As journalist and human rights defender Teesta Setalvad spends another night in Gujarat’s Sabarmati jail, Sabrang India looks back at some of her most powerful work (and words) over the last thirty years – work and words deemed dangerous enough to be imprisoned. This is the struggle of our memory against forgetting, against the white-washing and clean-chitting of violence.
The year is 2004. Teesta Setalvad is known for her unrelenting pursuit of justice for victims of the Gujarat carnage. Karan Thapar is the much lauded, no-nonsense host of the Indian version of BBC’s Hardtalk. Watch how she navigates the interview, elaborating on her idea of constitutional justice, majority and minority communalism, democracy and the need for an independent police force among other things. Tinged by the passage of time, the interview will evoke nostalgia for those who remember a time when journalism was credible and might provoke a thought or two in the residents of a post-truth world of ‘boiling pots’.