Browsed by
Category: Organisations

Ajay Kumar targeted for role as anti-displacement activist, opponent of ‘corporate loot’

Ajay Kumar targeted for role as anti-displacement activist, opponent of ‘corporate loot’

Counterview.net / by Campaign against State Repression (CASR)

The Campaign against State Repression (CASR) unequivocally condemns the arrest of human rights activist and Advocate Ajay Kumar by National Investigation Agency early morning 3 am from Chandigarh.

Ajay was actively involved in the Forum Against the War on People to oppose the attack by state forces and corporate-sponsored militia, Salwa Judum, on the Adivasi peasants of central India under Operation Green Hunt. He was also founding member of Vistapan Virodhi Jan Vikas Andolan (VVJVA), a conglomeration of more than 50 organisations from across the country seeking to challenge the forcible displacement of peasants particularly Adivasis, for the furtherance of corporate loot and land grab. VVJVA works against the forceful displacement of peasantry, particularly Adivasis for building big dams, industrial projects, mines, Special Economic Zones, highways, National Parks, Smart City projects etc. Ajay Kumar worked alongside the likes of Dr. B.D. Sharma (retired IAS officer), K.N. Pandit (trade union leader), Dr. B.P. Kesari, Father Stan Swamy, Sudha Bhardwaj, Dr. G.N. Saibaba and J. Madhuri in the formation of this forum in 2007.
Read full statement


Also read:
TU activist Anirudh Rajan, lawyer Ajay Kumar in custody: Wounded reputation of world’s largest democracy? (Counterview / Sep 10, 2024)
Student Activist’s Room Raided in Prayagraj by NIA Over Alleged Naxal Links (The Wire / Aug 2024)
Senior activist Ajay Kumar’s arrest ‘imminent’ in same vein as Rona Wilson, Stan Swamy (Counterview / Jan 2024)

Poetic License: Outside of Village Periphery – Artists in Kabir Kala Manch struggle to earn a living due to censorship

Poetic License: Outside of Village Periphery – Artists in Kabir Kala Manch struggle to earn a living due to censorship

Outlook / by Rupali Jadhav

Artists in Kabir Kala Manch are struggling to earn a living due to state-sponsored censorship
Kabir Kala Manch, a Pune-based protest performance art troupe, has been a target of the State since its inception in 2002. The group propagates the anti-caste and equality ideology of Phule-Shahu-Ambedkar and Marx through songs and street plays.
In 2019, police arrested three members, Ramesh Gaichor, Sagar Gorkhe and Jyoti Jagtap, in the Bhima Koregaon case for allegedly inciting communalism through songs at Elgar Parishad.
Read more / read poem


Also read:
How Kabir Kala Manch, the anti-caste cultural troupe, challenges the hierarchical social order (Scroll.in / Jul 2024)
Kabir Kala Manch: A History of Revolutionary Singing and State Repression (ritimo / April 2022)
Video: Dafachya Talavar (Songs of Defiance) – A short documentary on Kabir Kala Manch | Hindi, Marthi (subtitles: English) | 24:01min | 2022

How Kabir Kala Manch, the anti-caste cultural troupe, challenges the hierarchical social order

How Kabir Kala Manch, the anti-caste cultural troupe, challenges the hierarchical social order

Scroll.in / by Ajaz Ashraf

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

Book Excerpt | How Bhima Koregaon Became a Trope for Dalit Pride and Assertion (The Wire │ by Ajaz Ashraf │ June 2024)


Also read:
How Dalits, Muslims, Adivasis encounter the State. ‘It has its boots on our necks’ (The Print / Jul 2024)
Kabir Kala Manch: A History of Revolutionary Singing and State Repression (ritimo / April 2022)
Video: Dafachya Talavar (Songs of Defiance) – A short documentary on Kabir Kala Manch | Hindi, Marthi (subtitles: English) | 24:01min | 2022

How Dalits, Muslims, Adivasis encounter the State. ‘It has its boots on our necks’

How Dalits, Muslims, Adivasis encounter the State. ‘It has its boots on our necks’

