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Tag: Sudha Bharadwaj

The Security Playbook Used To Erode Democracy In Modi’s India & How The Tide Might Turn

The Security Playbook Used To Erode Democracy In Modi’s India & How The Tide Might Turn

article 14 / by Shamik Bag

By using security laws, deploying surveillance technology, and leveraging potent national interest narratives, Narendra Modi’s Hindu-first government has targeted critics and eroded the rule of law in India—often in violation of the Constitution, using legal loopholes and grey areas. Through the lens of the notorious Bhima Koregaon case, we investigate these tactics in-depth, and report how citizens are fighting to preserve the world’s largest democracy.
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Sudha Bharadwaj seeks court’s permission to shift back to Mumbai

Sudha Bharadwaj seeks court’s permission to shift back to Mumbai

TOI / by pti

Sudha Bharadwaj, recently released on bail in the Elgar Parishad-Maoists links case, on Tuesday filed an application before a court seeking permission to live in suburban Mumbai.
Bharadwaj was granted bail by the Bombay high court in December 2021. The special court for National Investigation Agency (NIA) cases, while passing the release order, had directed that she shall not leave Mumbai without permission.
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● Sudha Bharadwaj interview: ‘I hope I can begin practising in Mumbai’ (The Indian Express │ Feb 2022)
● ‘I Am Ready To Put On My Black Coat’: Lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj, Out On Bail After 3 Years In Jail (article 14 │ Jan 2022)
● Sudha Bharadwaj speaks – A Life in Law and Activism. (PUCL │ Jan 2021 │ 316 pages)

3 years in jail have made me stronger, says lawyer-activist Sudha Bharadwaj

3 years in jail have made me stronger, says lawyer-activist Sudha Bharadwaj

Times of India / by Priyanka Kakodkar

After being jailed for 3 years under the UAPA in the Bhima Koregaon case, human rights lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj was released on bail on December 9, 2021. An IIT alumnus who gave up her US citizenship to work as a trade unionist among tribals in Chhattisgarh, she later qualified as a lawyer and was teaching at the National Law University in Delhi at the time of her arrest.
Bail conditions prevent her from speaking about the case but she speaks to Priyanka Kakodkar about her experiences in jail, the desperate condition of undertrials and life ahead.
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Also listen to podcast:

Interview With Sudha Bharadwaj, Bhima Koregaon Accused And Human Rights Lawyer

en | 30:48 min | 2022

Scroll.in / by Smitha Nair

In today’s episode we speak to Sudha Bharadwaj, human rights lawyer and trade unionist who has worked with the most marginalised in Chhattisgarh over the last three decades.
Listen to the podcast

Also read:
● Sudha Bharadwaj: My greatest strength were prison inmates (Rediff.com / Feb 2022)
● Sudha Bharadwaj: I was imprisoned in the phansi yard (Rediff.com / Feb 2022)

Seized Devices Of Seven Accused To Be Submitted To Pegasus Committee

Seized Devices Of Seven Accused To Be Submitted To Pegasus Committee

Court permits NIA to submit seized mobile phones to the SC-appointed Committee probing Pegasus allegations

08/02/2022

The Leaflet / by The Leaflet

A special National Investigation Agency [NIA] Court in Mumbai, on Tuesday, allowed the application filed by the anti-terror agency to submit the seized mobile phones of the seven accused in the Bhima Koregaon case to the Supreme Court-appointed Techincal Committee which is probing the Pegasus spyware scandal.
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Seized Mobile Devices Of Seven Accused To Be Submitted To Pegasus Committee To Check For Possible Snooping

08/02/2022

Live Law / by Sharmee Hakim

Mobile devices of the seven accused in the Bhima Koregaon – Elgar Parishad Case will be submitted to the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Committee (TC) probing allegations of snooping using Pegasus spyware, after the Special Court allowed the National Investigation Agency’s plea.
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Also read:
● Elgar Parishad Accused, Their Lawyers Write to SC’s Committee on Pegasus Spyware Targeting (The Wire / Jan 2022)
● Leaked Data Shows Surveillance Net in Elgar Parishad Case May Have Crossed a Line (The Wire / July 2021)

In Covid-hit India, where are the women? In Byculla Women’s Jail, awaiting trial, awaiting death

In Covid-hit India, where are the women? In Byculla Women’s Jail, awaiting trial, awaiting death


Drawing by Arun Ferreira

Women in and Beyond the Global / by Dan Moshenberg

When Covid hit India, the reports, and for some expectation, were that the State would consider pandemic measures, such as the need for social distancing, and would reduce the incarcerated populations. To no one’s great surprise, that did not happen generally, and in particular it did not happen in women’s jails and prisons. For example, the state of Maharashtra has 60 central and district jails. Of them, one, Byculla Women’s Jail, is the only one dedicated for women and children, but that doesn’t mean the conditions are in any way better. Byculla Women’s Jail has always been an overcrowded hellhole for women and children.
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Also read:
● Sudha Bharadwaj: My greatest strength were prison inmates (Rediff.com / Feb 2022)
● Another COVID-19 Outbreak in Byculla Prison Highlights Lessons That Haven’t Been Learnt (The Wire / Sep 2021)
● Coronavirus | 38 inmates of Byculla jail test positive (The Hindu / April 2021)

