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BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: MINAL GADLING ON THE MANY CRUELTIES, IRONIES AND INJUSTICES OF SURENDRA’S IMPRISONMENT

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: MINAL GADLING ON THE MANY CRUELTIES, IRONIES AND INJUSTICES OF SURENDRA’S IMPRISONMENT

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.

THE POLIS PROJECT / By MINAL GADLING

6 June 2024 marked six years since Surendra was arrested. Six long years! It is very difficult to talk about this time in a few words. During these six years, life completely changed. Life, which earlier meant stability, security, friends, relatives, and happiness, was suddenly altered completely, and I found myself forced to face a reality that I could not have imagined in my worst nightmares.
I recall that grim dawn of 17 April 2018, when our house was raided; that sinister morning of 6 June 2018, when Surendra was taken away.
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Also read:
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: RUPALI JADHAV TRAVELS TEN HOURS FOR FLEETING EXCHANGES WITH JYOTI JAGTAP (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ 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: ANAND TELTUMBDE REFLECTS ON HIS ARREST AND INCARCERATION (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: STORIES OF LOVE, MURDER AND CHILD MARRIAGE FROM SHOMA SEN’S YEARS IN PRISONS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ARUN FERREIRA ON THE FARCE AND TRAGEDY OF THE PANDEMIC IN PRISON (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: VERNON GONSALVES ON THE STRUGGLE TO READ AND WRITE BEHIND BARS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ INTRODUCING THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)

Jesuit Missions repeats call to clear Stan Swamy’s name

Jesuit Missions repeats call to clear Stan Swamy’s name

Jesuit Missions repeats call to clear Indian priest’s name

03/07/2024

Indcatholicnews.com / by ICN

Jesuit Missions has once again written to the Indian High Commission as part of its campaign to clear the name of the late human rights’ advocate and Jesuit priest Fr Stan Swamy.
Br Stephen Power SJ, Chairman of Jesuit Missions’ Management Board, sent a letter to Vikram Doraiswami, High Commissioner of India to the UK, yesterday (July 2) requesting a meeting to discuss the subject of Fr Stan’s imprisonment and death.
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The Search for Democracy in India

Mon, 8 Jul 2024 18:45 BST
London Jesuit Centre, Mount Street, London, UK
Join us for a talk by anthropologist and author Professor Alpa Shah, exploring the state of democracy in India.
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Let’s start Father Stan Swamy’s beatification process

01/07/2024

UCA News / by John Dayal

The Jesuit martyr who was falsely targeted by Indian probe agencies is already a saint to the tribal people he served
… Modi’s government has also not taken any step to exonerate Jesuit priest and social activist Stanislaus Lourduswamy — Father Stan Swamy for short — who it had arrested on charges of being a part of a conspiracy to assassinate him.
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Also read:

▪ How the system broke Stan Swamy: A cell mate recalls the activist’s last days in prison (Scroll.in / Aug 12, 2021 / by Arun Ferreira)

Illustration by #bakeryprasad
The 84-year-old Jesuit priest and tribal rights activist, who had been arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case in October, died on July 5.

Although we received news by late evening on October 8, 2020, of Father Stan Swamy’s arrest, we were quite shocked to see him the next morning in the adjourning barrack conversing with inmates in his impeccable Hindi.
I was at that time lodged in a cell at the prison hospital with my co- accused Varavara Rao (or VV) and Vernon Gonsalves.
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Book Review | Those who refuse to be caged

Book Review | Those who refuse to be caged

The Telegraph / by Lalit Panda

In The Incarcerations, Alpa Shah provides a survey of these men and women that allows us to understand what truly connects them
For many who have followed the news regarding the Bhima Koregaon case, the saga of arrests, press conferences, cyber-forensic reports, bail hearings, statements of condemnation, and protests has gone on long enough and been spread out so thinly that fatigue and forgetfulness are real threats.
Naturally, the opposite has been the case for the 16 individuals arraigned by investigative agencies in the matter. For these persons, the case has illuminated the state of our democracy, the nature of threats against it, and the identity of its most strident defenders.
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The Incarcerations: Bhima Koregaon And The Search For Democracy In India

Author: Alpa Shah
Publishing Date: March 2024
Publisher: Harper Collins Publisher
Pages: 672
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Also read:

▪ 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
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▪ Book Excerpt The story of an ‘Urban Naxal’ (Deccan Herald | by Alpa Shah | April 2024 )
▪ A new book recounts how 16 activists were imprisoned as terrorists, without trial (Scroll.in | by Alpa Shah | March 2024)

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: RUPALI JADHAV TRAVELS TEN HOURS FOR FLEETING EXCHANGES WITH JYOTI JAGTAP

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: RUPALI JADHAV TRAVELS TEN HOURS FOR FLEETING EXCHANGES WITH JYOTI JAGTAP

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.

