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Freedom Of Fantasy | Chinki Sinha In Conversation With Anand Teltumbde

Freedom Of Fantasy | Chinki Sinha In Conversation With Anand Teltumbde

Poster by Siddesh Gautam / #bakeryprasad

Outlook / by Outlook Web Desk

Anand Teltumbde’s room has a single bed, a large window and a bookshelf. This is where he lives and writes. The old building is inside the premises of the famous Rajgruha, a memorial and a museum dedicated to B. R. Ambedkar at Hindu colony of Dadar in Mumbai. Teltumbde, who was arrested in the Bhima-Koregaon violence that happened on January 1, 2018, was released jn November 2022. In an interview with Outlook, he talks about freedom of fantasy and class and caste in India.

en | 01:09:37 | 2024
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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.
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Release India’s Political Prisoners / Video: 10 Political prisoners of the Modi era

Release India’s Political Prisoners / Video: 10 Political prisoners of the Modi era

Jacobin.com / by Safa Ahmed

Since reaching power, Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has jailed political critics using bogus terrorism and incitement charges. But an electoral setback for his party offers hope of change in India and a crack in his authoritarian Hindutva order.
… There are those who do make it out of prison. But in one harrowing case, imprisonment under the UAPA became a death sentence. In 2018, violent clashes broke out between Dalits and Hindu militant groups in Bhima Koregaon, a village in Maharashtra state. Instead of arresting any militants, police in the state arrested sixteen eminent activists, academics, and lawyers over the next two years — all of whom were involved in civil rights work supporting marginalized Dalits and tribal Adivasi communities.
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Video: Meet 10 ‘political prisoners’ of the Narendra Modi regime in jail without trial

By The Telegraph

en | 4:45 | 2024
From Kashmir to Pune, from the barrage of detainees from the CAA-NRC protests to the Delhi riots case accused to the infamous Bhima Koregaon arrests, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s time in office has been marked by a number of ‘political prisoners’ who remain indefinitely behind bars, with their trials still pending.
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Read more: Meet 10 ‘political prisoners’ of the Narendra Modi regime in jail without trial (The Telegraph / June 2024)

Also Read:
▪ How The Indian Prison System Denies Basic Freedoms, Rights And Dignity To Political Prisoners (The Polis Project / June 2024)
▪ The Opposition Must Demand the Release of all Political Prisoners (The Wire / June 2024)
▪ Punished without trial: How India’s political prisoners are being denied basic rights in jail (Scroll.in / Aug 2022)
▪ India’s Hindu Nationalist Project Relies on Brutal Repression (Jacobinmag / April 2021)

7/16 Bhima Koregaon Accused Get Bail, Courts Raise Prima Facie Doubts About Evidence

7/16 Bhima Koregaon Accused Get Bail, Courts Raise Prima Facie Doubts About Evidence

Poster by @/bakeryprasad

Live Law / by Manu Sebastian

The Bhima Koregaon case, in which several activists and academicians have been incarcerated under the draconian Unlawful Activities(Prevention) Act 1967 over alleged Maoist links, raises a big question mark on India’s civil liberties framework. The fact that the trial has not yet commenced for nearly six years makes one question the seriousness of the allegations concerning national security. Moreover, the doubts about the sustainability of the allegations are fortified by the repeated observations made by the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court in the judgments granting bail to some of the accused.
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Video by InSAF India / @IndInsaf (May 23, 2024)


Why has Adivasi land rights scholar-activist Mahesh Raut not been released yet from prison even though he was given bail in 2023?
en | 1:35 | 2024
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Also read:
▪ The process continues to clot as punishment as another year passes by (The Leaflet / Jan 2024)
▪ Recovering the Basics: The Supreme Court’s Bail Order in Vernon Gonsalves’ Case (Constitutional Law and Philosophy / July 2023)
▪ UAPA – CRIMINALISING DISSENT AND STATE TERROR – Study of UAPA Abuse in India, 2009-2022 (PUCL / Sep 2022). Download report

Video: Who are the accused, how many are still in jail / Cases and Charges against the BK16

Video: Who are the accused, how many are still in jail / Cases and Charges against the BK16

