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Category: Context

Activists and journalists continued to be targeted around elections despite UN Human Rights Committee scrutiny

Activists and journalists continued to be targeted around elections despite UN Human Rights Committee scrutiny

monitor.civicus.org / by CIVICUS

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.
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Also read:
▪ India: Submission to the UN Human Rights Committee on the deterioration of civic space (CIVICUS / Jul 2024)
▪ CIVIC FREEDOMS IN INDIA ‘REPRESSED’: GLOBAL MONITOR CIVICUS (The Wire / March 2023)
Read full report „People Power Under Attack 2022“

What Freedom Means For India’s Political Prisoners / India Cries for Freedom!

What Freedom Means For India’s Political Prisoners / India Cries for Freedom!

Drawing by Arun Ferreira

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.
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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.
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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.
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Explained: The Supreme Court’s judgment against 24/7 surveillance as a bail condition

Explained: The Supreme Court’s judgment against 24/7 surveillance as a bail condition

The Leaflet / by Gursimran Kaur Bakshi

In a significant judgment, the Supreme Court has held that a bail condition enabling police to monitor the movement of an accused out on bail through mobile phones is illegal and violative of Article 21 of the Constitution.
…
It remains to be seen whether this judgment of the Supreme Court will provide relief to the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad accused Shoma Sen, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira, upon whom the judiciary has imposed similar bail conditions or whether this will be another case of a progressive Order in one case which is not followed by a similar Order in another case.
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Also read:
▪ If those on bail are tracked 24/7, has their liberty really been (partially) restored? (The Leaflet / May 2024)
▪ Share Gps live location with nia 24×7: Supreme Court bail conditions for Shoma Sen (Bar & Bench / April 2024)
▪ Supreme Court grants bail to Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira, with tethers (The Leaflet / Jul 2023)
▪ Inconsistencies in Bail Orders Mean Individual Liberty Is the Outcome of Judicial Lottery (The Wire / Oct 2022)

Union gov’t shredded Right to Privacy Bill at the behest of intelligence agencies

Union gov’t shredded Right to Privacy Bill at the behest of intelligence agencies

Reporters Collective / by Shreegireesh Jalihal, Swapnil Ghose and Saras Jaiswal

Modi government gave in to intelligence agenciesʼ demands for a “blanket exemption” from a proposed right to privacy law. It effectively killed a decade-old assurance to bring in a law to protect citizens from illegal surveillance
In 2012, the Congress-led government assured Parliament that a right to privacy law was in in the making. The eagerly awaited law was supposed to be a bulwark against surveillance on individuals, with rules spelling out when the government could snoop on citizens.
… While the assurance was still on the table, controversies emerged around allegations of government snooping on dissidents, and journalists using Pegasus, an Israeli military-grade spyware.
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Also read:
▪ AI Report: India’s exploitation of terrorism financing assessments to target the civil society (Amnesty.org / Sep 2023)
▪ Police Linked to Hacking Campaign to Frame Indian Activists (Wired.com / June 2022)
▪ Leaked Data Shows Surveillance Net in Elgar Parishad Case May Have Crossed a Line (The Wire / July 2021)
▪ They were Accused of plotting to overthrow the Modi government – The evidence was planted, a new report says (Washington Post / Feb 2021)

The Opposition Must Demand the Release of all Political Prisoners

The Opposition Must Demand the Release of all Political Prisoners

The Opposition Must Demand the Release of all Political Prisoners

23/06/2024

The Wire / by Partho Sarothi Ray

It is the duty of a revitalised opposition to prevent the continuation of the darkness that has descended over India in the last 10 years.
The results of the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, although quite unexpected and surprising for many, has brought a fresh breath of life to the sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic Republic of India. Nay, it might have brought it back from the brink of the precipice into which it would have tumbled with another outright victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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Also read:
▪ To Think of Modi 3.0 as Less Dangerous Would Be a Misreading (The Wire | Anand Teltumbde | June 12, 2024)
▪ Who Does June 4 Belong to? (The Wire / June 5, 2024)

Book Excerpt | Intellectual Insurgency and Mahesh Raut

Book Excerpt | Intellectual Insurgency and Mahesh Raut

The Wire / by Divya Dwivedi and Shaj Mohan

We are witnessing a pretend politics which lives on the time borrowed from a deferred revolution.
“I shall speak of ghost, of flame, and of ashes”

– Jacques Derrida, Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question

It is not easy to write about the scholar and activist Mahesh Raut without sorrow and rage. Raut was a fellow of Prime Minister’s Rural Development programme; it has been five years since he was arrested on June 6, 2018. He is the youngest prisoner in the Bhima Koregaon case, currently awaiting the mercy of the judiciary for bail in Taloja central jail. His health has been deteriorating in prison.
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Also read:
▪ SC to hear plea of activist seeking interim bail on June 21 (Legalworld.com / June 2024)
▪ ‘Ominous portents’: Why High Court staying its own bail orders in Bhima Koregaon case is troubling (Scroll.in / Dec 2023)
▪ In Jail for 5 Years, Activist Mahesh Raut Gets Bail in Elgar Parishad Case (The Wire / Sep 2023)
▪ Gadchiroli’s 300 Gram Sabhas Pass Resolution in Support of Activist Mahesh Raut (The Wire / Oct 2018)

