According to a report by PTI, the devotees were stopped after crossing into Pakistan through the Attari–Wagah border. Officials allegedly told them, “You are Hindu, you cannot go with a Sikh jatha.” Amar Chand, one of those turned back along with six family members, said that despite having valid travel documents and clearance from Indian immigration, they were refused entry once inside Pakistan.

As per the Hindustan Times report, the jatha of around 1,900 Sikh pilgrims had crossed into Pakistan on Tuesday to participate in the Parkash Purb festivities. Chand’s family, along with seven others from Lucknow, had joined the group intending to offer prayers at prominent gurdwaras, including Nankana Sahib. However, all 14 were sent back by Pakistani officials soon after entering.

As per the HT report, a Punjab intelligence officer posted at the border confirmed the incident, saying: “Those denied entry are Hindus by faith, originally from Pakistan but settled in India for many years. They held valid Indian passports and had obtained immigration clearance from our side. Once they entered Pakistan, officials there examined their documents and returned them to the BSF.”

Interestingly, other Hindu devotees in the same jatha faced no such problems. Palwinder Singh, head of the pilgrimage department of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), which organises the largest pilgrim groups, clarified:

“Nearly 40 Hindus are part of our group this year, and almost all entered Pakistan without any issue. Many Hindu followers of Guru Nanak travel every year for these pilgrimages — they have never been barred on the basis of religion.”

The SGPC jatha will remain in Pakistan until November 13, visiting key Sikh shrines including Gurdwara Panja Sahib (Hasan Abdal), Gurdwara Darbar Sahib (Kartarpur, Narowal), Gurdwara Sacha Sauda (Farooqabad), Gurdwara Dehra Sahib (Lahore), and Gurdwara Rori Sahib (Gujranwala).

Amar Chand recounted that his family had even paid ₹95,000 (Pakistani rupees) for bus tickets after clearing all formalities. “Five officials came and told us to get down from the bus, saying Hindus can’t go with Sikh pilgrims. We were then sent back, and our money was not refunded,” he said. Chand, originally from Pakistan, moved to India in 1999 and obtained Indian citizenship in 2010.

Meanwhile, more than 200 other applicants were stopped at the Indian side of the border as they lacked final approval from the Union Home Ministry.

Earlier, the Indian government had initially decided against sending any jatha to Pakistan this year citing security concerns after Operation Sindoor. However, it later allowed a limited group to proceed under strict conditions.

Under the 1950 Nehru–Liaquat Pact, Sikh pilgrims are permitted to visit Pakistan’s revered shrines on four key occasions each year — Baisakhi, Guru Arjan Dev’s martyrdom day, Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s death anniversary, and Guru Nanak Dev’s birth anniversary.

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The post Pakistan denies entry to 14 Hindu devotees in Sikh ‘jatha’ visiting for Guru Nanak Jayanti appeared first on SabrangIndia.

As is well known, Kushinagar is one of the most important holy places for Buddhists worldwide, as the Buddha delivered his last sermon here and attained Mahaparinirvana here. Bhadant Gyaneshwar was the most senior Buddhist monk in Kushinagar and had served as President of the Kushinagar Monks’ Association since 2005. He assumed this role after the passing of Bhadant Aniruddha Mahathera of Lumbini. The Kushinagar Monks’ Association was established on December 18, 1952, with Bhadant Chandramani Mahathera as its first President, serving until May 8, 1972. Bhadant Uttikhendariya Mahathera and Achyutananda Mahathera subsequently became Presidents. Bhadant Gyaneshwar Mahathera was thus the sixth President of the Kushinagar Bhikshu Association.

Bhadant Gyaneshwar was born on November 10, 1936, in the village of Jibenji, in the Akyab district of Arakan province, Burma. Arakan is now part of Rakhine State. His childhood name was Aung Ja Wae, and his father was a farmer. Today, Burma is known as Myanmar. Rakhine State remains the most indigenous and largest Buddhist region, though in recent years the treatment of Rohingya Muslims and their plight have drawn considerable international attention.

Bhadant Gyaneshwar had publicly noted that this issue was not so polarised during his time. He recalled that Bengali Muslims had migrated to his region and exploited local people. He vividly remembered events from World War II. In conversations with me, he discussed Myanmar’s diverse ethnicities but emphasised that there was no caste system or untouchability, unlike what he encountered extensively in India. His village, a coastal area with a significant Buddhist population, shaped his early life. Bhadant Gyaneshwar’s mother died during his childhood, causing him great suffering. At a young age, he was drawn to the teachings of Dhamma. On April 12, 1949, he entered a university in Rangoon (now Yangon) to study Pali. On June 3, 1956, after six years of studying Buddhism, he became a shramana and received the name that became known in Hindi as Dnyaneshwar or Gyaneshwar.

Burma was a flourishing centre of Buddhism, and India maintained strong relations with it. In 1954, Burma hosted the Sixth Buddhist Council, attended by Bhante Dharmarakshita. Babasaheb Ambedkar and E.V.R. Periyar also participated in this historic conference in Rangoon. Though only 18 years old, Bhadant Gyaneshwar attended and met Babasaheb Ambedkar. He remembered little of the encounter, being too young to grasp Dr. Ambedkar’s socio-political significance; like other locals, he was there to listen to distinguished guests and serve. The large-scale event held special meaning for him nonetheless.

Buddhist monks from Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Myanmar have long visited India’s historical and religious sites, often saddened by their neglect and dedicating their lives to restoration. Anagarika Dharmapala of Sri Lanka played a pivotal role in reviving Buddhism in India. For context, he fought to restore Buddhist control over the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya; his efforts helped revive Buddhism and its heritage across South Asia. He is renowned globally for advancing Buddhist ideas and practices.

Bhadant Gyaneshwar’s parents knew Bhadant Chandramani, as his father followed Buddhism. In 1962, when Bhikkhu Dharmarakshita and Bhikkhu Kittima Mahasthavir learned about Bhadant Chandramani’s declining health—one of India’s most respected monks—their concern deepened. They recognised his efforts to preserve Buddhist Dhamma in Kushinagar and sought someone to care for him while ensuring deep Dhamma knowledge and devotion for the future. By 1962, Bhadant Chandramani’s health had become a worry for the Buddhist community. Accordingly, the two bhikkhus invited 27-year-old Gyaneshwar from Burma to India, directing him to Kushinagar to live with Bhadant Chandramani. Bhadant Gyaneshwar arrived on August 5, 1963, to serve his guru and strengthen Buddhist heritage. From then on, he immersed himself in Indian Buddhist traditions, mastering the local language. He worked for the upliftment of marginalised people and counselled Dhamma practitioners from India and abroad, contributing significantly to Kushinagar’s development.

Bhadant Gyaneshwar possessed a sharp memory and an extraordinary ability to share his vast experiences. He regularly met disciples and people from all walks of life, discussing socio-religious issues. Language was initially a barrier, but he soon became fluent in Hindi and Bhojpuri, travelling worldwide. He continued charitable and social activities initiated by Bhadant Chandramani Mahasthavir. Though unable to return to Myanmar, he maintained ties; the Bhadant Chandramani VIP Guest House in Kushinagar was built with Myanmar Buddhists’ support.

His life exemplified struggle. In conversations with me, he shared key experiences, including efforts to remove unauthorised occupation from land around the Mahaparinirvana site in Kushinagar. These battles—reconstructing sites and reclaiming land—form a long and inspiring story. To adapt to India, he enrolled in local schools, completing high school in 1968, intermediate in 1970, BA in 1973, and MA in 1975 from Buddha Degree College, Kushinagar. He later earned Pali Sahitya Ratna and an LLB degree, reflecting his passion for knowledge.

