One year on, no sign of freedom for Teltumbde

PANAJI
Even as unworthy politicos in Goa and across the nation sang hosannas to pay homage to Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar on Wednesday, in a secluded corner cell of a Mumbai jail Dr Anand Teltumbde, the grandson-in-law of the Dalit icon and the architect of the Indian Constitution, spent the first day of a second year in detention.

A renowned academic and faculty at Goa Institute of Management (GIM), Sanquelim, Teltumbde completed a year in jail after he had surrendered on Ambedkar Jayanti, April 14, last year when a bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justices Arun Mishra and MR Shah had invoked Section 43D(4) of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and denied him anticipatory bail. 

He is among a dozen of intellectuals, activists and literateurs incriminated under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, after an FIR was registered by the Pune Police in connection with the violence at Bhima Koregaon on January 1, 2018.

Dr Teltumbde has repeatedly stated that he was not even present at the Bhima Koregaon event in 2018, where lakhs of Dalits gathered to commemorate the 1818 victory over the oppressive Peshawa rule. 

In 2018, the 200th anniversary of the battle, the event was marred by caste clashes instigated by Hindutva goons who have gone scot-free but several activists have since been arrested on charges of inciting the violence and Teltumbde, along with Gautham Navlakha, Varavara Rao and Father Stan Swamy are among them.

Hindutva leaders Sambhaji Bhide and Milind Ekbote – also accused of instigating the 2018 violence – have not been arrested.

Dr Teltumbde and the others are also accused of involvement in an alleged Maoist plot to wage war against the State and assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In an open letter days prior to his surrender last year, Teltumbde had said: “The arrest for me is not simply the hardship of prison life, it is keeping me away from my laptop, which has been integral with my body, from my library which has been part of my life, half-written manuscripts of books committed to various publishers, my research papers that are in various stages of completion, my students who staked their future on my professional reputation, my institute [Goa Institute of Management] that has invested so many resources in my name and recently took me on its Board of Governors, and my numerous friends and of course my family. My wife, who, as the granddaughter of Babasaheb Ambedkar, hardly bargained for this fate, and daughters who are already disturbed not knowing whatever that has been happening to me since last [2018] August.”

In his open letter, Teltumbde had also stated that while a hardened criminal could get away with a year’s sentence, an innocent person booked by the police (at the behest of their political bosses) under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act can spend years in jail. 

“There is not an iota of unlawful activities in either my voluminous writings or selfless activism,” he had further said in his open letter in which he also outlined the complicity of the administration including the police in the violence that erupted at Bhima Koregaon. 

Due to a series of circumstances including a tyre puncture, Teltumbde could not be present at the venue in 2018, and was unaware of the violence that broke out.

On 29 August 2018, the police had raided Teltumbde’s home, accusing him of having a connection to the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence and an alleged Maoist plot to assassinate Modi.

Teltumbde was denied anticipatory bail by the Bombay High Court although it granted interim protection from arrest. Nonetheless, he was arrested by Pune police on February 3, 2019, and released later the same day.

Several independent scholars, activists and academicians in the country and across the globe have been critical of the investigation and Supreme Court judge D Y Chandrachud in September 2018, even questioned the biased nature of the investigation by the Maharashtra Police.

Counter-terrorism expert and Executive Director of the Institute for Conflict Management, Ajai Sahni, has also suggested that the evidence used against Teltumbde seemed fabricated.

The Washington Post has also reported that Teltumbde’s arrest was a “government crackdown on lawyers and activists” who are critics of Modi.

Days before the Covid-19 lockdown last year, the Supreme Court dismissed Teltumbde’s anticipatory bail plea and gave him and Navlakha three weeks to surrender.

Teltumbde eventually surrendered to the National Investigation Agency on 14 April last year.