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Category: Repression

Anand Teltumbde Slams Police After Kala Ghoda Arts Festival Cancels Book Event

Anand Teltumbde Slams Police After Kala Ghoda Arts Festival Cancels Book Event

Will You Go With Anand Teltumbde?

05/02/2026

The Wire / by S. Anand

After his event in a Kala Ghoda event was cancelled, activist Anand Teltumbde discussed the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna with a friend, focusing on his explorations of presence and absence.
That Anand Teltumbde, the Annihilator, who lives in a small part of a very large building called Rajgruha in Mumbai, was going to attend the ongoing Kala Ghoda Arts Festival was not known to us at Navayana. Most of the world minus the minor elites of Mumbai and those plugged into lit fest circuits would not have known about this festival or this one small event within it. Then the state gets in on the act. Cancel, they say, and the organisers of KGAF, whose slogan tellingly is ‘ahead of the curve’, quickly oblige before apologising to Teltumbde and his fellow panellists with a ‘Hi all’ email. The show, as they say, must go on.
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‘Cancel culture’: Discussion with activist Anand Teltumbde at Kala Ghoda festival scrapped amid backlash

05/02/2026

The Print / by Purva Chitnis

A book discussion scheduled Thursday featuring scholar and civil rights activist Anand Teltumbde at Mumbai’s famous Kala Ghoda festival was cancelled allegedly on orders of the Mumbai Police.
Scroll editor Naresh Fernandes was to moderate a discussion titled ‘Incarcerated: Tales from Behind Bars’ also featuring author-journalist Neeta Kolhatkar, who penned the book, ‘The Feared: Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners,’ on 5 February.
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Cops halt talk on Teltumbde’s book at KGAF

05/02/2026

Hindustan Times / by Vinay Dalvi

The event encompassed a discussion on activist and accused in the Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon violence case Anand Teltumbde’s book ‘The Cell and the Soul: A Prison Memoir’
Mumbai police denied permission for a programme titled Incarcerated: Tales from Behind Bars, which was slated to be held on Thursday as part of the ongoing Kala Ghoda Arts Festival (KGAF), late on Tuesday night. The event encompassed a discussion on activist and accused in the Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon violence case Anand Teltumbde’s book ‘The Cell and the Soul: A Prison Memoir’ and journalist Neeta Kolhatkar’s recently published work ‘The Feared: Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners’, at the David Sassoon Library and Reading Room.
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‘Ridiculous’: Anand Teltumbde Slams Police After Kala Ghoda Arts Festival Cancels Book Event

04/02/2026

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

Calling the police’s interference “ridiculous”, Teltumbde said that the development feels strange, especially when his book has been in the public domain for some time and public events around his books have been happening over the past many months.
Claiming that the Mumbai police have denied permission, the organisers of Mumbai’s well-known Kala Ghoda Arts Festival (KGAF) have cancelled a book discussion in which civil rights activist and academic Anand Teltumbde was scheduled to speak. The event, titled Incarcerated: Tales from Behind Bars, was meant to be held on Thursday evening. The cancellation was communicated through an email late evening on February 3.
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Book Event On Undertrial Prisoners At Kala Ghoda Arts Festival Cancelled After Right-Wing Uproar

04/02/2026

Outlook India / by Priyanka Tupe

Organisers of the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival cancelled a panel discussion on incarceration and political prisoners late on February 3, citing police pressure after an uproar by right wing social media users. The event was to feature Anand Teltumbde, Neeta Kolhatkar, and Naresh Fernandes at Mumbai’s David Sassoon Library Garden.
‘Incarcerated: tales from behind bars’ an event part of the renowned Kala Ghoda festival in Mumbai has been cancelled by the organisers at midnight of February 3. Participants Anand Teltumbde, eminent writer and under trial prisoner of the Bhima Koregaon case, journalist and writer Neeta Kolhatkar and journalist Naresh Fernandes were among the panellists.
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Anand Teltumbde book discussion dropped from Kala Ghoda Festival after online backlash, organisers cite police request

04/02/2026

The Indian Express / by Heena Khandelwal

Festival director calls decision “unforeseen and unfortunate”; Police sources cite ‘inappropriate’ use of govt, police banner with guest who had been arrested in the past.
A book discussion featuring activist and academic Anand Teltumbde at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival (KGAF) was cancelled on Tuesday night, allegedly following directions from the Mumbai Police, soon after details of the event were made public.
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▪ The Cell and the Soul – A Prison Memoir