The Myanmar government honoured him with its highest religious award. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, he could not travel, so the Myanmar Ambassador conferred the title *Abhidhaja Maharatthaguru* in Kushinagar in June 2021. Earlier honours included *Abhidhaja Aggamaha Thaddamma Jotika* (2016), *Aggamaha Pandita* (1993), and *Aggamaha Thaddamma Jotika Daza* (2005) for his service to Buddhism. Bhadant Gyaneshwar became a legal Indian citizen in 1978 and remained President of the Kushinagar Main Temple Bhikshu Sangha until his death.

He was associated with numerous Buddhist religious and charitable organisations and served on the Bodhgaya Mahavihara Administrative Body (appointed by the Bihar government) from 1990 to 2018. 

When I had asked him if Bodh Gaya should remain a Buddhist pilgrimage site, he replied, “Shouldn’t it be handed over to Buddhists as it is the most sacred site for Buddhists.” He advocated transferring all Buddhist sites to Buddhist control. While accepting Archaeological Survey of India oversight for preservation, he noted that global visitors seek not just archaeology but Buddhist teachings. India, as the Buddha’s land, should facilitate this.

Many disciples have become prominent monks strengthening India’s Buddhist movement. Dr. Nanda Ratan Bhante Thero, head of the Sri Lanka Buddha Vihara, met him in 1995 while in Shravasti. He pursued higher education under “Guruji” (as disciples called Bhadant Gyaneshwar). In 1998, Guruji sent him to Myanmar’s International Theravada Buddhist University; he returned to Kushinagar in 1999.

Dr. Nanda Ratan Bhante says Guruji cared deeply for the poorest and most marginalised, prioritising education—especially for girls—and fought caste discrimination and untouchability. Thousands of followers in India and abroad attended his lectures and invitations. At Guruji’s request, Japan’s Maitri Association supported education for hundreds of children within a 10-kilometre radius of Kushinagar. He remained active in Kushinagar’s development.

Bhante Nand Ratan ji cared for Guruji devotedly. Days ago, at a Buddhist prayer meeting at our Prerna Kendra, he asked everyone to wish Guruji health and long life. Today, meeting him where Bhadant Gyaneshwar’s body lay for devotees’ darshan, Guruji was pensive: “We tried our best but could not save him. We wanted him for many more years. This will be my greatest regret.” I have seen Bhante Nand Ratan ji always caring for Bhadant Gyaneshwar. He did everything possible, but some things are beyond human control. Bhadant Gyaneshwar’s presence will be missed, yet his network of followers will carry his legacy forward.

Bhadant Gyaneshwar dedicated his life to Dhamma and gave Kushinagar a renewed identity. Children study in his schools; his temple attracts domestic and foreign visitors. Experiencing caste in India, he told me he had never known it in Myanmar, where ethnic differences existed without hierarchy.

Interviewing him nearly five years ago was a privilege and honour. As the Guru of Gurus, I was hesitant, unsure how to proceed. He called for a chair so I could sit beside him and converse comfortably. He answered with profound depth. Today, paying respects at the same venue, memories of that interview flooded back. At its end, he recited a Buddhist hymn for our well-being.

Throughout his long public life, he followed the Buddha’s path—the hope Babasaheb Ambedkar saw for the Bahujan Samaj, our true freedom for over 85% of the population. Bhadant Gyaneshwar’s efforts to spread Buddha’s wisdom in India and beyond will inspire generations. He loved Kushinagar, building its Buddhist identity. The Burmese Buddha Vihara and its later stupa were major contributions. Frankly, the stupa at the Burmese Buddha Vihara has become Kushinagar’s landmark.

A fitting tribute to Bhadant Gyaneshwar.

**Bhavatu Sabba Mangalam!**

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The post Obituary: Bhadant Gyaneshwar and his invaluable contribution to the buddhist world appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Unveiling what he called “The H Files”, Gandhi said the data collected by his team over months reveals a centrally coordinated operation to manipulate voter lists and subvert democracy itself. “This is not an accident. This is not about one booth or one constituency. It is a centralised operation to steal elections,” he declared at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters in Delhi, a day before the Bihar Assembly elections begin.

“One in eight voters fake”: Rahul Gandhi

According to Gandhi, Haryana, with roughly two crore registered voters, had about 25.4 lakh bogus entries — meaning “one in every eight voters is fake.”

He said his team had classified the fake voters under five categories:

• 5.2 lakh duplicate voters,
• 93,174 invalid addresses,
• 19.2 lakh bulk voters (20 or more voters registered at the same address), and
• Several others linked to misuse of Form 6 (additions) and Form 7 (deletions).

“Despite clear technical capacity to detect duplicates, the ECI deliberately refused to run even a basic photo-identity matching query,” Gandhi alleged. “Why? Because they are helping the BJP.”

The ‘Brazilian Model’ case and recycled photos

Displaying a presentation with screenshots from the official voter database, Gandhi held up a photo of a woman he said is a Brazilian model, alleging that her image was used to create 22 separate voter IDs across 10 polling booths in Haryana. “What is a Brazilian woman doing on a voters’ list in Haryana?” he asked.

He further claimed that in some cases, the same photograph appeared 223 times across different constituencies. “This is just one example. There are thousands more. This is not voter error — this is organised fraud,” he asserted.

The Congress leader ridiculed Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s explanation that voter IDs bearing “House No. 0” are reserved for homeless citizens. “We physically went to those addresses,” Gandhi said, showing a two-storey house listed as ‘House No. 0’. “This is not homelessness. This is hiding. The CEC is lying to the people of India.”

In one instance, Gandhi said, 501 voters were registered under a single address, calling it “statistical proof of systematic rigging.”

“Operation sarkar chori”: Rahul Gandhi

Calling the alleged operation “Sarkar Chori” (Government Theft), Gandhi said the manipulation was engineered to deny the Congress victory despite exit polls and internal assessments predicting a landslide win for his party.

“The Congress was poised to win comfortably, but they converted a victory into defeat through data manipulation,” he said, noting that in at least eight key constituencies, the BJP’s margin of victory was under 23,000 votes, while over 25 lakh fraudulent entries existed across the state.

“These eight seats — Uchana Kalan, Dadri, Rai, and others — were the difference between Congress forming the government and BJP stealing it,” Gandhi said.

Allegations against Election Commission

Gandhi accused the Election Commission of being “in partnership with the Prime Minister and Home Minister” in “destroying Indian democracy.”

He alleged that the poll body not only ignored evidence of fake and duplicate voters but also destroyed CCTV footage from polling stations to erase proof.

“The ECI can remove duplicate entries in seconds. All they have to do is run a query to identify identical photos or addresses. They don’t, because they’re complicit,” he said, calling the Commission a “collaborator in vote theft.”

Responding to ECI’s earlier defence that “no voter deletion can be done online,” Gandhi retorted that his team had used the Commission’s own data to trace these irregularities. “We are not fabricating anything. We are exposing what the ECI’s own numbers reveal,” he said.

“Industrialised vote theft”: Rahul Gandhi

Terming the manipulation “industrialised”, Gandhi said the same centralised pattern was visible in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh, adding that the Congress had first detected the scam in Mahadevapura and Aland Assembly constituencies in Karnataka.

“In Aland, fake login IDs and mobile numbers were used to delete voters remotely. In Mahadevapura, over one lakh names were found to be either deleted or duplicated. We saw the same pattern in Haryana — that’s when we realised this is national-scale rigging,” Gandhi said.

He added that the same strategy was now being deployed in Bihar, where 47 lakh names were deleted during the recent voter list revision. Several affected voters from Bihar’s Jamui district joined Gandhi on stage, claiming their names were removed without notice.

“Thousands of BJP Voters in Two States”

Gandhi also claimed that thousands of BJP leaders and workers were registered in multiple states. “They are voting in both Uttar Pradesh and Haryana,” he said, citing examples of party office-bearers with dual entries.