To Think of Modi 3.0 as Less Dangerous Would Be a Misreading

To Think of Modi 3.0 as Less Dangerous Would Be a Misreading

The Wire / by Anand Teltumbde

While forming the government, Modi may do whatever it takes, but thereafter he will recoil back to his fascist persona with a vengeance.
… Most commentators expect Modi 3.0 to be a tamed affair which may not last a full term. I do not agree. While forming the government, he may do whatever it takes, but thereafter he will recoil back to his fascist persona with a vengeance, like a wounded tigress. He will do more of what he knew and did with added fervour of vendetta. For instance, Muslims and Dalits concertedly voted against the BJP, and he will not leave them unpunished. There will be more incarcerations of dissenters (“urban Naxals”), and more raids on and arrests of political opponents by the central agencies under the guise of punishing corruption. 
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Also read:
▪ Who Does June 4 Belong to? (The Wire / June 2024)

Video | Modi’s India a modern Indian fascism: Alpa Shah / Book excerpt: The Incarcerations

Video | Modi’s India a modern Indian fascism: Alpa Shah / Book excerpt: The Incarcerations

Modi’s India a modern Indian fascism: Alpa Shah, Professor of Social Anthropology

19/04/2024

The Wire / by Karan Thapar


en | 44:51 | 2024
One of British academias most highly regarded anthropologists has said “we need to call Modi’s India a modern Indian fascism”. Alpa Shah says: “Indian fascism may not be of the classic kind, whatever that is, but it’s fascism nevertheless.”
In a 40-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, to mark the launch of her book, ‘The Incarcerations: Bhima Koregaon and the Search for Democracy in India’, Alpa Shah, who is presently Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics but has just been announced as the new Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford University and a fellow of All Souls College, identified seven key characteristics of fascism each of which, it seems, applies almost fully to India under Narendra Modi. She, therefore, argues that terms like “majoritarianism or ethnic democracy or cultural nationalism” do not “convey the gravity of threat to democracy under way in India”.
Watch video

The Incarcerations: Bhima Koregaon And The Search For Democracy In India by Alpa Shah

19/04/2024

Article14 / by Alpa Shah

… In The Incarcerations, professor of social anthropology at the London School of Economics Alpa Shah now tells the chilling story of the Bhima-Koregaon case that transformed the 16 human rights defenders who were professors, lawyers, journalists and poets into alleged Maoist terrorists accused of waging a war against the Indian state and plotting to kill prime minister Narendra Modi.

Book excerpt
Only when the streets in Mumbai were deserted because of the Dalit protestors, did the conflict over the Bhima Koregaon British war memorial make it into international news, at The Guardian. In fact, the Indian broadsheets and mainstream TV mainly covered the events only when there was disruption in Mumbai, and then the focus of reporting was on mobs holding the city to ransom, not the casteist violence in Koregaon that they were protesting.
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A new book recounts how 16 activists were imprisoned as terrorists, without trial

27/03/2024

Scroll.in / by Alpa Shah

An excerpt from ‘The Incarcerations: Bhima Koregaon and the Search for Democracy in India’
Amnesty International India and Oxfam India released a joint response the day Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Varavara Rao were arrested. “The nationwide crackdown on activists, advocates and human rights defenders is disturbing and threatens core human rights values.”
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Space for Civil Society Groups, Fundamental Freedoms Shrank Further in Modi’s Second Term

Space for Civil Society Groups, Fundamental Freedoms Shrank Further in Modi’s Second Term

NewsClick / by Newsclick Report

The CIVICUS Monitor, an online platform that tracks threats to civil society in countries across the globe, rates civic space – the space for civil society – in India as “Repressed”.
… On human rights defenders, the report pointed how those critical of the government were implicated and jailed in “politically motivated cases under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), a draconian anti-terror law,”such as 16 activists in the Bhima Koregaon case, former JNU student Umar Khalid, student activist Gulfisha Fatima and several activists in Kashmir, such as Khurram Parvez, award-winning photojournalist Masrat Zahra, journalist Peerzada Ashiq among others,
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Read full report: India – Fundamental Freedoms Deteriorate Further in Modi’s Second Term

Also read:
▪ India: Weaponizing Counterterrorism: India’s exploitation of terrorism financing assessments to target the civil society (Amnesty International / Sep 2023)
▪ The Uses (and Abuses) of Investigative Agencies (The Wire / Nov 2022)
▪ India | Civicus Monitor Watchlist – Overview Of Recent Restrictions To Civic Freedoms (March 2022)
▪ AUTHORITIES HARASS AND SQUEEZE FUNDING OF NGOS WHILE ACTIVISTS, JOURNALISTS TARGETED IN INDIA (CIVICUS / Feb 2022)
▪ Maharashtra is adding activists to a secret list of the enemies of state (Newslaundry / July 2021)
▪ How Governments Avoid Due Process by Declaring Groups as ‘Front Organisations’ of Banned Entities (The Wire / Sep 2020)

New Book on Bhima Koregaon Case Tells Uncomfortable Truths, But Brings Hope / Book launch

New Book on Bhima Koregaon Case Tells Uncomfortable Truths, But Brings Hope / Book launch

New Book on Bhima Koregaon Case Tells Uncomfortable Truths, But Brings Hope

31/04/2024

The Quint / by Mekhala Saran

Alpa Shah’s book, ‘The Incarcerations’, is alive with stories of fearlessness, but also of the cost it extracts.