The Print / by Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia

In ‘How Long Can The Moon Be Caged’, Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia look at present-day India through the lived experiences of political prisoners.
A Dalit activist we spoke to said that most people don’t encounter the state the way Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims do. She told us: ‘The state has always had a boot on our necks.’ Forget living; imagine what it takes to survive this. The boot is always pressed against minorities’ necks, making it hard to breathe, demanding that they beg for dignity every day. She added: ‘[For us] it doesn’t matter who is in power; oppression is the only thing that hasn’t changed.’
Read more


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
A powerful look at authoritarian India through the experiences of political prisoners
How Long Can the Moon Be Caged? includes visual testimonies and prison writings from those falsely accused of inciting the Bhima Koregaon violence, by student leaders opposing the new discriminatory citizenship law passed in 2020, and by activists from the Pinjra Tod’s movement. In bringing together these voices, the book celebrates the courage, humanity and moral integrity of those jailed for standing in solidarity with marginalised and oppressed communities.
Read more / order

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.”
Read more


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)

What is Kabir Kala Manch, the cultural group accused of being a Maoist front?

What is Kabir Kala Manch, the cultural group accused of being a Maoist front?

The Indian Express / by Chandan Haygunde

The KKM was formed by a Pune activist, Amarnath Chandaliya, after the Gujarat riots in 2002 for promoting unity.
An alleged operative of the banned CPI-Maoist, Santosh Vasant Shelar alias Vishwa alias Painter, who went missing from Pune in November 2010, returned home over a week ago in bad health.
… The KKM was among the outfits that organised Elgaar Parishad at Shaniwar Wada in Pune on December 31, 2017, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the battle of Koregaon Bhima, fought between Peshwas and Britishers on January 1, 1818.
Read more


Also read/watch:
Kabir Kala Manch: A History of Revolutionary Singing and State Repression (ritimo / April 2022)
Video: Dafachya Talavar (Songs of Defiance) – A short documentary on Kabir Kala Manch | Hindi, Marthi (subtitles: English) | 24:01min | 2022
The Security Playbook Used To Erode Democracy In Modi’s India & How The Tide Might Turn (article 14 / March 2022)
Who are the three Kabir Kala Manch artistes arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case this week? (Scroll.in / Sep 2020)

“Today If You’re Working With An NGO, You’re Either Anti-National Or Corrupt”

“Today If You’re Working With An NGO, You’re Either Anti-National Or Corrupt”

Youth Ki Awaaz / by Surbhi Singh

It was a normal day for Malika Shah, a social worker working in Bal Raksha Bharat. She woke up with the feeling of doing something for the children, motivating herself by saying that nothing can stop her and her team from doing good. As she exited the house, her neighbors stared at her and called her anti-national.
… In 2018, several activists from human rights NGOs were arrested and accused of being associated with Maoists and working against the state.
Read more


Also read:
Chronology Samajhiye: 5 Days, 4 Agencies Under Modi Govt Control Target Opposition, Journalists, Activists (The Wire | Soumashree Sarkar | Oct 6, 2023)
● Report: UAPA – CRIMINALISING DISSENT AND STATE TERROR (PUCL / Sep 2022) Download report
Narendra Modi’s Government Is Using False Charges of Terrorism to Repress Its Opponents (Jacobinmag / April 2022)

We don’t want more Bhima Koregaon bogus conspiracy case / Condemn the NIA’s raid in Andhra-Telangana

We don’t want more Bhima Koregaon bogus conspiracy case / Condemn the NIA’s raid in Andhra-Telangana

Condemn the NIA’s raid in Andhra-Telangana to suppress democratic voices critical of war of corporate plunder

06/10/2023

Countercurrrents / by Forum Against Corporatization and Militarization

On 2nd October, 2023, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) conducted raids across various locations belonging to various democratic and pro-people activists in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.  The organisations that have been targeted, include, Coordination of Democratic Rights Organizations (CDRO), Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee (AP CLC), Chaitanya Mahila Sangam (CMS), Pragatisheela Karmika Samakya (PKS), Patriotic Democratic Movement (PDM), Praja Kala Mandali (PKM), Vasantha Meghum, Virasam (RWA), Indian Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL), Kula Nirmulana Porata Samiti (Struggle Committee for Caste Annihilation; KNPS), Amarula Bandhu Mitrula Sangham (ABMS), Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP) and Human Rights Forum (HRF).
Read full statement


