Article 14 / by Abhinav Sekhri
The provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act—that are at the heart of the ongoing Bhima Koregaon cases—are criminally overbroad, excessively vague, and short of a legislative carte blanche to state-sponsored violations of fundamental rights guaranteed by the constitution
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Forward Press / by V. Geeta
On 14 April 2020, the 129th anniversary of Dr B.R. Ambedkar, Prof Anand Teltumbde handed himself over to the custody of the National Investigation Agency as ordered by the Supreme Court in the Bhima Koregaon case. Drawing on Teltumbde’s writings, V. Geetha argues that it is the real, radical Ambedkar that he looks up to, not the toned-down version of Ambedkar that the civil order and the State is comfortable with.
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The Guardian / by Priyamvada Gopal and Salil Tripathi
Journalists, intellectuals and dissidents are being threatened by Modi’s government.
As a lethal virus scorches its way across continents, the leftwing Indian rights campaigner Gautam Navlakha has been reminding us of the words of Leonard Cohen, urging people to speak up for the right things: “There is a crack/a crack in everything, that’s how light gets in.” While many of us experience lockdown in varying degrees of constraint, Navlakha – who cited Cohen’s lyrics in a recent statement – faces actual incarceration as does another high-profile Indian, the eminent academic and Dalit intellectual Prof Anand Teltumbde.
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Countercurrents / Press Release by Coordination of Democratic Rights Organisation
On 14th April,2020, Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha surrendered and were arrested by the NIA, pursuant to order of the Supreme Court rejecting interim protection. This order paved the way for the arrest of two more scholars under the draconian laws for their exercise of the right to free speech and dissent. We believe the arrest of these two intellectuals not only infringes their constitutionally protected rights but is a larger reflection of the fast ceding of the political, social and public space in the country.
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Press Release by Peoples Union of Democratic Rights (PUDR )
The attempt to browbeat rights activists, Gautam Navlakha and Anand Teltumbde to ‘surrender’ to the National Investigation Agency, amidst a nation-wide lockdown on account of Covid-19, marks a deep and scathing new low in the political history of contemporary India.
For over two years now, the Bhima Koregaon case, as it has come to be known, has been the mainstay for the State resorting to arrests of democratic rights activists, lawyers and journalists across the country – those who have been tirelessly raising issues of grave human rights violations in the dirty war being waged by the State in the forests at the heart of the country.
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By India Civil Watch
India Civil Watch – International (ICW-I) strongly condemns the incarceration of Dr. Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha, two of India’s foremost public intellectuals and courageous defenders of political freedoms, human rights and civil liberties. Dr. Teltumbde is also widely respected as a leading Dalit scholar, author of thirty books, who has lectured across the world on the annihilation of caste and the Dalit struggle, neoliberal capitalist plunder, and the rise of Hindutva politics.
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Kractivism / by National Alliance of People’s Movements
Reaffirming our faith in the Constitution on Ambedkar Jayanti
Selfless services of doctors, health and sanitation workers and spontaneous relief efforts from ordinary citizens and civil society raises hope for India
April 14/15, 2020: As the country paid homage to Babasaheb Ambedkar on his 129th birth anniversary, Prof Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha, two of India’s finest public intellectuals and activists were taken in custody by the Indian State for their ideas and lifelong commitment to the democratic values and the ideals enshrined in the Constitution. What could be the greater irony for us as a Republic ?
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By Political Science Association
As the nation was celebrating the birth anniversary of B.R. Ambedkar, his grandson-in-law Anand Teltumbde was being arrested by the National Investigation Agency along with fellow activist Gautam Navlakha, under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention)Act (UAPA).
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By Human Rights Watch
Counterterrorism Law Politicized in Bhima Koregaon Case
New York: Indian authorities on April 14, 2020 detained two rights activists who have been critics of government policies, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should immediately drop all charges under a counterterrorism law against Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha for allegedly inciting caste-based violence along with other activists during a demonstration in Maharashtra state in 2017.
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By Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS)
Today, with undeniable irony, we have witnessed the surrender/arrests of Prof. Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). Both Prof. Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha are known to us through their activism, writing and relentless pursuit of democratic principles. They have also remained steadfastly opposed to Brahmanical Hindutva fascism in all its manifestations.