To underline this, he played a video of BJP Kerala Vice President B. Gopalakrishnan, who had in August openly stated that his party would “bring voters from other states and settle them for a year to ensure victory.”

BJP’s counter and EC’s response

The BJP dismissed Gandhi’s allegations as a “fabricated conspiracy”, timed to influence the Bihar polls. Union Minister Kiren Rijiju said, “This is a planned diversion. According to Hindustan Times, Rijiju said that the Opposition has no issue left in Bihar, so they are attacking institutions. Questioning the Election Commission and our democracy means questioning the country itself.”

Meanwhile, Election Commission officials, responding during the press conference, said there had been “zero appeals” against electoral rolls in Haryana and questioned the Congress’s polling agents for not objecting at booths. “If someone votes twice, agents can object on the spot. Why did they not?” an EC source asked.

The Commission reiterated that Gandhi’s earlier claims about voter deletions in Karnataka were “incorrect and baseless.”

Wider reactions

The explosive allegations drew backing from opposition leaders. Aditya Thackeray, leader of the Shiv Sena (UBT), said the issue “transcends party politics” and concerns “the value of every Indian’s vote.”

“Once again, Rahul Gandhi has exposed the Election Commission’s fraud that helps the BJP capture states via vote theft,” Thackeray said on X (formerly Twitter). “The world is watching how our elections are no longer free and fair. This is not about parties — this is about democracy itself.”

He added that his party had also flagged similar voter list manipulation in Maharashtra, including Worli and other constituencies, but “the EC refused to act.”

“This fight is not just for the Congress,” Thackeray said, “it’s for free and fair elections across India — for our Constitution and democracy. Vote chor, gaddi chhod (vote thieves, vacate power).”

Once again, @RahulGandhi has exposed the @ECISVEEP ’s fraud today that helps the bjp to capture States via vote theft.

The world is watching how our elections aren’t free and fair anymore… with proof!

One may agree or disagree with Rahul Gandhi, or the @INCIndia or the INDIA…

— Aaditya Thackeray (@AUThackeray) November 5, 2025

“We are protecting democracy”: Rahul Gandhi

In his closing remarks, Gandhi urged the youth to take ownership of India’s democratic future. “I want Gen Z to take this seriously. Your vote, your future, your democracy — all are being stolen in plain sight,” he said.

He invited journalists and citizens alike to independently verify his findings, saying, “We are not afraid. We are exposing the truth in front of the Supreme Court, before the people, not behind closed doors.”

Calling “vote chori” the theft of rights, employment, education, and the Constitution itself, Gandhi said: “This democracy belongs to you, not to the Election Commission or Narendra Modi. We will fight this with satya and ahimsa.”

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The post Rahul Gandhi alleges ‘industrial-scale vote theft’ in Haryana Polls, claims 25 lakh fake voters added with EC-BJP collusion appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The first and most pressing is the case of 26-year-old Sunali Khatun from Birbhum’s Murarai area, pregnant at the time of her arrest, who was detained in Delhi in June along with her husband and 8-year-old son and subsequently deported to Bangladesh. She is currently jailed in Bangladesh, legally battling for her return to India.

The Sunali Khatun case

Sunali and her husband, Danish Sheikh, along with their son, were apprehended in Delhi’s K.N. Katju Marg in June, labeled as illegal immigrants. Their deportation was ordered by the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) and executed despite Sunali’s family presenting Aadhaar and PAN documents, as per a report in the Times of India.

What has triggered shock and outrage is the revelation that Sunali’s parents — Bhodu Sheikh and Jyotsna Bibi — are listed as voters in Bengal’s 2002 SIR-era electoral roll, under Murarai assembly constituency.  Under the Citizenship Act, one route to being a citizen by birth is if one parent was an Indian citizen at the time of the person’s birth. In this case, both parents appear on a list of voters deemed legitimate by the Election Commission of India (EC).

The Calcutta High Court (HC) in September quashed the FRRO deportation order, noting the haste of the process and the mismatch in Sunali’s age (26 yrs, implying birth in 2000) and the claim of illegal entry in 1998. The court directed the Centre to repatriate her and her family within four weeks — a deadline that has lapsed, The Indian Express reported.

Her father told The Indian Express that “Now our names are on the list. What more do I need to have my pregnant daughter and her family back home?”

The ruling party in Bengal, the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC), has seized on these facts to accuse the opposition and the Centre of weaponising the SIR process and targeting poor Bengali-speaking migrants. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the TMC declared:

“To brand an expectant mother as an illegal infiltrator when her parents stand documented as Indian citizens in the 2002 electoral rolls, is not administrative oversight; it is a moral collapse orchestrated in the name of nationalism” as per a report in the Shillong Times.

Meanwhile, the Centre has moved the matter to the Supreme Court, resisting immediate compliance with the HC’s order.

A suicide amid SIR fears

In a parallel but separate another incident, Kakoli Sarkar, a 32-year-old homemaker originally from Dhaka, married and living in Titagarh for 15 years, ended her life by self-immolation. According to her mother-in-law, Kakoli had valid Indian documents, had voted in multiple elections, yet she lived with anxiety that her name was not on the 2002 voters’ list and that the SIR/NRC process might render her a suspect.

According to reports, on the night of her death she left a note stating that “No one is responsible for my death … I don’t feel well here … Please take care of my two daughters…”

Local police have detained her husband Sabuj Sarkar and her in-laws for questioning to determine if family pressure and documentation fears contributed to the tragedy, as reported

Impact and broader anxieties

These two cases are emblematic of a heightened climate of uncertainty across Bengal, where the SIR rollout and the spectre of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) continue to loom large. The EC’s announcement of SIR-drives across multiple states and Union Territories, including West Bengal, has reignited fears of exclusion, statelessness, and the sense that one’s right to remain is provisional, reported Sabrang India.

For Sunali’s family, the fact that her parents are on the 2002 roll should — in principle — secure her legitimacy. Yet she remains in a Bangladeshi prison and the deadlines set by the court remain unmet. For Kakoli, despite voting and living in India for years, the absence of a listing on the 2002 roll and the ongoing SIR process appears to have triggered existential dread.

Kakoli Sarkar’s suicide is not the only one

The fear that drove Kakoli Sarkar, to end her life amid growing panic over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is not an isolated tragedy. Her death joins a disturbing pattern of despair spreading across Bengal — where citizenship and belonging have become matters of fear rather than procedure.

Haunted by NRC and citizenship fears

The recent death of 57-year-old Pradip Kar from Agarpara, North 24 Parganas, once again exposes the deepening distress among Bengal’s citizens over ongoing citizenship verification exercises. On October 28, 2025, Kar was found hanging in his home, leaving behind a suicide note that “NRC is responsible for my death.”

According to SabrangIndia’s report, his family said he had grown increasingly anxious after the Election Commission announced the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls across 12 states, including West Bengal — a move widely feared to be a prelude to an NRC-like process.

According to Barrackpore Police Commissioner Murlidhar Sharma, there were no signs of foul play, but Kar’s note made an explicit reference to the NRC. “The family told us he was deeply disturbed by NRC-related reports. After the SIR announcement, he appeared anxious but they assumed it was illness,” Sharma said. Kar’s sister recalled, “He used to tell us he would be taken away in the name of NRC.”

Kar’s death mirrors the earlier tragedy of 31-year-old Debashish Sengupta from Kolkata, who died by suicide in March 2024 after being gripped by fears linked to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). As reported by Sabrang India, Sengupta—visiting his grandparents in South 24 Parganas—was found hanging after confiding that his ailing father, a migrant from Bangladesh, could be denied citizenship for lack of documents. His family said he was “consumed by dread” that the new CAA rules would render many stateless.

