Individuals – free them all

The BK16

16/05/2020 Rani

All the people who are the focus of this blog have been accused of being associated with what has come to be known as the “Bhima-Koregaon” or “Elgar Parishad” case.
To mark the bi-centenary of the battle of Bhima Koregaon in 2018, more than 200 Dalit, Bahujan, Ambedkarite and other organisations came together. The coalition organised the hugely successful and massively attended event, ‘Elgar Parishad’ (loud declaration committee), on December 31, 2017 in Shaniwarwada in Pune, once the seat of Peshwai power. This event, as per the organisers, was organised to expose the Navi Peshwai — an era of increasing repression on movements, alienation of minorities, increasing caste atrocities, anti-poor development policies and more.

Charges against the Activists

● That they had made inflammatory speeches at the Elgar Parishad.
● That they are acting on behalf of, or are members of the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoists).
● That they were plotting to assassinate the Prime Minister.

Lack of Evidence

As it turns out, most of those arrested were not even at the Elgar Parishad event, the charges about the links to Maoists entirely shown to be based on fabricated evidence and so far the charges about the assassination plot had not even a single piece of evidence produced.

The Case of the Reliance Workers Satyanarayan Karrela, Babushankar Vanguri, 
Shankar Gunde, Ravi Marampelli and Saidulu Singapanga

The BK16: Who is …?

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Who is Stan Swamy?
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Videos | ‘Called a Terrorist, Denied COVID Treatment’ / Anand Teltumbde speaks about his years in prison

30/10/2025 Asha

Video | ‘Called a Terrorist, Denied COVID Treatment’: Anand Teltumbde Talks Jail Horrors

en | 48:23min | 2025

The Quint / Eshwar Gole in conversation with Anand Teltumbde

Anand Teltumbde, social activist accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, discusses imprisonment, Ambedkar, and caste.
On the landmark 50th episode of Badi Badi Baatein, Teltumbde revisits the years that tested his faith in the justice system, recalls the silences of prison nights, the impact on his family, the fleeting warmth of letters from home — and the unshakeable spirit of Father Stan Swamy, who became a symbol of moral courage.
Read more
Watch video

Video | Anand Teltumbde opens up about his years in prison

en | 42:12min | 2025
Video production team: Akhtarista Ansari, Saleem Ul Haq, Sonia Chand & Nidhi Jacob

Maktoob / Nikita Jain in conversation with Anand Teltumbde

Human rights defender and scholar Anand Teltumbde opens up about his years in prison, his new autobiography The Cell and the Soul, and what life has been like since his release with Maktoob’s Nikita Jain. Teltumbde, implicated in the Elgar Parishad–Bhima Koregaon case in 2018, spent 31 months in jail before being released on bail in November 2022. He reflects on the emotional toll of incarceration, the losses he faced, and the strength that kept him going. Watch as Teltumbde discusses survival, resistance, and reclaiming life after imprisonment, a powerful account of endurance and conviction.
Watch video

The Cell and the Soul – A Prison Memoir

Author: Anand Teltumbde
Publishing Date: Sep 2025
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Pages: 256

Noted social activist Anand Teltumbde entered the Taloja Central Prison as accused number 10 in the Bhima Koregaon case and spent 31 months as an undertrial until he was released on bail. As an intellectual who was stripped of his freedom, he lays bares the chilling realities of India’s prisons in his gut-wrenching prison memoir. Part memoir, part diary, Cell and the Soul is a descent into the heart of India’s carceral state, ripping open the belly of the beast-the prison industrial complex-and exposing the brutal, pulsating injustice within.

