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No trial, no bail; no justice

No trial, no bail; no justice

Madhyamam / by Editorial Desk

The government is delaying the trial without even starting it, as there is no evidence to establish fabricated charges against the accused, and for buying time to produce false witnesses and false evidence.
… Dr Hani Babu, a Keralite professor at Delhi University, has been facing this kind of ‘punishment’ for more than five years. Hani Babu’s crime is that he campaigned against caste-based injustices and social inequalities. He has been arrested and sent to a Maharashtra jail in the Bhima-Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case, which has implicated leading rights activists in the country, from Stan Swami to Sudha Bharadwaj.
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Also read:
▪ In Surendra Gadling’s case, adjournment becomes the verdict (Frontline / Aug 2025)
▪ Who Is a ‘Political Prisoner’? Rona Wilson Says Caste and Religion Are Key to the Answer (The Wire / Feb 2025)
▪ Many Prisoners at Taloja Jail Not Produced Before Court For Years, Reveals Survey by Surendra Gadling and Sagar Gorkhe (The Wire / Feb 2025)
▪ When Push Comes to Shove: Tracking Judicial Recusals and Transfers (The Wire / Apr 2023)
▪ Inconsistencies in Bail Orders Mean Individual Liberty Is the Outcome of Judicial Lottery (The Wire / Oct 2022)

Stan Swamy Lecture Cancelled – A Case Study in India’s Shrinking Space for Dissent

Stan Swamy Lecture Cancelled – A Case Study in India’s Shrinking Space for Dissent

The Print / by Ranjan Solomon

St. Xavier’s bowed to ABVP pressure, cancelling a memorial for the late Jesuit activist, exposing the deepening crisis of free speech and academic courage in India.
The cancellation of the Stan Swamy Memorial lecture and the weaponisation of allegations, truth is obfuscated. 
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Also read:
▪ “Sorry, Stan!” (Countercurrents / Aug 2025)
▪ Daring, Fearless and Kind, Father Stan Swamy Remains a Beacon of Resistance (The Wire | by Hany Babu, Jyoti Jagtap, Mahesh Raut, Ramesh Murlidhar Gaichor, Sagar Gorkhe, Surendra Gadling | Jul 2025)

▪ Video: Testimony of Stan Swamy, two days before his arrest on 8 October 2020.


en | 7:48 min | Oct 6, 2020
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Daring, Fearless and Kind, Father Stan Swamy Remains a Beacon of Resistance

Daring, Fearless and Kind, Father Stan Swamy Remains a Beacon of Resistance

The Wire / by Hany Babu, Jyoti Jagtap, Mahesh Raut, Ramesh Murlidhar Gaichor, Sagar Gorkhe, Surendra Gadling

On the fourth anniversary of Father Stan’s death due to alleged medical negligence in prison, his co-defendants in jail have vowed to lead a hunger strike.
On July 5, 2021, Father Stan Swamy left us, succumbing to failing health aggravated by the deliberate denial of medical care by a repressive state as part of its devious strategy in the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case. Four years have passed since this institutional murder of Father Stan. We seethe in indignation on the very memory of this day, when the real, violent, blood-thirsty face of the state unravelled to one and all.
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Stan Swamy’s death questions India’s humanity today

Stan Swamy’s death questions India’s humanity today

UCA News / by Dr. John Singarayar

It prompts us all to ask: What kind of society do we want to become?
Father Stan Swamy’s death in custody raises profound questions about India’s commitment to humanity under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
The 84-year-old Jesuit priest and tribal rights activist died on July 5, 2021, while imprisoned under harsh anti-terror laws, triggering outrage and sorrow across the nation.
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Also read:
▪ Will anti-Naxal drive pave way for mining giants? (The New Indian Express / May 2025)
▪ Full report: Submission to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (Human Rights Watch / Sep 2023)
▪ Jharkhand police to probe into Maoist links with Stan Swamy’s ‘Bagaicha’, 63 other frontal organisations (The New Indian Express / Sep 2023)
▪ Modi government’s actions against the Christian minority reveal a deep malaise within our society (Scroll.in / Mar 2022)

Will anti-Naxal drive pave way for mining giants?

