As the Maharashtra Assembly elections approach, with the announcement due any day now, the Shinde government has rolled s out last-minute welfare measures! And its “alliance partner,” the BJP has today issued appropriate-ory advertisements, with deputy chief minister Devendra Phadnavis prostrating before a statue of Dr BR Ambedkar; this while the state regime continues to undermine constitutional values while exploiting Dr. Ambedkar’s legacy to secure votes from marginalised communities
… One also cannot forget the infamous Bhima Koregaon case, which is another chilling example of how dissent, especially from Dalit and Adivasi rights activists, has been criminalised in Maharashtra. The case stems from the January 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence, where clashes broke out after Dalits gathered to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon, a symbolic event marking Dalit pride and resistance. Read more
Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste. Brahminism’s wrath against dreamers of equality
Author: Ajaz Ashraf
Publisher: AuthorsUpFront
Publishing Date: June 2024
Pages: 496
Challenging Caste reads the violence at Bhima Koregaon as a clash between two worldviews – one striving to flatten the social hierarchy, the other justifying and perpetuating it. This book rips apart the Maoist conspiracy theory and the Urban Naxal narrative. Read more/order
Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia also write about those who are battling to uphold individual and human rights.
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Vijayan and Recchia talk at length about the notorious Bhima Koregaon case, where 16 activists, teachers, intellectuals, university professors, writers, and lawyers were arrested and charged with arms smuggling, for allegedly helping Maoists, and for hatching a plan to kill Prime Minister Narendra Modi, apart from waging war against the state – Arun Ferreira, Sudha Bharadwaj, Varavara Rao, Vernon Gonsalves, Sudhir Dhawale, Mahesh Raut, Anand Teltumbde, Gautam Navlakha, Hany Babu, Sagar Gorkhe, Ramesh Gaichor, Jyoti Jagtap, Rona Wilson, Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen, and Father Stan Swamy (who died tragically while imprisoned). 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 Read more / order
Video: Discussion on “Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste”
By Paranjoy Online
en | 1:39:02 | 2024
On Thursday 30 July 2024 evening, a lively discussion took place at the India International Centre (Annexe), New Delhi, on the book written by journalist and author Ajaz Ashraf titled “Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste – Brahminism’s Wrath Against Dreamers of Equality” published by Paranjoy/AuthorsUpFront. The discussants were Manoj Kumar, Professor and Member of Parliament belonging to the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Subhashini Ali, member of the Communist Party of India – Marxist and Colin Gonsalves, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India. Watch video
Ajaz Ashraf’s ‘Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste’ sheds light on judiciary role in Elgaar Parishad case
31/08/2024
The Telegraph / by Pheroze L. Vincent
Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves said the case had witnessed “the second biggest betrayal by the judiciary” following its “supine” role during the Emergency
Caste hatred and “State terrorism” came under the spotlight at the release of Ajaz Ashraf’s book, Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste, with speakers also questioning the judiciary’s role in the context of the long incarceration without trial of the Elgaar Parishad accused. Read more
Ajaz Ashraf’s Book on Bhima Koregaon Unveiled at IIC
30/08/2024
Radiance News / by Radiance News Bureau
Senior journalist Ajaz Ashraf’s book, Bhima Koregaon: Challenging the Caste, was launched at India International Centre last evening. The book, published by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, delves into the enduring struggle against casteism, focusing on the events surrounding the Bhima Koregaon incident and its broader implications. 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 This book rips apart the Maoist conspiracy theory and the Urban Naxal narrative. It points out the ironies underlying the State’s charges against the sixteen, and the flimsiness of the evidence that is said to have been planted on their hacked computers. The conspiracy against the sixteen that inflicted untold miseries on their families is retold here in their voices. Read more/order
The prisoners’ courage seems to grow the more it is quenched
… “The publication of 27 profiles made us understand how urgent it was to articulate a more complex and nuanced understanding of the situation of political prisoners,” Recchia tells THE WEEK over Zoom.
