InSAF India Annual Newsletter (Jan 2024)
As InSAF India enters its fourth year, the need for an international academic community that is dedicated to academic freedom in India continues to grow at an alarming pace. The relentless attacks on scholars, teachers, artists, journalists, and students; on the autonomy of universities to adhere to academic standards; and on critical thinking are all part of the unravelling of democracy towards an authoritarian Hindu supremacist society. The space of the school and the university to think freely is shrinking while lessons of submission are taught outside through messages of everyday violence via technological channels of WhatsApp and other social media. These include sadistic acts of mob lynchings, arrests, and media trials and spectacles of utter devotion to Prime Minister Modi and dreams of being a global economic and military power.
We are also mindful that the dismantling of academic freedom is a worldwide trend. Although our involvement began with individuals, we have come to understand that academic freedom is better conceptualized as a collective right, not an individual right, which educational institutions are bound to safeguard and nurture. We witness instead that these institutions actively curtail the academic freedoms of students, academics, unions and academic networks.
In 2023, InSAF India made a concerted effort to connect with international academic freedom organisations. As part of this work, we co-hosted a series of webinars on Academic Freedom in Asia together with academic freedom initiatives from Asia and the Americas. We heard from academics in exile and in-country from Iran, Occupied Palestine, Lebanon, Myanmar, the UK and we also discussed academic freedom in Kashmir, with the aim of building public education resources that explore the interconnected nature of the struggles for academic freedom.
Overview of activities 2023
1. Support for scholars
2. International Academic Freedom Webinar Series
3. Bi-monthly Reading circle and Podcast ‘Ideas Behind Bars’
4. International advocacy work
5. Coalition-building
6. Publications and blog posts
7. Ways to support
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1. Support for scholars at risk
We reached out to several individuals facing dismissal from their academic positions and threats to their safety, due to their dissenting opinions or simply because of their religious or caste or ethnic identity. We invite them to our weekly online meetings to share their story and to discuss ways to support and show solidarity. In some cases, we have followed up with issuing petitions, solidarity statements and support letters.
We have also been in regular contact with the families and support groups of incarcerated scholar-activists in India. We have been repeatedly told it is of immense importance to them to know that they have not been forgotten and that there are people nationally and internationally who sustain attention to their cases. Post cards, letters and gifts of books are also greatly appreciated. We intend to run our “Postcard to Prison” campaign again this year soon.
2. International Academic Freedom Webinar Series
The aim of the Academic Freedom Webinar series is to build international solidarities among initiatives working on threats to academic freedom in various national/regional contexts, to learn and exchange ideas and strategies for resistance. Currently in the light of the restrictions on academic freedom in our countries of residence regarding the ongoing genocide in Occupied Palestine, we are also looking at understanding the barriers that can limit our international solidarities, and to share this knowledge widely as a form of public education.
In each webinar, our colleagues spoke about how the international community can demonstrate their solidarity with them. We have published reports of these sessions and made recordings available via our website. Recommended actions and a list of our collaborators are also included there.
Webinar 1: Academic Freedom in Iran – How ideology can affect science
Webinar 3: Academic Solidarity during the ongoing genocide and surveillance (Occupied Palestine, Lebanon, UK and Kashmir)
3. Bi-monthly Reading circle and Podcast ‘Ideas Behind Bars’
InSAF India’s bi-monthly online reading circle, Ideas Behind Bars, was continued in 2023, with sessions dedicated to the work of Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves, incarcerated students from the so-called Delhi riots case (Umar Khalid, Gulfisha Fatima and others).
Concerned with the incarceration of students, researchers and independent scholars and alarmed at the stifling of critical thought in India, we organized the reading circles to engage with ideas and works of democratic, anti-authoritarian, anti-casteist thinkers who have been put behind bars; to support the work of these thinkers; to encourage the purchase of their books and the circulation of their ideas. In 2022 we discussed the writings of Anand Teltumbde, Shoma Sen, Hany Babu, G.N. Saibaba and Varavara Rao.
All the sessions are recorded and edited into a short podcast as educational resource, published together with Nether Quarterly. Check out the published podcast episodes on Anand Teltumbde, Shoma Sen, Varavara Rao and G.N. Saibaba.
