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Category: Persecuted

Decimation drive – The recent arrest of three Dalit rights activists

Decimation drive – The recent arrest of three Dalit rights activists

Frontline / by Anupama Katakam

The recent arrest of three Dalit rights activists in connection with the Elgar Parishad is seen as an attempt to stifle dissent.
MEMBERS of the Kabir Kala Manch (KKM), a Pune-based cultural activist group, knew it was only a matter of time before the National Investigation Agency (NIA) reached their doorstep. The NIA arrested 12 people in connection with the Elgar Parishad, and as one of the primary organisers of the meeting that hosted 250 Dalit organisations, the KKM was definitely on the radar.
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Dubbed urban Naxal, Arun Ferreira a ‘victim’ of BJP govt’s sectarian, vendetta politics

Dubbed urban Naxal, Arun Ferreira a ‘victim’ of BJP govt’s sectarian, vendetta politics

Drawing by Arun Ferreira

Counterview / by Atul, Sandeep Pandey

Arun Ferreira is a civil rights activist and human rights lawyer. He has been behind bars since June 6, 2018, when he was arrested in connection to the Bhima Koregaon event held earlier that year. Like many other activists, he was slapped with Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, sedition and other anti-terror related offenses allegedly for inciting the ensuing violence that police claimed was calculated to disturb public peace.
Ferreira has spent years in jail on similar charges previously as well.
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The Making of Varavara Rao: Parts Seven and Eight

The Making of Varavara Rao: Parts Seven and Eight


VV with wife Hemalatha and the author

Indian Cultural Forum / by N Venugopal Rao

I wouldn’t have been who I am without Varavara Rao, and it is true for the generation I come from and the one that followed. Today’s Telangana wouldn’t have been what it is without him. I have written and spoken about him and his poetry in the past, but now he is on the deathbed, in a faraway hospital, being subjected to retributive torture by the powers that be. Now, with a never-before urgency, I want to speak and write about him, through an interminable torrent of words.
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UAPA – Governments Avoid Due Process by Declaring Groups as ‘Front Organisations’

UAPA – Governments Avoid Due Process by Declaring Groups as ‘Front Organisations’


Jharkhand, Sep 5, 2020

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

Legal experts say loopholes in UAPA allow enforcement agencies to misuse the law to target dissenters by branding them as ‘fronts’ for banned organisations.
KKM – a 20-year-old cultural troupe with an anti-caste legacy – was first named in a criminal case in 2011, when the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) arrested several individuals for their alleged link with the banned Maoist group… In the nine years since KKM was first criminalised, neither the state government nor the Centre have made any efforts to notify the organisation as either a banned organisation or an unlawful association, a process laid down in the UAPA.
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An activist poet challenges official narratives: A profile of Sudhir Dhawale

An activist poet challenges official narratives: A profile of Sudhir Dhawale

The Polis Project / by the Polis Project and maraa

Born to a Dalit family in the slums of Indora, an Ambedkarite hub in Nagpur, fifty-four-year-old Sudhir Dhawale is an activist, editor, and writer.
While the 2002 Gujarat riots led him to launch his radical bi-monthly magazine “Vidrohi”, in 2006 he started a cultural-political organization called “Ramabai Nagar-Khairlanji Hatyaakand Virodhi Sangarsh Samiti” following the murder of four persons from a family in Khairlanji in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra… His magazine, though produced on a small scale, was potent enough to rouse the ire of the establishment. Dhawale was a key planner of the Elgaar Parishad.
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Who are the three Kabir Kala Manch artistes arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case this week?

Who are the three Kabir Kala Manch artistes arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case this week?

The crushing power of street performances from the margins:
A profile of Kabir Kala Manch’s Sagar Gorkhe, Jyoti Jagtap and Ramesh Gaichor

02/09/2021

By The Polis Project and maraa

Kabir Kala Manch
Kabir Kala Manch (KKM) is an urban grass-roots performance group at the helm of a socio-political movement rooted in cultural struggles of the most marginalized communities in India. KKM was formed by working-class youth from low-income Dalit and Bahujan caste communities in Pune as a response to the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat. Drawing inspiration from India’s legacy of dissent – from Kabir and Sant Tukoba (Tukaram) to Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar, Jyotiba and Savitri Phule, Bhagat Singh, Annubhai Sathe and contemporary cultural activists such as Sambhaji Bhagat and Vilas Goghre – KKM write and perform Marathi and Hindi songs and street plays in the language of India’s laboring people.
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Who are the three Kabir Kala Manch artistes arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case this week?

