Category Archives: Right watch

Right watch

Condemn the conspiracy of Hindutva fascist forces against democratic students’ organizations

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Statement by COSTISA

On September 4th, 2018 in an important Bengali newspaper Anandabazar Patrika, it was declared that the Central Intelligence has marked some organizations in West Bengal which reportedly act as a frontal organization of the “Maoists”. In the list of organizations, a constituent organization of COSTISA, Ambedkar Bhagat Singh Study Circle (ABSC) has been named.

This event has to be looked at in connection with the nationwide crackdown on Human Right activists, Professors, lawyers and poet as a drive to “clear” “Urban Naxals”. This kind of sensational news shows that the central government is utterly desperate to curb and silence any voices that are raised against them. ABSC has been active in raising voices against the commercialization and saffronization of education and condemning nationwide brahminical fascist attacks on Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims, and other minorities. The students involved in ABSC have also been an important part of the fee hike movement at 2016 in IIT Kharagpur which compelled the administration for a partial rollback of the semester fees and have stood with all students issues which demanded better democracy and proper student rights in the campus.

With all these facts in mind, the reason behind ABSC becoming an eyesore of the government is clear that they have stood for justice and constitutional rights of our people. The state has been using the tactic of labeling the pro-people organizations in an attempt to mobilize public sentiment against them and other activists. Moreover, the sensation created by these announcements serves the purpose of diverting the people’s attention from the real problems of our nation like unemployment, increasing costs of education, health and livelihood, increasing of attacks on Dalits, Adivasis, and Muslims by the Hindutva fascists, anti-people steps like demonetization and GST etc.

COSTISA condemns this act of which hunting and false sentimentalization by the state. We appeal all the patriotic, democratic, pro-people students and intellectuals to stand and raise your voice against it.

Let us not let our country lose all of the democratic ethos it has!

Coordination of Science and Technology Institutes’ Student Associations (COSTISA)

(www.facebook.com/supportcostisa)

Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle (APSC), IIT Madras

Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC), IIT Bombay

Students For Change (SFC), IIT BHU

Students For Change (SFC), IMS BHU

Ambedkar Bhagat Singh Study Circle (ABSC), IIT Kharagpur

Forum For Critical Thinking (FCT), IIT Kanpur

Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Statement against the police raid on Dr. Satyanarayana’s house

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Statement by academics in American universities

We, the undersigned, strongly condemn the raid on Dr. Satyanarayana and Pavana’s official university residence, conducted by the Pune police as part of their recent raids on activists in India.

Dr. Satyanarayana is currently Head of the Department of Cultural Studies and Dean of the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. He has been instrumental in establishing Dalit Studies as an academic discipline and he has co-edited landmark books on dalit studies and vernacular dalit literatures, including Steel Nibs are Sprouting, No Alphabet in Sight and Dalit Studies. Pavana is a lecturer in Hyderabad and a founding member of the Andhra Pradesh Chaitanya Mahila Samakhya, an organization working for women’s rights. She was also editor of the Telugu feminist magazine Mahila Margam. Dr. Satyanarayana and Pavana are the son-in-law and daughter of poet and activist Varavara Rao, one of five people arrested in the raids.

Continue reading Statement against the police raid on Dr. Satyanarayana’s house →

Culture, Everyday Life, Right watch

Three decades after Ameena, ‘Bride-Bazars’ continue to thrive in Hyderabad: Lovish Garg

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Guest Post by LOVISH GARG

Ameena Begum was only ten years old when she was married to a man old enough to be her grandfather. The man- a 60-year-old Arab from Saudi Arabia had come to her house in Hyderabad to see Ameena’s elder sister for marriage but found her to be too ‘ugly and dark.’ He instead expressed desire to marry the young Ameena which the father readily agreed in exchange for a paltry sum of Rs 6,000.  She was later rescued by Amrita Ahluwalia- then an air-hostess with Indian Airlines after she found the young girl crying inconsolably on the Hyderabad-Delhi flight in-route to Saudi Arabia.

