rd anniversary, tracing the Hindutva leader’s rise (Firstpost / Dec 2020)
▪ Let’s Remember the Lesson of Bhima Koregaon: Down with the New Peshwai (Sanhati │ by Sudhir Dhawale │ March 2018)
▪ Why peoples’ coalitions are uniting against Hindutva — the ‘new Peshwai’ (Dailyo.in │ by Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves │ Jan 2018)
▪ The Myth of Bhima Koregaon Reinforces the Identities It Seeks to Transcend (The Wire | Anand Teltumbde | Jan 2018)

Criminalizing Dissent: Maharashtra’s Urban Naxal Bill and its New War on Civil Society

23/07/2025 Asha

Maharashtra’s Urban Naxal Bill and its New War on Civil Society -Criminalizing Dissent

23/07/2025

Countercurrents / by Dr Ranjan Solomon

“The price of liberty is eternal vigilance, not silent submission.”
(Inspired by Thomas Jefferson)

The Maharashtra government’s Special Public Security Bill, 2024, introduced to counter so-called “urban Naxal” activities is a perilous milestone in India’s accelerating slide into authoritarianism.
… Activists like Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, and the late Fr. Stan Swamy were imprisoned for years without trial under charges of sedition and conspiracy. The Bhima Koregaon case was a dress rehearsal for exactly the kind of repression this bill now makes routine at the state level.
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‘Urban Naxal’ To Maharashtra’s New Bill Rekindles Fears Of Criminalised Dissent

17/07/2025

Outlook / by Pritha Vashisth

The Bhima Koregaon case returns to focus as the Supreme Court allows bail plea revival—while Maharashtra’s sweeping Jan Suraksha Bill raises alarms over civil liberties, ambiguous terms, and the creeping criminalisation of protest.
A tiny pore of blood rinsed down the alley until one among the several injured was dead. Around seven years ago, on January 1, 2018, silence hovered over the annual celebration as a Hindu mob allegedly attacked a gathering assembled to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon. Decorated with plays, speeches, and songs, the state soon strangled this small village in Pune.
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Maharashtra just passed a law that could jail you for peacefully protesting

16/07/2025

Frontline / by Amey Tirodkar

BJP-led government says it’s fighting “Urban Maoists”, but critics say the MSPS Bill is the biggest threat to free speech since the Emergency.
Days after the ruling BJP at the Centre and in Maharashtra observed the 50th anniversary of the Emergency and the curtailment of freedoms it entailed, the Maha Yuti government, led by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, passed the Maharashtra Special Public Security (MSPS) Bill, 2024, by voice vote in the Legislative Assembly on July 10.
Read more

Also read:
▪ As Maharashtra Govt Brings Bill Against ‘Urban Naxalism’, Activists Fear Criminalisation of Dissent (The Wire / Jul 2025)
▪ A New Bill Shows Maharashtra Wants to Become a Police State Before Combatting Left-Wing Extremism (The Wire / Jul 2024)

The Incarcerations: BK-16 and the Search for Democracy in India – book review

26/06/2025 Asha

Counterfire / by Nandita Lal

The case of a group of writers and activists unjustly imprisoned in India starkly reveals the exploitative nature of Indian capitalism and its international connections, finds Nandita Lal
Alpa Shah’s The Incarcerations is an investigation into the imprisonment of the BK-16, a group of poets, lawyers, professors, and activists wrongfully incarcerated on the pretext of conspiring against the Indian state. Their stories unravel a vast web of transnational surveillance (including the Israeli spyware Pegasus), neoliberal repression through Financial Action Task Force mandates, the rise of Modi’s crony capitalism epitomised by the Adani empire, and ‘internal’ colonialism in Kashmir.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste. Brahminism’s wrath against dreamers of equality

Author: Ajaz Ashraf
Publisher: AuthorsUpFront
Publishing Date: June 2024
Pages: 496
Read more/order

▪ How Long Can the Moon Be Caged? Voices of Indian Political Prisoners

Authors: Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia
Publishing Date: Aug 2023
Publisher: Pluto Press
Pages: 247
Read more / order

Alternative reading of Bhima Koregaon: A Maharashtra outfit is trying to advance Dalit cause from Hindutva orbit

29/04/2025 Asha

The Indian Express / by Vikas Pathak

While Dalit activism is generally understood as resistance to “Brahmanical Hinduism”, the Vivek Vichar Manch’s goal is to foster Hindu unity, something which is also a core ideological goal of the BJP and the Sangh
At a time when the Opposition, particularly the Congress, has made caste census, the representation of marginalised classes in structures of power, and their share in welfare benefits its key political planks, a recent initiative of Dalits subscribing to Hindutva and seeking to resolve caste faultlines is active in Maharashtra, with some support from the RSS and the BJP.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Why caste Hindutva, not an Elgar conspiracy, is at the root of the Bhima Koregaon violence (The Polis Project / Feb 2025)
▪ On the trail of Sambhaji Bhide: Ahead of Bhima Koregaon riots’ 3rd anniversary, tracing the Hindutva leader’s rise (Firstpost / Dec 2020)
▪ Book Excerpt | How Bhima Koregaon Became a Trope for Dalit Pride and Assertion (The Wire │ by Ajaz Ashraf │ June 2024)
▪ Let’s Remember the Lesson of Bhima Koregaon: Down with the New Peshwai (Sanhati │ by Sudhir Dhawale │ March 2018)
▪ Why peoples’ coalitions are uniting against Hindutva — the ‘new Peshwai’ (Dailyo.in │ by Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves │ Jan 2018)
▪ The Myth of Bhima Koregaon Reinforces the Identities It Seeks to Transcend (The Wire | Anand Teltumbde | Jan 2018)