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By AIDWA, NFIW, AIPWA
We, the undersigned women’s organisations express strong concern and register our protest against the violations of civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, by the Narendra Modi-led Union government and other state governments led by the BJP. Recent developments show that the government has been targeting intellectuals and activists as well as prominent journalists who have been questioning the government’s faulty policies. This is a serious attack on their democratic, civil and legal rights. FIRs, arrests, imprisonment without evidence have become the new norm.
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By CPI-ML Liberation
The arrest of activists and scholars Gautam Navlakha and Anand Teltumbde by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) over ridiculously trumped up charges in the Bhima Koregaon case on Ambedkar Jayanti, 2020, is a day of shame for India’s democracy. The fact that both of them, senior citizens above 60, will be incarcerated in cramped, overcrowded jails during a pandemic that poses a threat to the lives of the elderly, is especially shameful.
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By CPI-M
The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) strongly condemns the arrests of Anand Teltumbe and Gautam Navlakha on completely trumped up charges in the Bhima Koregaon issue. It is a matter of concern that the hon’ble Supreme Court did not postpone their arrests in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Press Release By Amnesty International India
Responding to reports that human rights defenders, Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha have surrendered before the National Investigative Agency (NIA).
Avinash Kumar, Executive Director of Amnesty International India, said:
“The clampdown on dissent in India continues. Even during a pandemic, the Government of India is targeting those critical of the government. When hard-won rights to expression and peaceful protest are weakened, everyone stands to lose.”
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By Nepalese intellectuals, writers and journalists
A joint Statement by Nepalese intellectuals, writers and journalists, demanding immediate release of Varvara Rao, Prof. Saibaba, cultural activist Maila Lama and other social activists and political prisoners.
Along with the Corona terror, we are facing state terror imposed by the fascist regimes. Nepalese revolutionary cultural- activist Maila Lama is kept in jail along with other political prisoners and the KP Oli government is ridiculing the question of the survival of the political prisoners.
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en | 6:18 min | 2019
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The Quint / by Apoorvanand
Two more minds would be deactivated for the public today. By imprisoning Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha, the government—and by facilitating it the courts— would not be able to stop their minds functioning for they’ll continue to think and think hard while behind the bars. The people of India, however, would be deprived of the product of the intellectual labour. It is quite different a matter whether it matters to the people or not.
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The Wire / by Jignesh Mevani and Meena Kandasamy
He is one of the followers of Babasaheb Ambedkar who has continuously highlighted the need to fight Hindutva on both the social and economic front.
Why is Anand Teltumbde being targeted in this vicious manner? Why have the powers-that-be decided that he, along with Gautam Navlakha must go to jail even as the Supreme Court wants prisoners to be released so as to contain the novel coronavirus pandemic?
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Newsclick / by Newsclick / Gautam Navlakha
As the country remembers Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar on the occasion of his birth anniversary, civil rights activists Gautam Navlakha and Anand Teltumbde, who were booked under the draconian UAPA in relation to the Bhima Koregaon violence in 2018, are set to surrender to the police.
As I prepare to leave to surrender before the NIA headquarters in Delhi I am glad that Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Indira Banerjee gave me another week of freedom when they passed the order on April 8, 2020.
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Sabrang / by Anand Teltumbde
I am aware this may be completely drowned in the motivated cacophony of the BJP-RSS combine and the subservient media but I still think it may be worth talking to you as I do not know whether I would get another opportunity.
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en | 20:07 min | 2019
Following police raids at his home last year, well known author, activist and Dalit intellectual Dr Anand Teltumbde now faces the threat of imminent arrest. Facing a vindictive state Anand Teltumbde speaks to Teesta Setalvad.
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Asiavillennews.com / by Amit Bhardwaj
Teltumbde, accused in the Bhima-Koregaon case under the UAPA, claims that the entire case against him is fabricated. On March 16, the SC gave him three weeks to surrender. In conversation with Asiaville, the noted scholar said that the Bhima-Koregaon arrests are a deliberate attempt to trap noted civil rights activists opposed to the BJP’s ideology.
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