This incident put the global spotlight for the first time on the practice of ‘bride-shopping’ in the old city area of Hyderabad where minor Muslim girls from poverty-stricken families are married to older, mostly Arab men for a small sum of money. About three decades after this incident of August 1991- nothing much has changed and the practice of Sheikh marriages continue unabated with estimates suggesting around 2000 of such marriages performed only in the last one year.

The genesis of Sheikh marriages can be traced to the late 19th century when the Nizam of Hyderabad started hiring Chaush Arabs from what is the present-day Yemen. These men served as the military guards and later on high positions in the Nizam’s army and administration. The Arabs also brought with them the ritual of offering gifts and dowry to families who would marry their daughters to them. However, when oil stuck in the Gulf and situation in Hyderabad turned chaotic because of the rising peasant movement and later fall of Nizam- many such Chaush Arabs returned to their homelands.

Continue reading Three decades after Ameena, ‘Bride-Bazars’ continue to thrive in Hyderabad: Lovish Garg →

Capitalism, Government, Right watch

This bundle of sticks tied to an axe-ist RSS-BJP regime!

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Stylized image of fasces

There is a rumour circulating which is best dispelled as soon as  possible in the interests of factual knowledge (which is rather shy and rarely seen these days. Sometimes you see its shadow slip past, from the corner of your eye). So, no, absolutely not, the word fascism does not come from faeces.

It might as well have, but no. Really it doesn’t. The Vedic goddess vac (she who personifies speech) is not renowned for a sense of humour.

What the word fascism does come from is the aforementioned “bundle of sticks tied to an axe” or fasces,  that the bodyguard of the Roman magistrate carried in ancient Rome, as a symbol of his authority. Then Mussolini came along and resurrected the thing as a reminder  of ancient pride (although, not much pride for the minion carrying the symbol of another’s authority) and unity (sticks tied together are harder to break than sticks on their own).

Hence fascism. Hence the extreme allergy to being called fascist among Sanghis and the BJP because, really – Italy? Italy as the source of a name for their government? How fair is that, mitron? Continue reading This bundle of sticks tied to an axe-ist RSS-BJP regime! →

Government, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Statement against police action on Prof. Anand Teltumbde and others – Students, Faculty and Alumni of IIT Kharagpur

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Image courtesy Scroll.in

We, the undersigned students, faculty and others from IIT Kharagpur are shocked with the treatment that the police forces have meted out to our ex-colleague, Prof. Anand Teltumbde and other intellectuals. His residence in Goa, where he is working as a Senior Professor and Chair, Big Data Analytics at Goa Institute of Management (GIM), was intruded by the police forces without permission in his absence. This police action was part of the large scale raids and arrests of eminent scholars, intellectuals and lawyers across the country on Tuesday.
Continue reading Statement against police action on Prof. Anand Teltumbde and others – Students, Faculty and Alumni of IIT Kharagpur →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Government, Identities, Politics, Right watch

Statement Issued by NSI on the recent arrests : Democracy Under Siege !

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A Statement Issued by New Socialist Initiative (NSI) on the recent arrests of human rights defenders and public intellectuals

Democracy Under Siege !

With Ground Slipping Fast Beneath Its Feet, BJP government Resorting to Draconian Measures !

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New Socialist Initiative strongly condemns the arbitrary and malicious manner in which the Pune Police, at the behest of its saffron masters, raided the houses of leading human rights activists, lawyers, professors and poets in different cities simultaneously and arrested five of them – Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Varavara Rao – under concocted charges.

Demanding immediate release of all these persons unconditionally and withdrawal of fabricated charges filed against them under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) , it also said that appropriate action should be taken against the guilty policemen as well involved in this act. Continue reading Statement Issued by NSI on the recent arrests : Democracy Under Siege ! →

Government, Law, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Joint Statement Condemning Arrest of Activists and Public Intellectuals

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Following is the final statement with the signatures as they were when it was closed for purposes of releasing to the media and sent to us by the initiators of the campaign.