THE POLIS PROJECT / BY RUPALI JADHAV

This is the story of that day, when Jyoti was supposed to meet us, but did not show up. Two other members of Kabir Kala Manch, Ramesh and Sagar, had already been arrested in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case, and the NIA had summoned Jyoti to Mumbai for questioning for the third time. The next day, on 8 September 2020, Jyoti was supposed to meet me and some of our sathis, or friends, at Sarasbaug in Pune. We waited for her for a long time. Her phone was unreachable. I became anxious because she is usually very punctual and disciplined, and I told the others that she never takes this long. Only after I started searching for her did I receive the call. “We are calling from Pune ATS. Jyoti Jagtap has been arrested. You can come here to collect her keys and belongings.”
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Also read:
▪ 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: ANAND TELTUMBDE REFLECTS ON HIS ARREST AND INCARCERATION (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: STORIES OF LOVE, MURDER AND CHILD MARRIAGE FROM SHOMA SEN’S YEARS IN PRISONS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ARUN FERREIRA ON THE FARCE AND TRAGEDY OF THE PANDEMIC IN PRISON (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: VERNON GONSALVES ON THE STRUGGLE TO READ AND WRITE BEHIND BARS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ INTRODUCING THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: JENNY ROWENA ON THE FEAR OF PRISONS AND THE BRAHMINICAL SYSTEM BEHIND IT

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: JENNY ROWENA ON THE FEAR OF PRISONS AND THE BRAHMINICAL SYSTEM BEHIND IT

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.

The Polis Project / by Jenny Rowena

As a space that takes away our liberties, marked by deep deprivation and suffering, the prison often gets framed as the point at which the liveable modern life ends. The fear of prisons, then, becomes all-pervading, with language itself constantly pointing to it as a dead end. Thus, for the ordinary person, the police and the prison system evoke extreme anxiety, and they design their lives to evade any encounters with it. Yet, those who come face to face with this system observe not an end, but the continuing flow of life inside, behind massive, impenetrable walls, even as their family and friends navigate a completely new reality outside. For academics like Hany Babu, the twelfth person incarcerated in the Bhima Koregaon case, who was active in social justice projects in the university space, the prison also offers a glimpse into the stark structural inequalities of Indian society and the many resistances against them.
Read more

Also read:
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ANAND TELTUMBDE REFLECTS ON HIS ARREST AND INCARCERATION (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: STORIES OF LOVE, MURDER AND CHILD MARRIAGE FROM SHOMA SEN’S YEARS IN PRISONS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ARUN FERREIRA ON THE FARCE AND TRAGEDY OF THE PANDEMIC IN PRISON (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: VERNON GONSALVES ON THE STRUGGLE TO READ AND WRITE BEHIND BARS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ INTRODUCING THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)

Book Excerpt | Intellectual Insurgency and Mahesh Raut

Book Excerpt | Intellectual Insurgency and Mahesh Raut

The Wire / by Divya Dwivedi and Shaj Mohan

We are witnessing a pretend politics which lives on the time borrowed from a deferred revolution.
“I shall speak of ghost, of flame, and of ashes”

– Jacques Derrida, Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question

It is not easy to write about the scholar and activist Mahesh Raut without sorrow and rage. Raut was a fellow of Prime Minister’s Rural Development programme; it has been five years since he was arrested on June 6, 2018. He is the youngest prisoner in the Bhima Koregaon case, currently awaiting the mercy of the judiciary for bail in Taloja central jail. His health has been deteriorating in prison.
Read more

Also read:
▪ SC to hear plea of activist seeking interim bail on June 21 (Legalworld.com / June 2024)
▪ ‘Ominous portents’: Why High Court staying its own bail orders in Bhima Koregaon case is troubling (Scroll.in / Dec 2023)
▪ In Jail for 5 Years, Activist Mahesh Raut Gets Bail in Elgar Parishad Case (The Wire / Sep 2023)
▪ Gadchiroli’s 300 Gram Sabhas Pass Resolution in Support of Activist Mahesh Raut (The Wire / Oct 2018)

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ANAND TELTUMBDE REFLECTS ON HIS ARREST AND INCARCERATION

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ANAND TELTUMBDE REFLECTS ON HIS ARREST AND INCARCERATION

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.