The reading circles will continue in 2024, on the last Saturday of the month, every two months, starting on 24 Feb 2024 (8 pm IST). To register send an email to insafindia@protonmail.com with ‘Registration: Ideas Behind Bars’ in the subject line.
4. International advocacy work
International Statement on Bombing of Adivasi areas in Bastar
In April 2023, we circulated a statement among the international academic community, especially scholars of indigenous studies, to raise awareness about the repression and destruction of lives, livelihood and environment of India's Indigenous (Adivasi) peoples, following drone attacks by India’s security forces, particularly the bombings of Adivasi areas in Bastar. As scholars concerned about indigenous communities, we consider it our responsibility to draw attention to these attacks and advocate for justice for the people whose lives are intertwined with our research and scholarship.
The joint statement was endorsed by over 130 signatories and is open to further signatures via our website. We also published translations of the statement in five Indian languages.
Submission to UN OHCHR on academic freedom
InSAF India made a submission to the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR) in 2023, in response to a call by the Office in preparation of a report to the UN Human Rights Council on freedom of opinion and freedom of expression. InSAF India’s submission focused on the importance of academic freedom and made a series of recommendations for the UN’s possible role in safeguarding academic freedoms in India and elsewhere. The submission as well as the full report can be found on the OHCHR website.
5. Coalition-building
We have continued to work together with and strengthen our connections to other initiatives in India and internationally, including the India Academic Freedom Network, SAPAN, National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights, Strengthening Human Rights and Peace Research and Education in ASEAN/Southeast Asia (SHAPE-SEA), Centre for Lebanese Studies, Off-University, India Labour Solidarity, London Mining Network, Foundation the London Story, Polis Project. We are also part of the UK-based Fossil Free Science Museum Campaign.
We co-organized a webinar in co-operation with India Academic Freedom Network on ‘Palestine, Israel and Academic Freedom in India’, which has also been archived online.
We helped to organize book presentations for the recent publication of Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia: How Long can the Moon be Caged? Voices from Indian Political Prisoners (Pluto Press, 2023) in the UK and in the Netherlands. We participated in a live discussion on the book on the PBC UK channel.
We have also been working together with Sami activists in Norway and with Adivasi leaders in Jharkhand to build possibilities for international solidarity and for indigenous knowledge exchange.
6. Publications and blog posts
Solidarity statements
Joint statement condemning drone attacks by Indian security forces in Bastar
Statement in support of economics scholar, Sabyasachi Das (Ashoka University)
Statement on the institutional murder of Dalit student in IIT Bombay
Articles/ blog posts
Reflections on teaching Palestine/Israel in the Theatre Studies classroom (Sruti Bala, Rashna Nicholson), in Theatre Times
The Construction of Hinduphobia in the UK (Meena Dhanda), Text of talk delivered at Rutgers University
Letter marking five years in prison (Shoma Sen)
Letter to Vasantha (G.N. Saibaba to his wife)
Azadi (Freedom) and Soch (A Thought) (poems by Surendra Gadling and Sudhir Dhawale)
A BBC documentary: Colonisation or Solidarity? (Laila Kadiwal)
Jharkhand’s New Sthaniyata (Local Resident) Policy (Dayamani Barla, Varsha Bhagat-Ganguly, Rashmi Katyayan, Antony Puthumattathil, Lotika Singha, 6 May 2023, Economic and Political Weekly)
Hindutva spreads freedom from thinking and infantilism as the new normal (Jyotsna Kapur, The Beacon. November 26, 2022).
7. Ways to support
Do these activities spark your interest? Are you able to offer some support for a scholar at risk? Would you like to use your formal position or experience to act as a mentor? Do you have time to write letters or perhaps donate books to prison? Would you like to be more actively involved in organizing and mobilizing, participate in our weekly meetings or help with social media and the website? There are many ways you can contribute to InSAF India’s activities. We would welcome that, do get in touch!
InSAF India website: www.academicfreedomindia.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@insafindia627
Twitter: https://twitter.com/IndInsaf
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/insaf.ind
Email: insafindia@protonmail.com