Activist Rona Wilson, incarcerated in the Elgar Parishad case that has still not gone into trial, pens a note for a friend.
“I have lived all my conscious life on the campuses of learning and teaching in search of knowledge, love and freedom. In the course of this search, I learnt that freedom for a few was no freedom.”
– G.N. Saibaba, from Why Do You Fear My Way So Much? Poems and Letters from Prison
The untimely death of G.N. Saibaba (fondly known as Sai among his friends and well-wishers) when he was about to start his life afresh after acquittal betrays the brutality and inhumanity that the state had meted out to him during his long incarceration. Read more
▪ Video: State’s Job is to Serve People, Not Punish Them: G N Saibaba
en | 38:33 | 2024
Newsclick / by Newsclick Team
Former DU professor G.N. Saibaba, who passed away in Hyderabad on Saturday, had recounted his harrowing ordeal during 10 years in jail at a press conference in New Delhi in March this year. Watch video
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.
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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
What Freedom Means For India’s Political Prisoners
15/08/2024
Outlook / by Apsksha Priyadarshini
For political prisoners, freedom becomes a longing for small mercies that make us human
Maryam was six—the youngest of three siblings—when her father, Khalid Saifi, was arrested following the sectarian violence in northeast Delhi in February 2020. The violence took place against the backdrop of months of protests led by Muslim women at several sites across the national capital and in the country, against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the proposed updates to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR). Maryam’s mother Nargis recalls the day as the beginning of “a dark, endless night” that has been written into their fates. Read more
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
India Cries for Freedom!
13/08/2024
Countercurrents / by Cedric Prakash
India cries for Freedom: Thanks to the relentless struggles and sacrifices of our freedom fighters, on 15 August 1947, India made her tryst with destiny! After years of colonial rule, she finally became an independent nation. Ever since (during these past 77 years), India has made rapid strides in every sphere, and this fact must be applauded; however, one must also humbly admit that, India still has an unimaginable long way to go in the internalisation and actualisation of her freedom!
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India cries for Freedom for Human rights defenders (HRDs), right to information seekers and others who take a stand for truth, justice and human rights. They are at the receiving end of a vicious and vindictive system. The are intimidated, incarcerated and even killed! These include those in the Bhima Koregaon conspiracy case; Jesuit Father Stan Swamy is a case in point. Read more
Subcategorisation verdict: India needs a reservation model solving the problem of caste, not perpetuating it
For reservation benefits to accrue equitably to all people, families that availed themselves of reservation and its benefits should experience a proportionate suppression of their chances the next time they attempt to get reservation, writes Anand Teltumbde.
The recent verdict of the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court upholding the legality of the sub-classification of Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) for the purpose of reservations has already created an avalanche of reactions, both positive and negative, most groping like the proverbial blind man describing an elephant. Read more
According to the resolution, Father Stan played a key role in one of the most significant Adivasi movements in contemporary India.
Three American lawmakers have introduced a resolution in the US House of Representatives, encouraging India to pursue an independent investigation into the arrest, incarceration and death of Father Stan, a human rights activist who died in custody on July 5, 2021. Read more
Indian villagers vow to keep alive Father Swamy’s legacy
08/07/2024
UCA News / by UCA News Reporter
The Jesuit priest became a mot in the eye of the pro-Hindu government for standing with tribal people
People in a southern Indian village have vowed to keep alive the legacy of Jesuit Father Stan Swamy, who they say was forced to die as a prisoner three years ago because of his commitment to the poor.
Young people in Swamy’s native village of Viragalur in Tamil Nadu state have formed an association — Stan Swamy Youth Association — to immortalize the memory of the priest through their work. Read more
Three years after Stan Swamy’s death in custody, activists recall his contributions to Adivasi cause
05/07/2024
Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff
Activists stressed the need to take the human rights campaigner’s work ahead at an event in Ranchi to mark his third death anniversary.
Three years after human rights activist and Catholic priest Stan Swamy died in police custody in a Mumbai hospital, his name remains to be cleared of the allegations against him in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon case.