These deaths are no longer isolated incidents but reflections of emerging fears consuming ordinary citizens where bureaucratic exercises meant to verify identity instead provoke panic about erasure. Across Bengal, whispers of “NRC coming through the backdoor” now carry the weight of lived fear, not mere speculation.

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Haunted by NRC fears, 57-year-old West Bengal man dies by suicide; Mamata blames BJP for turning democracy into a “theatre of fear”

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The post Pregnant woman deported despite parents on 2002 SIR rolls, another homemaker commits suicide appeared first on SabrangIndia.

For Indian audiences, Mamdani’s victory carries significance that extends far beyond New York’s five boroughs. His win represents a complex convergence of identity, ideology and generational change that challenges established political narratives on both sides of the Atlantic.

Seven dimensions of his triumph deserve particular attention, particularly in India.​

1) A modern Muslim identity

Mamdani embodies a form of Muslim political identity that defies the stereotypes that the Bharatiya Janata Party and similar forces rely upon to paint Muslims as fundamentalist or separatist.

He is a practicing Muslim who openly discusses his faith while simultaneously championing secular democratic socialism, feminist causes and LGBTQ rights. This combination directly contradicts the caricature of Muslims as backwards looking Islamists.

His emotional speech outside a Bronx mosque about the humiliations Muslims have endured in New York since 9/11 demonstrated vulnerability and civic commitment rather than religious extremism. He married a Syrian American artist in a relationship that bridges cultural divides, and campaigns in multiple languages including Urdu and Spanish while maintaining his Muslim identity as central rather than hidden.

This presents a progressive Muslim political figure who is comfortable in his faith without being defined solely by it, a model that undermines narratives equating Muslim identity with Taliban style Islamist fundamentalism, as seen from the welcome given to the Taliban leader by the Modi government in Delhi last month.​

2) Mixed heritage and transnational roots

Mamdani’s parentage tells a story of cosmopolitan belonging that resonates across the global South.

Born in Kampala to Mira Nair, the acclaimed Hindu filmmaker from Delhi, and Mahmood Mamdani, a Gujarati Muslim scholar raised in Uganda, Mamdani carries Indian, African and American identities simultaneously. His family was part of the Asian diaspora expelled by Idi Amin in 1972, experienced apartheid-era South Africa, and eventually settled in New York when he was seven.

This background gives him an intuitive understanding of colonialism, displacement and minority experience that informs his politics. For Indians familiar with the complexities of diasporic identity and the lingering effects of British colonial divide and rule strategies, Mamdani’s mixed heritage represents a repudiation of narrow ethnic nationalism. His father’s scholarship explicitly critiques the tribalisation of politics, a pattern visible in both Uganda under Museveni and India under Modi. The son can be considered to have absorbed these lessons.​

3) Youth and generational change

At 34, Mamdani is the youngest New York mayor in 112 years, younger even than the legendary “Boy Mayor” John Purroy Mitchel elected in 1913. His age matters not merely as biography but as political force. He galvanised young voters, winning those under 50 by a two to one margin, precisely the demographic that feels locked out of home ownership, burdened by debt and alienated from establishment politics. His rapid rise from unknown state assemblyman polling at one percent just months before the primary to decisive victor reflects how quickly generational change can upend entrenched power structures.

For India, where Modi’s BJP has dominated national politics for over a decade, Mamdani’s trajectory offers evidence that insurgent campaigns built on youth energy and grassroots organising can overcome entrenched political figures like the Cuomos.

His campaign demonstrates that age and inexperience, typically framed as liabilities, can become assets when voters hunger for change.​

4) Socialist economic policies

Mamdani’s democratic socialism, often dismissed as radical or unworkable, formed the core of his appeal. He proposed rent freezes on stabilised apartments, free bus service, universal childcare, city run grocery stores and raising the minimum wage to 30 dollars, all funded by taxing corporations and the wealthy. These policies directly address the affordability crisis strangling working people in expensive cities. His message resonated because it named the problem clearly and offered concrete solutions rather than technocratic adjustments.

For Indian audiences familiar with the welfare state legacies of pre-liberalisation era, now being dismantled through privatisation, Mamdani’s unapologetic embrace of state intervention in markets to secure basic needs recalls an older social democratic tradition. His success suggests that economic populism focused on redistribution still wins elections when articulated with clarity and passion, a lesson relevant for opposition parties in India struggling to counter Modi’s Hindu nationalism with an economic alternative.​

5) Stance on Gaza and moral consistency

His vocal support for Palestinian rights, unusual for a major American mayoral candidate, cost him support among some Jewish voters but energised others, particularly younger Jews and the broader progressive coalition. He condemned Hamas’s October 7 attack as a war crime while also accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, pledging to arrest Netanyahu if given the chance and maintaining his criticism despite intense pressure.

This moral consistency, refusing to moderate his position for political convenience, functioned as proof of authenticity for voters exhausted by politicians who say different things to different audiences.

The likes of Modi and his cohort of RSS leaders have mastered this to an art form. Mamdani’s willingness to alienate powerful constituencies rather than compromise on principles he formed during his college activism with Students for Justice in Palestine shows a robust political calculus, one that prizes moral clarity over coalition management.​

6) Criticism of Modi’s Hindutva politics

Mamdani has repeatedly criticised Modi, calling him a war criminal and accusing the BJP of pursuing a vision of India that only has room for certain kinds of Indians. During his Diwali outreach to Hindu voters, he explained that he grew up with a pluralistic vision of India where everyone belonged regardless of religion, contrasting this with what he sees as Modi’s exclusionary Hindutva ideology.

He also attacked New York Mayor Eric Adams for backing Modi’s violent approach.

These statements, unusual for an American politician seeking office, reflect his family background. His father’s scholarship analyses how political leaders use ethnic and religious divisions to maintain power, a dynamic visible in both Uganda and India.

For Indian audiences, particularly those troubled by the erosion of secular pluralism under Modi, Mamdani’s willingness as a Muslim politician to defend a pluralistic vision of India while simultaneously claiming his Muslim identity offers a model. He refuses the choice between assimilation and separatism, instead asserting that diversity itself should be celebrated and protected.​

7) Implications beyond New York

Mamdani’s victory will reverberate beyond the United States. National Democrats will study his combination of social media savvy, grassroots organising and economic populism for lessons applicable to their own campaigns. Republicans will use his democratic socialism as a wedge issue in swing districts.

But for observers in India, the significance lies elsewhere. His win demonstrates that that an authentic progressive position has political rewards even in a city identified with capitalism, that youth can overcome entrenched political leaders, that economic redistribution still motivates voters, and that moral consistency on difficult issues can be rewarded rather than punished.

He will judged on his record at governance when he comes for re-election, but his election itself challenges assumptions about what kinds of politicians can win and what kinds of coalitions are possible in increasingly diverse democracies.

Courtesy: The Wire

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In 2023, India reported 5,272 “Offences against the State”, a decrease from 6,062 in the previous year. During this period, independent monitors, journalists, and lawyers also reported an increase in arrests, summonses, and investigations under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the National Security Act (NSA). This contradiction suggests a pattern, suggesting the state is becoming better at not reducing conflict, but reclassifying dissent. What is not present in the data is often present in imprisonment, in FIRs filed under vague provisions, and in the long silences in the periods between bail hearings.

Counting the Uncounted

The category “Offences Against the State” used by the NCRB is conceptually neutral. It combines old offences of sedition, UAPA, breaches of official secrets, and offences against public order categories into one statistical grouping — thereby obscuring the legal distinction between offences, which have divergent political meanings. By reporting a decline without disaggregation, the NCRB holds out a possibility of “national calm”.