We, the undersigned, are shocked by the serial raids across the country on the homes of activists and public intellectuals who are critical of the government and the ruling party at the Centre. The arrests of prominent activists and intellectuals Sudha Bharadwaj, Vernon Gonsalves, Gautam Navlakha, Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira and others, are nothing but an attempt by the government to strike terror among those who are fighting for justice for the marginalised. This is also an attempt by the BJP to invent a false enemy and engage in scaremongering in order to polarise the 2019 elections in its favour. Already, the government and the media houses close to the BJP have been trying to spin a false narrative of a Maoist conspiracy since June, 2018. Terms like “urban naxals” are invented in order to stifle any criticism of the government. We have learnt that the Delhi Police, after having arrested Sudha Bharadwaj, waited for Republic TV to arrive before taking her to the court. This simply shows that the arrests are incomplete without the accompanying sensationalist media propaganda to demonise activists, human rights defenders and intellectuals.

Continue reading Joint Statement Condemning Arrest of Activists and Public Intellectuals →

Government, Law, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

WSS Statement Against Arrests of Sudha Bharadwaj, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Gautam Navlakha and Varavara Rao

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The following is a statement by WOMEN AGAINST SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND STATE REPRESSION (WSS) against the raids on and arrests of activists and intellectuals in different cities.

WSS strongly condemns the arrests of its member Advocate Sudha Bharadwaj, and activists Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Gautam Navlakha, Varavara Rao, and the raids at the homes of Father Stan Swamy, Dr. Anand Teltumbde, Prof. K. Satyanarayana, Pavana, Anala, Kurmanath, Kranti Tekula and others conducted by the Maharashtra police along with the state police of Telangana, Jharkhand, Goa and Delhi. These searches and arrests are a diversionary tactic to draw attention away from the spine chilling revelations about Hindu Sanatan Sanstha and Hindu Janjagruti in connection to the assassinations and bomb terror which they have been masterminding.

Continue reading WSS Statement Against Arrests of Sudha Bharadwaj, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Gautam Navlakha and Varavara Rao →

Government, Law, Media politics, Politics, Right watch

‘अरबन फासिज्म’ की शुरुआत : वैभव सिंह

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Guest post by VAIBHAV SINGH

रामचरित मानस में सुन्दर कांड में एक पंक्ति आती है, जो कही तो विभीषण के मुंह से गई है लेकिन वह आज के लोकतंत्र पर भी लागू होती है। चौपाई में विभीषण कहते हैं- ‘सुनहु पवनसुत रहनि हमारी। जिमि दसनन्हि महुं जीभ बिचारी।’ यानी विभीषण कहते हैं कि मैं ऐसे ही रहता हूं जैसे दांतों के बीच जीभ। प्रसंगांतर करके देखें तो भारतीय लोकतंत्र की हालत भी अब फासीवाद, सांप्रदायिकता व पूंजीवादी लोभ-लालच के जहरीले विषदंतों से घिरी जीभ जैसी नहीं हो गई है जिसे कोई भी काट लेना या आहत कर देना चाहता है?  गिरफ्तारियां, सर्चवारंट, नजरबंदी और मीडिया प्रोपगंडा हमारे देश की सर्वप्रमुख सचाई बन चुकी है और अब इस लोकतंत्र के भीतर सशक्त हो चुके अधिनायकवाद के लिए अब यही चीजें उसके शासन की वैधता का प्रमुख आधार बन गई हैं। जिस देश में हर वक्त मुठभेड़, गिरफ्तारी या देशद्रोहियों की खोज का सत्ता-प्रायोजित अभियान चल रहा हो, वहां लोकतंत्र के बारे में सोते-जागते चिंता न होना स्वाभाविक तौर पर संवेदनहीनता या फिर कमअक्ली का लक्षण माना जा सकता है। जैसे साइनबोर्ड पर किसी ने लिख कर टांग दिया है कि लोकतंत्र की अमुख तारीख को हत्या कर दी जाएगी, वह तारीख नजदीक आती जा रही है। ठीक रघुवीर सहाय की ‘रामदास’ कविता में रामदास की हत्या की तरह सभी को जैसे पता चल चुका है कि लोकतंत्र की हत्या हो जाएगी पर सब अपने-अपने काम में मसरूफ़ हैं। रघुवीर सहाय के शब्दों में-

