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Bhima Koregaon – Before the Law

Bhima Koregaon – Before the Law

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]

Kabir Kala Manch incited hatred, passion at Elgar Parishad: Bombay High Court [read order]

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

And a place Sudhir Dhawale calls home

Sudhir Dhawale

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

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

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

Jailed Or Punished, With Or Without Trial: How The State Misuses The Law Against India’s Inconvenient Citizens

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

Video: Online discussion on Anand Teltumbde – Decoding Strategies of Resistance

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

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

‘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

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

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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And Ma died waiting for Surendra

And Ma died waiting for Surendra

Midday.com / by Ajaz Ashraf

One of Nagpur’s most successful lawyers, Gadling took it upon himself to fight for the rights of Adivasis who were picked up and thrown inside jail after being tagged Maoists. Now he, too, is lodged in jail, without an end of his trial in sight.
There are many ways you could begin the story of lawyer Surendra Gadling, incarcerated in Mumbai’s Taloja Jail under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for his alleged role in the 2018 Bhima-Koregaon violence. You could, for instance, leap over the events of June 6, 2018, the day he was arrested, to begin the story from June 11. 
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Also read:
● And Ma died waiting for Surendra (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)

And he waits for Shoma Sen

And he waits for Shoma Sen

Midday / by Ajaz Ashraf

Falling in love while trying to affect a change in the society, as their hearts beat for adivasis and dalits, the couple has now spent in jail nine out of 31 years of their life together.
I called up Tushar Kanti Bhattacharya, husband of Shoma Sen, an accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, on May 9, with a request: could he tell me their story—she languishing in jail and he alone outside? He said it was on this day in 1991 that Shoma and he were married. 
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Also read:
● And she waits for Gautam Navlakha (Midday / May 2022)