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 …?

Who is Varavara Rao?
All posts related to Varavara Rao

Who is Sudha Bharadwaj?
All posts related to Sudha Bharadwaj

Who is Sudhir Dhawale?
All posts related to Sudhir Dhawale

Who is Arun Ferreira?
All posts related to Arun Ferreira

Who is Surendra Gadling?
All posts related to Surendra Gadling

Who is Vernon Gonsalves?
All posts related to Vernon Gonsalves

Who is Mahesh Raut?
All posts related to Mahesh Raut

Who is Shoma Sen?
All posts related to Shoma Sen

Who is Rona Wilson?
All posts related to Rona Wilson

Who is Gautam Navlakha?
All posts related to Gautam Navlakha

Who is Anand Teltumbde?
All posts related to Anand Teltumbde

Who is Hany Babu?
All posts related to Hany Babu

Who are the Kabir Kala Manch artistes Jyoti Jagtap, Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor?
All posts related to Kabir Kala Manch

Who is Stan Swamy?
All posts related to Stan Swamy

Book launch of ‘A Life in Poetry’ – VV Rao’s poems / The many ideas behind the birth of poetry

02/09/2023 Asha

Thread by Live Law / @LiveLawIndia (Sep 2, 2023)

Telugu poet and UAPA accused P #VaravaraRao along with his wife Hemlata at the launch of ‘A Life in Poetry’ – the first ever English translation of Rao’s poems. Rao was seated quietly in the audience, as bail conditions don’t permit him to read his poems publicly or be on stage.

@PenguinIndia has published translations of 48 out of nearly 700 poems written by Rao over the course of 60 years.
All poems pre-date his arrest in the #BhimaKoregaon – #ElgarParishad Case

VV Rao’s wife P Hemlata launched the book. She left her home in Hyderabad two years ago and has lived with Rao in Mumbai since then, owing to his bail conditions.
Sr Advs @Ijaising & Mihir Desai, author Jerry Pinto and a couple of others spoke at the launch.

@Ijaising on poetry – There is a connection between law and poetry. The first laws in Greece and Rome were written in poetic form.
On the significance of VV Rao’s bail order – Your case will forever be a beacon of hope to those who demand their right of health in prison.

Jerry Pinto – We do poetry to escape the incarceration called life…
Will there be singing in dark times? Yes, there will be singing in dark times. It will be about the dark times.

Mumbai: ‘When you become the poem itself’

04/09/2023

Mid-day.com / by Hemal Ashar

Words took centre stage at launch of Varavara Rao’s poetry book at the Press Club on Saturday
Varavara Rao’s first anthology of poems translated into English called, ‘Varavara Rao: A Life in Poetry’ was released at a function held at Press Club Azad Maidan, late Saturday evening. The book is edited by N Venugopal and Meena Kandasamy. The book is a collection of poems translated by nine translators from 16 books published between 1968 and 2014.
Read more

The many ideas behind the birth of poetry that floats like a butterfly; and stings like a bee

07/09/2023

Hindustan Times / by Ramu Ramanathan

The turning point of Telugu literary history is 3 and 4 July of 1970. Poets who were invited to speak at the seminar/ poets who were not invited to the seminar/ poets who were going to be felicitated/ poets who were expelled/ poets who were going to boycott/ poets who were to be a member of the executive committee/ poets of all ideologies and -isms
Read more

Also read/watch:
● Tomorrow there won’t be any classes’: Activist Varavara Rao’s poems get an English translation (Scroll.in / by Varavara Rao, N Venugopal & Rohith / Jul 2023)

● Varavara Rao A Live in Poetry

By VIRASAM
Book Launch || Live Laamakan || 13-07-23 || VIRASAM

en / telugu | 2:16:35 | 2023
Watch video

Birthday greetings to Jyoti Jagtap, who is spending her 3rd birthday in prison

20/08/2023 Asha

by InSAF India / @IndInsaf
On her 3rd birthday in prison we remember #JyotiJagtap who described #KabirKalaManch‘s songs as “grounded in our own life experiences to educate, give direction to laboring people and document their struggles …” #BhimaKoregaon16

by Meera Sanghamitra/ @meeracomposes

by Clifton D’ Rozario / @clifroz
The continued incarceration of Jyoti Jagtap and others arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case, after judgement of the Supreme Court granting bail to Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira, is unconscionable. Free them all!

by Dissc-Jamia Millia islamia @Dissc_jmi
Release Jyoti Jagtap
Free all Political Prisoners

Also read:
● Supreme Court allows respondents to file counter affidavits to bail plea of Jyoti Jagtap (The Leaflet / Jul 2023)
● SC issues notice to Maha, NIA on activist Jyoti Jagtap’s plea for bail (The Print / May 2023)
● Inconsistencies in Bail Orders Mean Individual Liberty Is Now the Outcome of Judicial Lottery (The Wire / Oct 2022)