Field reporting tells a different story. In UP, over 260 people were booked under UAPA between 2020-2023 for affiliations with alleged banned organizations or protests. In Assam, about 240 UAPA cases were filed, most against ordinary villagers for alleged “extremist sympathies.” In Jammu & Kashmir, local officials confirmed over 400 preventive detentions under the Public Safety Act (PSA) in 2023, but the NCRB reported zero sedition or communal violence cases (and the only cases of communal violence reported under “Offences Against the State” came from UP).

The absence of sedition or communal offences amongst J&K’s tables is not statistical levelling; it is political theatre. When it ceased to report on communal violence after 2017 and discontinued hate crime data due to “unreliability”, the NCRB removed its capacity to log dissent and identity-based repression. The state achieves its calm through bureaucratic design: what is not coded does not exist.

The Geography of Dissent

In India, oppression has been increasingly localised. The national claim of 13% (decrease) in “Offences against the State” obscures serious variations at the state level. Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, and Jammu & Kashmir — states under direct or close control of the centre — accounted for over half of UAPA registrations.

For example, in Manipur, where ethnic violence resulted in over 200 deaths and displaced 60,000 residents, the NCRB classifies the killings under “riots” and “arson,” not “communal or ethnic violence.” By using lost naming conventions, the NCRB ignores assessing the political roots of the conflict, by framing a breakdown of civil war-like norms as a disturbance of law and order. The ongoing case in Assam, where the government has expanded the use of the UAPA to include dissent and protect values of citizenship after protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, includes student leaders and journalists arrested for lengthy periods that vanish into their generic form of “public disorder.”

The city creates a paradoxical calm by reframing the law. Its NCRB numbers are a model of stability because the repression is distributed across other sections of law. Delhi is an example of national law enforcement priorities: bureaucratic calm, obscuring political repression.

Delhi: The Capital of Control

According to the NCRB’s 2023 data in Delhi, there were just six cases under UAPA, and a few others under sedition- numbers which starkly contrast with all that we know about cases in relation to the 2020 anti-CAA protests, the farmers’ protests, and the arrests of students in Delhi University and their teachers. The Delhi police, which is a part of the Ministry of Home Affairs, has become a model of a censorship state for centralization of dissent: students arrested for conspiracy, comedians questioned for satire, protest organizers charged for “rioting” rather than “offences against the state”.

Journalists like Meer Faisal and Qazi Shibli have been called for questioning on multiple occasions; students such as Devangana Kalita and Asif Iqbal Tanha, who were held in remand in the Delhi riots conspiracy case, remain on trial under UAPA even though the evidence against them is tenuous, and judgments have pushed back against what appears to be prosecutorial overreach.

This way of representing counts permits the data from Delhi to paint a picture of a city governed well, which permits dissent, free expression, and fun within the law. The lived experience tells a different story, of a city policed not through clampdown but through the ever-present threat of surveillance, summons, and social media judicial action.

Hence, Delhi’s repression is expressed through bureaucratic restraint rather than overt cruelty. It is the capital of restraint—a city where peace is created through paper.

The Architecture of Silence

This illusion created by the NCRB falls into a fourfold architecture of reclassification, omission, preventive detention, and digital suppression, all meant to turn repression into bureaucratic routine.

Maharashtra exemplifies reclassification. The NCRB mentions one UAPA and one sedition case in its comparable figures for 2023, while the Bhima Koregaon prosecution is ongoing in the court system. The difference isn’t that there were fewer arrests, but rather changed categorization—political matters labelled as public disorder. At the same time, the Bureau has refrained from noting lynchings or hate crimes since 2017, removing entire categories of violence from the national bookkeeping. What cannot be counted cannot be questioned.

Preventive detention exacerbates this silence. In Jammu & Kashmir, over 400 individuals were placed in preventive detention under the PSA in 2023, without any of them being charged under UAPA nor sedition. This too can be said for temporary curfews or travel restrictions that never lead to even a formal FIR. Digital control fulfils the architecture of silence. India had more than 80 internet shutdowns in 2023, with the highest in the world (https://www.accessnow.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2023-KIO-Report.pdf). Each of these shutdowns limits the state’s violence from being documented and, therefore, the NCRB can write its next report everyone is in peace. Thus, the Bureau’s data, is, then, not a neutral mirror of crime and thus, a curated reflection of governance—a record that transforms coercion into an order.

Freedom on Paper

The judiciary occasionally intervenes to disrupt this silence, rarely dismantling it. In Patricia Mukhim v. State of Meghalaya, the Supreme Court quashed a criminal process pursued against journalist Patricia Mukhim, alleging that she incited enmity against the government by posting on Facebook about government inaction after communal violence erupted in Shillong. The police charged her under Sections 153A and 505 of the IPC for reportedly promoting enmity, but the Court concluded that the post was calling out for equality and accountability, and importantly, this call for accountability was an act protected by Article 19(1) (a) of the Constitution. The Court held, in line with its previous jurisprudence, that the rights to critique failures of government action is part of democratic discourse, and criminal law should not be employed to silence legitimate expressions of concern.

The disjunction is enhanced by the NCRB’s silence. The NCRB does not treat any of these prosecutions as “Offences Against the State, even though they indicate how dissent is managed in reality. By treating repression as unquantifiable, the Bureau sustains the illusion of order. In the national ledger, India appears peaceful because the noise has been intentionally erased. The fewer number of offences reported, the more successful it is reported to be in maintaining peace—not by freedom, but by silence.

Reading the Decline

A 13% decrease in “Offences against the State,” reported by the NCRB, is not evidence of tranquillity; it is evidence of repression managed through a suppression of data. The numbers convey a political culture in which repression is managed through administrative, legal, and digital means. The selective reporting of cases in Delhi, the statistical black hole of J&K, and the removal of entries under ‘hate-crime’ all combine to form a national tableau of calm, entirely upon paper.

India’s democratic crisis is now one of a repressive silence. The state can operate without overt censorship; it can operate with hollowed out categories. Once dissent disappears from official stats, accountability collapses into nothingness. The NCRB’s spreadsheets do not report a reality; they curate one.

To truly understand Crime in India 2023 is to recognize that the state has mastered the art of anticivilization reflecting in the official statistics. Every absent number is an absent story; every decline is evidence of a faltering democracy. The fewer the number of offences reported, the less physical space for dissent there is. Being silenced, in India’s democracy today, is not evidence of peace—it is policy.

Related

Counting Crimes, Discounting Justice: The NCRB’s statistical blind spots

The Myth of Neutral Data: The Disappearance of Communal Violence in NCRB Data

Inexplicable delay in release of NCRB figures

Hate Surges in India, Reveal Disturbing Shifts in Patterns

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Ritwik Ghatak films (Ghatak’s filmography) is a treasure trove of cinematic brilliance, transcending unexplored horizons, to reinvent contemporary Indian art. Each film is an intensive exploration of complex human emotions against the backdrop of socio-political realities, reflecting the turbulent times in which he lived.

He was an individual with a characteristic and independent working style, and one of the mascots of the parallel cinema. He also waged a rebellion against a national cinema whose conventions he wanted to make a major rupture from with each of his work.

Ghatak’s life ran parallel to some of the most traumatic periods in the 20th century India, which had a major bearing or influence on the course of his work. He was a product of the convulsions of the 1940s – World War II, the terrible “man-made famine” of 1944, the communal violence that came with independence, and especially the partition of Bengal.

Characteristics of Ghatak Films

 Ghatak’s approach to filmmaking had autobiographical overtones and often reflected his personal experiences. He would experiment with narrative structures, visual aesthetics, and sound design, creating films that were not only intellectually appealing but emotionally vibrant. His works manifested a commitment to truth, a deep empathy for his characters, and a keen sense of social justice.

Ghatak used the theme of alienation to manifest harsh truths of human experience under oppressive social and economic systems. His work expressed a form of cultural resistance against foreign domination, utilising myth and epic to examine cultural conflicts and the fragmentation of Indian identity in the post-colonial era.

