dalits – Page 5 – free them all

Thousands gather at Chaityabhumi to pay homage to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar

07/12/2022 Asha

Dalit women must fight for rights: Ambedkar’s granddaughter

07/12/2022

Deccan Herald / by DHNS

Referring to the Bhima Koregaon case, she said Dalits are steadily adopting a “silent stance,” despite being attacked regularly across the country
B R Ambedkar’s granddaughter Ramabai Anand Teltumbde on Tuesday appealed to women to ‘unite and fight’ for scholarships and employment opportunities, indirectly hitting out at the Modi administration.
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Thousands gather at Chaityabhumi to pay homage to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar

07/12/2022

The Hindu / by Sonam Saigal

People of all ages, young and old, calling themselves ‘Ambedkar,’ gathered at Chaityabhumi, the cremation ground of the Father of the Indian Constitution.
Thousands of men, women and children from across Maharashtra came to Mumbai on Tuesday to pay homage to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar on his 66th death anniversary.
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What does bail for Teltumbde after 2.5 years say about the judiciary and democracy in India?

03/12/2022 Asha

AllIndiansMatter.com / by Ashraf Engineer

Hello and welcome to All Indians Matter. I am Ashraf Engineer.
Anand Teltumbde, one of the 16 accused in the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case, finally walked out of prison on November 26 after his bail was upheld by the Supreme Court. Many experts opined that him having to wait two and a half years for bail was an abject failure of the judiciary. Speaking after his release, the scholar-activist said: “I am obviously happy to be released after 31 months for which I have been in prison. The sad part, however, is that we had to spend time in jail for years after being booked in a fake case…” The 73-year-old anti-caste writer had been in prison since 2020 under the Draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, or UAPA.
Podcast / Episode transcript
en | 12:43min | 2022
Listen to podcast / Read transcript

Bhima Koregaon – Before the Law

14/11/2022 Asha

Monthly Review / by Saroj Giri

In “Before the Law,” Franz Kafka portrays a countryman who can only be forever “before the law,” but never entering. “It is possible” to gain entry, says the doorkeeper, “but not at the moment.” The man gets old and is about to die—and only now does he understand that the gate was meant for him! “No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it.“
… Bhima Koregaon is, in terms of its empirics, so loaded with historical memory and the legacy of caste oppression that the so-called progressive left would rather take cover in the past-erasing, rarefied realms of the futuristic non-world of the constitution and the rights and innate liberties it supposedly guarantees to all citizens. Before the law, any day!
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Also read/watch:
● The Bhima Koregaon Arrests and the Resistance in India (Monthly Review / April 2022)
● Let’s Remember the Lesson of Bhima Koregaon: Down with the New Peshwai (Sanhati, by Sudhir Dhawale │ March 2018)

● Documentary: The battle of Bhima Koregaon – an unending journey

multiple Indian languages / en subtitles │ 50 min │ 2017

By pedestrian pictures

Direction and Camera – Somnath Waghmare
Editor – Deepu (Pradeep K P)

About the film
History speaks about great wars fought, brave warriors and clever kings and emperors. What history doesn’t do is justice to the wars, warriors and leaders of the oppressed. This documentary is about the 500 Mahar soldiers who offered to fight alongside their countrymen, against the colonisers. Rejected by the ruling class they joined forces with the colonisers and fought in the ‘Bhima Koregaon Battle’, defeating the Brahminical rule of the Peshwas. Just as history did, so do the media and ruling class today conveniently forget to acknowledge them. On the 1st of January, every year, 20 lakh (2 million) people gather at Bhima-Koregaon, Pune, Maharashtra to commemorate that battle. No national or local media covers the largest annual gathering in the region. The documentary captures the history of Bhima Koregaon and its relevance to contemporary Dalit issues and politics in the country. It tells the history of the Bahujans through the coverage of the events of this gathering.
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Kabir Kala Manch incited hatred, passion at Elgar Parishad: Bombay High Court [read order]

18/10/2022 Asha

Kabir Kala Manch Incited Hatred By Ridiculing Phrases Acche Din, Demonetization In Plays: Bombay HC [read order]

18/10/2022

Live Law / by Sharmeen Hakim

Text ridiculing phrases like ‘Ram Mandir’ and ‘Acche Din’ aimed at the democratically elected government in Kabir Kala Manch’s plays at the Elgar Parishad event in 2017 incited hatred & passion and indicate a larger conspiracy, the Bombay High Court has held.
In its detailed order refusing bail to accused Jyoti Jagtap under UAPA, the HC also took exception to the mention of ‘gomutra,’ ‘calling the PM an ‘infant,’ ‘sanatan dharma,’ ‘atrocities of peshwas towards dalits’ and ‘atrocities of dalits in today’s India’ etc.
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Kabir Kala Manch incited hatred, passion at Elgar Parishad: Bombay High Court

17/10/2022

India Today / by Vidya

Jyoti Jagtap was an active member of the KKM which, during its stage play at the Elgar Parishad conclave on December 31, 2017, gave not only “aggressive but highly provocative slogans”, the court said.
The Kabir Kala Manch (KKM) admittedly performed and incited hatred by performing on an agenda in the Elgar Parishad event, the judgment passed by the division bench of Justices AS Gadkari and MN Jadhav of the Bombay High Court observed while rejecting the bail plea of one of the accused, Jyoti Jagtap.
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Also read:
● Kabir Kala Manch: A History of Revolutionary Singing and State Repression (ritimo / April 2022)