Will anti-Naxal drive pave way for mining giants?

The New Indian Express / by Gurbir Singh

Is the government campaign aimed at ‘finishing off’ the extremists, or are the larger goals to open up central India’s mineral and natural resources for exploitation? Or both?
… Over the years, Maoists, NGOs and even priests like Stan Swamy have mobilized these tribal communities to resist corporate expansion. The state forces, on the other hand, have intervened to crush the protests.
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Also read:
▪ Three years after Stan Swamy’s death in custody, activists recall his contributions to Adivasi cause (Scroll.in / Jul 2024)
▪ Jharkhand police to probe into Maoist links with Stan Swamy’s ‘Bagaicha’, 63 other frontal organisations (The New Indian Express / Sep 2023)
▪ Statement against the drone bomb attacks in Chhattisgarh, India (India Matters / April 2023)
▪ DISINHERITING ADIVASIS – THE GADCHIROLI GAME PLAN (KAFILA / June 2018)
▪ The legal face of corporate land grab in Chhattisgarh (India Environmental Portal | by Sudha Bharadwaj | Feb 2018)
▪ Mining In Gadchiroli – Building A Castle Of Injustices (Countercurrents | by Neema Pathak Broome and Mahesh Raut | June 2017)

Podcast: Alpa Shah on the Bima Koregaon case and India’s democratic decline

Podcast: Alpa Shah on the Bima Koregaon case and India’s democratic decline

Himal Southasian / by The Editors

The BK-16 case links India’s harmful neoliberal policies, state authorities abuse of laws, and the collapse of institutions, says the social anthropologist
… In this episode of State of Southasia, Shah speaks to Nayantara Narayanan about the work of the BK16 with indigenous communities and other minorities, their pushback against neoliberal policies and why they were seen as threats by the Indian state, and how and why they were implicated in the Bhima Koregaon case. The case shows a “very direct link between the kinds of interests of the state and corporate powers in accessing resources that lie under [Adivasi] lands and the fight for justice of those people who those lands belong to,” she says.


en | 47:09 min | 2025
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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:
▪ The Feared – Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners

Author: Neeta Kolhatkar
Publishing Date: Dec 2024
Publisher: S&S India
Pages: 272
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▪ Process as Punishment – Recent books that bear witness to the BK-16’s incarceration (The Caravan / Jul 2024)

A caged bird can still sing – clearing Fr Stan’s name

A caged bird can still sing – clearing Fr Stan’s name

Illustration by #bakeryprasad

The Tablet / by Joseph Xavier SJ

The Indian Jesuit and human rights defender Fr Stan Swamy, who was suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, died in custody, aged 84, in 2021. He would have been 88 on 26 April this year. Jesuits around the world are calling on the Government of India to declare him innocent of the crimes of which he was accused.
Fr Stan Swamy died as an “undertrial” at Holy Family Hospital, Mumbai on July 5, 2021. In 2023, I met Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Anand Teltumbde in Mumbai after they were released on bail. All three were implicated in the Bhima Koregaon case, popularly known as the BK16 or Elgar Parishad case, as there were 16 accused.
Arun Ferreira lived with Stan in the same prison cell and took care of Stan like a mother. Vernon and Anand became good friends discussing various socio-political issues. 
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Also read/watch:
▪ Caged birds and prison songs: In chorus, Stan Swamy and the Bhima Koregaon accused kept hope alive (Scroll.in | by Vernon Gonsalves | Jul 2023)
▪ How the system broke Stan Swamy: A cell mate recalls the activist’s last days in prison (Scroll.in | by Arun Ferreira | Aug 2021)

▪ Video: Testimony of Stan Swamy, two days before his arrest on 8 October 2020.


en | 7:48 min | Oct 6, 2020
Watch video

Rationality seems upside down: ‘Intellectuals’ who endorse state violence!