By The Print @ youtube


en | 7:23min | 2024
Granting bail to Gautam Navlakha in the Bhima Koregaon violence case, the Supreme Court on Tuesday noted that the trial in the case was not likely to conclude any time soon. What was this case about, how many people have been arrested and how many are out on bail? Apoorva Mandhani tells you in this video.
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The cases and charges against the Bhima Koregaon 16 | Explained

18/05/2024

The Hindu / by Saumya Kalia

An update on the legal status of the 16 activists, lawyers, scholars and artists arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case in 2018.
On March 16, human rights activist Gautam Navlakha penned a letter, piecing together words of lament and surrendering to imminent arrest. Mr. Navlakha, is among the 16 human rights defenders who were arrested without trial in 2018 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, for their alleged role in instigating caste violence at Bhima Koregaon.
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Bhima Koregaon case timeline

14/05/2024

Hindustan Times / by HT Correspondent

The case relates to alleged provocations at a conference that allegedly triggered unrest near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial in Pune
The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted bail to civil rights activist Gautam Navlakha in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence case, saying it might take several years for the trial to conclude considering the number of witnesses and other pertinent factors. Navlakha was arrested for allegedly making provocative remarks in December 2017 at an Elgar Parishad conference a day before violence near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial.
A timeline of the case:
Read more

SC grants bail to Gautam Navlakha: All about the Bhima Koregaon violence case, other accused

14/05/2024

The Indian Express / by Express Web Service

Navlakha was placed under house arrest in Navi Mumbai subject to strict conditions following a Supreme Court order in November 2022, after he pleaded poor health
…
Timeline
Gautam Navlakha was arrested on April 14, 2020, over his alleged involvement in the violence that erupted in Bhima Koregaon village in Pune district on January 1, 2018. Sixteen activists have been arrested in the case — nine by Pune Police in 2018, and another seven by the NIA after it took over the investigation in January 2020 — and eight of them are currently out on bail.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Bhima Koregaon: The process continues to clot as punishment as another year passes by (The Leaflet / Jan 2024)
▪ Truth and dare in Bhima Koregaon (The Leaflet / Oct 2023)

Video | Modi’s India a modern Indian fascism: Alpa Shah / Book excerpt: The Incarcerations

Video | Modi’s India a modern Indian fascism: Alpa Shah / Book excerpt: The Incarcerations

Modi’s India a modern Indian fascism: Alpa Shah, Professor of Social Anthropology

19/04/2024

The Wire / by Karan Thapar


en | 44:51 | 2024
One of British academias most highly regarded anthropologists has said “we need to call Modi’s India a modern Indian fascism”. Alpa Shah says: “Indian fascism may not be of the classic kind, whatever that is, but it’s fascism nevertheless.”
In a 40-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, to mark the launch of her book, ‘The Incarcerations: Bhima Koregaon and the Search for Democracy in India’, Alpa Shah, who is presently Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics but has just been announced as the new Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford University and a fellow of All Souls College, identified seven key characteristics of fascism each of which, it seems, applies almost fully to India under Narendra Modi. She, therefore, argues that terms like “majoritarianism or ethnic democracy or cultural nationalism” do not “convey the gravity of threat to democracy under way in India”.
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The Incarcerations: Bhima Koregaon And The Search For Democracy In India by Alpa Shah

19/04/2024

Article14 / by Alpa Shah

… In The Incarcerations, professor of social anthropology at the London School of Economics Alpa Shah now tells the chilling story of the Bhima-Koregaon case that transformed the 16 human rights defenders who were professors, lawyers, journalists and poets into alleged Maoist terrorists accused of waging a war against the Indian state and plotting to kill prime minister Narendra Modi.

Book excerpt
Only when the streets in Mumbai were deserted because of the Dalit protestors, did the conflict over the Bhima Koregaon British war memorial make it into international news, at The Guardian. In fact, the Indian broadsheets and mainstream TV mainly covered the events only when there was disruption in Mumbai, and then the focus of reporting was on mobs holding the city to ransom, not the casteist violence in Koregaon that they were protesting.
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A new book recounts how 16 activists were imprisoned as terrorists, without trial

27/03/2024

Scroll.in / by Alpa Shah

An excerpt from ‘The Incarcerations: Bhima Koregaon and the Search for Democracy in India’
Amnesty International India and Oxfam India released a joint response the day Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Varavara Rao were arrested. “The nationwide crackdown on activists, advocates and human rights defenders is disturbing and threatens core human rights values.”
Read more

‘Pattern’ of UAPA Being Abused / You spent 10 years in jail for nothing. Who should pay for it?