Podcast: Alpa Shah on the Bima Koregaon case and India’s democratic decline

28/04/2025 Asha

Himal Southasian / by The Editors

The BK-16 case links India’s harmful neoliberal policies, state authorities abuse of laws, and the collapse of institutions, says the social anthropologist
… In this episode of State of Southasia, Shah speaks to Nayantara Narayanan about the work of the BK16 with indigenous communities and other minorities, their pushback against neoliberal policies and why they were seen as threats by the Indian state, and how and why they were implicated in the Bhima Koregaon case. The case shows a “very direct link between the kinds of interests of the state and corporate powers in accessing resources that lie under [Adivasi] lands and the fight for justice of those people who those lands belong to,” she says.

en | 47:09 min | 2025
Read more / Listen to the podcast

Also read:
▪ The Feared – Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners

Author: Neeta Kolhatkar
Publishing Date: Dec 2024
Publisher: S&S India
Pages: 272
Read more /order
▪ Process as Punishment – Recent books that bear witness to the BK-16’s incarceration (The Caravan / Jul 2024)

Koregaon Bhima Commission of Inquiry: State opposes plea to have Sharad Pawar depose again

22/04/2025 Asha

The Indian Express / by Chandan Haygunde

Ambedkar’s plea an attempt at political sensationalisation: State
Special public prosecutor Shishir Hiray opposed an application filed by senior politician Prakash Ambedkar before the Koregaon Bhima Commission of Inquiry to call NCP-SP chief Sharad Pawar again, if required, to depose as a witness.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Why caste Hindutva, not an Elgar conspiracy, is at the root of the Bhima Koregaon violence (The Polis Project / Feb 2025)
▪ Book Excerpt | How Bhima Koregaon Became a Trope for Dalit Pride and Assertion (The Wire │ by Ajaz Ashraf │ June 2024)
▪ Top Investigating Officer Admits Elgar Parishad Event ‘Had No Role’ in Bhima Koregaon Violence (The Wire / Dec 2022)
▪ India’s Hindu Nationalist Project Relies on Brutal Repression (Jacobinmag / April 2021)
▪ Let’s Remember the Lesson of Bhima Koregaon: Down with the New Peshwai (Sanhati │ by Sudhir Dhawale │ March 2018)
▪ Why peoples’ coalitions are uniting against Hindutva — the ‘new Peshwai’ (Dailyo.in │ by Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves │ Jan 2018)
▪ Saffron Conspiracy in Bhima Koregaon? – Fact finding report by Rashtra Seva Dal unearths insidious scheme to target Dalits (CJP / Jan 2018)

Bhima Koregaon and Dalits’ search for remedies rooted in dignity, not dominance

24/03/2025 Asha

Frontline / by Tanvir Aeijaz

The book exposes the strategies of hate politics and violent populism and shows how democracy is being wrecked from within.
Hannah Arendt’s canonical exhortation for the persecuted Jew that “…if one is attacked as a Jew, one must defend oneself as a Jew” finds resonance in the Dalit’s resistance against Brahminism and caste atrocities in India. Articulating the political contestation, imbued with the concept of social justice, Dalits look forward not to a continued endurance of historical, or even day-to-day, injustice but to pursue both normative and strategic vindication of their rights and dignity.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste. Brahminism’s wrath against dreamers of equality

Author: Ajaz Ashraf
Publisher: AuthorsUpFront
Publishing Date: June 2024
Pages: 496
Challenging Caste reads the violence at Bhima Koregaon as a clash between two worldviews – one striving to flatten the social hierarchy, the other justifying and perpetuating it. This book rips apart the Maoist conspiracy theory and the Urban Naxal narrative.
Read more/order
▪ Process as Punishment – Recent books that bear witness to the BK-16’s incarceration (The Caravan / Jul 2024)
▪ Book Excerpt | How Bhima Koregaon Became a Trope for Dalit Pride and Assertion (The Wire │ by Ajaz Ashraf │ June 2024)

Koregaon Bhima Commission of Inquiry gets another extension till 31 May

04/03/2025 Asha

The Indian Express / by Chandan Shantaram Haygunde

It may be recalled that widespread violence took place in Koregaon Bhima area on January 1, 2018, during the 200th commemoration of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon
The Maharashtra government has granted yet another extension to the Koregaon Bhima Commission of Inquiry, which is probing into the causes of violence reported in Pune’s Koregaon Bhima area on January 1, 2018.
An order in this regard was passed by Chetan Nikam, deputy secretary, home department, on Monday. As per this order, the commission has been granted an extension till May 31, 2025.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Why caste Hindutva, not an Elgar conspiracy, is at the root of the Bhima Koregaon violence (The Polis Project / Feb 2025)
▪ Bhima Koregaon violence probe: Maharashtra govt grants inquiry panel 15th extension, till Nov 30 (The Indian Express / Aug 2024)
▪ Book Excerpt | How Bhima Koregaon Became a Trope for Dalit Pride and Assertion (The Wire / June 2024)
▪ Police Linked to Hacking Campaign to Frame Indian Activists (Wired.com / June 2022)
▪ Bhima Koregaon Violence: Four Different Theories, but No Justice in Sight (The Wire / Jan 2022)
▪ THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)