Repression – free them all

‘Urban Naxal’ To Maharashtra’s New Bill Rekindles Fears Of Criminalised Dissent

17/07/2025 Asha

‘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.
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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)

As Maharashtra Govt Brings Bill Against ‘Urban Naxalism’, Activists Fear Criminalisation of Dissent

13/07/2025 Asha

As Maharashtra Govt Brings Bill Against ‘Urban Naxalism’, Activists Fear Criminalisation of Dissent

13/07/2025

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

None of the provisions under the newly introduced bill is not already covered under the existing UAPA or the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) or the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).
Despite existing laws that comprehensively address the threat of terrorism in the country, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Maharashtra government last week introduced yet another bill – the Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill – claiming it will tackle the “urban footprint of Naxalism” in the state.
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Maharashtra Public Security Bill: Vague and dangerous for civil liberties

11/07/2025

The Indian Express / by Rohin Bhatt

Instead of the word ‘abetting’, which is commonly used in criminal law, the new law uses the word ‘encouraging’. What amounts to abetting a crime is settled jurisprudence. But the word ‘encouraging’ is alien to criminal law
“When I use a word,” says Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carol’s Through the Looking Glass, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” However, when words are used in a piece of legislation, they cannot mean what the party in power wants them to.
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Maharashtra Assembly passes bill to curb ‘left-wing extremism‘

10/07/2025

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

Opposition leaders expressed concern about its broad language, particularly the definition of the term ‘urban Naxal’.
… The term “urban Naxals” was first used by Union ministers and leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party after several activists and academics were arrested in the Elgar Parishad case in 2018. Since then, the term has often been used to describe some dissidents of the Narendra Modi government.
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Also read:
▪ A New Bill Shows Maharashtra Wants to Become a Police State Before Combatting Left-Wing Extremism (The Wire / Jul 2024)
▪ What is Maharashtra’s new Bill to curb ‘Naxalism in urban areas’? (The Indian Express / Jul 2024)
▪ Maharashtra: Activists, Lawyers Added to ‘Union War Book’, Listed as ‘Enemies of the State’ (The Wire / Jul 2021)

Thought Police: Is Penalising Dissent The New Normal In Indian Universities?

11/07/2025 Asha

Outlook / by Apeksha Priyadarshini

Are Indian universities turning into suffocating spaces where constant censorship and surveillance is leaving no room for protests or dissenting voices?
… Academics and intellectuals, having anything to say that is remotely critical of the current regime, are wilfully thrown under the bus by their own institutions. Worse, institutions now lead the mob hounding individuals who exercise their right to free expression—a fundamental right enshrined in the constitution.
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Democracy-in-waiting: Voices Of An Imprisoned Conscience

08/07/2025 Asha

Outlook / by Apeksha Priyadarshini

The continuing imprisonment of some of the country’s brightest minds will persist as an indelible taint on the history of a nation state that prides itself as a democracy.
… The same dissent that was criminalised by the British to suppress the anti-colonial struggle nearly a century ago, continues to be treated as a threat even today. Umar Khalid, an ex-student activist from JNU, has been in Tihar jail, New Delhi, since September 2020, on charges of partaking in a “conspiracy” that led to the communal violence in Northeast Delhi in February that year.
… Hundreds of kilometres from Delhi, human rights defenders started being arrested in 2018 by the Pune police under the same UAPA. This time, the allegations had involved inciting the violence at Koregaon Bhima in January 2018 and having alleged links with Maoist outfits.
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Also read:
▪ Meeting My Son Umar Khalid In Jail (Outlook / Jul 2025)
▪ Notes From Inside Taloja Prison (Outlook | by Mahesh Raut | Jun 2025)
▪ Inside Taloja Prison: A Study | By Mahesh Raut (Outlook / May 2025)
▪ ‘The Message Is Loud & Clear.’ Author Of New Book On 11 Indian ‘Prisoners Of Conscience’ & The Costs Of Defiance (article 14 / Mar 2025)
▪ Many Prisoners at Taloja Jail Not Produced Before Court For Years, Reveals Survey by Surendra Gadling and Sagar Gorkhe (The Wire / Feb 2025)