12/09/2020

Scroll.in / by Aarefa Johari

The National Investigation Agency arrested Sagar Gorkhe, Ramesh Gaichor and Jyoti Jagtap from Pune on Monday and Tuesday.
In 2002, as a 19-year-old student in Pune’s Wadia College, Ramesh Gaichor was disturbed by the deadly communal violence in Gujarat that had claimed over 1,000 lives. Passionate about poetry and theatre, he soon found an outlet for expressing his anxieties: the Kabir Kala Manch, a cultural organisation founded by artiste Amarnath Chautaliya in response to the Gujarat riots.
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NIA Arrests three Kabir Kala Manch Activists, Calls it ‘Maoist Front’ / What is Kabir Kala Manch?

NIA Arrests three Kabir Kala Manch Activists, Calls it ‘Maoist Front’ / What is Kabir Kala Manch?

Poets Branded Naxals by Both Cong & BJP: What is Kabir Kala Manch?

The Quint / by Asmita Nandy

What is Kabir Kala Manch and why are they repeatedly targeted by governments?
Kabir Kala Manch, a group of artists singing songs of Bahujans and Karl Marx, have been branded “naxals” by both Congress and BJP.
On Tuesday, 8 September, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing the Elgar Parishad case arrested three members of the group saying that they were in touch with senior leaders of CPI(Maoist), a banned organisation under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act “so as to spread the ideology of Maoism/Naxalism and encourage unlawful activities”.
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NIA Calls Kabir Kala Manch ‘Maoist Front’, Takes Activists into Custody

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

08/09/2020

Mumbai: The National Investigations Agency has accused the cultural group Kabir Kala Mancha (KKM) of being a frontal organisation of the banned terrorist Communist Party of India (Maoist) …
KKM is a Pune-based cultural troupe that was formed by youth belonging to the Bahujan community from across Maharashtra. Several working-class musicians and poets had come together after the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat and formed their own cultural group to sing songs of resistance and state repression. They have also been vocal against caste atrocities across the country.
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Kabir Kala Manach cultural activist Jyoti Jagtap arrested / #StandWithBK15

08/09/2020

Kractivist / by Bhima Koregaon Shauryadin Prerana Abhiyan

Pune ATS has today arrested Jyoti Jagtap (Member of Bhima Koregaon Shauryadin Prerana Abhiyan and Kabir Kala Manch). She will be transfered to NIA for custody. Yesterday, on 7 September, Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor were arrested late evening and today Jyoti Jagtap has been arrested.
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NIA Arrests Two Kabir Kala Manch Activists

07/09/2020

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

Mumbai: After questioning them over several days, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested cultural activists Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor in the Elgar Parishad case. With their arrest, 14 persons – all academics, lawyers and activists – have been arrested in the 2018 Elgar Parishad case in total.
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When contesting repressive laws makes you a dangerous citizen: a profile of Rona Wilson

When contesting repressive laws makes you a dangerous citizen: a profile of Rona Wilson

The Polis Project / by The Polis Project and maraa

Rona Wilson, a forty-seven-year-old activist from Kollam district in Kerala, has made Delhi his second home since the late 1990s. Having come to the capital during his post-graduation, Wilson almost immediately took to activism.
Rona Wilson is a member of the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP), which has campaigned against the UAPA and other repressive laws.
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Bombay HC Directs State & University To Pay Rs 5 Lakhs Each To Shoma Sen [Read Order]

Bombay HC Directs State & University To Pay Rs 5 Lakhs Each To Shoma Sen [Read Order]


Drawing by Mumbai Rises to Save Democracy

Live Law / by Nitish Kashyap

The Bombay High Court last Friday directed Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University and the State Government to pay Rs.5 lakh each to former Head Of Post Graduate Department Of English at Nagpur University Professor (retired) Shoma Sen towards payment of gratuity, which was withheld after Sen’s arrest in the Bhima Koregaon violence case in June 2018, a month before her retirement.
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The Making of Varavara Rao: Parts Four & Five

The Making of Varavara Rao: Parts Four & Five


Solidarity poster by PSO (Sep 2020)

Indian Cultural Forum / by N Venugopal Rao

I wouldn’t have been who I am without Varavara Rao, and it is true for the generation I come from and the one that followed … Here, I will attempt to paint the 80 years of his life in seven angles – a rainbow of seven colours that characterise him – a creative writer, teacher, editor, organiser, activist, and lastly, a victim of the state, yet a humane individual.
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