‘The State snatched away my time with my daughter’ / ‘My greatest strength were prison inmates’

‘The State snatched away my time with my daughter’ / ‘My greatest strength were prison inmates’

Part III: ‘The State snatched away my time with my daughter’

04/02/2022

Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhatkar

‘It’s little things like these – sharing medicines, consoling each other after a mulaqat (meeting) or a tearful phone conversation with your loved ones or when we would return, dejected, when our bails were rejected – that made our time in jail bearable.’
Creativity, says Sudha Bharadwaj, is a vital lifeline for those who find their freedom taken away for crimes they may, or may not, have committed.
Survival as a prisoner during the last three years has been difficult, both emotionally and physically, but her brilliant smile makes light of it.
There were times however, she tells Rediff.com Senior Contributor Neeta Kolhatkar, when she too felt devastated.
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Part IV: ‘It is my love for the people of this country’

04/02/2022

Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhatkar

‘I can’t help it if people don’t love the minorities, the Dalits and Adivasis; they are as much of this country as any other Indian.’
‘If I love them, it does not mean I do not love my country.’
‘It is ironic and funny that they have laid such severe anti-national charges against me.’
Good memories. And bad.
Difficult moments. And memorable ones.
Trade union leader, activist and lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj has gathered them all in her challenging walk through Life.
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Part II: ‘My greatest strength were prison inmates’

03/02/2022

Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhatkar

‘You are with each other 24×7, so how can you ignore someone crying next to you?’
‘How can you not share a piece of chicken with someone who is sitting next to you and watching you eat it?’
‘Of course, you will share.’
‘And you become friends with the kind of people you never thought you’d even know.’
In a conversation with Rediff.com Senior Contributor Neeta Kolhatkar, Sudha Bharadwaj explains how she kept her spirits up.
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Also read:
● Part I: ‘I was imprisoned in the phansi yard’ (Rediff.com / Feb 2022)

‘I was imprisoned in the phansi yard’ – Sudha Bharadwaj speaks to Neeta Kolhatkar

‘I was imprisoned in the phansi yard’ – Sudha Bharadwaj speaks to Neeta Kolhatkar

Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhatkar

‘I was told to go to the next room and strip — that’s when it really hits you for the first time… that you are a criminal and you are being treated like one.’
‘It comes as a shock when, instead of your name, you hear, “Yeh naya Maowadi aaya hai (A new Maoist has arrived)”.’
Sudha Bharadwaj speaks to Rediff.com Senior Contributor Neeta Kolhatkar about her experiences in jail. Considering prisoners are denied basic human rights – mulaqatein (meetings) with her daughter were tough – the coping mechanisms adopted by women, she says, are fascinating and have kept her going.
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E-Book: From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada
By Sudha Bharadwaj (Author)

Publisher : ‎ Juggernaut (10 October 2023)
Language‏ : ‎ English
Some prisoners pray, some weep, some just put down their heads and work themselves weary. Sudha Bharadwaj watched through the bars of her cell, and she wrote. This is her remarkably granular account of the world of women prisoners in Yerawada Jail in Pune. Bharadwaj was incarcerated here, in a high-security wing called Phansi Yard, from November 2018 to February 2020. She takes us through jail life, her own and the other women’s, from one season to the next, weaving in lively portraits of her fellow prisoners, their children and even their pets, and reflecting on everything from absurd rules, caste hierarchies, food, fistfights and friendships, to the dismal absence of legal aid for the most defenceless of women.
Pre-order

My Spirit has not Been Broken: Activist Sudha Bharadwaj

My Spirit has not Been Broken: Activist Sudha Bharadwaj

NewsClick / by Ajaz Ashraf

When I turned 21, I was free to choose whether I wanted to be Indian or American. I chose to be Indian, basically, because I was already involved in social issues by then. At no point I wished I was in the United States.
This is the second part of the interview with Sudha Bharadwaj, who was arrested on 28 October 2018 for her alleged role in fomenting the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence. In this interview, she speaks on her privileged class background, why she gave up her American citizenship, what made her shift to Chhattisgarh, where she worked among industrial workers to better their lives, about how she spent time in jail, and her anxiety of being separated from her daughter. Bharadwaj discusses how she hopes to adjust to a life of limited freedom.
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Also Read
● Part 1: Patriotism of Social Activists is Increasingly being Punished: Activist Sudha Bharadwaj (Newsclick / Jan 2022)