Rationality seems upside down: ‘Intellectuals’ who endorse state violence!

South First / by N Venugopal

The rationality that the Telugu society cultivated 50 years ago—rejecting state oppression and embracing humanistic values—now seems to have been turned upside down.
When an ordinary citizen commits murder, it is a punishable offense. But if the government itself, through the home minister, announcing deadlines for killing people, is that not a crime? And when so-called intellectuals clap and cheer for these murders, is that not a crime too?
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Also read:
▪ Condemn the NIA’s raid in Andhra-Telangana to suppress democratic voices critical of war of corporate plunder ( Countercurrents / Oct 2023)
▪ AI Report: India’s exploitation of terrorism financing assessments to target the civil society (Amnesty.org / Sep 2023)
▪ The cost of protesting against mining in Gadchiroli (Scroll.in | by Nolina Minj | Sep 27, 2023)
▪ How Varavara Rao shaped Telangana’s sociopolitics: N Venugopal Rao interview (The Federal / Aug 2023)
▪ Statement against the drone bomb attacks in Chhattisgarh, India (India Matters / April 2023)

India’s Forgotten Country: How State Power & Capitalism Fuel The Totalitarian Temptation

India’s Forgotten Country: How State Power & Capitalism Fuel The Totalitarian Temptation

Credits: Penguin

Article 14 / by Ashoka Mody

In this guest article, economist and writer ASHOKA MODY connects the dots from writer, activist and human rights lawyer Bela Bhatia’s account of her activism to state coercion, corporate interests and the erosion of Indian democracy.
… Bhatia had long campaigned for tribal rights and was frequently at the forefront of protests against police atrocities. By this time, she was likely already under surveillance through the Pegasus spyware—a glaring invasion of her privacy, as she later described to The Telegraph. 
However, September 2019 was an especially dangerous moment to challenge India’s law enforcement. Starting in January 2018, after a violent clash between Dalits and Hindutva supporters in Bhima Koregaon (a historic village near Pune), Indian authorities had arrested about a dozen activists under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967. 
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Also read:
▪ AI Report: India’s exploitation of terrorism financing assessments to target the civil society (Amnesty.org / Sep 2023)
▪ Statement against the drone bomb attacks in Chhattisgarh, India (India Matters / April 2023)
▪ Leaked Data Shows Surveillance Net in Elgar Parishad Case May Have Crossed a Line (The Wire / July 2021)
▪ They were Accused of plotting to overthrow the Modi government – The evidence was planted, a new report says (Washington Post / Feb 2021)

Who Is a ‘Political Prisoner’? Rona Wilson Says Caste and Religion Are Key to the Answer

Who Is a ‘Political Prisoner’? Rona Wilson Says Caste and Religion Are Key to the Answer

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

Having spent six and a half years in jail, the Elgar Parishad accused also said that prisons in India are in a ‘state of emergency’.
Rona Wilson has long been an advocate for prisoners’ rights and a staunch proponent of the term “political prisoner”. However, during his prolonged incarceration in the Elgar Parishad case, Rona found himself grappling with a “moral quandary”.
With new firsthand experiences, observations from his six-and-a-half-year stay in two central prisons in Maharashtra – Yerwada in Pune and Taloja in Navi Mumbai – his activism while incarcerated, and research conducted within the confines of prison, 53-year-old Rona now views the term from a different perspective. He now approaches the subject with a deliberate focus on caste and religious dimensions.
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Also read:
▪ Many Prisoners at Taloja Jail Not Produced Before Court For Years, Reveals Survey by Surendra Gadling and Sagar Gorkhe (The Wire / Feb 2025)
▪ Punished without trial: How India’s political prisoners are being denied basic rights in jail (Scroll.in / Aug 2022)

▪ From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada
Author: Sudha Bhardwaj
Publishing Date: Oct 2023
Publisher: Juggernaut
Pages: 216
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▪ 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
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