This is what activist Aloka Kujur reminded her fellow activists and supporters who had gathered at the Bagaicha Social Research Centre in Ranchi on Friday to commemorate Swamy’s third death anniversary. Read more
Celebrating the Spirit of Stan Swamy
05/07/2024
Sabrangindia / by Fr Cedric Prakash SJ
When on 5 July 2021, they killed Jesuit Fr Stan Swamy, they succeeded only in destroying the frail body of an 84-year-old Catholic Priest. Today, three years after that fateful day, the Spirit of Stan Swamy lives on. Millions of people: the Adivasis and the Dalits, the excluded and the exploited, the marginalised and the exploited, the displaced and the denied, the poor and other vulnerable, the academics and the writers, human rights defenders, other civil society and political leaders remember him with fondly. Read more
Father Stan Swamy: “I am not a silent spectator!”
05/07/2024
Christiantoday.co.in / by Fr. Cedric Prakash SJ
Just before his arrest in October 2020, in a video-message that went viral, Fr. Stan Swamy said, “What is happening to me is not something unique happening to me alone. It is a broader process that is taking place all over the country. We are all aware how prominent intellectuals, lawyers’ writers, poets, activists, students, leaders, they are all put into jail because they have expressed their dissent or raised questions about the ruling powers of India. We are part of the process. In a way I am happy to be part of this process. I am not a silent spectator, but part of the game, and ready to pay the price whatever be it.” Read more
Video: Testimony of Stan Swamy, two days before his arrest on 8 October 2020.
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. More
By Peoples Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR)
Edition: Aug 2021 Publisher: Peoples Union for Democratic Rights, Delhi Language: English
Paperback: 45 pages Access a free PDF copy of the book here
Release India’s Political Prisoners / Video: 10 Political prisoners of the Modi era
Since reaching power, Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has jailed political critics using bogus terrorism and incitement charges. But an electoral setback for his party offers hope of change in India and a crack in his authoritarian Hindutva order.
… There are those who do make it out of prison. But in one harrowing case, imprisonment under the UAPA became a death sentence. In 2018, violent clashes broke out between Dalits and Hindu militant groups in Bhima Koregaon, a village in Maharashtra state. Instead of arresting any militants, police in the state arrested sixteen eminent activists, academics, and lawyers over the next two years — all of whom were involved in civil rights work supporting marginalized Dalits and tribal Adivasi communities. Read more
Video: Meet 10 ‘political prisoners’ of the Narendra Modi regime in jail without trial
By The Telegraph en | 4:45 | 2024
From Kashmir to Pune, from the barrage of detainees from the CAA-NRC protests to the Delhi riots case accused to the infamous Bhima Koregaon arrests, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s time in office has been marked by a number of ‘political prisoners’ who remain indefinitely behind bars, with their trials still pending. Watch video
“A powerful account that reminds us that all-powerful States possess the power to silence dissenters, normalise fear in society, and criminalise opinions of free-thinking individuals and dreamers of equality, and rely on institutional memory to settle scores with dissenters at the time of its choosing.“
While reading journalist-author Ajaz Ashraf’s latest book “Bhima Koregaon Challenging Caste”, I was instantaneously reminded of Lavrentiy Beria, the longest-serving secret police chief in Joseph Stalin’s reign of oppression in Russia and Eastern Europe. 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
▪ The Incarcerations: Bhima Koregaon And The Search For Democracy In India
Author: Alpa Shah
Publishing Date: March 2024
Publisher: Harper Collins Publisher
Pages: 672 Read more / order
The Opposition Must Demand the Release of all Political Prisoners
23/06/2024
The Wire / by Partho Sarothi Ray
It is the duty of a revitalised opposition to prevent the continuation of the darkness that has descended over India in the last 10 years.
The results of the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, although quite unexpected and surprising for many, has brought a fresh breath of life to the sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic Republic of India. Nay, it might have brought it back from the brink of the precipice into which it would have tumbled with another outright victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Read more
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