Marxist ideology fundamentally shaped his work, his films cantered on the lives and struggles of ordinary people, both rural and urban, particularly the trauma of the Bengal partition. Ghatak’s Marxist perspective was expressed   in his critique of the bourgeoisie and his portrayal of characters who, despite facing adversity, manifested a resilient human spirit.

Ghatak believed that exploring the collective unconscious through Jung was essential for exploring the inner world and that it complemented his materialist, Marxist analysis of social and political reality.  His films, especially his “Partition Trilogy,” used Jungian archetypes, symbolism, and mythologies to explore and manifest the collective trauma and rootlessness of the Bengali refugees.

Ghatak did not see a contradiction between Marx and Jung, but rather as different ways of interpreting the human condition. He diagnosed that the collective unconscious affects unconscious behaviour, while class structure determines conscious behaviour.

What distinguishes his work was a deep engagement with the human psyche and an unapologetic exploration of societal issues.  His subjects repeatedly projected the uprooted and the dispossessed: parentless children, homeless families, disoriented refugees, and the petit bourgeoisie, economically broken by their exile. With touches of artistic genius, he invokes glimmer of optimism in even the darkest adversity

The ability to fuse stark reality with poetic symbolism symbolised a constant struggle, against an age and society which sold itself to the shackles of rampant modernization, and against a national cinema whose conventions he wanted to make a rupture with in each of his works. His films exude sense of emptiness, giving us a feel of what it is to be alienated from one’s roots.

Ritwik Ghatak‘s work is a concoction of socialist ideology with a deep critique of post-partition India, focusing on themes of trauma, class struggle, and the commodification of culture. His female characters, epitomise both specific Indian experiences and universal human struggles against systemic oppression.

Influences in Early Life

His father, Rai Bahadur Suresh Chandra Ghatak, a magistrate in Mymensingh and Rajshahi districts of east Bengal, instilled in him the love for Sanskrit classics, the Vedas and the Upanishads, which often formed an integral theme in his films. In 1942, he was brought back from Kanpur to Rajshahi.

Involved from an early age in politics and in theatre, Ghatak was a member of the Indian Communist Party and considered Brecht and Eisenstein his role models.

He promptly submerged himself into the 10,000 books in the public library of Rajshahi. He was driven by and cultivated a love for the anti-Fascist movement of World War II which included Marx and Lenin. He later read a great deal on archaeology, on the Buddha, he examined the works of Jung, especially his psychology of the collective unconscious. The films he made between 1956 and 1966 bear powerful hoof prints of his deep and obsessive study of these books.

Best Films

It is interesting to note that despite being referred as the most creative artist in the area of filmmaking that India has produced, he only had 8 full length feature films to his credit. This speaks volumes of the impact that his 8 films made in comparison to the tons of films made by his contemporaries.

Ajantrik (1958) is a cinematic essay on the acceptance of the machine into the mental make-up of someone embedded or rooted in an ancient and totally un-mechanical tradition.  Ajantrik it is a ramshackle taxi driven round the town of Ranchi on the Bengal-Bihar border by an eccentric peasant called Bimal. The taxi is a target of ridicule to most who see or drive in it, but for Bimal it has a human character which is alternately jealous, loving and uncaring. Thus it breaks down when Bimal is attracted to a stranded girl.  At the end of the film, with the taxi’s death caused by a betrayal, the machine seems more reliable than its human counterparts.

‘Meghe Dhaka Tara’, ‘Komal Gandhar’ and ‘Subarnarekha’ form the famous trilogy, portraying the complicacies of the refugee families from the erstwhile East Pakistan.

Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960) (or ‘The Cloud-Capped Star’), is the most captivating portrayal of a harsh life in Bengal following the dreaded partition highlighting the atrocities experienced by the refugees. He used music and sound with magical effects. This film is, a ruthless, stunningly bold critique of the family as an institution.

The central character is Nita, who virtually sacrifices her life to keep her family afloat even when she realises that the man she loves, and who professes to love her, is about to marry her more sensual sister. All this is witnessed by Shankar, her musician brother who eventually leaves home, returning to find Nita in a sanatorium. In the film’s last scene, with the singer brother visiting Nita in hospital, the warning vibrato of a Pahadi folk song can be heard before he enters, as we witness the beautiful countryside around the clinic. Nita, sobbing, says to him: ‘Brother, I want to live. I want to live.’ For Ghatak, sound and music often became synonymous, with such scenes forging a perfect synthesis.

Also known as A Soft Note on A Sharp Scale, Komal Gandhar (1961) is the second movie in the Ghatak’s trilogy after Meghe Dhaka Tara.

Along with revolving around the theme of the Partition, the movie also is a narrative of a star-crossed couple and the rift that split apart the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA). ‘Komal Gandhar’ explored three interconnected themes, Anusua, the lead character’s dilemma, the infamous divided leadership of Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) and the tragic fallout after the partition of India. Unlike his other works, this one ends with the lead pair (Vrigu and Anusua) being reunited ultimately.

Subarnarekha (1965) is the last instalment of Ghatak’s Partition Trilogy. ‘Subarnarekha’ narrates the life story of three refugees in West Bengal: a Hindu man, his little sister, and a low-caste boy. Subarnarekha navigates the lives of a man, his child sister and a young boy whom the man provided shelter after the boy loses his mother in a melee. The film begins in a refugee camp of the then Calcutta, where a number of refugees have assembled in the hope of building their homes afresh. It explores how poverty and homelessness transform an individual’s attitude and his decisions throughout his life. Subarnarekha projects the plight of the three characters, the effects of hardships on shaping their thoughts, actions and the very paths they pursue in their lives. It is a tale of darkness and despair at its zenith. It conveyed that there was no political answer to Partition and that the resulting spiritual confusion could not easily be resolved.

The deep sense of waste is sharply expressed and the film itself Ghatak’s most brutal description yet of the social consequences of a political act. The female protagonist, Sita, symbolises a political uprootal. Ghatak restores the imagery of T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland in this film. Ghatak’s ‘wasteland’ is Calcutta and Sita is the ‘waste’ within it. The wasteland of Calcutta forbids Sita the freedom to live up to the mythical name she was christened with. She cannot accept this reality when she discovers that her ‘client’ is none other than her brother Ishwar, who ‘mothered’ her. Sita’s suicide makes a statement of protest against the dehumanisation of values in a modern, plagued society. Nevertheless life resurrects for the hero of the tragedy, with his sister’s child looking forward to a better life on the banks of the Subarnarekha River.

Titas Ekti Nadir Naam (1973 was originally an epic novel based on the tragic lives of a fishing community in the valley of the River Titus, Bangladesh. The film resurrected Ghatak’s obsession with the female principle, navigating the life and ultimate dissolution of a fishing community on the banks of the river Titash in Bangladesh. The river starts drying up. Death and starvation endanger the lives of the fishing community. Urban vested interests exploit the situation. The fishermen are displaced, and Basanti alone stays back, remaining a live witness to and victim of the incident. It featured multiple characters in a conglomeration of interconnected stories. The film is a powerful parable about the destruction of a traditional Bengali fishing community striking an analogy with the displacement caused by the Partition of India. A  poetic film that portrays the life of a fishing community along the Titas River to navigate realms  of cultural decay, memory, and fate.

In his final film, Jukti Takko Aar Gappo:  (1977) Ghatak played an alcoholic, disillusioned intellectual who comes into contact with Naxalites. The film explores the political and social realities of Bengal in the early 1970s. The film lacked any specific political ideology, navigating the story of an intellectual’s crisis and the isolation he experienced from society. The film is a deeply personal political statement, playing a pioneering role to project the crystallizing of Naxalite movement just taking shape in Bengal.