‘Pattern’ of UAPA Being Abused / You spent 10 years in jail for nothing. Who should pay for it?

Elgar Parishad Case: Bail Orders Show ‘Pattern’ of UAPA Being Abused

14/04/2024

The Quint / by Rohit Khannna

The SC recently granted bail to activist Shoma Sen, stating the allegations against her were prima facie not true.
On 5 April 2024, the Supreme Court granted bail to former Nagpur University professor and activist Shoma Sen, stating that the allegations against her – of indulging in terrorist activities or working for a terror group – were prima facie “not true”, and that no case was made out against her for offences under the extremely stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or UAPA.
Shoma Sen is among the 16 accused in the Elgar Parishad case, all of whom were arrested under the UAPA.
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Video: Elgar Parishad Case: Bail Orders Show ‘Pattern’ of UAPA Being Abused

By The Quint

en | 5:12min | 2024
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The Reichstag Fire & Prof Shoma Sen

14/04/2024

Newsclick / by Prabhat Patnaik

There’s a striking contrast between German judiciary stance during Hitler’s time and Indian judiciary’s on the executive’s trampling upon the Constitution.
… Professor Shoma Sen of Nagpur University was granted bail on Friday, April 5, by the Supreme Court, after she had spent six years in jail as an accused in the Bhima-Koregaon case. While granting her bail, the Supreme Court said in no uncertain terms that there was no prima facie case of her being associated with any acts of terrorism or being linked to any terrorist organisation. And yet she had to spend six years of her life in jail, which raises two fundamental questions: first, shouldn’t the government be held responsible, and hence be penalised in some way, for her extremely long incarceration without any trial, and that too on non-existent grounds according to the Supreme Court itself?
And, second, what were the various courts doing all these six years, letting her languish in jail, when they were duty-bound under the Constitution to protect her fundamental rights?
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You spent 10 years in jail for nothing. Who should pay for it?

12/04/2024

Times of India / by Sunil Baghel

What connects three professors — from Delhi, Kolhapur and Nagpur — to 17 residents of a village in Madhya Pradesh? All of them spent time in jail as undertrials or convicts before they were either acquitted or granted bail due to lack of evidence, with the courts questioning the cases against them.
… Under the stringent UAPA — where getting bail is even harder than other criminal cases — more than 24,000 people were accused in 5,027 cases registered between 2016 and 2020.
The data revealed in response to a question in the Rajya Sabha showed that just 212 people had been convicted in these cases, and 386 were acquitted. As per the data, nearly 98% of those arrested under the law had been imprisoned for multiple years just awaiting trial or to get bail.
Read more

Also watch/read:

▪ Spotlight | How UAPA is Crushing Dissent in India

The Wire’s new show, ‘Spotlight’ / by Zeeshan Kaskar

en | 15:16min | 2024
In Episode 4 of The Wire’s new show, ‘Spotlight’, we understand the UAPA, its history and how the 2019 amendment of the law has pushed India’s legal justice system on the brink.
Watch video

▪ Explained: The Shoma Sen bail judgment (The Leaflet / April 2024)
▪ Can Father Stan Swamy’s PIL be the blueprint for justice to thousands of undertrials lodged under UAPA? (The Leaflet / Aug 2023)
▪ Report: UAPA – CRIMINALISING DISSENT AND STATE TERROR (PUCL / Sep 2022)

Download report
▪ Punished without trial: How India’s political prisoners are being denied basic rights in jail (Scroll.in / Aug 2022)
▪ A study of Undertrials in Jharkhand (Sanhati / by Bagaicha Research Team / Feb 2016)

New Book on Bhima Koregaon Case Tells Uncomfortable Truths, But Brings Hope / Book launch

New Book on Bhima Koregaon Case Tells Uncomfortable Truths, But Brings Hope / Book launch

New Book on Bhima Koregaon Case Tells Uncomfortable Truths, But Brings Hope

31/04/2024

The Quint / by Mekhala Saran

Alpa Shah’s book, ‘The Incarcerations’, is alive with stories of fearlessness, but also of the cost it extracts.