We don’t want more Bhima Koregaon bogus conspiracy case in the name of National Security

03/10/2023

Asianspeaks.com / by Campaign Against State Repression (CASR)

“In the overall situation in India, no form of democratic assertion is left untouched by the NIA’s repression in the name of Maoist links, whether they be organizations fighting for the rights of minorities, anti-caste organizations like KNPS, women’s rights organizations like the CMS or even Gandhian or Marxist-Leninist organizations. All forms of democratic assertions are under threat in this current spate of repression…”

Statement By Campaign Against State Repression

CASR STRONGLY CONDEMN THE NIA RAID IN TELENGANA AND ANDHRA PRADESH
In the early hours of 2nd October, 2023, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) raided 62 different locations in the states of Andhra Pradesh (53) and Telangana (9) as part of their recent string of raids all over the country against democratic rights organizations.
Read full statement


NIA Conducts Coordinated Raids on Rights Activists Across 62 Locations in Andhra, Telangana

03/10/2023

The Wire / Sukanya Shantha

The raids were in connection with the 2021 Munchingiputtu CPI (Maoist) conspiracy case. Devices and literature belonging to functionaries and lawyers of the Indian Association of People’s Lawyer and Human Rights Forum, along with various other rights bodies were seized.
Officials of the National Investigating Agency (NIA) arrived in groups of four and five in 62 locations across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh on October 2, in coordinated raids at the homes of human rights activists and researchers.
The raid teams – comprising of NIA officers from Delhi and the local police – arrived between 5.30 am and 6 am on the day, and stayed at the locations till afternoon.
Read more


Also read:
Chronology Samajhiye: 5 Days, 4 Agencies Under Modi Govt Control Target Opposition, Journalists, Activists (The Wire | Soumashree Sarkar | Oct 6, 2023)
Blatant use of UAPA by Telangana Police to suppress dissenting voices (Countercurrents / June 2023)
● Telangana Govt to ‘Drop’ UAPA Case Against Prof Haragopal, Sudha Bharadwaj, 150 Others (The Wire / June 2023)

The SC Judgment Granting Bail to Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira Is Significant – Various Statements

The SC Judgment Granting Bail to Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira Is Significant – Various Statements

Gonsalves and Ferreira bail judgment: A step in the right direction but where will we go from here?

05/08/2023

The Leaflet / by Sarah Thanawala

The recent Supreme Court judgment granting bail to Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira after five years of incarceration without trial reiterates several established principles of law for the protection of individual liberty and overturns the infirmities in Zahoor Ahmad Watali and Arup Bhuyan (2023), but will it have a ripple effect on the cases of the more than four lakh undertails incarcerated in Indian prisons?
… the bail judgment holds that the letters recovered from the other co-accused persons, witness statements, or the mere possession of literature propagating violence or promoting the overthrow of democratically elected government, does not prove that the two accused were involved in terrorist acts within the definition of the UAPA.
Read more


Why the SC Judgment Granting Bail to Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira Is So Significant

30/07/2023

The Wire / by Mihir Desai

The judgment has substantial implications not just for the others still in jail in the Elgar Parishad case but also for the bail jurisprudence in UAPA cases.
The restrictive bail provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act have been widely used to deny personal liberty to activists, students, journalists and others.
… It is in this context that the July 28 bail judgment of the Supreme Court in Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira’s case needs to be seen. Undoubtedly for the two of them, who have been in jail for nearly five years, it has immense significance. But what should not be lost sight of is that the judgment also has substantial implications not just for the others still in jail in the Elgar Parishad case but also for the bail jurisprudence in UAPA cases.
Read more


