free them all

‘Indian Democracy Is Facing an Existential Crisis’: Progressive Writers’ Association

09/09/2023

The Wire / by The Wire Staff | Progressive Writers’ Association

“It is the duty of literature to stand for the downtrodden, the oppressed, the underprivileged, whether an individual or a group.”
Between August 20 and 22, the Progressive Writers’ Association held its 18th annual conference in Jabalpur. At the end of the conference, the PWA adopted a declaration in which it discussed the threats to democracy, equality and secularism in India – ideals with the Association see themselves as guardians of.
„… Increasing discrimination and atrocities on women, tribals and Dalits is the natural consequence of the proud superiority of the Manuwadi ideology of majoritarianism. This text can be read from Una and Hathras to Bhima Koregaon…“
Read the full declaration

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Repackaged Laws for Decolonization Game

10/09/2023

News Click / by Suhit K Sen

Official anti-colonial rhetoric lacks substance and creates the basis for a more authoritarian order.
On the eve of the 77th Independence Day this year, Union Home Minister Amit Shah tabled in the Lok Sabha Bills to amend three colonial-era codes on which the criminal justice system rests, spinning this as a belated blow in favour of decolonisation.
… Though the presumption of innocence remains at the heart of the criminal justice system, its perversions remain—not created by the current regime but relentlessly misused by it.
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The many ideas behind the birth of poetry that floats like a butterfly; and stings like a bee

07/09/2023

Hindustan Times / by Ramu Ramanathan

The turning point of Telugu literary history is 3 and 4 July of 1970. Poets who were invited to speak at the seminar/ poets who were not invited to the seminar/ poets who were going to be felicitated/ poets who were expelled/ poets who were going to boycott/ poets who were to be a member of the executive committee/ poets of all ideologies and -isms
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The Wire / by Farahnaz Ispahani

Not just Indian, but Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka too appear to be well within an era of media incitement, orchestrated attacks on minority religious institutions, and identity politics.
The volume Politics Of Hate: Religious Majoritarianism in South Asia presents the research of noted scholars on the role of the media and political leaders in deploying hatred for political advantage.
… In July 2021, jailed tribal rights activist Father Stan Swamy died in a prison in Mumbai, at the age of eighty-four. A Jesuit priest, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease, was arrested in October 2020 after being accused of terrorism along with sixteen other activists, academics and lawyers. Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, had referred to this detention as ‘inexcusable’.
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