And a place Sudhir Dhawale calls home

22/08/2022 Asha

Midday.com / by Ajaz Ashraf

It is more a face than a place this Bhima Koregaon accused can refer to as home; one who stayed against all odds and continues to share his goal—to unite progressive forces to socially transform India.
Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in,” wrote poet Robert Frost. His profound observation defines the relationship between Sharad Gaikwad and Sudhir Dhawale. They are not related; they did not know each other until 2004, when the politics of protest brought them together. Yet when Sudhir had nowhere to go, it was Sharad who rented a room for his friend to reside in.
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Also read:
● And prayers to Lord for Arun Ferreira (Midday.com / Aug 2022)
● And Vernon’s letters to his son (Midday.com / July 2022)
● And comrades admire Jyoti Jagtap (Midday.com / July 2022)
● And the letters of Rona Wilson (Midday.com / June 2022)
● And Allah’s call to Hany Babu (Midday.com / June 2022)
● And Ma can’t sing with Sagar (Midday.com / June 2022)
● And he waits for Shoma Sen (Midday.com / May 2022)
● And she waits for Gautam Navlakha (Midday.com / May 2022)

The Importance of Anand Teltumbde’s Thoughts in a Republic of Caste

05/08/2022 Asha

The Wire / by M.S. Sriram

Anyone engaging seriously with Teltumbde’s work will know his beliefs are antithetical to the crimes he is being accused of.
As an email circulates to support a campaign to name Professor Anand Teltumbde in the list of world’s top thinkers to be listed in Prospect magazine, it is time to take note of his important work: Republic of Caste (2018) and put it in perspective. This is more important in the context of the campaign to have a “har ghar tiranga” for the Amrit Mahotsav of Azaadi. If the 75th year of this nation’s freedom cannot be celebrated with a free man and a free mind, the flying of the flag is but symbolic.
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Jailed Or Punished, With Or Without Trial: How The State Misuses The Law Against India’s Inconvenient Citizens

19/07/2022 Asha

Article14 / by Mani Chander

The arrests and continued incarceration of fact-checker Mohammad Zubair, political activist Javed Mohammed and the exoneration of 121 Adivasis accused of terrorism are the latest evidence of how the State adopts extra legal methods of dealing with ‘inconvenient citizens’- including journalists, dissidents, activists or the poorest Indians – to push official narratives of conspiracy and terrorism. The common threads: manipulation or egregious misinterpretation of laws, changing accusations, unknown or untraceable complainants and the abandonment of due process by police and courts.
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Video: Online discussion on Anand Teltumbde – Decoding Strategies of Resistance

15/07/2022 Asha

en | 1h 55min | 2022

By National Campaign to Defend Democracy

July 15, 2022 marks the third birthday that Anand Teltumbde spends in prison.
On the occasion of his birthday, the National Campaign to Defend Democracy organized a discussion about his contributions as an activist, scholar and a public intellectual.

Watch the panel discussion @ PUCL fb page

Your Ideas Have Spread Like Wildfire: A Letter to Anand Teltumbde on His Birthday / His thoughts strive to liberate us

15/07/2022 Asha

‘Your Ideas Have Spread Like Wildfire’: A Letter to Dr Anand Teltumbde on His Birthday

15/07/2022

The Wire / by Suraj Yengde, Balmurli Natrajan, Meena Kandasamy, Sangeeta Kamat and Biju Mathew

“The world is at the brink of not giving up, of refusing, of resisting. You are that world in a world apart who has shown us to not give up.”

Dear Anand,
The din of darkness sprawls, the night sky devours and us – those who love you yearn for the patient past to be with us and skip the present. There is a silence in the lover’s island while the canon of flames has died in a fascist land.
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Republic of Caste: Anand Teltumbde’s thoughts strive to liberate us even as he is in jail

15/07/2022

Scroll.in / by Jean Drèze

His vision of working-class unity with an anti-caste core may or may not be realisable, but it is an important line of argument and action at the very least.
“Turn in any direction you like, caste is the monster that crosses your path.” This powerful image from Dr Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste, published in 1936, still rings true today. That would be obvious enough from the point of view of the oppressed castes, but they are not the only victims of the caste system. India’s entire society, culture and politics are also casualties of it.
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Also read:
● Why Anand Teltumbde Matters – My Birthday Wish To A Caged Bird (YKA / Jul 2022)

Why Anand Teltumbde Matters – My Birthday Wish To A Caged Bird

09/07/2022 Asha

YKA / by Ashwin Narayanan

“I am off to NIA custody and do not know when I shall be able to talk to you again. However, I earnestly hope that you will speak out before your turn comes.”
Two years ago, I read these stinging lines from Professor Anand Teltumbde’s letter (on The Wire’s website) on the eve of his arrest. Prof. Anand is a scholar, writer, civil rights activist and management professor. He is also the grandson-in-law of Dr B. R. Ambedkar. I had never known about Prof. Anand or his history of struggle for the marginalized before reading his letter.
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