Not Thwarted by Watali: Why Bail for Vernon Gonsalves & Arun Ferreira Matters

01/08/2023

The Quint / by Mekahala Saran

The Supreme Court judgment flatly refuses to accept the prosecution’s submissions without its own analysis.
In the days that followed Father Stan Swamy’s demise in 2021, the Bombay High Court is believed to have noted that he was “a wonderful person”. The eighty-four year old, a UAPA accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, was awaiting bail at the time of his death.
… So, when his co-accused Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira were finally granted bail, with the apex court shredding the prosecution’s case for their continued incarceration, Fr Stan Swamy’s friend Fr Joseph Xavier told The Quint that Fr Swamy would have been “very happy and proud to hear of this”, had he been alive.
Read more


On merits: On the Bhima Koregaon violence case

31/07/2023

The Hindu / Editorial

Following the Supreme Court bail order, the Bhima Koregaon case needs a re-look.
The Supreme Court order granting bail to activists Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira demonstrates how even under a stringent anti-terrorism law, denial of bail need not be the norm, and a preliminary assessment can lay bare the weaknesses of a police case. It is difficult for someone arrested under serious provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) to get bail.
… This is the first time in the Bhima Koregaon violence case, in which activists and lawyers were arrested in 2018 on the charge of being part of a Maoist conspiracy, a court has recorded a finding that the accusations may not be true.
Read more


Indian Church leaders welcome grant of bail to activists

31/08/2023

UCA News / by Michael Gonsalves

Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves with Father Stan Swamy and others were accused of plotting to overthrow government
Church leaders and rights activists have hailed the bail granted by India’s top court to co-accused of the late Jesuit priest Father Stan Swamy, booked under a terror-related law.
India’s Supreme Court granting bail to lawyer Arun Ferreira and trade unionist Vernon Gonsalves “is indeed a significant move,” Father Nicholas Barla, secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) Commission for Tribal Affairs, told UCA News.
It will boost the morale of the other “activists working for the rights of tribal people, forest-dwellers, and Dalits (former untouchables),” he said.
Read more


What Next after the Vernon Gonsalves Judgment

30/07/2023

The Proof of Guilt / by by Abhinav Sekhri

A Division Bench of the Supreme Court has allowed appeals filed by Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira [Reported as Vernon v. State of Maharashtra, Crl. Appeal No. 639 / 2023 (Decided on 28.07.2023) (“Vernon”)] which challenged the dismissal of their bail applications by the Bombay High Court, and has directed that they must be released on bail. The judgment comes almost five years after their arrests, and has been welcomed as a ray of light in what is possibly one of the darkest corners of present Indian jurisprudence — grant of bail in cases under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967 (“UAPA”). I need not elaborate the reasons for this praise for Vernon here, all of which is merited, as these have been comprehensively discussed on the ICLP Blog. Instead, I wish to flag the challenges ahead that must be resolved to make sure that the judgment in Vernon is not reduced to a forgotten relic by the sands of time.
Read more


Recovering the Basics: The Supreme Court’s Bail Order in Vernon Gonsalves’ Case

29/07/2023

Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy / by Gautam Bhatia

Over the last decade, the bail provisions of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act [“UAPA”] have been one of the most significant sites of constitutional struggles for personal liberty and State impunity (see  and ). A number of convergent factors (as discussed by Abhinav Sekhri in ) are responsible for this: the UAPA’s broadly-worded provisions (e.g. “membership” of terrorist gangs) lowers the threshold for initial arrest and custody, and the pace of the trial process means that years will pass before a final determination of guilt or innocence. In that context, bail is the only remedy that stands between an individual and a decade in jail without trial.
Read more


‘Brings Hope, But…’ Bhima Koregaon Families React to Gonsalves, Ferreira Bail

29/07/2023

The Quint / by Fatima Khan & Mekhala Saran

The Supreme Court has granted bail to Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira, accused in the Bhima Koregaon case.
Even as the Supreme Court granted bail on Friday, 28 July, to two accused in the Elgar Parishad case, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira, the families of the other accused in the same case said that the verdict inspired some hope “but should not be celebrated too much.” Moreover, some even questioned the “insensitive bail conditions.”
Read more