Author: Anand Teltumbde
Publishing Date: Sep 2025
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Pages: 256
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Also read:
▪Book Launch | ‘Never Imagined I’d Be Qualified For Arrest, Let Alone Write a Prison Memoir’: Anand Teltumbde (The Wire / Nov 2025)
▪Bombay HC refuses to allow Bhima Koregaon accused Anand Teltumbde to travel abroad for lectures (Scroll.in / Oct 2025)
▪ Maharashtra Special Public Security Act, Pre-Emptive Criminalisation And Indefinite Surveillance (Outlook | by Anand Teltumbde | Aug 2025)

▪ The Feared – Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners

Author: Neeta Kolhatkar
Publishing Date: Dec 2024
Publisher: S&S India
Pages: 272
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▪ Maharashtra: Activists, Lawyers Added to ‘Union War Book’, Listed as ‘Enemies of the State’ (The Wire / Jul 2021)

Voices From Prison: Imprisonment Sends A Calculated Message To Everyone Else

Voices From Prison: Imprisonment Sends A Calculated Message To Everyone Else

Outlook / by Abdul Wahid Shaikh

The demand for the release of political prisoners is necessary because any democracy claims pride in guaranteeing fundamental rights
The demand for the release of political prisoners today is haunted by a dangerous vagueness. As the category expands, its meaning becomes thinner.
… there is remarkably little organised effort to secure the release of political prisoners. Whatever exists has steadily retreated from sustained collective organising to the fragile and easily targeted space of social media. This shift appears logical only because the state has relentlessly criminalised even the mildest attempts to raise the issue of political imprisonment. The most chilling example remains the case of Delhi University professor G. N. Saibaba. After his arrest, a defence committee was formed to campaign for his release. At least five of its members were later arrested in the Bhima Koregaon Elgar Parishad case.
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Voices From Prison: Of Lives Stolen For Dissent

20/01/2026

Outlook / by Outlook News Desk

Outlook’s February 1 issue, Thou Shalt Not Dissent, shines a light on the lives of political prisoners who were slapped with anti-terrorism charges and continue to face long trials and curbing of rights.
…
In Outlook’s February 1 issue, Thou Shalt Not Dissent, first-person accounts of political activists who were slapped with anti-terrorism charges under different political regimes, explore life behind bars, the trauma, sights and sounds of a world bereft of freedom, normalcy and reason. Weaved with the accounts are stories of individuals who carry the burden of incarceration like a tumour on the face, afraid to cover it, so it doesn’t chafe, and hesitant to let it free, so it does not translate into their only identity.
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Also read:
▪ Incarceration As Politics: A Timeline Of Political Prisoners In Independent India (Outlook / Jan 2026)
▪ Who Is a ‘Political Prisoner’? Rona Wilson Says Caste and Religion Are Key to the Answer (The Wire / Feb 2025)
▪ Political Prisoners Unite the British Raj and ‘New India’ (The Wire / Sep 2022)

Incarceration As Politics: A Timeline Of Political Prisoners In Independent India

Incarceration As Politics: A Timeline Of Political Prisoners In Independent India

Pic credits: MR online

Incarceration As Politics: A Timeline Of Political Prisoners In Independent India

23/01/2026

Outlook / by Saher Hiba Khan

From the Anti-Hindi Agitations to UAPA arrests, India’s history shows how dissent is criminalised across decades and governments
Across countries and political systems, incarceration has always been used as a tool to control the masses. It has been justified through shifting legal terms such as national security, public order, and counter-terrorism.
While the laws change, the logic remains the same. It has time and again proved that dissent against any government will be treated as a threat. ​
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Voices From Prison: Of Lives Stolen For Dissent

20/01/2026

Outlook / by Outlook News Desk

Outlook’s February 1 issue, Thou Shalt Not Dissent, shines a light on the lives of political prisoners who were slapped with anti-terrorism charges and continue to face long trials and curbing of rights.
…
In Outlook’s February 1 issue, Thou Shalt Not Dissent, first-person accounts of political activists who were slapped with anti-terrorism charges under different political regimes, explore life behind bars, the trauma, sights and sounds of a world bereft of freedom, normalcy and reason. Weaved with the accounts are stories of individuals who carry the burden of incarceration like a tumour on the face, afraid to cover it, so it doesn’t chafe, and hesitant to let it free, so it does not translate into their only identity.
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Also read:
▪ Voices From Prison | A Legacy Of Detention: Weaponisation Of PDA, TADA, NSA And UAPA Laws Since Independence (Outlook / Jan 2026)

Imperative for Understanding Evolution of Human Rights Paradigm: Whither Human Rights in India

Imperative for Understanding Evolution of Human Rights Paradigm: Whither Human Rights in India