The Polis Project / by Anand Teltumbde

Though I have been active in the civil-rights movement for over four decades, contributing to defence of the states’ hapless victims, I never imagined that I myself would land up in jail one day as those we defended. Even after the Pune police arrested five activists in connection with the violence at Bhima-Koregaon on 1 January 2018; even after the cops read out a letter purportedly written by a Maoist functionary to me, as they recovered from the hard disk of one of the arrestees and obviously implicated me into the crime; even after they raided my house in the campus of Goa Institute of Management in our absence—I thought they might not arrest me.
Read more

Also read:
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: STORIES OF LOVE, MURDER AND CHILD MARRIAGE FROM SHOMA SEN’S YEARS IN PRISONS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ARUN FERREIRA ON THE FARCE AND TRAGEDY OF THE PANDEMIC IN PRISON (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: VERNON GONSALVES ON THE STRUGGLE TO READ AND WRITE BEHIND BARS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ INTRODUCING THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)

‘Every time I stepped out, the camera was on’: Love and resilience in captivity with Gautam Navlakha

‘Every time I stepped out, the camera was on’: Love and resilience in captivity with Gautam Navlakha

Sabha and Gautam. Oct 2018

Scroll.in / by Mekhala Saran

Sahba Husain relinquished her freedom to spend nearly two years in house arrest in a makeshift room with her partner of 30 years.
What makes a 71-year-old woman relinquish her freedom, in the city that has been home for 54 years, and voluntarily move into confinement?
“One date can overturn your life,” Sahba Husain chuckles over a phone call with me. For her, that date is August 28, 2018, when the house she shared with her partner Gautam Navlakha in Delhi was raided.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Gautam Navlakha’s letter on release from custody (PUDR / May 2024)

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ARUN FERREIRA ON THE FARCE AND TRAGEDY OF THE PANDEMIC IN PRISON

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ARUN FERREIRA ON THE FARCE AND TRAGEDY OF THE PANDEMIC IN PRISON

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: ARUN FERREIRA ON THE FARCE AND TRAGEDY OF THE PANDEMIC IN PRISON

14/06/2024

THE POLIS PROJECT / ARUN FERREIRA

The first wave of COVID-19 took us all by surprise, universally. We were caught unawares, and our response was clumsy and faltered, often searching for solutions that now appear ridiculous. It was no different in prison, but what made things even worse was the compounded consequences of the farcical implementation of sincere solutions, and the sincere implementation of farcical solutions. Prison authorities did not display any intention of adequately dealing with the pandemic, but were eager to present a façade of an efficient administrative response on official records with a miniscule number of COVID-19 cases.
Read more

Also read:
▪BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: VERNON GONSALVES ON THE STRUGGLE TO READ AND WRITE BEHIND BARS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪INTRODUCING THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: VERNON GONSALVES ON THE STRUGGLE TO READ AND WRITE BEHIND BARS

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: VERNON GONSALVES ON THE STRUGGLE TO READ AND WRITE BEHIND BARS

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: VERNON GONSALVES ON THE STRUGGLE TO READ AND WRITE BEHIND BARS

14/06/2024

THE POLIS PROJECT / VERNON GONSALVES

A prison peer-view that I cherish is a drawing by the artist Arun Ferreira, when we were fellow inmates of Nagpur Central Prison in 2011. He shows me sitting at the gate of my cell, writing-pad in hand, and writing—or rather, trying to write. It’s aptly titled, “Some Sophisticated Self-Deception.”
Perhaps I like it because it’s an image that I, like many other political prisoners, wanted as a prison self-image—someone who’s not wasting away his years behind bars. Someone who has some output, even if “only” intellectual output.
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INTRODUCING THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES

13/06/2024

THE POLIS PROJECT / By THE POLIS PROJECT

On 1 January 1818, a small British battalion mainly comprising Dalit soldiers from the oppressed Mahar caste defeated an army of dominant-caste Peshwas at Koregaon. The battle gained a legendary status, representing a victory not just in Bhima Koregaon, but against caste injustices perpetrated by the Peshwas. The Mahar community celebrates the anniversary as a festival called “Valour Day,” and many make an annual pilgrimage to an obelisk at the site that memorialises the battle.
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