Also read:
Why the Bombay High Court granted regular bail to Dr. Anand Teltumbde: An explainer (The Leaflet / Dec 2022)
A Professor’s Supreme Court Bail Hearing Is A Bellwether Case For Govt’s Use of India’s Anti-Terror Law (article14 / Nov 2022)

Telangana Govt to ‘Drop’ UAPA Case Against Prof Haragopal, Sudha Bharadwaj, 150 Others

Telangana Govt to ‘Drop’ UAPA Case Against Prof Haragopal, Sudha Bharadwaj, 150 Others

Drawing by Arun Fereirra

Telangana Govt to ‘Drop’ UAPA Case Against Prof Haragopal, Sudha Bharadwaj, 150 Others

17/06/2023

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

Chief minister of Telangana, K. Chandrashekar Rao, is said to have inquired about the case with the state police chief and asked him if it can be diluted.
The Telangana government is said to have decided not to pursue the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) case filed against Prof Haragopal, Sudha Bharadwaj, and 150 others after chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao directed the state police chief to “drop” the case, The Hindu reported.
Read more


Work of fiction by police, says Professor Haragopal on UAPA charges against him, 151 others

17/06/2023

The News Minute / by IANS

The former professor of political science was reacting to the booking of a case under UAPA by Tadvai police of Mulugu district last year.
Human rights activist and former University of Hyderabad professor, G. Haragopal, who, along with 151 others, were booked by the Telangana Police under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for alleged links with Maoists, said on Friday that they had no information why the action against them was taken.
Read more


KCR intervenes to drop UAPA charges against rights activists

17/06/2023

The Statesman / by Statesman News Service

The move came in the wake of outrage of outrage over registration of cases against human rights activist Prof Haragopal and 151 others under the the draconian law.
Following an outrage over registration of cases against human rights activist Prof Haragopal and 151 others by Telangana Police under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao directed the state DGP Anjani Kumar to withdraw the draconian law.
Read more


Activists Haragopal, Sudha Bharadwaj, 150 Others Booked Under UAPA Last August; Accused Unaware

16/06/2023

The Wire / by Sumit Jha

The Telangana Police had registered the case in August 2022 accusing them of conspiring to ‘take over the power of the democratically elected government at gunpoint’. The issue came to light only on Thursday, June 15.
… Prominent among those named in the FIR, apart from Prof Haragopal, Prof Padmaja Shaw of Osmania University (OU), Telangana Civil Liberties Committee President Prof Gaddam Laxman, Indian Association of People’s Lawyers’ Justice (Retd) H Suresh, activist Sudha Bharadwaj, human rights lawyer Surendra Gadling, and activist Arun Ferreira.
Read more


Telangana Police filed charges under UAPA against 152

16/06/2023

The Statesman / by Statesman News Service

However, the people, including two professors, named in the FIR were unaware of the charges under UAPA until the matter came to light during another trial.
… The charges under the UAPA were brought against the 152 accused after the police carried out combing operations on 19 August, 2022 after receiving a tip off that the Maoists were holding a meeting at Berelli village. When the police reached a temporary shelter, the Maoists escaped into a dense forest. The police seized some Maoist literature and kit bags on the spot and the names of Prof Haragopal and Padmaja Shaw, Prof Gaddam Laxman, Sudha Bharadwaj, Arun Ferreira were apparently found in the literature left behind.
Read more


Also read:
● The UAPA Versus Khurram Parvez, an Extreme Law Versus a Rights Defender (The Wire / June 2023)
● Report: UAPA – CRIMINALISING DISSENT AND STATE TERROR (PUCL / Sep 2022) Download report
Telangana govt bans Revolutionary Writers Association, 15 other orgs (Siasat / April 2021)
Andhra govt, Centre ‘collude’ to repeat Bhima Koregaon type case against rights activists (counterview.net / April 2021)
The Govt is out to silence Dissenters through Arrests: Justice Hosbet Suresh (Sabrangindia / Oct 2018)