“Well, 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.”

– Anand Teltumbde, on the eve of his incarceration in April 2020

Alpa Shah’s book on the Bhima Koregaon incarcerations is not an easy read. When I first decided to review the book – before laying my hands on it – I thought it would not take me longer than a week.
Read more

A new book recounts how 16 activists were imprisoned as terrorists, without trial

27/03/2024

Scroll.in / by Alpa Shah

An excerpt from ‘The Incarcerations: Bhima Koregaon and the Search for Democracy in India’
Amnesty International India and Oxfam India released a joint response the day Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Varavara Rao were arrested. “The nationwide crackdown on activists, advocates and human rights defenders is disturbing and threatens core human rights values.”
Read more

by Shireen Azam / @shireenazam (March 26:)
A full full house at @LSEpublicevents for the book release of (Bhima Koregaon) Incarcerations by @alpashah001

Video| Book launch/discussion: The Incarcerations: BK-16 and the search for democracy in India

26/03/2024

Hosted by the International Inequalities Institute, LSE Human Rights, Department of Anthropology and Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity

IN-PERSON AND ONLINE PUBLIC EVENT

Speakers:
Professor Alpa Shah.
Discussants: Professor Christophe Jaffrelot, Professor Tarun Khaitan and Priyanka Kotamraju
Chair: Professor Deborah James

Join us to launch and discuss Alpa Shah’s new book, The Incarcerations: BK-16 and the search for democracy in India.
As general elections fast approach in the world’s largest democracy, this event asks what democracy today must urgently ensure for our common future. In her latest book, Alpa Shah pulls back the curtain on Indian democracy to tell the remarkable and chilling story of the Bhima Koregaon case, in which 16 human rights defenders (the BK-16) – professors, lawyers, artists – have been imprisoned, without credible evidence and without trial, as Maoist terrorists.
Read more

Watch on LSE’s YouTube channel.

Interview | Alpa Shah: India is not a safe place any more

23/03/2024

The News Statesman / by  Gavin Jacobson

Narendra Modi’s Hindu supremacism is capturing major state institutions while repressing minority groups and political activists.
… Shah exposes how the state engaged in a prolonged act of cyberwar against the so-called “BK-16”, hacking their emails and implanting incriminating evidence on their computers in order to prosecute them. It is the best book I’ve read about the full-scale assault on democracy in India, and with the general elections scheduled to conclude in June, it’s essential reading for an understanding of what is happening to the country right now.
On 18 March I met Shah at her office at the London School of Economics.

Gavin Jacobson: When did you decide to write a book about the BK-16?
Read more

Hackers-for-Hire, Govt’s Media Control: Seven Takeaways From Studying the Arrests of the BK-16

15/03/2024

The Wire / by Alpa Shah

“…the evidence used to incarcerate the BK-16 was likely to have been implanted remotely through a hacker-for-hire mercenary gang infrastructure that has clients all over the world, but whose epicentre is in India.”
Excerpted with permission from Alpa Shah’s The Incarcerations: Bhima Koregaon and the Search for Democracy in India, HarperCollins 2024.
Read more

Hacker-for-hire gang with links to Pune police planted emails on the computers of Bhima Koregaon accused: new book

14/03/2024

The Hindu / by Vijaita Singh

The mercenary hacker gang, headquartered in India, remotely implanted evidence, according to LSE professor’s book; cites cybersecurity researchers to claim gang’s connection to a Pune police officer
The alleged evidence used to incarcerate 16 people in the Bhima Koregaon case was “likely to have been implanted remotely through a hacker-for-hire mercenary gang infrastructure that has clients all over the world, but whose epicentre is in India,” according to claims made in a new book.
Read more