(The author is freelance journalist; he acknowledges the sources for this article: Times entertainment, Shoma Chatterji in ‘’High on Films’, Shreya Biswas in Indiatoday.in, Philatelyhobby.blogspot and Shoma Chatterji in Hindustan Times)

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The order, communicated to Sarode more than two months later in November 2025, states that his words had “the effect of lowering the respect and confidence of the public in the judiciary.” The BCMG concluded that as an “officer of the court,” Sarode had violated the dignity of his profession and “created distrust toward the judiciary.”

Yet a close reading of the order and the evidence reveals something much darker — not professional discipline, but a targeted silencing of dissent.

Genesis of the complaint

The disciplinary proceedings stemmed from a complaint filed by Advocate Rajesh Dabholkar, who accused Sarode of delivering a “hate speech” and making sarcastic and contemptuous remarks against the judiciary, the Speaker of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, and the Governor of Maharashtra during a ‘Janata Nyayalaya’ event held at SVP Stadium, Worli, Mumbai, on March 18, 2024.

In his complaint, Dabholkar alleged that Sarode told the gathering that “the judiciary is under pressure and there is no judiciary left to deliver judgments in favour of the people,” and that he referred to the then Governor as “faltu” (useless). These statements, the complainant argued, were not only “derogatory and defamatory” but amounted to a violation of professional ethics expected from an officer of the court.

After Sarode refused to tender an apology to Dabholkar, who had written to him on March 19, 2024, seeking a retraction, the latter lodged a formal complaint before the BCMG, submitting a video recording of the speech as evidence.

Proceedings before the Bar Council

The BCMG disciplinary committee, after viewing the video and examining written submissions from both sides, observed that Sarode’s remarks were “reprehensible, condemnable, and unbecoming of an advocate”, and had the effect of lowering the respect and confidence of the public in the judiciary and constitutional offices.

Quoting from the order, the Council noted:

“The respondent advocate has created an atmosphere of distrust and disrespect towards the judiciary by making such statements in a public meeting and circulating them on social media. The conduct of the respondent advocate was highly improper, reprehensible, condemnable, and unbecoming of a member of the Bar.”

The committee further held that as an “officer of the court”, an advocate bears a moral and professional duty to maintain faith in the judicial system, even while exercising the right to critique judgments or constitutional functionaries.

While acknowledging that Sarode had been practising for more than two decades and was known for his legal awareness campaigns and social work, the Council concluded that his statements had crossed the line from legitimate criticism to public disparagement. It therefore imposed a three-month suspension instead of a harsher penalty such as permanent debarment, describing the decision as “lenient” given that this was his first recorded instance of misconduct.

“We are satisfied that Advocate Sarode has committed misconduct by making certain disrespectful statements towards the judiciary. However, since he has been involved in social awareness activities for over two decades, the Committee finds it inappropriate to impose the harsh penalty of permanent debarment,” the order said.

Sarode’s defence and reaction

As per Free Press Journal, in his written response, Advocate Asim Sarode denied committing any misconduct and maintained that his statements constituted fair and democratic criticism, not contempt or defamation.

He argued that he had not used any unconstitutional or abusive language against the judiciary or constitutional offices and that his remarks had been “misinterpreted by weak-minded individuals.”, according to Indian Express.

On the specific allegation that he called the Governor “faltu,” Sarode clarified that the term was used in a colloquial, non-defamatory sense and that former Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari—who was no longer in office at the time—could have initiated action personally if he felt defamed. He also questioned the complainant’s locus standi, pointing out that Dabholkar had no standing to file a defamation claim on behalf of the Governor.

Sarode further said that his comment on Assembly Speaker Rahul Narvekar—who had in January 2024 upheld the Eknath Shinde faction as the “real Shiv Sena”—was an analytical critique based on the Speaker’s order and not an insult. “Criticism of a constitutional decision cannot be equated with contempt,” he maintained in his submissions.

After receiving the BCMG’s order, Sarode told reporters in Pune, according to Hindustan Times, that he would be challenging the decision before the Bar Council of India in Delhi.

“I disagree with the order and will challenge it. As someone who respects the Constitution, I believe it is my duty to highlight flaws in the system,” he said, as per the report of HT. He also alleged political motivation behind the complaint, describing Dabholkar as a BJP sympathizer close to party leader Ashish Shelar. “It seems there is a system behind him,” Sarode said.

Political and legal context

The suspension has sparked controversy in Maharashtra’s legal and political circles, particularly given Sarode’s known proximity to the Shiv Sena (UBT) faction led by Uddhav Thackeray.

Notably, the BCMG’s order reached Sarode just days before the Supreme Court’s scheduled November 12, 2025 hearing in Uddhav Thackeray’s petition challenging the Election Commission’s decision to recognize the Eknath Shinde faction as the real Shiv Sena and allot it the ‘bow and arrow’ symbol.

Sarode claimed that he had repeatedly contacted the Bar Council between August and October to inquire about the decision, but received no communication until Monday, raising questions about the timing of the delivery. “Many have expressed doubts about why the order was sent now,” he said, as per IE.

Free speech, professional ethics, and judicial criticism

The case has reignited debate on the delicate balance between freedom of speech and professional ethics for advocates. Under Section 35 of the Advocates Act, professional misconduct includes acts “unbecoming of an advocate” or those that bring disrepute to the legal profession.

While the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed in cases such as In Re: Arundhati Roy (2002) and Prashant Bhushan v. Supreme Court of India (2020) that lawyers enjoy the right to fair criticism of the judiciary, the Court has also emphasized that such criticism cannot “erode public confidence in the institution of justice.”

The BCMG’s order draws upon that principle, suggesting that Sarode’s remarks—particularly made from a political platform—crossed from legitimate dissent into territory that could “undermine the authority of the judiciary.”

When critique becomes ‘misconduct’

Timing and selective enforcement: The suspension order was passed on August 12, 2025 but communicated only when Sarode received it much later (in early November 2025). Sarode raises the spectre of political timing, noting the order was sent ahead of the Supreme Court hearing on November 12, 2025 regarding the dispute between Shiv Sena factions (the Eknath Shinde vs Uddhav Thackeray question). The sense is strong: a lawyer aligned with one political faction is disciplined for speech made at an event pro-that faction, while other lawyers with arguably more egregious public speeches face little or no sanction.

Discrepancy between criticism and sanction: While lawyers indeed have an obligation under the Advocates Act to maintain dignity of the profession and the judiciary, they also enjoy freedom of expression (Article 19(1)(a)). The committee’s decision acknowledges Sarode’s social work and long practice, yet still disciplines him for making harsh remarks in a political-event context. The question arises: Is this genuinely misconduct or merely punishment of unpopular political speech? From a doctrinal standpoint, the council’s reasoning conflates critique of institutions with disrespect. In doing so, the judgement risks chilling legitimate debate about judicial reform and accountability.

Uneven accountability: What about lawyers who make hate or sexist or discriminatory speeches? It is here the real injustice becomes stark. The immediate sanction of Sarode appears disproportionate when seen in the context of lawyers and advocates who have made hate-speech, misogynistic or communal remarks, still un-punished.

• According to media report of 2015, the lawyers A.P. Singh and M.L. Sharma, who represented convicts in the Delhi gang-rape case, infamously told a BBC documentary that they would “set their daughter on fire” if she behaved “improperly” and that “a decent girl won’t roam after 9 p.m.” The Bar Council of India promised action, yet a decade later, both continue to practice.
• In 2021, Supreme Court advocate Ashwini Upadhyay was arrested for leading an anti-Muslim sloganeering march at Jantar Mantar but was released on bail within a day; there has been no disciplinary order from the BCI since.

The institutional interest vs free speech tension: The disciplinary order rests on an argument that the comments “erode public confidence” in the judiciary and therefore merit sanction. But this criterion is vague and open to misuse. If the standard becomes “publicly criticise the judiciary at one’s professional peril,” then the risk is that lawyers will shy away from any commentary—even legitimate critique of courts or constitutional offices—for fear of disciplinary action. That outcome would undermine free speech, not protect professional dignity.