It’s Not Impossible To Smash The Caste System: Prof. Anand Teltumbde

17/08/2023 Asha

Poster, Nov 2022

Outlook / by Snigdhendu Bhattacharya

Anand Teltumbde is a scholar and civil rights activist known for his extensive work on B.R. Ambedkar’s life and work as well as the caste issue. He was arrested in connection with the Elgar Parishad case in 2020 and released on bail in November 2022 after spending 31 months in jail. The 72-year-old spoke to Snigdhendu Bhattacharya.
Read more

Also read:
● From the vault: Contemporary challenges before the anti-caste movement (The Leaflet | by Anand Teltumbde | April 2022)
● Anand Teltumbde Explains the Genesis of His Articles on Bhima-Koregaon (The Wire | by Anand Teltumbde | March 2023)
● The Myth of Bhima Koregaon Reinforces the Identities It Seeks to Transcend (The Wire | by Anand Teltumbde | Jan 2018)

Made with fire: Review of ‘Varavara Rao: A Life in Poetry’

10/08/2023 Asha

Frontline / by Serish Nanisetti

Words speak the unvarnished truth in this anthology representing six decades of Varavara Rao’s career as a poet.
Telugu poet and activist Varavara Rao is a thin, wiry man with the kind of leanness that Julius Caesar found scary in Cassius in Shakespeare’s play. Rao was arrested in 2018 on charges of inciting caste violence and plotting to assassinate the Indian Prime Minister (and released on bail in 2022 on health grounds). The publication of this anthology of Rao’s poetry has been much delayed reportedly because of legal issues. Some words used by Rao have apparently been removed from the translation to avoid attracting the charge of sedition.
Read more

Also read:
● How Varavara Rao shaped Telangana’s sociopolitics: N Venugopal Rao interview (The Federal / Aug 2023)
● Tomorrow there won’t be any classes’: Activist Varavara Rao’s poems get an English translation (Scroll.in / by Varavara Rao, N Venugopal & Rohith / Jul 2023)
● Move Division Bench for permission to undergo cataract surgery in Hyderabad: Bombay High Court to Varavara Rao (India Legal / June 2023)
● Supreme Court grants permanent medical bail to P. Varavara Rao in Bhima Koregaon case (The Leaflet / Aug 2022)

How Varavara Rao shaped Telangana’s sociopolitics: N Venugopal Rao interview

03/08/2023 Asha

The Federal / by Nawaid Anjum

Poet, critic, and translator Venugopal Rao opens up about Varavara Rao, the iconic Telugu poet-activist
Poet, critic, journalist, public speaker, and translator N. Venugopal Rao has an impressive tally of 32 books in both Telugu and English, and an equal number in translation, to his credit. After having worked as a journalist for two decades, he ventured into publishing Veekshanam, a monthly journal focused on political economy and society.
… In an interview to The Federal, Venugopal Rao shares how Varavara Rao has influenced the socio-political landscape of Telangana through his poetry, the literary magazine he edited, his public speeches, his support to various people’s movements and his association with Naxalbari politics.
Read more

Also read:
● Tomorrow there won’t be any classes’: Activist Varavara Rao’s poems get an English translation (Scroll.in / by Varavara Rao, N Venugopal & Rohith / Jul 2023)

On 5th birthday in jail, friends wish for Shoma Sen’s release

03/08/2023 Asha

The Times of India / by Shishir Arya

“On your 5th birthday in incarceration, Shoma…we will fight for justice,“ says a post by Thusharkanti Bhattacharya, for his wife who is one of the 16 accused in Bhima Koregaon case. With the message he also posted her picture that was published in a Bangali journal Azaadi which carried an article on various political prisoners.
Read more

Also read:
● “Hopefully waiting” writes Shoma Sen from prison (InSAF India / July 7, 2023)

Prison Not The Reform Centre As Claimed, It’s Centre Of Sadism: Prof. Anand Teltumbde

01/08/2023 Asha

Poster by Siddesh Gautam / #bakeryprasad

Live Law / by Sharmeen Hakim

Professor Anand Teltumbde fought for civil and labor rights while holding various managerial profiles during his illustrious corporate career and had only ever passed by a prison while commuting to work.
“If a profile like mine could be tarnished over night as such an oxymoron as urban Naxal, then I thought nothing would be impossible in the world”, he says months after his release on bail in the Bhima Koregaon – Elgar Parishad Case where he is accused of Maoist links along with several rights activists.
In this interview, Teltumbde talks about his observations from behind prison bars, the four books he authored during his time in prison, including a book dedicated to Ambedkar and why he declined to avail court permission to meet his mother.
Read more

● Multi-part interview by Neeta Kolhakar

○ Part 1: Anand Teltumbde: I never imagined I would have a jail life (Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhakar / Jul 25, 2023)
○ Part 2: Anand Teltumbde: If my mother knew of my arrest, she would have died of shock (Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhakar / Jul 28, 2023)
○ Part 3: Rama Teltumbde: We struggled to see each day through (Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhakar / Jul 31, 2023)

● Video: The Conditions of Prisoners in Indian Jails

By All India Lawyers’ Association for Justice – AILAJ / March 2022

en | 1:21:23 | 2022
The huge number of undertrials, the overcrowding, and the disproportional numbers of Dalit, Muslim and Adivasi prisoners are part of the prison problem in India.
We are joined by Adv. Sudha Bharadwaj for a discussion on the Conditions of Prisoners in Indian Jails.
Watch video

Three years ago on this day Hany Babu was arrested in the infamous Bhima Koregaon case

28/07/2023 Asha

Three years ago on this day, around 4.30 in the evening, Hany Babu was arrested in the infamous Bhima Koregaon case

28/07/2023

By Jenny Rowena @ insta

Three years ago on this day, around 4.30 in the evening, Hany Babu was arrested in the infamous Bhima Koregaon case.
Today, so many marginalised students miss a teacher who always stood by them, and so many more who could have gained from the way he interrogated the elite brahminical pedagogy of the English department are denied of his presence.

