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Category: Persecuted

Varavara Rao in Prison: Maoists and Other Enemies of the Indian State

Varavara Rao in Prison: Maoists and Other Enemies of the Indian State

VERSO / by Aditya Bahl

Aditya Bahl protests against the continued imprisonment of the Marxist poet, Varavara Rao, and examines how the current cycle of rightwing repression is part of a much longer political history, shaped by the changing relationship between the Indian state and capitalism.
In Captive Imagination, a collection of essays written in the prison during the late 1980s, Varavara Rao, the Telugu poet and a leading Maoist ideologue in India, narrates a rather uncanny state of affairs.
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Why were Activists Like Anand Teltumbde Who Work For the Disadvantaged Jailed?

Why were Activists Like Anand Teltumbde Who Work For the Disadvantaged Jailed?

The Leaflet / by Niharika Ravi

The Human Rights Watch has called the detention by the Indian government of civil rights and Dalit rights activist, Anand Teltumbde as “wrongful” and “politically motivated”.
“Indian authorities are using draconian counterterrorism laws against activists simply for criticizing the government or raising their voices against injustice. The authorities should immediately release Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha and the other activists wrongfully detained in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon case,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director of the Human Rights Watch.
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The Memory Keepers Of India’s Imprisoned Intellectuals

The Memory Keepers Of India’s Imprisoned Intellectuals

Bloomberg Quint / by Priya Ramani

Varavara Rao is writing poems again. This news, from his nephew N Venugopal is shared with joy. After months of teetering precariously between life and death in Mumbai’s Taloja jail, delirious, bedridden, with an unchanged catheter, and no trained attendants, the Bombay High Court, on Nov. 18, ordered immediate medical attention for Rao, one of the country’s most prolific public intellectuals. The court also okayed family visits.
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Outcry over Jesuit priest Stan Swamy’s arrest tests Indian authorities’ anti-terror sweep

Outcry over Jesuit priest Stan Swamy’s arrest tests Indian authorities’ anti-terror sweep

Religion News Service / by Priyadarshini Sen

Faith has never been only sacramental for 83-year-old Jesuit priest the Rev. Stan Swamy, but, rather, it has been a conduit to empower the poor and marginalized. That stance, captured in his motto, “Faith that does justice,” has led to his arrest by the National Investigative Agency, India’s counterterrorism task force.
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Caste, Gender And Other Such Issues Should Be Dealt With As Part of Class Struggle: Anand Teltumbde

Caste, Gender And Other Such Issues Should Be Dealt With As Part of Class Struggle: Anand Teltumbde

Countercurrents / by Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Anand Teltumbde in conversation with Vidya Bhushan Rawat.
Dr. Anand Teltumbde, now in jail, in a well-articulated, long conversation, published in countercurrents.org, on April 21, 2017, with Vidya Bhushan Rawat candidly discussed various aspects of Ambedkarite-left politics, how Ambedkar is being appropriated by the ruling classes, and he also suggested a way forward.
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A Daughter’s Life After Her Activist Mother’s Arrest

A Daughter’s Life After Her Activist Mother’s Arrest


Campaign poster, June 2020

Stories Asia / by Tarini Mehta

Koel Sen, the daughter of Prof. Shoma Sen, accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, tells their story.
As a kid, I was always around her. She would take me along for much of the women’s rights work she did in the bastis (slums) of Nagpur (city). I would come back from school and she’d be back from work, so after lunch, we would set off for her social work. She was very dedicated to her work in extremely poor and marginalised communities. I’m really close to her and I’ve seen her work up close. She’s naturally a very sharing and giving human being.”
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Extreme Hindu nationalists smother dissent in India

Extreme Hindu nationalists smother dissent in India

New Frame / by Alf Gunvald Nilsen

The Indian poet Varavara Rao was arrested in 2018 and is still being detained. His treatment is symptomatic of how the right-wing government is waging war on opposition and minority voices.

“This life in jail is life crippled –
You can no longer
Apprehend your world
…
Here your mind is an injured eye
That flutters shut”

This is how Varavara Rao, an octogenarian poet, writer and radical activist from the state of Telangana in southeast India, described his experience of imprisonment during the second half of the 1980s, in the essay collection Captive Imagination.
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The NIA and Father Stan Swamy: Hunting down a Samaritan

The NIA and Father Stan Swamy: Hunting down a Samaritan

Frontline / by Anupama Katakam

The NIA arrests Father Stan Swamy for alleged involvement in the Bhima Koregaon incident, but the actual reason for the state’s witch-hunt is his strident opposition to corporate exploitation of tribal areas.
In a more tolerant time, Father Stan Swamy would have been commended for the work he does. A nation that should be proud of his contribution has instead arrested the 83-year-old Jesuit priest on false charges so that an agenda can be fulfilled. Father Swamy has spent 60 years living and working with the most marginalised tribal communities in the Bihar and Jharkhand belt. A social worker, activist and educator, his story is what legends are made of.
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Sign Petition: Land Rights Activist Mahesh Raut Needs to be Free

Sign Petition: Land Rights Activist Mahesh Raut Needs to be Free


Poster: Solidarity campaign, June 2019

Gauri Lankesh News / by Gauri Lankesh News Desk

On 6th June 2018, Mahesh Raut, a land and adivasi rights activist, was arrested in relation to the Elgar Parishad case through the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The police charged Mahesh just as he was filing a petition to protect citizens whose lands are mined against their will. Members of Socialist Party (India) recently released a petition seeking signatories in support of Mahesh in the name of freedom of speech.
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Sign Petition “Mahesh Raut Needs To Be Free” here