The arrests putting Narendra Modi’s ‘fascist’ India on trial

14/03/2024

The Telegraph / by Andrew Whitehead

Stan Swamy, a Jesuit priest, died in custody in India in July 2021. He was 84. He had spent nine months in detention and had been repeatedly denied bail; yet he had not been convicted of any offence.
… Alpa Shah, an anthropology professor at the London School of Economics, argues in The Incarcerations that the arrest of Swamy and 15 others – lawyers, academics, poets, activists – in what has become known as the “BK case” reveals India’s authoritarian creep.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Why Courts Are Ignoring Concerns Of Planted Evidence In The Bhima-Koregaon Prosecution (article14 / Jan 2023)
▪ Police Linked to Hacking Campaign to Frame Indian Activists (Wired.com / June 2022)

IO Whose Role Bombay HC Questioned in Saibaba Case Was Also Part of Elgar Parishad Probe / Video

IO Whose Role Bombay HC Questioned in Saibaba Case Was Also Part of Elgar Parishad Probe / Video

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

The Pune police, at multiple places in the Elgar Parishad chargesheet, claimed that some of those arrested in the Elgar Parishad case had a “direct association” with Saibaba.
At the end of 2018, when the Pune police first filed a chargesheet in the Elgar Parishad case, they claimed to be “heavily relying” on the investigation conducted in the case involving former Delhi University professor G.N. Saibaba. By then, Saibaba and five others had already been convicted by the Gadchiroli sessions court.
Read more

Also read/watch:
▪ ‘It Is Only by Chance That I Came Out of Prison Alive’: G.N. Saibaba (The Wire / March 2024)

▪ Video: INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MEETING

en | 1:07 min | 2024

By INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN INDIA (InSAF)
Celebrating the Second Acquittal of Professor GN Saibaba, Prashant Rahi, Mahesh Tirki, Hem Mishra and Vijay Tirki and the late Pandu Narote
Years in solitary confinement Years of shuttling from one bail plea to another Endless health ordeals, systematic discrimination The custodial death of 32-year old co-accused Pandu Narote The shocking overnight reversal of an acquittal order The life and trials of GN Saibaba and his co-accused remind us of the extent the repressive Indian state will go to in order to silence voices of dissent But on 7 March 2024, they finally walked free, after being acquitted for the second time on 5 March 2024, exonerated of all charges On 10 March 2024, we came together to celebrate this overdue step
We will not be silenced

Co-sponsored by
International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India (InSAF India) South Asian Diaspora Action Collective (SADAC) Indian Workers Association (Great Britain) (IWA-GB) India Labour Solidarity (UK) Foundation The London Story The Humanism Project, Australia Hindus for Human Rights Free Saibaba Coalition (USA) Boston South Asian Coalition (BSAC) India Civil Watch International (ICWI) South Asia Solidarity Group, London

Watch video

‘It Is Only by Chance That I Came Out of Prison Alive’ / GN Saibaba’s long struggle for justice / Video

‘It Is Only by Chance That I Came Out of Prison Alive’ / GN Saibaba’s long struggle for justice / Video

by Nihalsing / @Nihalsingrathod (March 7, 2024):
#GNSaibaba and #prashantrahi released

#hemmishra also released from Kolhapur jail

#prashantrahi with his daughter @shikharahi

And finally #maheshtirki also walks out

Injustice And Impunity: How The Justice System Failed G.N. Saibaba

19/03/2024

Feminism India / by Hajara Najeeb

A professor of the Department of English at Ram Lal College in New Delhi, G.N. Saibaba was incarcerated under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act 1967, accusing him of having Maoist links
On March 8th, a frail G.N. Saibaba made his first public statement in ten years after a decade of torture and a lifetime of injustice. A professor of the Department of English at Ram Lal College in New Delhi, he was incarcerated under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act 1967, accusing him of having Maoist links.
Read more

“I Don’t Know How I Survived” Professor G. N. Saibaba says the reality of being free is yet to sink in

09/03/2024

The Citizen / by Nikita Jain

There was excitement and anticipation as former Delhi University Professor G. N. Saibaba entered the room in his wheelchair. Accompanied by his wife Vasantha Kumari, daughter, Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D. Raja amongst others, Prof. Saibaba smiled and waved at a few friends he recognised in the audience.
… Speaking about one his lawyers, Surendra Gadling, who himself is in jail for another case related to Elgar Parishad, Prof. Saibaba said that it was because of him that his case became stronger and it breaks his heart to see him behind bars. “Surendra Gadling is languishing behind the bars only for one reason, he stood for me and he argued most effectively in the sessions court during the trial.
Read more

