Expressing concern over the “prolonged incarceration” of a large number of writers, journalists, and social activists for criticising the Indian government, a group of eminent personalities have sought to draw the world’s attention on how India’s “democratic tradition is being fundamentally undermined.”
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In a joint statement, they pointed out how individuals are jailed “often without so much as a chargesheet against them”. Novelist Amitav Ghosh, literary theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Professor Akeel Bilgrami, and Professor Sheldon Pollock are among those who signed the statement on the undermining of elementary freedoms in India.
In a separate statement supporting his “friends”, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen expressed his “sense of indignation at this basic violation of human freedom in my own country”. “Imprisonment without trial and without fairness in the treatment of human beings is certainly among the worst injustices that the country has made into a regular arrangement,” Professor Sen said.