Sabrang India / by Harsh Thakor

‘Whither Human Rights in India’ is a comprehensive exploration of how the devastation of human rights over the parts decade symbolise a crucial departure or rupture, manifesting a new fascist paradigm
‘Whither Human Rights in India,’ edited by  Anand Teltumbde, is a critical and outstanding collection of essays navigating  India’s human rights landscape, exploring diverse arenas Ike majoritarianism, state violence, systemic inequality (Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims), judicial issues, hate speech, and threats to vulnerable groups.
Resurrecting the outlook of Father Stan Swamy and Prof. G. N. Saibaba, Whither Human Rights in India is both a chronicle of resistance and a call to reshape the future of democracy and human dignity.
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▪ Whither Human Rights in India


Critical Essays on Democracy, State Power, Civil Liberties & the Lived Realities of Dalits, Adivasis, Minorities & More

Whither Human Rights in India, edited by Anand Teltumbde, one of India’s prominent human rights activists, is a searing and indispensable anthology that brings together some of the most important thinkers, activists and human rights defenders of our time. The essays trace the historical and ideological roots of India’s human rights discourse—from colonial legacies and constitutional guarantees to the challenges posed by majoritarian politics, state violence and systemic inequality.

Editor: Anand Teltumbde
Publishing Date: Nov 2025
Publisher: Penguin Viking
Pages: 400
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Release APCLC activists, protect right to political critique

Release APCLC activists, protect right to political critique

PUDR / by People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR)

PUDR condemns the arrest of Kranthi Chaitanya, Vice-President of the Civil Liberties Committee (Andhra Pradesh unit), and fellow activist Mohan Krishna on 9 January 2026, and their subsequent remand to judicial custody on 10 January. The FIR, based on a complaint filed by the President of the Sanatana Dharma Protection Committee, a resident of Tirupati, accuses them of erecting “provocative banners.”
…
The sections invoked in this case are non-bailable and carry a minimum sentence of seven years’ imprisonment. The arrests, coupled with the FIR’s expansive use of criminal conspiracy provisions, signal yet another attack on activists and civil liberties organisations, many of which are already under sustained pressure following the Bhima Koregaon arrests.
Read full statement

Also read:
▪ India: Authorities must immediately repeal repressive new criminal laws (Amnesty International / Jul 2024)
▪ Explainer: How the Sedition Law Has Been Used in the Modi Era (The Wire / Mai 2022)

Civic freedoms remain at risk with crackdown on protests, internet restrictions and denial of bail to activists

Civic freedoms remain at risk with crackdown on protests, internet restrictions and denial of bail to activists

CIVICUS Monitor / by CIVICUS

India’s civic space is still rated as ‘repressed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor. The authorities persist in targeting activists, journalists, students and civil society through the misuse of draconian laws, arbitrary detention, censorship and the criminalisation of dissent. Over the past year, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA), counterterrorism provisions and public order regulations have been consistently deployed to silence government critics, restrict civil society, and deter peaceful protests.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Ongoing detention of activists without bail, criminalisation of dissent and ban on books (CIVICUS / Sep S025)
▪ Read India report: INDIA – COUNTRY FACTSHEET 2025 (World Organization Against Torture / Jun 2025)

▪ 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“ (CIVICUS)

Justice On Hold: How India’s Trial Courts Are Creating a New Class of Political Prisoners—Those Accused Of ‘Terrorism’

Justice On Hold: How India’s Trial Courts Are Creating a New Class of Political Prisoners—Those Accused Of ‘Terrorism’

Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project

Article 14 / by Nidah Kaiser And Tamanna Pankaj

With a conviction rate of 3.1% over four years in cases filed under India’s anti-terrorism law, and despite repeated Supreme Court orders to the contrary, India’s trial, special and ‘fast-track’ courts routinely detain activists for years without trial, often only granting bail after higher-court intervention. This systemic delay defies constitutional right and has created a de facto class of political prisoners.
India today jails scores of political activists under a slew of laws, primarily the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA), keeping many in custody for years before trial—often only freeing them after bail orders by higher courts. 
Take the Bhima Koregaon (BK-16) case, where 16 activists were arrested under UAPA in 2018.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Inside the NIA’s ‘Perfect’ Conviction Record: How Coercive Detentions Are Driving Guilty Pleas (The Wire / Dec 2025)
▪ The Grammar of the Power to Arrest and Search under UAPA (Constitutional Law and Philosophy | by Hany Babu and Surendra Gadling | Jul 2025)
▪ UAPA – CRIMINALISING DISSENT AND STATE TERROR – Study of UAPA Abuse in India, 2009-2022 (PUCL / Sep 2022). Download report

Inside the NIA’s ‘Perfect’ Conviction Record: How Coercive Detentions Are Driving Guilty Pleas

Inside the NIA’s ‘Perfect’ Conviction Record: How Coercive Detentions Are Driving Guilty Pleas