Daring, Fearless and Kind, Father Stan Swamy Remains a Beacon of Resistance

04/07/2025 Asha

The Wire / by Hany Babu, Jyoti Jagtap, Mahesh Raut, Ramesh Murlidhar Gaichor, Sagar Gorkhe, Surendra Gadling

On the fourth anniversary of Father Stan’s death due to alleged medical negligence in prison, his co-defendants in jail have vowed to lead a hunger strike.
On July 5, 2021, Father Stan Swamy left us, succumbing to failing health aggravated by the deliberate denial of medical care by a repressive state as part of its devious strategy in the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case. Four years have passed since this institutional murder of Father Stan. We seethe in indignation on the very memory of this day, when the real, violent, blood-thirsty face of the state unravelled to one and all.
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Today, Emergency Rules! / Police torture, ill-treatment make India ‘high risk’: Report

25/06/2025 Asha

Fifty Years Later… Today, Emergency Rules!

27/06/2025

Countercurrents / by Frederic Prakash

It was fifty years ago! The nation will and should never forget that dark, infamous night of 25/26 June 1975, when, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, declared a state of emergency all over the country, citing internal and external disturbances! That terrible chapter of the country’s history lasted for a full twenty-one-month period till 21 March 1977. … Ironically and tragically, fifty years later…today, emergency still rules!
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India’s Social Regression Under Modi’s Eleven Years May Not Be Mendable

26/06/2025

The Wire / by Anand Teltumbde

While much has been written about the Modi regime’s economic failures and diplomatic missteps, the most insidious damage lies elsewhere – in the corrosion of India’s socio-cultural fabric.
… This damage is evident in the erosion of the country’s pluralistic ethos and the hardening of its deepest societal fault lines. A comparative glance at key social indicators from the pre-2014 era to the present reveals a sharp regression into communal majoritarianism, anti-intellectualism and institutionalised discrimination.
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Police torture, ill-treatment make India ‘high risk’: Report

25/06/2025

Newslaundry / by NL Team

India was among the 26 countries assessed by the World Organization.
India has been ranked a “high-risk” country for torture and ill-treatment in the World Organization Against Torture’s first Global Torture Index 2025 that was released on Wednesday.
… Prominent cases include the Bhima Koregaon trial and the continued incarceration of Kashmiri activist Khurram Parvez. The report also raises concern over reprisals against activists monitoring public protests, from anti-Sterlite demonstrators to farmers’ agitations.
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Read India report: INDIA – COUNTRY FACTSHEET 2025 (World Organization Against Torture / Jun 2025)

India among the eight worst countries in the world for torture

26/06/2025

Asia News / by Nirmala Carvalho

The report was presented in Geneva by the World Organisation Against Torture. There were 2,739 deaths in prison in 2024, an increase on the previous year.
… The report also highlights the persecution of human rights defenders as a major concern in India. ‘Torture is used as a weapon to silence them,’ Tiphagne said. He cited the case of Khurram Parvez, who has been in prison for over four years, and the defendants in the Bhima Koregaon case, who are still being held without trial.
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Democracy in Retreat: The Real Legacy of Modi’s Rule