Read more / order

Marking the death anniversary of Father Stan Swamy: An Elegy For A Comrade

19/10/2025 Asha

An Elegy For A Comrade: Excerpt From The Cell And The Soul By Anand Teltumbde

19/10/2025

Outlook / by Anand Teltumbde

‘The Cell And The Soul’ Marks the first death anniversary of Father Stan Swamy, these reflections were written from within the Anda cell—recalling the loss, the silence that followed, and the conditions that led to his passing.
Stan Swamy’s death was an unbearable loss to us, the BK-16—a quasi-family bound together by the regime’s foul design to silence dissent. At 84, Stan remained remarkably healthy, save for his Parkinsonian tremors and impaired hearing. His death was not of age, but of neglect—born of a judiciary and prison system that habitually withholds medical care until crisis, refusing outside treatment for fear of exposing the emptiness of prison hospitals. Stan’s passing was the price of this callousness.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Father Stan Swamy died of natural causes, Maharashtra government tells court (India Today / Oct 2025)
▪ ‘I’m going to live to 185’: Anand Teltumbde remembers his friend Stan Swamy in his memoir (Scroll.in | Anand Teltumbde | Sep 2025)
▪ I saw firsthand how callous prison officials and their negligence led to Stan Swamy’s death (Scroll.in | by Arun Ferreira | Jul 2025)
▪ Daring, Fearless and Kind, Father Stan Swamy Remains a Beacon of Resistance (The Wire | by Hany Babu, Jyoti Jagtap, Mahesh Raut, Ramesh Murlidhar Gaichor, Sagar Gorkhe, Surendra Gadling | Jul 2025)
▪ How the system broke Stan Swamy: A cell mate recalls the activist’s last days in prison (Scroll.in | by Arun Ferreira | Aug 2021)

The Cell and the Soul – A Prison Memoir

Author: Anand Teltumbde
Publishing Date: Sep 2025
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Pages: 256

Noted social activist Anand Teltumbde entered the Taloja Central Prison as accused number 10 in the Bhima Koregaon case and spent 31 months as an undertrial until he was released on bail. As an intellectual who was stripped of his freedom, he lays bares the chilling realities of India’s prisons in his gut-wrenching prison memoir. Part memoir, part diary, Cell and the Soul is a descent into the heart of India’s carceral state, ripping open the belly of the beast-the prison industrial complex-and exposing the brutal, pulsating injustice within.

Read more / order

Reading and writing kept my spirit unbroken: Anand Teltumbde

13/10/2025 Asha

Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project

Frontline / by Anand Teltumbde

The scholar and activist on the books that shaped his politics, how reading 179 books in jail kept him intellectually alive, and more.
Anand Teltumbde is a scholar, writer, and public intellectual whose work spans technology, management, and social justice. He has authored 33 books and contributed extensively to leading journals and periodicals, offering sharp theoretical insights on caste, oppression, and contemporary India. As a committed activist, he has played a significant role in India’s civil rights movement.
Read more

The Cell and the Soul – A Prison Memoir

Author: Anand Teltumbde
Publishing Date: Sep 2025
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Pages: 256

Noted social activist Anand Teltumbde entered the Taloja Central Prison as accused number 10 in the Bhima Koregaon case and spent 31 months as an undertrial until he was released on bail. As an intellectual who was stripped of his freedom, he lays bares the chilling realities of India’s prisons in his gut-wrenching prison memoir. Part memoir, part diary, Cell and the Soul is a descent into the heart of India’s carceral state, ripping open the belly of the beast-the prison industrial complex-and exposing the brutal, pulsating injustice within.

Read more / order

Also read:
▪ ‘I’m going to live to 185’: Anand Teltumbde remembers his friend Stan Swamy in his memoir (Scroll.in | Anand Teltumbde | Sep 2025)
▪ BK-16 Prison Diaries: Anand Teltumbde reflects on his arrest and incarceration (THE POLIS PROJECT | Anand Teltumbde | June 2024)

‘I’m going to live to 185’: Anand Teltumbde remembers his friend Stan Swamy in his memoir

24/09/2025 Asha

Scroll.in / by Anand Teltumbde

An excerpt from Teltumbde’s prison memoir ‘The Cell and the Soul: A Prison Memoir’.
I did not realise that when I said, “Don’t come back here,” to Stan while seeing him off at the gate of the jail hospital, it would prove ominous.
It was May 28, 2021, and Arun Ferreira and I drove him in a wheelchair to the gate of the jail hospital, extremely happy over the Bombay High Court order to shift him to the Holy Family Hospital, albeit for only 15 days.
Read more

The Cell and the Soul – A Prison Memoir

Author: Anand Teltumbde
Publishing Date: Sep 2025
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Pages: 256

Noted social activist Anand Teltumbde entered the Taloja Central Prison as accused number 10 in the Bhima Koregaon case and spent 31 months as an undertrial until he was released on bail. As an intellectual who was stripped of his freedom, he lays bares the chilling realities of India’s prisons in his gut-wrenching prison memoir. Part memoir, part diary, Cell and the Soul is a descent into the heart of India’s carceral state, ripping open the belly of the beast-the prison industrial complex-and exposing the brutal, pulsating injustice within.

