Father Stan Swamy died on this day two years ago, while incarcerated in the Elgar Parishad case. His co-accused Rona Wilson writes about continuing oppression in the country – and where he finds hope.
To have spent more than five years in prison, for alleged offences under the most draconian acts of the Indian Penal Code, fully aware that the only ‘crime’ of you and your co-defendants is speaking truth to power, is an experience that is surreal. To live such a quotidian life in prison is a dystopia that stares at you. Yet you have little choice in prison but to engage with this audacity. It is through words that you confront this dystopia, name it.
Through words we name the world we confront/inhabit, and make sense of our existence. Read more
I Am Not A Mute Spectator – Conversation with four Jesuit priests
… Rejaz M Sheeba Sydeek had a conversation with four Jesuit priests, Fr. Cedric Prakash, Fr. Joseph Xavier, Fr. Frazer Mascarenhas, and Fr. Martin Puthussery, who were known to Stan and were outspoken against his extra judicial murder.
Rejaz: Several Christian clergymen were executed for opposing fascism during Hitler’s regime in Nazi Germany. Can we equate those institutional murders with Fr. Stan Swamy’s who was killed in India during Narendra Modi’s RSS led Brahmanic hindutva fascist regime because he was working for the liberation of the oppressed?
Fr. Cedric Prakash: Yes, we certainly regard the death of Fr. Stan Swamy as an institutional murder. Fr. Stan we all know accompanied the poorest of the poor, the excluded, and the exploited, the Adivasis and the Dalits in their struggle for a more humane, just, dignified, and equitable life. In doing so he had to take on the most powerful of the land like the politicians, the crony capitalists, the mining mafia, and other vested interests. Because of their illegal unconstitutional and nefarious deeds, Fr Stan was a thorn in their side. He was arrested on absolutely fabricated charges. Read more
Who are the acclaimed ‘BK-16’? / HRDs and families await justice, five years down
Faulty investigation and severe loopholes in investigation, surrounds the controversial BK-16 case. International outcry has not helped move the trial five years down even while the targeted languish, families await the return of their loved ones
In June 2021, European Union parliamentarians, Nobel Laureates, renowned academics, and internationally known figures wrote a letter to the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, the then Chief Justice of India as well as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, and other authorities in India, demanding to the release of political prisoners arrested with relation to the Elgar Parishad and Bhima Koregaon incident.
Amidst contested accusations of an anti-India conspiracy, militancy, and violence, five long years have passed since the BK-16 have been imprisoned without trial. Read more
Who are the acclaimed ‘BK-16’?
22/06/2023
cjp / by CJP Team
Five years have passed, and human rights defenders (HRDs) and their families continue to await justice.
Surendra Gadling
Status: Detained without trial
Charges:Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) since June 2018
Location: Taloja Central Prison, Mumbai
Gadling is a human rights lawyer and a Dalit activist. Over time, Gadling established himself as a keen advocate and a key figure in cases related to extrajudicial killings, police misconduct, false accusations, and injustices against Dalits and Adivasis in the region… Read more
Telangana Govt to ‘Drop’ UAPA Case Against Prof Haragopal, Sudha Bharadwaj, 150 Others
17/06/2023
The Wire / by The Wire Staff
Chief minister of Telangana, K. Chandrashekar Rao, is said to have inquired about the case with the state police chief and asked him if it can be diluted.
The Telangana government is said to have decided not to pursue the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) case filed against Prof Haragopal, Sudha Bharadwaj, and 150 others after chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao directed the state police chief to “drop” the case, The Hindu reported. Read more
Work of fiction by police, says Professor Haragopal on UAPA charges against him, 151 others
17/06/2023
The News Minute / by IANS
The former professor of political science was reacting to the booking of a case under UAPA by Tadvai police of Mulugu district last year.
Human rights activist and former University of Hyderabad professor, G. Haragopal, who, along with 151 others, were booked by the Telangana Police under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for alleged links with Maoists, said on Friday that they had no information why the action against them was taken. Read more
KCR intervenes to drop UAPA charges against rights activists
17/06/2023
The Statesman / by Statesman News Service
The move came in the wake of outrage of outrage over registration of cases against human rights activist Prof Haragopal and 151 others under the the draconian law.
Following an outrage over registration of cases against human rights activist Prof Haragopal and 151 others by Telangana Police under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao directed the state DGP Anjani Kumar to withdraw the draconian law. Read more
Activists Haragopal, Sudha Bharadwaj, 150 Others Booked Under UAPA Last August; Accused Unaware
16/06/2023
The Wire / by Sumit Jha
The Telangana Police had registered the case in August 2022 accusing them of conspiring to ‘take over the power of the democratically elected government at gunpoint’. The issue came to light only on Thursday, June 15.