निकल गली से तब हत्यारा/आया उसने नाम पुकारा/

हाथ तौलकर चाकू मारा/ छूटा लहू का फव्वारा/

कहा नहीं था उसने आखिर उसकी हत्या होगी।

Continue reading ‘अरबन फासिज्म’ की शुरुआत : वैभव सिंह →

Culture, Debates, Ecology/Environment, Government, Images, Left watch, Right watch

Brackish Reflections on the Great Deluge of 2018: Roby Rajan

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This is a guest post by ROBY RAJAN

Epic. Biblical. Apocalyptic. These are some of the words that have been used to describe the floods and landslides that have wreaked havoc in Kerala over the last few weeks. Entire towns and cities were submerged, and entire rivers altered their courses overnight. Continue reading Brackish Reflections on the Great Deluge of 2018: Roby Rajan →

Capitalism, Debates, Ecology/Environment, Everyday Life, Government, Left watch, Refugee crisis, Right watch

A National Pledge for Kerala after the Great Deluge of 2018

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  • Kerala is the land of my birth, and my life is intertwined closely and inseparably with the lives of all fellow-Malayalis. I will respect and remember this truth and will never think of my life as totally unrelated to nature, my neighbours, and the government that we elect to rule us.

Continue reading A National Pledge for Kerala after the Great Deluge of 2018 →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Ecology/Environment, Government, Images, Right watch

A List of Little-Knowledge Theories about Kerala in the Wake of this Disaster

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By now everyone knows what the Sanghis, probably not just outside Kerala, but also inside, have been up to when others were battling the deluge, saving lives, working round the clock to organize relief: making Lord Ayappan look like a stupid brat (or, actually, painting him in their likeness), spreading idiotic claims that only the rich were affected, or that the Christians/Muslims/commies/everyone who isn’t a Hindutva bigot, are responsible for this catastrophe, and circulating fake photos, from relief work in Gujarat or somewhere else as RSS relief work for Kerala. Really, how we wish we could persuade them all to migrate to the Hindi heartland where ecological disasters are unheard of and will never ever be! Continue reading A List of Little-Knowledge Theories about Kerala in the Wake of this Disaster →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Ecology/Environment, Feminism, Government, Identities, Refugee crisis, Right watch

A letter to Sanghiannan in the wake of our common woe

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[Before you read this post, you might want to read KR Meera’s brilliant portrait of the average Malayali middle-class Sangh supporter, in her story Sanghiannan, which I translated as ‘My Brother Sanghi’, published by Juggernaut at : https://www.juggernaut.in/books/088d472b19d745d29492560654250e15 . I recommend this also because she sketches beautifully the spirit of deep compassion that inheres in the thought of Sreenarayana Guru, who tried to imagine the faith outside the brahmanical framework of caste. This will help you to get a sense of that section of Malayali middle class I address here.]

 

Kerala declares

Continue reading A letter to Sanghiannan in the wake of our common woe →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Ecology/Environment, Religion, Right watch

Beware of Poisoning-Eating Maggots in Flood-Hit Kerala

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In Malayalam, the usual way of referring to virulence that feeds on negative experience is paashaanathil krmi — or the maggot that is fattened by poison, instead of getting killed by it. Over the past few days, many of us have lived completely on the edge, bereft of sleep or ease, tossing about in a seemingly-unending nightmare, as the rain, floods, and landslides uproot not just our physical world, but the very culture of smugness and complacency that took over our deepest selves over the past twenty years or so. Continue reading Beware of Poisoning-Eating Maggots in Flood-Hit Kerala →

Culture, Education, Right watch

Response to Critics of AAS-in-Asia boycott: Ajantha Subramanian et al

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Continuing the debate on the controversial Association of Asian Studies conference recently held in Delhi, to which Pakistani participants were denied visas by the Indian government, following which there was a call to boycott the conference.