It’s by chance I came out of prison alive: G N Saibaba after release from Nagpur jail

08/03/2024

Indian Express / by Express News Service

Saibaba also said he was “sad” that Surendra Gadling, his lawyer during the trial in the case, was behind bars in the Elgaar Parishad case.
Former Delhi University professor G N Saibaba, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment over his alleged Maoist links, was released from Nagpur Central Jail on Thursday morning, two days after his acquittal by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court.
Read more

‘It Is Only by Chance That I Came Out of Prison Alive’: G.N. Saibaba

07/03/2024

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

“It is only by chance that I came out of prison alive,” 56-year-old former Delhi University professor S.N. Saibaba said in his first press briefing since his release from Nagpur Central jail on Thursday (March 7).
The Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court on March 5 acquitted him and five others on “terrorism” charges.
…
The trial in the lower court was handled by Nagpur-based human rights lawyer Surendra Gadling. Soon after the trial was completed in the Gadchiroli sessions court, Gadling was arrested in the Elgar Parishad case. Saibaba, on Thursday, said that his lawyer Gadling was targeted only for handling his case.
Read more

GN Saibaba’s long struggle for justice: Why the Bombay HC had to overturn his conviction – twice

09/03/2024

Scroll.in / by Vineet Bhalla

The former DU professor was arrested in 2014 and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2017. The High Court has now acquitted him, finding no evidence against him.
Human rights activist and former Delhi University professor GN Saibaba’s acquittal by the Bombay High Court for terror-related offences under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act on Tuesday and release from the Nagpur Central Jail on Thursday was the culmination of an arduous legal struggle.
Read more

Saibaba Acquittal: From Lack of Sanction to Dodgy Evidence, HC Judgment Tears Into State’s Case

06/03/2024

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

‘The prosecution has failed to establish the seizure of incriminating material from the house search of G.N. Saibaba,” the judges said. “The prosecution has also failed to prove the electronic evidence in terms of the provisions of the Indian Evidence Act, and the Information Technology Act.”
In its detailed judgment acquitting former Delhi University professor G.N. Saibaba and five others of ‘terrorism’ charges, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court has virtually shredded the state’s case against the six to pieces.
…
Saibaba’s lawyer jailed in Bhima Koregaon case
Incidentally, Saibaba’s defence in the trial court was handled by the Nagpur-based human rights lawyer Surendra Gadling, who, soon after the completion of trial, was himself arrested in the Elgar Parishad case.
Read more

Video: INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MEETING

en | 1:07 min | 2024

By INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN INDIA (InSAF)
Celebrating the Second Acquittal of Professor GN Saibaba, Prashant Rahi, Mahesh Tirki, Hem Mishra and Vijay Tirki and the late Pandu Narote
Years in solitary confinement Years of shuttling from one bail plea to another Endless health ordeals, systematic discrimination The custodial death of 32-year old co-accused Pandu Narote The shocking overnight reversal of an acquittal order The life and trials of GN Saibaba and his co-accused remind us of the extent the repressive Indian state will go to in order to silence voices of dissent But on 7 March 2024, they finally walked free, after being acquitted for the second time on 5 March 2024, exonerated of all charges On 10 March 2024, we came together to celebrate this overdue step
We will not be silenced

Co-sponsored by
International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India (InSAF India) South Asian Diaspora Action Collective (SADAC) Indian Workers Association (Great Britain) (IWA-GB) India Labour Solidarity (UK) Foundation The London Story The Humanism Project, Australia Hindus for Human Rights Free Saibaba Coalition (USA) Boston South Asian Coalition (BSAC) India Civil Watch International (ICWI) South Asia Solidarity Group, London

Watch video

Also read/watch:
▪Wives of Khalid Saifi, Hany Babu, GN Saibaba demand release of ‘political prisoners’ (Maktoob / Jan 2023)

▪ Bombay High Court Refuses Bail To DU Professor Hany Babu

(Live Law / Sep 2022)
Delhi University Professor Hany Babu mobilising rallies and co-ordinating the defence of convicted professor GN Saibaba was not just helping a fellow academic, but prima facie following a leftist handbook, the Bombay High Court said in its order refusing him bail.
Read more