15/06/2025 Asha

Daily Pioneer / by Pawan Khera

Eleven years after Narendra Modi’s rise in 2014, with promises of “Achhe Din” and a transformed India, the nation stands at a crossroads. Expectations of a global powerhouse and inclusive democracy have been replaced by broken promises, manipulated data, and a Government obsessed with optics over outcomes.
…
Civil liberties have declined since 2014. Freedom House rated India “Partly Free,” and V-Dem calls it an “electoral autocracy.” The 2025 World Press Freedom Index ranks India 151st of 180, citing journalist harassment. The ED registered 193 cases against political leaders from 2015 to 2025, with 95 per cent of CBI probes targeting opposition figures. The NIA’s questionable evidence in Bhima Koregaon, coupled with low UAPA (3 per cent) and PMLA (0.4 per cent) conviction rates, shows detention over justice.
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Also read:
▪ Will anti-Naxal drive pave way for mining giants? (The Indian Express / Jun 2025)
▪ Congress has a UAPAwakening: Law parent cries ‘dangerous misuse’ (The Telegraph / Jun 2025)
▪ India: Submission to the UN Human Rights Committee on the deterioration of civic space (CIVICUS / Jul 2024)
▪ India’s Hindu Nationalist Project Relies on Brutal Repression (Jacobinmag / April 2021)

Congress has a UAPAwakening: Law parent cries ‘dangerous misuse’ / The Opposition’s Silence

11/06/2025 Asha

Congress has a UAPAwakening: Law parent cries ‘dangerous misuse’

12/06/2025

The Telegraph / by Pheroze L. Vincent

Khera mentioned the Bhima Koregaon case, the Delhi riots conspiracy, and the action on web portal NewsClick and other instances of journalists and activists facing arrest under the UAPA
The Congress on Wednesday skewered the anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, alleging that the Narendra Modi government had weaponised it to stifle dissent and deny justice, but in the process starkly bared the irony that the party had itself passed the law and inserted the provisions that it now finds “draconian” and vulnerable to “dangerous misuse”.
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Modi govt using laws like UAPA to stifle dissent: Congress

11/06/2025

Deccan Herald / by PTI

Anand Teltumbde, Nodeep Kaur, and Mahesh Raut were arrested under UAPA in the Bhima Koregaon case
The Congress on Wednesday accused the Modi government of stifling dissent and said the “dangerous misuse” of laws like the UAPA to threaten free expression is part of the BJP’s broader attack on the Constitution.
“Under the Modi government, law has increasingly been used to stifle dissent and delay justice. Between 2014 and 2022, 8,719 UAPA cases yielded only a 2.55% conviction rate, exposing its misuse to target critics, students, journalists, and activists,” Congress’ media and publicity department head Pawan Khera said in a post on X.
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The Opposition’s Silence Has Let the BJP Diminish India’s Political Discourse

06/06/2025

The Wire / by Sarayu Pani

Today, the opposition faces a choice – they can either continue to allow the boundaries of political engagement in the country to be decided by the ruling party or they can ground their opposition in democratic principles.
… A vast majority of these instances have not been rhetorically resisted by the political opposition to the BJP. In 2019, for example, the Congress voted in favour of amendments that dangerously broadened the scope of the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act in the Rajya Sabha. Few opposition political parties have stood in clear solidarity with the detainees of either the Bhima Koregaon case or the Delhi riots conspiracy case.
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Also read:
▪ Maharashtra’s redrafted Public Security Bill narrows scope — but concerns about suppression of dissent persist (CJP / June 2025)
▪ India: Submission to the UN Human Rights Committee on the deterioration of civic space (CIVICUS / Jul 2024)
▪ UAPA – CRIMINALISING DISSENT AND STATE TERROR – Study of UAPA Abuse in India, 2009-2022 (PUCL / Sep 2022). Download report
▪ India’s Hindu Nationalist Project Relies on Brutal Repression (Jacobinmag / April 2021)
▪ A Dalit trade union activist and her fight for equal rights: A profile of Nodeep Kaur (The Polis Project / March 2021)

Will anti-Naxal drive pave way for mining giants?