And my daughter and me, miss a father and husband who was so deeply committed to us. And was always growing together with us.

Yet in one sense, Babu’s incarceration is just one among the many cruel injustices happening around. A sign of the times when the Savarna Hindu State is destroying whole communities and regions and has invaded even the insulated university space, and is crushing any kind of oppositional voice that stands in its way. But in another sense, this is our very own personal pain. Which cannot be conveyed in words. But we are not defeated, and Babu is doing all that he was doing outside, inside in prison too – reading, writing, teaching and helping inmates to fight their cases.

I do not know what exactly we need to do to gain Babu’s release and the release of so many other political prisoners who have all been punished for their public stances of resistance. No campaign and no pressure seem to touch this government and the violent and blood thirsty groups that support it. Sometimes it’s easy to fall into despair. But that’s not how political prisoners live. They live with the power of being on the side of compassion and justice. With the solidarity and prayers of those who bravely stand with them in this. And the undying intellectual curiosity that I see in each of the Bhima Koregaon people, and Babu, really makes it clear that prisons are never enough to crush some people. And that they will come out of this stronger and better than before. And till then, some of us will continue to fight for their release.

In whatever way you can, please support us in this.

Hany Babu completes three years in prison, “we are not defeated,” says wife Jenny Rowena

28/07/2023

Maktoobmedia.com / 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 three years of incarceration on Friday, 28 July, 2023.
On 28 July, 2020, the National Investigation Agency arrested Babu, an anti-caste activist and a staunch proponent of social justice.
Read more

Anand Teltumbde: I never imagined I would have a jail life (Part 1)

25/07/2023 Asha

Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhatkar

‘I was under the illusion that this could never happen to me because my background was such — corporate CEO, IIT professor, IIT alumnus, IIM…’
Anand Teltumbde was born into a family of Dalit labourers and excelled in his studies. He went on to get an MBA from one of the top IIMs in this country…
Anand Teltumbde, in an interview with Rediff.com Senior Contributor Neeta Kolhatkar, reveals, “I was made to stand naked and they took photos. This is the sort of humiliating experience you undergo at Taloja jail.”
The first of a multi-part interview.
Read more

Also Read:
● Rama Teltumbde: We struggled to see each day through (Part 3) (Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhakar (Jul 31, 2023)
● Anand Teltumbde: If my mother knew of my arrest, she would have died of shock (Part 2) (Rediff.com /Jul 28, 2023)
● Why the Bombay High Court granted regular bail to Dr. Anand Teltumbde: An explainer (The Leaflet / Dec 2022)

Verse, ablaze: Excerpts from ‘Varavara Rao: A Life in Poetry’

16/07/2023 Asha

Verse, ablaze: Excerpts from ‘Varavara Rao: A Life in Poetry’

16/07/2023

The Week / by Varavara Rao | Sajeesh Sankar

It is a collection of poems in English by the Telugu poet and activist
My first memory of encountering the name ‘Varavara Rao’ was in the newspapers. This was in the early 2000s, when warring guerrilla groups came to peace-talks tables. As a young Tamil woman, I consistently followed the Norway-brokered talks between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Government of Sri Lanka. Likewise, I was fascinated by what was happening on home ground: the talks between People’s War and the Indian government. Perhaps because of the way in which the print media at that time both valorised and demonised the guerrilla fighters, I was fascinated that three people had dared to be emissaries between the governments and the fighters. One of the interlocutors was Varavara Rao, the other two were Gaddar and Kalyan Rao.
Read more

Varavara Rao: A Life In Poetry

15/07/2023

The New Indian Express / by Shrimansi Kaushik

The book, ‘Varavara Rao: A Life In Poetry’ is a collection of English translations of poems of the eminent Telugu poet edited by N Venugopal and Meena Kandasamy.
Varavara Rao: A Life In Poetry, a collection of English translations of poems of the eminent Telugu poet was released yesterday at Lamakaan. The editors, N Venugopal and Meena Kandasamy highlighted the revolutionary and transformative potential of his poems Lamakaan reverberated with revolutionary, thought-provoking poetry as the English translations of the eminent Telugu poet Varavara Rao were released yesterday.
Read more

‘Tomorrow there won’t be any classes’: Activist Varavara Rao’s poems get an English translation

05/07/2023

Scroll.in / by Varavara Rao, N Venugopal & Rohith

An excerpt from ‘Varavara Rao: A Life in Poetry’, edited by Meena Kandasamy and N Venugopal. Translated from the Telugu.
Read poems