… Prominent among those named in the FIR, apart from Prof Haragopal, Prof Padmaja Shaw of Osmania University (OU), Telangana Civil Liberties Committee President Prof Gaddam Laxman, Indian Association of People’s Lawyers’ Justice (Retd) H Suresh, activist Sudha Bharadwaj, human rights lawyer Surendra Gadling, and activist Arun Ferreira. Read more
Telangana Police filed charges under UAPA against 152
16/06/2023
The Statesman / by Statesman News Service
However, the people, including two professors, named in the FIR were unaware of the charges under UAPA until the matter came to light during another trial.
… The charges under the UAPA were brought against the 152 accused after the police carried out combing operations on 19 August, 2022 after receiving a tip off that the Maoists were holding a meeting at Berelli village. When the police reached a temporary shelter, the Maoists escaped into a dense forest. The police seized some Maoist literature and kit bags on the spot and the names of Prof Haragopal and Padmaja Shaw, Prof Gaddam Laxman, Sudha Bharadwaj, Arun Ferreira were apparently found in the literature left behind. Read more
A post on Tushar Kanti Bhattacharya’s Facebook page has a picture of his wife Shoma Sen, with the lines below reading: Five years of incarceration. Another post has pictures of her along with co-accused Surendra Gadling, Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson and Mahesh Raut. The lines read ‘Repeal UAPA: Behind bars five years and no charges framed, no bail’. A couple of likes can be seen in response. Read more
Sagar Gorkhe, Ramesh Gaichor. Poster by #bakeryprasad
The Indian Express / by Sadaf Modak
As per the Prison Statistics of India, 2021, while nearly 40 per cent of the prison population has studied below Class 10, 24 per cent have passed Class 10 but are below graduation.
Among thousands of aspirants who appeared for the Common Entrance Test (CET) for law held in Maharashtra on Wednesday was 35-year-old Sagar Gorkhe, who is in judicial custody in Taloja Central Jail in connection with the Elgaar Parishad case. Read more
“The applicant shall be given a waiver for the escort charges. The applicant shall not misuse the permission granted to the applicant vide this order,” the court noted.
A special court in Mumbai on Friday allowed Elgaar Parishad case accused Sagar Gorkhe to attend a Law entrance exam. Read more
Sagar Gorkhe seeks permission to appear for law entrance test
The accused is accused by the prosecution to be a member of Kabir Kala Manch, which it claims is a frontal organisation of the banned terror outfit Communist Party of India (Maoist).
Cultural activist Sagar Gorkhe has moved a special court conducting the Bhima-Koregaon case in which he is an accused, the permission to appear for the common entrance test for a three-year law course. Read more
Also read/watch:
● Video Statement by Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor (Sep 5, 2020)
hindi/ english subtitles | 2:20min | 2020
Kabir Kala Manch activists Sagar Gorkhe & Ramesh Gaichor have alleged that they’re being forced by the NIA to give confessional statements, claiming they are a part of Maoist organization. The two refused, and were arrested in The Bhima Koregaon case.
Their statement was recorded on Sep 5, 2020.
This is a podcast in which we discuss the ideas, thoughts, and works of thinkers, activists, artist and scholars from India who have ended up behind bars for their work, or whose work has been censored or silenced. This podcast is produced by InSAF India in collaboration with nether quarterly.
Works by Shoma Sen discussed*:
“The Village and the City: Dalit Feminism in the Autobiographies of Baby Kamble and Urmila Pawar.” The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, vol. 54, no. 1, 2019, pp. 38–51., doi:10.1177/0021989417720251. “Class Struggle and Patriarchy: Women in the Maoist Movement.” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 52, no. 21, 2017, pp. 56–56.
* Direct quotations have been shortened for clarity.
Authorities everywhere – from classrooms to corporate boardrooms to national capitals – love silent spectators. Silent spectators look after their own interests, and if they see something that is wrong, they may sympathise but turn their eyes away. They are susceptible to the usual blandishments – an out-of-turn promotion, a plum posting etc. If nothing works, they are easy to intimidate. Outliers, on the other hand, are different. They come with a spine of steel. Authority finds them hard to understand, let along manage. Read more
Also read:
I am not a Silent Spectator – Why Truth has become so bitter, Dissent so intolarable, Justice so out of reach
An Autobiographical Fragment, Memory and Reflection
Indian Social Institute, Bangalore | by Stan Swamy | August 2021
Edition: Aug 2021
Publisher: Indian Social Institute, Bangalore
Language: English
Paperback: 149 pages Access a free PDF copy of the book here
