16 - 31 July 2020 The Asian Independent

22 16-07-2020 to 31-07-2020 WORLD
www.theasianindependent.co.uk
Anand Teltumbde: Cards and letters for
jailed India scholar as he turns 70
Prominent Indian scholar and human rights defender Anand Teltumbde has turned 70 in a Mumbai
prison amid growing calls for his release, writes the BBC's Geeta Pandey in Delhi.
"Then they came for me, and there
was no one left to speak for me."
Professor Teltumbde often quoted
these iconic words from German
Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemoller,
criticising silence when faced with
evil, in his books and speeches.
On Wednesday, when he turns 70 in
a Mumbai jail where he's been imprisoned
for 90 days, his family and
friends are trying to ensure that he's
not greeted with silence.
Scores of letters and cards wishing
him well on his birthday are expected
to be delivered at Taloja jail where he's
being held. "Anand is a respected academic
who's been shut away for completely
dubious reasons," Balmurli
Natrajan, professor of anthropology at
William Paterson University in New
Jersey, who is among the people writing
a letter to Prof Teltumbde, told the
BBC. "We want him to know that we
are constantly thinking of him, reading
his books." Counted among India's
best-known public intellectuals, Prof
Teltumbde has authored 30 books and
is known for his incisive writing on
India's harsh caste system.
Born to a Dalit (formerly untouchables
in India's rigid caste system)
family, he worked in top positions in
some of India's biggest oil companies
before moving to academia. At present,
he's head of the Big Data programme
at the prestigious Goa
Institute of Management. A trenchant
critic of the government, he's
described Prime Minister Narendra
Modi as "more dangerous than Hitler
and Mussolini" and a "narcissist par
excellence". On 14 April, when Prof
Teltumbde turned himself in to federal
investigators on court orders, he
joined 10 other activists, poets and
lawyers who have been arrested in
connection with what is known as the
Bhima Koregaon case.
They are being held under the
UAPA (Unlawful Activities
Prevention Act) - an anti-terrorism law
that makes it almost impossible to get
bail. Police accuse them of instigating
caste violence at a Dalit rally in Bhima
Koregaon village in the western state
of Maharashtra on 1 January 2018.
Although those detained weren't
present in the village at the time,
police blamed the violence on their
speeches at a meeting the night before.
They are also accused of working
in tandem with the Naxalites - banned
ultra-left Maoist rebels - to "overthrow
the government and cause chaos in
India".
Indian academic surrenders over
violence charges
But Indian and international campaigners
and rights organisations
working for their release say they've
been jailed for criticising the state.
"All the 11 activists have worked
relentlessly to protect the rights of
some of India's most marginalised
people, including Dalits and tribals,"
Amnesty International said in one of
the several statements it has put out in
the past few months calling for their
release. Human Rights Watch has
called the detentions "wrongful" and
"politically motivated" and questioned
why the government did not investigate
the allegations that Hindu nationalist
leaders may have had a role in the
Bhima Koregaon violence?
In May, the European Parliament
Subcommittee on Human Rights
wrote to Home Minister Amit Shah
saying it was alarmed by the "intimidation
and harassment of human rights
defenders" by the authorities.
The letter also urged India to immediately
release all prisoners in view of
the coronavirus pandemic - most of
the detainees are elderly with underlying
health conditions and thus at serious
risk of catching the infection in
overcrowded jails.
Prof Natrajan says India has always
been "a marketplace of ideas", pointing
out that Nobel laureate Amartya
Sen once called Indians "argumentative".
But in the past eight years, the
space for argument and debate has
been shrinking. Prof Teltumbde, he
says, has been setting the contours of
key debates on globalisation and politics
of caste and religion for the past
30 years. "He's been calling out caste
deniers and Hindu triumphalism. He's
dared to point fingers at the powerful
classes - he's telling them, 'here's what
you're doing and how it's put a majority
of Indian people in misery'. And
that makes him a dangerous man."
Prof Teltumbde, says his wife
Rama, was shocked when his name
first came up two years back in the list
of accused in the Bhima Koregaon
case. "We hadn't even imagined it in
our worst dreams that something like
this could ever happen to us," she told
me on the phone from Mumbai.
"My husband is not a criminal," she
says, her voice breaking with emotion.
"He's an academic, a workaholic who
spent 14-15 hours daily reading, writing
and teaching." In his free time, she
says, he would try to help the poor and
the marginalised because he wanted to
see an India that's better, more just.
"To be thrown into jail for that is a
very high price to pay." Since her husband
has been jailed, Mrs Teltumbde
has been allowed a weekly twominute
phone call with him. India jails
pregnant student despite Covid-19 risk
"I always ask him how's his health?
And how's the prison food because I
know the food there is very bad. He
doesn't want to worry us, so he always
says he's fine. And then he asks about
his mother and our daughters."
Mrs Teltumbde is the granddaughter
of Bhimrao Ambedkar - the author
of India's constitution and an icon to
millions of Dalits - and says she
believes that her grandfather wouldn't
recognise today's India. "I don't think
he envisaged this kind of India where
people are arrested for speaking their
mind. We live in a democracy and
freedom of speech is a right guaranteed
under the constitution."
But critics say it's a right that is
under grave threat in today's India.
Those criticising PM Modi are
attacked on social media by nationalist
trolls, and activists and students
opposing the government are being
jailed. Most of the dissenters are
charged under UAPA and being held
in prison without bail.
Earlier this year, police in Delhi
arrested several students who had
protested against a controversial new
citizenship law that critics say discriminates
against Muslims. They
were labelled as "anti-nationals working
to break up India" by news channels
friendly to the government.
Female activists were slut-shamed on
social media.
While most continue to languish in
overcrowded prisons, Safoora Zargar,
a pregnant female student, was freed
after three months in jail following
global condemnation.
"The government is playing with
the liberties of people by arresting
them under flimsy charges," says
Mihir Desai, Prof Teltumbde's lawyer.
"The central charge against Prof
Teltumbde," he says, "is that he was
helping the Naxalites by getting them
recruits and spreading their ideology
and that he was taking money from
them." But when they raided his
house, he says, they did not find any
arms or cash. The only evidence the
police have put forth so far are four
"letters" that they waved at a press
conference. Mr Desai says they are
typed and unsigned and there are no
addresses or email addresses on them.
He says they are not written by Prof
Teltumbde or addressed to him - the
one thing they all have in common is
the mention of an "Anand" which is a
common Indian name.
"These letters appear to be manufactured,"
he says adding that "even if
they are real, how do they prove that
this Anand is Prof Teltumbde? Also,
anyone can write anything to anyone,
but is that proof? These can't exist as
evidence." The evidence is unlikely to
stand scrutiny in court, Mr Desai says,
but it's the process that's the punishment.
"If a person is jailed for 10 years
while the case goes on, their life is
ruined." As Prof Teltumbde completes
three months in prison, his wife Rama
says their only demand is for him to be
freed on bail and the government to
start the trial soon so that "his name
can be cleared".
A day before he was taken into custody,
Prof Teltumbde wrote an open
letter where he detailed the harassment
he says he's faced in the past two
years - he wrote about how his home
was raided, his Wikipedia page was
vandalised, and how the government
inserted Israeli spyware on his phone.
"As I see my India being ruined, it
is with a feeble hope that I write to you
at such a grim moment… I 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," he wrote. By jailing him,
Prof Natrajan says, the government is
trying to crush the very people who
are trying to reason and debate. "But
mark my words, Anand will not be
crushed. You can jail people, torture
them, kill them, but you cannot beat
ideas."