27/05/2025 Asha

The New Indian Express / by Gurbir Singh

Is the government campaign aimed at ‘finishing off’ the extremists, or are the larger goals to open up central India’s mineral and natural resources for exploitation? Or both?
… Over the years, Maoists, NGOs and even priests like Stan Swamy have mobilized these tribal communities to resist corporate expansion. The state forces, on the other hand, have intervened to crush the protests.
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Also read:
▪ Three years after Stan Swamy’s death in custody, activists recall his contributions to Adivasi cause (Scroll.in / Jul 2024)
▪ Jharkhand police to probe into Maoist links with Stan Swamy’s ‘Bagaicha’, 63 other frontal organisations (The New Indian Express / Sep 2023)
▪ Statement against the drone bomb attacks in Chhattisgarh, India (India Matters / April 2023)
▪ DISINHERITING ADIVASIS – THE GADCHIROLI GAME PLAN (KAFILA / June 2018)
▪ The legal face of corporate land grab in Chhattisgarh (India Environmental Portal | by Sudha Bharadwaj | Feb 2018)
▪ Mining In Gadchiroli – Building A Castle Of Injustices (Countercurrents | by Neema Pathak Broome and Mahesh Raut | June 2017)

Elgar Parishad case accused at event that attacked Maharashtra Public Security Bill

22/05/2025 Asha

Elgar Parishad case accused at event that attacked Maharashtra Public Security Bill, cops to seek bail review

22/05/2025

Times of India / by Soumitra Bose

The Elgar Parishad case accused, who are out on bail, had thronged the Veera Sathidar memorial event at Vidarbha Hindi Sahitya Sammelan on May 13, top security sources told TOI.
Though the event was organised as a memorial for the acclaimed filmmaker, security agency sources stated it turned into a platform for attacking the Maharashtra govt’s efforts to table the proposed Maharashtra Public Security Bill to rein in frontal organisations of alleged urban Maoists.
… Activists like Sudhir Dhawale and former Nagpur University professor Soma Sen, who are out on bail in the Elgar Parishad case, participated in the event
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Actor’s wife, 2 others booked for reciting Pak poet’s poem

21/05/2025

Rediff.com / by pti, edited by Hemant Waje

The recitation of Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s Hum Dekhenge poem at an event in Nagpur has led police to slap charges of endangering India’s unity and integrity, and promoting enmity against three persons, including late actor-activist Veera Sathidar’s wife Pushpa.
… Police said they are also looking into the activities and background of the Samata Kala Manch, whose head, Sudhir Dhawale, is currently out on bail in connection with another case related to alleged inflammatory speeches made during the Elgar Parishad event in Pune in 2017.
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Singing Faiz’s ‘Hum Dekhenge’ is ‘Sedition’: Nagpur Police Book Organisers of Vira Sathidar Memorial

19/05/2025

The Wire / by Sukanyana Shantha

Singing the revolutionary poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, once celebrated as a voice of resistance, now attracts sedition charges in India.
At an event organised last week in memory of actor and activist Vira Sathidar, a group of young cultural activists sang the lyrics of Faiz’s famous Hum Dekhenge.
… In October 2020, when the NIA filed a supplementary chargesheet in the Elgar Parishad case, Sathidar’s name appeared among the so-called “urban Naxals,” a term loosely used by the Devendra Fadnavis-led government to target dissenters. Now, with the Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill, the state government seeks to formalise the term “urban Naxal” within the legal framework.
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Also read:
▪ Rona Wilson and Sudhir Dhawale released: Seven years of injustice by a state that punishes dissent [read order] (Sabrangindia / Jan 2025)
▪ Former professor Shoma Sen released from prison (Scroll.in / Apr 2024)
▪ A New Bill Shows Maharashtra Wants to Become a Police State Before Combatting Left-Wing Extremism (The Wire / Jul 2024)
▪ What is Maharashtra’s new Bill to curb ‘Naxalism in urban areas’? (The Indian Express / Jul 2024)
▪ Maharashtra: Activists, Lawyers Added to ‘Union War Book’, Listed as ‘Enemies of the State’ (The Wire / Jul 2021)