▪ Video: Personal Liberty and the Indian Courts

25/10/2022


en | 1h 42min | 2022
The discussion examines the recent three judgements relating to
► The denial of bail of Jyoti Jagtap by the Bombay High Court in the Bhima Koregaon Conspiracy case.
► The stay on the Bombay High Court judgement of acquittal/discharge of Dr. GN Saibaba and others by the Supreme Court
► The denial of bail by the Delhi High Court of Umar Khalid in the Conspiracy case of the Delhi Riots of 2020.
Watch video (PUCL fb page)

▪ Rona Wilson’s iPhone Infected With Pegasus Spyware, Says New Forensic Report

(The Wire / Dec 2021)
Arsenal Consulting was engaged by Wilson’s defence lawyers to study the electronic evidence submitted against him in the Elgar Parishad case.
… Wilson, who was a core part of the 17- member Committee for Defence and Release of G. N. Saibaba, also received a message which said “Free Dr Saibaba and Oppose the suppression of Dissent in India. Please sign the petition here clicking [link]” on October 8, 2017.
Read more

▪ Surendra Gadling’s Computer Was Attacked, Incriminating Documents Planted: Arsenal Consulting (The Wire / July 2021)

Notes from prison | Talk with Sudha Bharadwaj

Notes from prison | Talk with Sudha Bharadwaj

Notes from prison

19/01/2024

The Telegraph / by Lakshmi Subramanian

‘Phansi Yard’ is more than just jottings of a sensitive prisoner. Like all jail diaries, it documents the everyday — the quality of food, limited access to clothing, the absence of privacy — with great attention and, alongside, records individual stories with real sensitivity, framing them within a larger social context
The prison diary has remained an enduring genre in all societies with its extraordinary capacity to document the self and interrogate power structures.
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Lawyer’s ballad of Yerawada Jail reflects on the lives of 76 prisoners

13/01/2024

Deccan Chronicle / by Anand K Sahay

This resident of Phansi Yard has a writer’s sensibility, and says in a matter-of-fact way
This is a remarkable document of life observed from the Phansi Yard or Death Row of the Yerawada Women’s Jail in Pune by an extraordinary individual who made a conscious choice to be a trade union worker and human rights lawyer in order to stand with marginalised people, rather than build a career as a mathematician after emerging with a shining degree from IIT, Delhi.
Read more

From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada

Author: Sudha Bhardwaj
Publisher: Juggernaut
Pages: 216
Order

#keeptalking | Anuradha Sen Gupta talks to Sudha Bharadwaj

08/01/2024


en | 32:47min | 2024

By anuradhasays

Trade unionist and lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj is used to fighting rights battles. She started her career in Chhattisgarh in the late 1980s as a trade unionist and later studied law in order to fight legal cases directly. Even though she has been on the side of many losing battles, giving up or opting out has never been an option. Despite the setbacks and personal challenges, the biggest one being arrested in the Bhima Koregaon violence case, Sudha who is out on bail, retains her good cheer and optimism. In a wide ranging conversation with Anuradha SenGupta, Sudha talks of women who are incarcerated, the underbelly of capitalism, the rights of workers and her hope for the new year.
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Also watch/read:

■ Video – Book Release: Why is the state afraid of Sudha Bharadwaj?

By People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Jan 2021en + hindi | 2h 53min | 2021

Topic: Why is the state afraid of Sudha Bharadwaj?
A long interview conducted with Sudha over several days before she was arrested is now being published as an online book “Sudha Bharadwaj Speaks – A Life in Law and Activism”, and will be released at this webinar by the well-known writer, Nayantara Sahgal. Sudha’s daughter, Maaysha, her lawyer Yug Chaudhary, social activist Harsh Mandar, historian Uma Chakravarti amongst other coworkers & colleagues, will also share their experiences and memories of working with her.
Watch video @ PUCL Facebook (videos)

■ Sudha Bharadwaj speaks – A Life in Law and Activism


Publisher: Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL)
Edition: January 2021
Language: English
Sudha Bharadwaj’s interview by: Darshana Mitra and Santanu Chakraborty
Paperback: 316 pages
Access a free PDF copy of the book here:
Sudha_Bharadwaj_speaks (2,1 MB)