By the end of the 1990s, both capital and a willing state had eviscerated the labour movement. The death blow will be dealt in the 2020s.
The 1990s marked a watershed in the attitude of the Indian state towards labour, with the ushering in of “liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation” (LPG) policies.
The early years of the LPG era saw sensational murders of trade unionists. The theatre activist Safdar Hashmi and members of his troupe, Jan Natya Manch, were brutally attacked with iron rods by the henchmen of a Congress corporator as they performed a street play that campaigned for minimum wages in Jhandapur village in Sahibabad Industrial Area on January 1, 1989. Read more
NIA Court Grants Interim Bail To Sagar Gorkhe For LLB Exams, Allows Mahesh Raut For Entrance Test
13/12/2024
Free Press Journal / by Charul Shah Joshi
The special NIA court on Friday granted interim bail to Sagar Gorkhe, an accused in the Elgar Parishad case, allowing him to appear for the first semester examination of LLB degree. He has been given relief from December 14 to January 4, during which the exams have been scheduled. Meanwhile, the court has also granted permission to another accused, Mahesh Raut, to appear for the viva voice for LLB entrance test. Read more
Interim Bail for Elgar Parishad Accused: Sagar Gorkhe Allowed to Sit Law Exam
13/12/2024
Devdiscourse / by Devdisourse News Desk
Sagar Gorkhe, accused in the Elgar Parishad case, has been granted interim bail by a Mumbai court to appear for his law degree exam. Arrested in September 2020 for alleged Maoist links, Gorkhe is currently in Taloja Jail. Bail includes conditions like an active phone connection.
agar Gorkhe, a key accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist link case, has been granted interim bail by a special NIA court to sit for his law degree exam.
The court’s decision came more than four years after Gorkhe’s arrest in September 2020. Read more
Part 1: en | 01:02:00 | 2022
Part 2: en | 45:43:00 | 2022
On this Human Rights Day, Newslaundry is removing the paywall from our interview with prominent human rights lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj, who had walked out of prison in 2021 after being repeatedly denied bail in the Bhima Koregaon case.
Working with people on the ground, Sudha is only too aware of how “alien” the judicial process is to the majority of India’s population. She also thinks it’s important for young lawyers to cut their teeth by representing the most marginalised.
In this interview, the activist talks about her childhood in Bilaspur and her educational journey, culminating in Jawaharlal Nehru University and IIT Kanpur. Her mother, a JNU professor, helped shape the ideology of this self-proclaimed Marxist who began working with trade unions at the age of 25.
In Byculla jail, Sudha tried to secure legal aid for those imprisoned with her. She believes in the importance of a “united front” and worries that the lack of this unity gives rise to dogma. Watch video Part 1 Watch video Part 2
Also read: ▪ From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada Author: Sudha Bhardwaj Publishing Date: Oct 2023 Publisher: Juggernaut Pages: 216 Read more / order
▪ Sudha Bharadwaj speaks – A Life in Law and Activism Publishing Date: January 2021 Interview: Darshana Mitra and Santanu Chakraborty Publisher: Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) Pages: 316 Access a free PDF copy of the book here
Why There Is No Better Person to Translate Kazi Nazrul Islam Than Varavara Rao
This is not a mere work of translation; this is the confluence of two great poets who defied the oppressive states of their respective times.
The following is the foreword to Varavara Rao’s translation of Kazi Nazrul Islam’s Bengali poems into Telugu, Vidrohi. It has been edited for style, grammar and clarity. The volume is being published by the Hyderabad Book Trust.
In what is called the second freedom movement in Bangladesh against the autocratic Sheikh Hasina government, the state police’s guns aiming at the students and the students singing the poem and songs of Kazi Nazrul Islam is the hair-raising moment for all people who aspire for and dream of freedom. Read more
Here is a list of 5 academicians who have transformed higher education into an inclusive model of academia through theory and research.
Academic freedom has become a contested term in contemporary Higher Education in India. While the spaces of universities have always been political, the current trend is best described as Saffronisation. Political interference in the recruitment process of faculty has become a persistent problem hindering the scope of research. A curb on critical voices seems in place to evoke a culture of self-censorship. Read more
Book release. Pic credits: Anuradha SenGupta / @anuradhasays
Scholar says Dr Ambedkar was great but we need to question him, not worship him
01/11/2024
Countercurrents.org / by Vidyadhar Date
This was an unusual book launch in Mumbai on October 30 where the author, a prominent human rights activist, management professor, faces restrictions on his movements because of a court order. And the audience included some of the best minds including well known poet Vara Vara Rao, who are either on bail in the Bhima Koregaon case or their movements are restricted too. The author is Anand Teltumbde and the book is “Iconoclast – a reflective biography of Babasaheb Ambedkar”. Read more
Anand Teltumbde’s new book unravels the man behind the Babasaheb Ambedkar
31/10/2024
Hindustan Times / by Sabah Virani
Teltumbde recalled his initial hesitation when approached by Penguin in August 2018 to write Ambedkar’s biography, sharing his thoughts at the book’s launch on Wednesday evening at the Mumbai Press Club. The event, held a month after the book’s release, was delayed not by choice but by bail restrictions confining Teltumbde to Mumbai and Goa
An iconoclast, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is someone who destroys religious images or challenges their veneration. It’s also the fitting title of the latest biography of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, written by Anand Teltumbde—a professor, activist, and undertrial. His book seeks to unravel the complexities of Ambedkar, a towering figure in Indian history. Read more
The author of ‘Iconoclast: A Reflective Biography of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar’ on why BR Ambedkar stands out, common misconceptions about him, and the lessons that young Dalits must take from his life and teachings
… Post Elgar Parishad which even led to your incarceration, what challenges do you observe for activists and the Dalit community at large to mobilise and make specific demands to attain better standards of living?
