Solidarity with human rights activists in India
Stand
in Solidarity with Prof. Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha
In
August 2018, the Pune Police implicated Prof. Anand Teltumbde and
Gautam Navlakha with other human right activists and lawyers in the
now-infamous fabricated Elgar Parishad case. The police presented
concocted theories since day one and these theories have not an iota
of truth in them. Although the judiciary granted interim protection
to Prof. Anand and Gautam, the supreme court on 16th March, 2020
rejected the pre-arrest bail and asked them to surrender by three
weeks. The intention of the state was quite clear from the vehemence
with which the Central government took away the case to National
Investigation Agency (NIA) few weeks back. It is evident that the
state wants to incarcerate them in jails for years just for
struggling for the democratic and human rights of oppressed and
marginalised sections of society. Their methods have always been
within the provisions/freedom provided by the constitution of India.
Neither of them has anything remotely to do with organising and
subsequent events that occurred around Bhima Koregaon episode.
Coming
from the poorest of poor families, Prof. Anand passed through the
best institutes in the country with scholastic achievements. He is an
alumnus of the hallowed IIM Ahmedabad, has worked his entire life in
corporate sector at top management positions in state-owned BPCL and
petro-infrastructure company Petronet India Ltd, promoted by the
Government in private sector. After his corporate stint, he has been
Professor of Business Management in IIT, Kharagpur and currently a
senior professor and chair of Big Data Analytics in Goa Institute of
Management. It defies any logic to link a person with such
credentials to any banned organization. As a socially sensitive
person he has contributed immensely to improving the lives of people
and decided to devote time to make intellectual contribution for
making the world a little more just. This instinct naturally landed
him in organisations like Committee for Protection of Democratic
Rights (CPDR), of which he is the general secretary, and the All
India Forum for Right to Education (AIFRTE), of which he is a
presidium member. None of the organizations he is associated with are
banned organizations.
Gautam
Navlakha has been a well-known democratic and human rights activist
and a journalist. He is engaged in the activism by the People's Union
for Democratic Rights, Delhi. He was also an editorial consultant of
the Economic and Political Weekly and has also been a convener of the
International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in
Kashmir.
We
believe Anand and Gautam have been the target of the state as they
always took up the cudgels for the oppressed and also earned their
names among the foremost civil rights activists/public intellectuals
in the country.
We,
the following signatories urge upon all the democratic organizations
and individuals to stand against the totally oppressive move to curb
the voices of dissent and demonstrate against the forthcoming arrest
of Anand and Gautam on 6th April, 2020.
Arundhati Roy
,
Writer
Achin Vanaik
,
Academician
Aditya Nigam
,
Academician
Ajay Gudavarthy,
Academician
Anand Chakravarti
,
Academician
Anand Patwardhan
,
Film Maker
Ankur Sarin
,
Academician
Apporvanand
,
Writer, Academician
Aruna Roy
, Social
activist
Arundhati Dhuru
,
Social activist
Damodar Mauzo
,
Writer
Deepak Malghan
,
Economist
Ganesh Devy
,
Linguist, activist
Gauhar Raza, Poet,
Scientist
Githa Hariharan, Writer
Gurbir Singh
,
Journalist
Harsh Mander
,
Social activist
Indira
Chandrasekhar
, Scientist, Writer
Irfan Engineer
,
Writer, Activist
Javed Anand
,
Writer, Activist
…….. among many signatories.
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