“Well, I am off to NIA custody and do not know when I shall be able to talk to you again. However, I earnestly hope that you will speak out before your turn comes.”

– Anand Teltumbde, on the eve of his incarceration in April 2020

Alpa Shah’s book on the Bhima Koregaon incarcerations is not an easy read. When I first decided to review the book – before laying my hands on it – I thought it would not take me longer than a week.
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A new book recounts how 16 activists were imprisoned as terrorists, without trial

27/03/2024

Scroll.in / by Alpa Shah

An excerpt from ‘The Incarcerations: Bhima Koregaon and the Search for Democracy in India’
Amnesty International India and Oxfam India released a joint response the day Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Varavara Rao were arrested. “The nationwide crackdown on activists, advocates and human rights defenders is disturbing and threatens core human rights values.”
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by Shireen Azam / @shireenazam (March 26:)
A full full house at @LSEpublicevents for the book release of (Bhima Koregaon) Incarcerations by @alpashah001

Video| Book launch/discussion: The Incarcerations: BK-16 and the search for democracy in India

26/03/2024

Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute, LSE Human Rights, Department of Anthropology and Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity

IN-PERSON AND ONLINE PUBLIC EVENT

Speakers:
Professor Alpa Shah.
Discussants: Professor Christophe Jaffrelot, Professor Tarun Khaitan and Priyanka Kotamraju
Chair: Professor Deborah James

Join us to launch and discuss Alpa Shah’s new book, The Incarcerations: BK-16 and the search for democracy in India.
As general elections fast approach in the world’s largest democracy, this event asks what democracy today must urgently ensure for our common future. In her latest book, Alpa Shah pulls back the curtain on Indian democracy to tell the remarkable and chilling story of the Bhima Koregaon case, in which 16 human rights defenders (the BK-16) – professors, lawyers, artists – have been imprisoned, without credible evidence and without trial, as Maoist terrorists.
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Watch on LSE’s YouTube channel.

Interview | Alpa Shah: India is not a safe place any more

23/03/2024

The News Statesman / by  Gavin Jacobson

Narendra Modi’s Hindu supremacism is capturing major state institutions while repressing minority groups and political activists.
… Shah exposes how the state engaged in a prolonged act of cyberwar against the so-called “BK-16”, hacking their emails and implanting incriminating evidence on their computers in order to prosecute them. It is the best book I’ve read about the full-scale assault on democracy in India, and with the general elections scheduled to conclude in June, it’s essential reading for an understanding of what is happening to the country right now.
On 18 March I met Shah at her office at the London School of Economics.

Gavin Jacobson: When did you decide to write a book about the BK-16?
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Hackers-for-Hire, Govt’s Media Control: Seven Takeaways From Studying the Arrests of the BK-16

15/03/2024

The Wire / by Alpa Shah

“…the evidence used to incarcerate the BK-16 was likely to have been implanted remotely through a hacker-for-hire mercenary gang infrastructure that has clients all over the world, but whose epicentre is in India.”
Excerpted with permission from Alpa Shah’s The Incarcerations: Bhima Koregaon and the Search for Democracy in India, HarperCollins 2024.
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Hacker-for-hire gang with links to Pune police planted emails on the computers of Bhima Koregaon accused: new book

14/03/2024

The Hindu / by Vijaita Singh

The mercenary hacker gang, headquartered in India, remotely implanted evidence, according to LSE professor’s book; cites cybersecurity researchers to claim gang’s connection to a Pune police officer
The alleged evidence used to incarcerate 16 people in the Bhima Koregaon case was “likely to have been implanted remotely through a hacker-for-hire mercenary gang infrastructure that has clients all over the world, but whose epicentre is in India,” according to claims made in a new book.
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The arrests putting Narendra Modi’s ‘fascist’ India on trial

14/03/2024

The Telegraph / by Andrew Whitehead

Stan Swamy, a Jesuit priest, died in custody in India in July 2021. He was 84. He had spent nine months in detention and had been repeatedly denied bail; yet he had not been convicted of any offence.
… Alpa Shah, an anthropology professor at the London School of Economics, argues in The Incarcerations that the arrest of Swamy and 15 others – lawyers, academics, poets, activists – in what has become known as the “BK case” reveals India’s authoritarian creep.
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Also read:
▪ Why Courts Are Ignoring Concerns Of Planted Evidence In The Bhima-Koregaon Prosecution (article14 / Jan 2023)
▪ Police Linked to Hacking Campaign to Frame Indian Activists (Wired.com / June 2022)