Anand Teltumbde: It is not just the Dalit community; mobilizing people for any cause has become nearly impossible, except for religious gatherings that serve as proxies for regime support or superficial political sloganeering that merely legitimizes the claim that democracy is still intact. Read full interview
Also read:
▪ Iconoclast. A Reflective Biography of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar
by Anand Teltumbde
Imprisonment Does Not Restrict Individual’s Right To Pursue Education: Bombay High Court
25/09/2024
Live Law / by Narsi Benwal
The Bombay High Court recently observed that imprisonment of an individual does not restrict his or her right to education.
A division bench of Justices Ajay Gadkari and Dr Neela Gokhale made the observation while ordering a Mumbai-based Law College, to admit Mahesh Raut, one of the accused in the Bhima-Koregaon case, as a student for the LLB course for the academic year 2024-2027. Read more Read/download judgment
Imprisonment Does Not Restrict An Individual’s Right To Pursue Education: HC Allows Elgar Parishad Accused To Take Admission In Siddharth Law College
25/09/2024
Free Press Journal / by Urvi Mahajani
Bombay High Court allows plea by Elgar Parishad accused to take admission in 3 year law course in Siddharth College.
Imprisonment does not restrict an individual’s right to pursue further education, observed the Bombay High Court while allowing Mahesh Raut, an accused in the Elgar Parishad – Bhima Koregaon case, to take admission to the 3-year law course at Siddharth Law College. He was arrested by the NIA for his alleged links with the CPI Maoists. Read more
Bombay HC permits Elgaar Parishad accused Mahesh Raut to take admission for LLB course
24/04/2024
The Indian Express / by Express News Service
“Or in the alternative, we leave it to the college to take the signature of the Petitioner on the documents from the Taloja Central Prison (where he is presently lodged),” the bench noted and allowed the plea.
The Bombay High Court permitted activist Mahesh Raut, an accused in the Elgaar Parishad case, to take admission to the three-year LLB course at Siddharth Law College in Mumbai.
The bench said that imprisonment does not restrict prisoners’ right to pursue further education. Read more
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.
Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project
BK-16 Prison Diaries: Ramesh Gaichor on the Elgar prisoners’ defiance of the neo-Peshwai prison system
19/09/2024
The Polis Project / by Ramesh Gaichor
Jinhe naaz hai Hind par unko lao
Jinhe naaz hai Hind par woh kahaan hain?
(Bring those who are proud of this land
Where are they who are proud of this land?)
These lines of Sahir Ludhianvi, written shortly after the country gained independence, still strike a deep chord. But today, in what way will the neo-Peshwai government of this country receive these words, and what will it do to poets and song-writers like Sahir?
Perhaps it will put them behind towering impenetrable walls, erected over segregated acres of land, under the watchful eye of 24-hour security guards, armed with firearms, lathis, and belts. Read more
Anand Teltumbde’s room has a single bed, a large window and a bookshelf. This is where he lives and writes. The old building is inside the premises of the famous Rajgruha, a memorial and a museum dedicated to B. R. Ambedkar at Hindu colony of Dadar in Mumbai. Teltumbde, who was arrested in the Bhima-Koregaon violence that happened on January 1, 2018, was released jn November 2022. In an interview with Outlook, he talks about freedom of fantasy and class and caste in India. en | 01:09:37 | 2024 Watch video
The Freedoms Our Martyrs Won Are Under Seige
15/08/2024
Outlook / by Anand Teltumbde
This Independence Day, we are in an age in which we need assurances from our leader that the Constitution will survive
Seventy-seven years ago, our martyrs won freedom from British colonial rule. Three years later, we gave ourselves a Constitution that guaranteed a plethora of freedoms, inspired not by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) but the indigenous ethos of our own freedom movement. Today, having traversed into the Amrit Kaal, these guarantees appear to have expired, needing a new guarantee from our supreme ruler that the Constitution itself will survive. If the likes of Bhagat Singh were to see the state of India’s freedom today, they would certainly ask themselves what was wrong with the British rule that they went to the gallows fighting them. Read more
How Kabir Kala Manch, the anti-caste cultural troupe, challenges the hierarchical social order
An excerpt from ‘Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste’, by Ajaz Ashraf.
Maharashtrian academic Amarnath Chandaliya founded the Kabir Kala Manch in the wake of the 2002 pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat. The troupe’s avowed mission was to use songs and skits to inoculate the lower classes and castes against the virus of communalism concocted by the votaries of Hindutva, or militant Hindu nationalism. Given the communal-caste linkages, the Kabir Kala Manch subsequently deployed its artistic oeuvre to sensitise its audiences to the oppression and violence built into the Hindu hierarchical social order. Read more
▪ Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste. Brahminism’s wrath against dreamers of equality
Author: Ajaz Ashraf
Publisher: AuthorsUpFront
Publishing Date: June 2024
Binding: Paperback
Language: English
Pages: 496 Read more/order