Read more / order

Also read:
▪ I saw firsthand how callous prison officials and their negligence led to Stan Swamy’s death (Scroll.in | by Arun Ferreira | Jul 2025)
▪ Daring, Fearless and Kind, Father Stan Swamy Remains a Beacon of Resistance (The Wire | by Hany Babu, Jyoti Jagtap, Mahesh Raut, Ramesh Murlidhar Gaichor, Sagar Gorkhe, Surendra Gadling | Jul 2025)
▪ Caged birds and prison songs: In chorus, Stan Swamy and the Bhima Koregaon accused kept hope alive (Scroll.in | by Vernon Gonsalves | Jul 2023)
▪ How the system broke Stan Swamy: A cell mate recalls the activist’s last days in prison (Scroll.in | by Arun Ferreira | Aug 2021)

When you read a book, you disappear into different voices: Gautam Navlakha

31/08/2025 Asha

Frontline / by Majid Maqbool

From his early days with EPW to years in prison, the journalist shows how books sustain dissent, nourish freedom, and open a world beyond captivity.
Writer, journalist, and human rights activist Gautam Navlakha has had a decades-long career spanning journalism to activism. All along, through his writings and rights activism, he has always been committed to democratic rights and social justice for all. He has always stood by, spoken out and written in defence of the marginalised communities whose voices he has sought to amplify throughout his career.
Read more

Gautam Navlakha has a tremendous archive of writings from the 1980s to the present, documented by The Friends of Gautam Navlakha.
To read some of his recent writings and a full list of his articles with NewsClick, Economic & Political Weekly and the platform Sanhati visit: Gautam Navlakha – Journalist, Human Rights Defender, Political Prisoner

Why Hany Babu Writes From Prison

29/07/2025 Asha

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

July 28, 2025 marks the fifth year of Babu’s arrest. In the past five years, he has written several times to his wife, daughter and other family members.
The best way to harm an academic is to simply lock them out of their computer and deny them access to their years of research. This is exactly what had happened to Hany Babu M.T, a professor at the Delhi University, when the Pune police had first raided his house on September 10, 2019. Ten months later, on July 28, 2020, Babu was arrested, as one of the 16 persons implicated in the Elgar Parishad case.
Read more

Also watch/read:
▪ Video: Who is Hany Babu, the Delhi University professor and anti-caste activist jailed under UAPA in the Bhima Koregaon case? (Maktoob – @Maktoobmedia / Sep 12, 2025)

en | 10:57min | 2025
Watch on YouTube

▪ Delhi University Professor Hany Babu Marks Five Years in Jail Without Trial in Bhima Koregaon Case (FOEJ / Jul 2025)
▪ SC Allows Hany Babu to Approach Trial or High Court For Bail (The Wire / Jul 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 for an Undertrial Prisoner To Be Detained? (The Wire | by Hany Babu and Surendra Gadling | Oct 2024)
▪ In Taloja Central Jail, interviews with over 300 undertrial prisoners show denial of rights (The Leaflet | by Hany Babu & Surendra Gadling | Mar 2025)
▪ 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
Read more / order

Delhi University Professor Hany Babu Marks Five Years in Jail Without Trial in Bhima Koregaon Case

28/07/2025 Asha

Hany Babu completes five years in prison without bail, trial

28/07/2025

Maktoobmedia / by Maktoob Staff

Delhi University professor and noted academic Dr. Hany Babu, who is one of the UAPA prisoners in the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case, completed five years of incarceration on Monday, 28 July, 2025.
On 28 July, 2020, the National Investigation Agency arrested Babu, an anti-caste activist and a staunch proponent of social justice.
Read more

Delhi University Professor Hany Babu Marks Five Years in Jail Without Trial in Bhima Koregaon Case

28/07/2025

FOEJ / by FOEJ Desk

Delhi University professor and noted academic Dr. Hany Babu completed five years in prison on Monday, 28 July 2025, in connection with the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case.
Babu, a prominent anti-caste activist and advocate for social justice, was arrested on 28 July 2020 by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
Babu is among several Dalit and Adivasi rights activists accused by authorities of inciting violence through speeches made on 31 December 2017 at the Elgar Parishad event in Pune.
Read more

Also read:
▪ SC Allows Hany Babu to Approach Trial or High Court For Bail (The Wire / Jul 2025)
▪ ‘Tell the judge he has done no crime’: The struggles of Hany Babu’s family (Scroll.in / Jul 2025)