Nandini Sundar wrote an article in The Wire which we re-posted on Kafila. This is a response to that article by Ajantha Subramanian, Suvir Kaul, Rupa Viswanath, Rebecca Karl, Ania Loomba and Nate Roberts, also in The Wire.

As signatories to the call for a boycott of the AAS-in-Asia conference in Delhi (July 4-8, 2018), we have been vocal critics of how the Association for Asian Studies – a membership-funded professional organisation based in the US for scholars of Asia around the world – has handled the government of India ban on Pakistani scholars (based on both nationality and descent). We now write because the debate that our call for action provoked raises important questions about location, ethics and nationalism when it comes to the right to protest. These questions are important in our age of escalating international exchange as well as national chauvinism.

Our critique has focused on the AAS, an organisation that was informed of the preemptive ban and which, in conjunction with Ashoka University, their private university partner in New Delhi, concealed it from the general membership – as well as the general public – for months. Although the organisation claims it did its part by putting the letter banning Pakistanis on its conference website, no one would find it unless they were looking for it. Knowledge of the ban only became public when The Wire broke the story on June 7, 2018.

Read the rest of this article here.

 

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Government, Identities, Politics, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Fascinating Manu

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It is easy to see the linkages between Manu, Nietzsche, Hitler and the worldview of Hindutva supremacism

RSS and Fascism

Manu and his ‘magnum opus’ Manusmriti keeps hogging headlines in the 21st century as well.

Thanks to the fascination it still holds among the Hindutva supremacists of various kinds even around seventy years after the promulgation of Constitution, which in the words of Dr Ambedkar, had “ended the rule by Manu”.

The latest to join the ‘mission glorification’ of Manusmritihappens to be another stalwart from the Hindutva brigade, called Sambhaji Bhide, the leader of Shivpratishthan Sangathan, who also happens to be an accused in the Bhima Koregaon case. Addressing his followers known as dharkaris (believers of violence) – as opposed to varkaris(who go to Pandharpur from Pune on foot), he exhorted them to disseminate Hindu religion and form Hindu Nation. He also added how ‘Manusmriti was superior to the teachings of saints Dnyaneshwar and Tukaram’. 

( Read the full article here : https://newsclick.in/fascinating-manu)

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Government, Identities, Images, Law, Politics, Religion, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Who feeds whom? Reflections on the Left responses to the Abhimanyu murder case

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The recent murder of an SFI activist, Abhimanyu, at the Maharajah’s College, Ernakulam, allegedly by activists of another student organization, the Campus Front, has once again triggered a series of intense campaigns against the Popular Front of India (PFI), which is accused of having terror links, even with the ISIS. This last claim has become commonsense almost impossible to contest.

Continue reading Who feeds whom? Reflections on the Left responses to the Abhimanyu murder case →

Bad ideas, Culture, Debates, Government, Identities, Images, Law, Left watch, Media politics, Politics, Religion, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

അഭിമന്യുവധം ഉയർത്തുന്ന കാതലായ പ്രശ്നം

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സത്യം പറഞ്ഞാൽ അഭിമന്യു എന്ന വിദ്യാർത്ഥിയുടെ ഞെട്ടിക്കുന്ന കൊലപാതകത്തിനു ശേഷം ആ ചെറുപ്പക്കാരൻറെ മാതാവിൻറെ വിലാപം മാത്രമാണ് ഇപ്പോഴും മുഴങ്ങിക്കേൾക്കുന്നത്. ആ ശബ്ദം മനസ്സിൽ നിന്ന് മായുന്നതേയില്ല.

Continue reading അഭിമന്യുവധം ഉയർത്തുന്ന കാതലായ പ്രശ്നം →

Bad ideas, Debates, Government, Right watch

“Selfless Patriot” – In Search of the Real Shyama Prasad Mukherjee

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Shyama Prasad

“It has been said with good reason that the Jana Sangh resulted from a combination of a partyless leader, Syama Prasad Mookerjee, and a leaderless party, the RSS”.