Inside the NIA’s ‘Perfect’ Conviction Record: How Coercive Detentions Are Driving Guilty Pleas

10/12/2025

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

A year after the National Investigation Agency boasted of a 100% conviction rate, an investigation by The Wire finds that prolonged detention, near-automatic bail denials and pressure from investigators are pushing dozens of accused, mostly Muslims, to plead guilty before their trials have even begun.
…
After the NIA began registering cases in 2009, trials did not commence for the first six to seven years, except in a few cases. The restrictive bail clause, Section 43 D(5), introduced in the UAPA in 2008, making it virtually impossible for an accused person to be released on bail, ensured that those accused remained in jail during this time.
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10,400 arrested under UAPA from 2019-2023, only 335 convicted

05/12/2025

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

Jammu and Kashmir had the highest number of arrests under the law, followed by Uttar Pradesh, data tabled in Parliament showed.
A total of 10,440 persons were arrested between 2019 and 2023 under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the Union government has told Parliament. Of these, only 335 persons were convicted under the anti-terror law.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Years Without Trial, Then Pushing Guilty Pleas: Understanding the NIA’s Playbook (The Wire / Dec 2025)
▪ Judicial Backlog: 90 Thousand Cases Pending in SC, Almost 5 Crore In District Courts (Outlook / Dec 2025)
▪ The Grammar of the Power to Arrest and Search under UAPA (Constitutional Law and Philosophy | by Hany Babu and Surendra Gadling | Jul 2025)
▪ UAPA – CRIMINALISING DISSENT AND STATE TERROR – Study of UAPA Abuse in India, 2009-2022 (PUCL / Sep 2022). Download report
▪ Bhima-Koregaon case transferred to NIA to compromise independent probe: Front Line Defenders (SabrangIndia / Jan 2020)

India’s prisoners of conscience and the politics of waiting

India’s prisoners of conscience and the politics of waiting

Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project

Scroll.in / by Sahil Hussain Choudhury

The law speaks the language of liberty, but power uses to the grammar of postponement.
In The Cell and the Soul: A Prison Memoir, Anand Teltumbde notes that incarceration does not only test the body – it also tests whether the mind will refuse to surrender. …
The National Crime Records Bureau’s Prison Statistics India 2023 shows that nearly 73.5% of India’s prisoners are undertrials – people not yet convicted of any crime. Behind that abstraction lies a quieter truth: for most who enter the system, justice never arrives; only waiting does.
Read more

Also read:

▪ The Cell and the Soul – A Prison Memoir
Author: Anand Teltumbde
Publishing Date: Sep 2025
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Pages: 256
Read more/order
▪ What Freedom Means For India’s Political Prisoners (Outlook / Apr 2025)
▪ BK-16 Prison Diaries: Sudhir Dhawale’s poem, “Prisoners of Consciousness” (The Polis Project / Mar 2025)
▪ Who Is a ‘Political Prisoner’? Rona Wilson Says Caste and Religion Are Key to the Answer (The Wire / Feb 2025)

▪ From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada

Author: Sudha Bhardwaj
Publishing Date: Oct 2023
Publisher: Juggernaut
Pages: 216
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▪ The Feared – Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners

Author: Neeta Kolhatkar
Publishing Date: Dec 2024
Publisher: S&S India
Pages: 272
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
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▪ Punished without trial: How India’s political prisoners are being denied basic rights in jail (Scroll.in / Aug 2022)
▪ Who is a political prisoner? Time to define one (CivilSociety / Jul 2022)

Counting the Caged: What India’s prison data refuses to see

Counting the Caged: What India’s prison data refuses to see

Sabrang / by CJP Team

Two years after NCRB’s Prison Statistics India 2023 report was published, the numbers still read less like history and more like prophecy
The NCRB Prison Statistics Report, 2023, detailed an already stressed carceral system, housing 5.82 lakh inmates in a system sanctioned for 4.25 lakh, with undertrial prisoners making up almost 78% of all prisoners. Other than numbers and statistics being added to the data, nothing changed substantively between the original numbers and now.
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Also read:
▪ Notes From Inside Taloja Prison (Outlook | by Mahesh Raut | Jun 2025)
▪ Inside Taloja Prison: A Study | By Mahesh Raut (Outlook / May 2025)
▪ Many Prisoners at Taloja Jail Not Produced Before Court For Years, Reveals Survey by Surendra Gadling and Sagar Gorkhe (The Wire / Feb 2025)
▪ How Long is Too Long? – On the Maximum Period that an Undertrial Prisoner can be Detained (Constitutional Law and Philosophy | by Hany Babu and Surendra Gadling | Oct 2024)