‘Tell the judge he has done no crime’: The struggles of Hany Babu’s family

04/07/2025 Asha

Scroll.in / Mekhala Saran

On July 28, Delhi University professor 57-year-old Hany Babu will complete five years of incarceration.
When the National Investigation Agency came for Babu in 2020, India was battling the Covid-19 virus, which is known to fester and multiply in densely packed spaces, such as prison cells.
The Delhi University professor, arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case, has been in jail for five years with no trial in sight.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Supreme Court Refuses Urgent Listing For Hany Babu’s Application In Bhima Koregaon Case (Live Law / June 2025)
▪ HC questions maintainability of Hany Babu’s fresh bail plea (Hindustan Times / May 2025)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: JENNY ROWENA ON THE FEAR OF PRISONS AND THE BRAHMINICAL SYSTEM BEHIND IT (The Polis Project / June 2024)

BK-16 Prison Diaries | The ‘ordinary’ in extraordinary times: A captive’s life in Covid-19

14/05/2025 Asha

To mark six years of the arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of political dissidents in the Bhima Koregaon case, The Polis Project is publishing a series of writings by the BK-16, and their families, friends and partners. By describing various aspects of the past six years, the series offers a glimpse into the BK-16’s lives inside prison, as well as the struggles of their loved ones outside. Each piece in the series is complemented by Arun Ferreira’s striking and evocative artwork.

BK-16 Prison Diaries: The ‘ordinary’ in extraordinary times: A captive’s life in Covid-19

14/05/2025

The Polis Project / by Gautam Navlakha

My journey as a captive began in extraordinary circumstances. The Covid-19 pandemic had afflicted the world and, in India, a countrywide lockdown was imposed on March 24, 2020. Travel by rail, road or air was suspended. A climate of fear and uncertainty prevailed. However, the Supreme Court had asked Anand Teltumbde and me to surrender before the National Investigation Agency (NIA) by April 14—incidentally, Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s birth anniversary. Anand presented himself before the NIA in Mumbai, while I, a resident of Delhi, surrendered myself at the NIA headquarters in New Delhi.
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Ambedkar said a Hindu Raj would be the biggest calamity to India: Anand Teltumbde

09/04/2025 Asha

Frontline / by Amey Tirodkar

The leading scholar of the Dalit movement, explains how Hindutva parties use Babasaheb for political gains.
One of India’s leading public intellectuals and an authority on the Dalit movement, Anand Teltumbde, has been in the news across the country for his book on Ambedkar, Iconoclast: A Reflective Biography of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar. The book offers a deep analysis of not just Ambedkar’s philosophy, but also the man he was— complex, visionary and tenacious. In this interview with Frontline, Teltumbde, brings to life Babasaheb, an icon who is now worryingly “worshipped” by several political parties and ordinary people.
Read more

Also read:
▪ NIA opposes Anand Teltumbde’s plea to travel abroad, cites risk of absconding (The Hindu / April 2025)
▪ Has India Ever Been a Democracy? (The Wire | Anand Teltumbde | March 2025)
▪ In Maharashtra, Fadnavis’s Foray to Capture Bhima-Koregaon (The Wire | Anand Teltumbde | Jan 2025)
▪ Bhima Koregaon Case: A glaring example of Hindutva lies (Siasat.com / Jun 2020)

▪ Iconoclast. A Reflective Biography of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar
by Anand Teltumbde

Publisher: ‎Penguin Viking
Language: ‎English
Hardcover: 700 pages
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Charges against the Activists

Lack of Evidence

The BK16: Who is …?

Video | ‘Called a Terrorist, Denied COVID Treatment’: Anand Teltumbde Talks Jail Horrors

Video | Anand Teltumbde opens up about his years in prison

The Cell and the Soul – A Prison Memoir

An Elegy For A Comrade: Excerpt From The Cell And The Soul By Anand Teltumbde

The Cell and the Soul – A Prison Memoir

The Cell and the Soul – A Prison Memoir

The Cell and the Soul – A Prison Memoir

Hany Babu completes five years in prison without bail, trial

Delhi University Professor Hany Babu Marks Five Years in Jail Without Trial in Bhima Koregaon Case

BK-16 Prison Diaries: The ‘ordinary’ in extraordinary times: A captive’s life in Covid-19

▪ Iconoclast. A Reflective Biography of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar by Anand Teltumbde

▪ Iconoclast. A Reflective Biography of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar
by Anand Teltumbde