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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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)

Video: Revolutionary greetings to Shahir Sagar Gorkhe on his birthday

Video: Revolutionary greetings to Shahir Sagar Gorkhe on his birthday

By Kabir Kala Manch



1:58min | 2022
Watch video

Video: Dafachya Talavar (Songs of Defiance)

Hindi, Marthi (subtitles: English) | 24:01min | 2022

This short documentary tries to trace the personal and collective journeys of artists of Kabir Kala Manch, a People’s cultural troupe consisting of youth from marginalized backgrounds, who sing songs of resistance in the Vidrohi Shahiri tradition. This film profiles these artists and their lived experiences in the context of an unjust and hostile system they are struggling against.
Watch video

Also read:
● Who are the three Kabir Kala Manch artistes arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case? (Scroll.in / Sep 2020)

Jharkhand Jan Sangharsh Morcha is holding the state accountable

Jharkhand Jan Sangharsh Morcha is holding the state accountable

Youthkiawaaz / by Harsh

Established just a few months ago, Jharkhand Jan Sangharsh Morcha (JJSM) is currently acting as an umbrella for over two dozen provincial-local people’s organisations of Jharkhand to raise voices against injustice, exploitation, corruption and to resolve the public problems in the region …
“Father Stan Swamy, who was one of the founder members of Visthapan Virodhi Jan Vikas Andolan, lived for the Adivasi and moolnivasi communities of Jharkhand.
Taking inspiration from him, various people’s organisations have formed this front as a tribute to him to fulfil his dream of bringing all the movements of Jharkhand on one platform,” says Satyam, a social activist associated with the front.
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Also read
● Narendra Modi’s Government Is Using False Charges of Terrorism to Repress Its Opponents (Jacobinmag / April 2022)

Narendra Modi’s Government Is Using False Charges of Terrorism to Repress Its Opponents

Narendra Modi’s Government Is Using False Charges of Terrorism to Repress Its Opponents

Jacobinmag / by P.M. Tony & Lotika Singha

Radical priest Stan Swamy was one of India’s leading social activists. Modi’s government is to blame for his death while awaiting trial on bogus terror charges, but the clampdown won’t snuff out the inspiring legacy of Swamy’s work with Adivasi communities.
Under the rule of Narendra Modi, the Indian state has launched a sweeping authoritarian clampdown on political dissent. One of the manifestations of this onslaught has been the jailing of opponents on trumped-up charges of terrorism and conspiracy.
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Video: Songs of Defiance – A Short Documentary on Kabir Kala Manch

Video: Songs of Defiance – A Short Documentary on Kabir Kala Manch

Video: Dafachya Talavar (Songs of Defiance)

Hindi, Marthi (subtitles: English) | 24:01min | 2022

This short documentary tries to trace the personal and collective journeys of artists of Kabir Kala Manch, a People’s cultural troupe consisting of youth from marginalized backgrounds, who sing songs of resistance in the Vidrohi Shahiri tradition. This film profiles these artists and their lived experiences in the context of an unjust and hostile system they are struggling against.

Watch video

Video Statement by Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor (Sep 5, 2020)


hindi/ english subtitles | 2:20min | 2020
Kabir Kala Manch activists Sagar Gorkhe & Ramesh Gaichor have alleged that they’re being forced by the NIA to give confessional statements, claiming they are a part of Maoist organization. The two refused, and were arrested in The Bhima Koregaon case today. Their statement was recorded on Sep 5, 2020.
Watch their video statement

Who are the three Kabir Kala Manch artistes arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case?

12/09/2020

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

The National Investigation Agency arrested Sagar Gorkhe, Ramesh Gaichor and Jyoti Jagtap from Pune on Monday and Tuesday.
In 2002, as a 19-year-old student in Pune’s Wadia College, Ramesh Gaichor was disturbed by the deadly communal violence in Gujarat that had claimed over 1,000 lives. Passionate about poetry and theatre, he soon found an outlet for expressing his anxieties: the Kabir Kala Manch, a cultural organisation founded by artiste Amarnath Chautaliya in response to the Gujarat riots.
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Also read:
● Kabir Kala Manch: A History of Revolutionary Singing and State Repression (ritimo / April 2022)

Kabir Kala Manch: A History of Revolutionary Singing and State Repression

Kabir Kala Manch: A History of Revolutionary Singing and State Repression

ritimo / by Gurlhosur Geetanjali

Kabir Kala Manch founded in early 2000s has been at the receiving end of the state. As it grew in popularity its members faced incarceration for long years and continued oppression under successive governments.
“I remember it was a rainy day. I was about 23 then. When I heard the group performing in our basti (informal urban cluster), I had goosebumps! I had never heard songs that spoke of the struggles of women, Dalits and the poor. I was enthralled.”
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Video: One Year Of Incarceration – Free Sagar Gorkhe, Jyoti Jagtap and Ramesh Gaichor

Video: One Year Of Incarceration – Free Sagar Gorkhe, Jyoti Jagtap and Ramesh Gaichor

By Kabir Kala Manch

Performance


41 min | Sep 8, 2021

Protest against the arrest of Sagar Gorkhe, Jyoti Jagtap and Ramesh Gaichor
Watch video (Kabir Kala Manch fb page) here

The crushing power of street performances from the margins:
A profile of Kabir Kala Manch’s Sagar Gorkhe, Jyoti Jagtap and Ramesh Gaichor

By The Polis Project and maraa

Kabir Kala Manch
Kabir Kala Manch (KKM) is an urban grass-roots performance group at the helm of a socio-political movement rooted in cultural struggles of the most marginalized communities in India. KKM was formed by working-class youth from low-income Dalit and Bahujan caste communities in Pune as a response to the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat.
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2020 Witnesses the Deliberate Destruction of Democratic Rights Organizations in India

2020 Witnesses the Deliberate Destruction of Democratic Rights Organizations in India


Solidarity poster, July 2020

Groundxero / by Partho Sarothi Ray

The large scale destruction of lives and livelihoods in 2020 caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in India and its inept handling by the government has been accompanied by another sort of destruction, much more deliberate and calculated. It is the destruction of the democratic rights organizations (DROs) of India, as part of a vicious plan of the BJP government to irreparably shrink the democratic space for a future that we can only tremble to think about.
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Jyoti Jagtap – The Young Woman Who Would Not Cry

Jyoti Jagtap – The Young Woman Who Would Not Cry

Article 14 / by Jyoti Punwani

Jyoti Jagtap sang against Hindutva, casteism, inequality. In September, unafraid and resolute, she became the third member of a cultural troupe to be arrested in the Bhima-Koregaon case and its youngest accused. Like 15 others, she faces charges of sedition and waging war against the government of India.
“You can counsel the other inmates in jail. That way your time inside won’t be wasted.”
With these words, Rupali Jadhav bid farewell to her Kabir Kala Manch (KKM) colleague Jyoti Jagtap in the Pune office of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on 8 September 2020.
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Decimation drive – The recent arrest of three Dalit rights activists

Decimation drive – The recent arrest of three Dalit rights activists

Frontline / by Anupama Katakam

The recent arrest of three Dalit rights activists in connection with the Elgar Parishad is seen as an attempt to stifle dissent.
MEMBERS of the Kabir Kala Manch (KKM), a Pune-based cultural activist group, knew it was only a matter of time before the National Investigation Agency (NIA) reached their doorstep. The NIA arrested 12 people in connection with the Elgar Parishad, and as one of the primary organisers of the meeting that hosted 250 Dalit organisations, the KKM was definitely on the radar.
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