(The Jana Sangh: A Biography of an Indian Political Party, by Craig Baxter p. 54) 

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In Search of the “Selfless Patriot”

An untimely death of a political leader — whose career is just blossoming — is always a loss to the party they belong to, the ideology they espouse, or the cause(s) they pursue. It also leaves the field open for political pundits of different shades to make all sorts of speculations, or to involve themselves in endless deliberations about what would have been the future of the formation if the said person hadn’t died.

The death of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (06 July 1901 – 23 June 1953), founder of Bharatiya Jana Sangh (precursor to the BJP), at the relatively young age of 52 years, can be considered one such loss for the project he had undertaken. One cannot stop thinking about how the party he helped found after resigning from Hindu Mahasabha would have developed had he remained alive. His differences with the Hindu Mahasabha, which he even led in 1944, were political in nature, and stemmed from the considered opinion that it abandoned its exclusivist character.

However, to his legatees, who are always bothered very little by the nuances and niceties, he is a leader who provides them a fig leaf to counter the criticism that they had played no role in freedom struggle, or had no place in the comprehensive list of ‘makers of modern India’. Their ascension to the citadel of power has provided them with ample opportunity to project him as a key figure in the ‘Making of India’. (https://thewire.in/politics/search-syama-prasad-mookerjee-true-patriot)

In addition to that, by repeatedly claiming that ‘history failed to serve justice to Mukherjee,’ they are able to easily target Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, who played the key role in institutionalising democracy after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and early demise of Sardar Patel, and was aware that any leeway to Hindu Supremacist ideology would lead India into becoming a mirror image of Pakistan — a Hindu Pakistan.

( Read the full article here : https://newsclick.in/selfless-patriot)

Culture, Ecology/Environment, Right watch, Violence/Conflict

Great Dance of Return in Gaza – Performing Palestinian Dabke in the Midst of Zionazi Attacks

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This dance – the Palestinian Dabka – was performed amidst firing by Israeli Zionazis  on the 30th of June 2018. Remember the cowards stepped up their attack on Gaza as the holy month of Ramzan began. This video has all the ambient noises – of the firing of bullets and other war sounds and is therefore worth listening to. It has also gives you a sense of the extremely tense situation at the border.

To listen to the cleaner version, where you can hear the sound of the music more clearly, click here and listen to the second video.

 

Government, Law, Movements, Politics, Right watch

Citizens’ Solidarity with Voices of Democracy – Against the Arrest of Five HR Activists

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[This is a statement of solidarity endorsed and signed by over 200 intellectuals, artists, academicians, lawyers, journalists, and students in support of the five arrested in connection with Bhima-Koregaon case. In the 43rd year after Emergency was declared in this country, this statement was issued on June 25th 2018 condemning the arrest of such voices of democracy and demanding their immediate and unconditional release.]

We condemn the arrest of five human rights activists, professors and lawyers in connection with the Bhima-Koregaon clashes early this year. The alarming arrest of Advocate and General Secretary of Indian Association of Peoples’ Lawyers (IAPL) Surendra Gadling, Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP) Public Relations Secretary Rona Wilson, Head of English Department Professor Shoma Sen of Nagpur University and member of Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS), cultural activist and founder of Republican Panthers Jaatiya Antachi Chalwal Sudhir Dhawale and anti-displacement activist and Prime Ministers Rural Development Fellow (PMRDF) Mahesh Raut is a clear manifestation of state terror to crush the voices of dissent in this country.

The intemperate use of sections of the IPC and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) on all five reveals legal over-reach and exposes the desperation to foist extraordinary and excessive charges on all five to ensure they remain in the clutches of the Fadnavis-Maharashtra government. All the arrested have consistently worked for the assertion of oppressed and marginalised communities against majoritarian forces, spoken out against Brahmanical patriarchy, upheld peoples’ rights to land, life and dignity, and have strived for the release of political prisoners.

Continue reading Citizens’ Solidarity with Voices of Democracy – Against the Arrest of Five HR Activists →