She is right, because the book truly is an eye-opener. One might have known the rough outline of what happened to these political prisoners, from the 16 accused of abetting the violence that broke out in Bhima Koregaon in 2018 to those arrested in the anti-CAA protests of 2019. Yet, the true extent of their agony is intricately fleshed out in the book. Read more
I heard about Bhima Koregaon when it was all over the news channels in January 2018. The only thing that I knew were the reports of violence after a clash between Dalit groups and Marathas in and around Bhima Koregaon village in Maharashtra. By 2018, the media had lost all its credibility and most of them were toeing the government line, so I was not sure what is shown on TV news is even correct. I tried to find more information about the Bhima Koregaon event, its history, and its significance. I found some, but it was still not enough and then the book “Bhima Koregaon – Challenging Caste” came out, which takes a deep dive into the whole event, its history, and what happened after the January 2018 violence. It dispelled a lot of doubts and half-truths. Read more
‘The violence, to me, seemed scripted against Dalits,’ says Ajaz Ashraf
23/08/2024
The Hindu / by Sobhana K. Nair
Different castes remember the incident on January 1, 2018, and the reasons for it differently
In Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste, senior journalist Ajaz Ashraf relooks the events that led to the Bhima Koregaon violence on January 1, 2018. Ashraf sees the incident as a clash between two worldviews, one striving to flatten the social hierarchy and the other perpetuating it, as he says in this interview. 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 This book rips apart the Maoist conspiracy theory and the Urban Naxal narrative. It points out the ironies underlying the State’s charges against the sixteen, and the flimsiness of the evidence that is said to have been planted on their hacked computers. The conspiracy against the sixteen that inflicted untold miseries on their families is retold here in their voices. Read more/order
India’s civic space is rated as ‘repressed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor. In recent years, the government has misused the draconian anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and other laws to keep activists behind bars and fabricate cases against activists and journalists for undertaking their work. Read more
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
Process as Punishment – Recent books that bear witness to the BK-16’s incarceration
‘Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste’ by Ajaz Ashraf: Laying bare Maharashtra’s deep-rooted caste fault lines
11/08/2024
The Tribune India / by Debashish Mukerji
By now, it is manifestly clear that the Bhima Koregaon case, unfolding since 2018, is an indelible blot on India’s democratic record.
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Two books recalling these shameful developments have been published this year — ‘The Incarcerations’ by Alpa Shah, an anthropology professor at the London School of Economics, and ‘Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste’ by veteran journalist Ajaz Ashraf. Both are staggeringly well researched; however, while they do inevitably cover much common ground — using interviews with the same people, even quoting from the works of the same experts (such as Paul Brass and Christophe Jaffrelot) — their focuses are somewhat different. Read more
Groundbreaking book, addresses oppression of Dalits, ‘Brahminical’ underpinnings
05/08/2024
Counterview.net / by Harsh Thakor
‘Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste – Brahminism’s Wrath Against Dreamers Of Equality’ is a groundbreaking work addressing the oppression of Dalits and the Brahminical underpinnings of the state. This book compellingly illustrates the perilous consequences faced by those engaged in the struggle against class and caste hierarchies in India, especially since 2014, where any quest for justice and equality is often met with suppression and criminalization. It holds an esteemed place in the literature that confronts proto-fascism and embodies the fury of Brahminism against advocates of equality. Read more
New book investigates Bhima Koregaon—‘riots are manufactured, not spontaneous’
02/08/2024
The Print / by Antara Baruah
There’s no singular account of what happened at Elgar Parishad. In ‘Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste’, Ajaz Ashraf offers precisely this.
The battle in today’s India is between those dreaming of equality and those upholding Brahminical hierarchy. It is within this context that senior journalist Ajaz Ashraf situates the contentious legacy of Bhima Koregaon as a site and symbol of Dalit liberation in his book, Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste.
In the book, he discusses the events following Elgar Parishad—held to commemorate the Battle of Bhima Koregaon’s 200th anniversary on 31 December 2017—and the wrongful arrest of 16 activists, professors, and journalists, collectively known as BK16. Read more
Process as Punishment – Recent books that bear witness to the BK-16’s incarceration
31/07/2024
The Caravan / by Kaashif Hajee
“The Incarcerations” / “How Long Can The Moon Be Caged” / “Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste”
“IT IS ONLY BY CHANCE that I came out of prison alive,” GN Saibaba said, at his first press briefing after his release from Nagpur Central jail on 7 March. The 57-year-old former Delhi University professor also mentioned the inhumane treatment and torture he had faced for nearly ten years in prison. Saibaba, who is wheelchair-bound and over ninety-percent handicapped, was confined to the same cell for over eight years and deprived of a wheelchair. Read more
▪ Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste. Brahminism’s wrath against dreamers of equality
Author: Ajaz Ashraf
Publisher: AuthorsUpFront
Publishing Date: June 2024
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
▪ 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 Read more / order
Bhide would speak against Gandhi and Nehru, in decidedly abusive language, then switch to raising alarm over the rising population of Muslims. Did they know, he would ask his audience, that infants died of heart attack when loudspeakers came alive with the azan, or the Muslim call to prayer?
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In Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste – Brahminism’s Wrath Against Dreamers Of Equality, journalist Ajaz Ashraf takes a close look at the performances and speeches at the Elgar Parishad in Pune on the eve of the Bhima Koregaon violence. These critiqued Brahminism, prime minister Narendra Modi and the ‘new peshwai’ or new age caste oppressors. It provides a rare glimpse into how a Hindutva leader in Maharashtra used the state’s widespread reverence for Maratha warrior king Shivaji to foment anti-Muslim feelings; and studies the impact that James Laine’s book on Shivaji had on Maharashtra’s anti-Brahmin consciousness. 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 This book rips apart the Maoist conspiracy theory and the Urban Naxal narrative. It points out the ironies underlying the State’s charges against the sixteen, and the flimsiness of the evidence that is said to have been planted on their hacked computers. The conspiracy against the sixteen that inflicted untold miseries on their families is retold here in their voices. Read more/order