Conclusion: A mirror to institutional hypocrisy

The punishment of Asim Sarode is not about ethics; it is about silencing. It reflects a system that enforces conformity under the guise of decorum. When lawyers who demonise women or minorities continue to practice freely, but a lawyer questioning judicial subservience is suspended, the disciplinary process becomes a political weapon.

Sarode’s case reveals a troubling truth: India’s legal institutions are quicker to defend their image than their integrity. By branding dissent as misconduct, the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa has betrayed not just one lawyer, but the very spirit of the Constitution it claims to uphold.

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Guarding culture or policing faith? Chhattisgarh High Court’s ‘social menace’ observation and the future of Article 25

Counting the Caged: What India’s prison data refuses to see

Invisible Assaults: How India’s crime data erases violence against women and children

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This book unpacks Niyogi’s ideas and seeks to explore new discoveries and heights of labour’s interaction with ecology and technology. The study is a testament to tensions and contradictions being an integral part of any endeavour challenging economic, social and political backwardness.

The author explores four major aspects.

1. Through resurrecting Niyogi and the CMM, the author navigates and examines how the ideological frameworks, structures and processes forge a crucial bond between labour and environment.
2. Whether a worker has the capacity to be part of the process of democratising technology, or bridging the boundaries between the ‘user’ environment and the ‘developer’ environment of technology.
3. Whether examining aspects of nationality and sub-nationality, ethnicity and identity hinder aspect of identity deeply rooted in labour
4. Finally, whether debates around technology, environment, and nationality were a contravention of class-based trade union practice.

In addressing these questions, this book will be recommended reading for students and scholars of environment studies and labour studies.

The book explores the path breaking achievements undertaken by Niyogi. The author taps Niyogi’s visions of labour foreseeing the factory as an ecological component within the broader framework of the farm and the forest. He gives a most vivid description of the developmental debates which post-colonial India opened up which welcomed anti- people technological formats. It is a most compelling and illustrative narrative of the journey of the CMM led by Niyogi, in orchestrating the unified resistance of Adivasis, famers, peasants and workers and thus forging links between factory and forest. Most intensively it explores and dissects how the CMM planted the seeds, for a genuinely pro-people alternative of a developmental model. The book also untaps how it used semi-mechanisation to combat technology displacing labour and contractual workers forged a link with Adivasis in forests, in background of industrial pollution plaguing living conditions.

In chapter ‘A 24*7Union’ in immaculate detail it traces the historic transition of the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha in the backdrop of a spectrum of political events or parallel organisations and movements alongside.

The chapter on ‘Labour and Technological Changes in Chhattisgarh ‘makes a clinical and lucid diagnosis of the applicability of traditional Gandhian methods or conventional Marxist approach, and explores the creative role of Niyogi and his path breaking innovations in technology and labour methods. The book explores how Niyogi synthesised Gandhi’s ideas with that of Marx, not blindly or mechanically following either. It threw light on CMM made a major departure from economism, not merely confining itself to boundaries encompassing wages and working conditions. Ecological concerns were made an integral complement to other basic demands. Aspect of technology became a major part of the discourse. The chapter elaborated how Niyogi differed with Gandhi in utilising strike as a weapon and visualised labour as a creative, collective force in contrast to Gandhi’s vison of labour as a moral, individual duty. Unlike Gandhi Niyogi foresaw labour as capable of, innovating, interacting, creating and transforming existing structures. However Niyogi did endorse Gandhi’s critique of mechanisation and support to village technologies, in opposition to mass production of the machine. Still hands down he opposed Gandhi’s semi-feudal structures of rural economy. The chapter also invoked a detailed exploration of the economic model of Kumarappa.

Niyogi invented a Marxist method that addressed ecological contradictions and tensions and spurred workers, trade unionists and activists to re-evaluate their concept of what constitutes the working class. A critique was made of technology imported from former Soviet Union. CMM asserted that to be categorised as ‘socialist’, it had to promote labour participation in the manufacturing process, and not cause retrenchment of labour.

In Chapter on ‘Green and red Imagination’ makes a most extensive and illustrative exploration of how the CMM virtually created a new world for the workers and tribals, highlighting the abolishing of contract labour, winning rights for a fair wage, housing, free health and literacy. It elaborated how a path-breaking model had been constructed by Niyogi, with health facilities for workers transcending horizons unexplored.

In chapter ‘Chhattisgarh for Whom’ the author makes a thorough study of the nationality question and movement in Chhattisgarh. Linking it with the broader framework of political liberation and economic revolution. The experiences are located not only in their historical context, but also in the broader arena of debates on environment, science and technology, and movements for statehood and identity.

A concluding chapter ‘The Road not taken’ reflects how after Niyogi’s death after being murdered on September 28, 1991, the CMM movement strived to walk on the trail or pursue the legacy of Niyogi by keeping his ideas intact.

The work analyses practicality of Niyogi’s ideas in respect to current political and economic scenario. It navigates how globalisation and liberalisation era policies shaped the course of the CMM, recounting protests of CMM against Dunkel in 1994and 1998, jointly with farmers organisations of Punjab and Karnataka. Now the dialogue between forest and factory had sharpened with growth in process of industrialisation.

The CMM reformulated its environmental campaigns, designing posters, songs and entire campaign showcasing this theme. The CMM took an ant-war stance on Kargil after Pokhran blasts in 1998 and also formulated a powerful ant-communal agenda.

This chapter also mentions how selective memories have been obliterated of Niyogi, on environmental movements, ecological concerns and alternative technological and developmental agendas.

(The author is a freelance journalist).

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In 2025, the country is still engaged in political debate regarding bail reform, while jails and prisons swell with people who have not been found guilty of a crime. The NCRB declared it “overcrowding.” However, rights defenders saw something much broader, which was the institutionalization of inequality. For the world’s largest democracy, wealth as a means of obtaining freedom is possible, but liberty is now a luxury.

While the NCRB 2023 report did provide numbers/data, it did not diagnose the primary reason for so many Indians who were jailed prior to a trial taking place. It did not address or ask why the poor and the marginal are consistently at the top of these tables, or why, year after year, freedom is deferrable by caste, class, and faith.

The Undertrial Nation

According to data from the 2023 NCRB, Muslims make up 16.5% of the overall prison population, an overrepresentation that continues despite numerous demands that this be revisited. Two years later, there remain 16.5% of Muslim prisoners, but the politics surrounding that number has hardened.

Faith-based profiling is no longer the subject of accusations; it is a quiet cynically accepted, administrative process. Detentions under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the National Security Act (NSA) continue to be unevenly applied to Muslim men, particularly in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. However, the NCRB report for 2023 claims there is only one UAPA case in Maharashtra—even if the claim is absurd, there still continue to be ongoing prosecutions on UAPA grounds from Bhima Koregaon to the anti-CAA protests in Delhi.

The reasoning behind this invisibility was brutally exposed in Javed Ahmad Hajam v. State of Maharashtra. Hajam, a college professor from Kolhapur, posted two WhatsApp status updates in August 2022, one that said August 5 was “Jammu and Kashmir Black Day” and another that said “Happy Independence Day Pakistan” for August 14, which led to an FIR under Section 153A IPC (promoting enmity).

Ultimately, the Supreme Court quashed the prosecution, holding, in context, that the posts were political dissent, and that the malignity needed to bring Section 153A to bear was absent. In framing its position, the Court used a “reasonable person” test, held that dissent cannot become criminal, and that Section 153A cannot arbitrarily hush criticism.

The judgment even expressed concern of an institutional dimension to the whole inquiry – the way vague statutory language and untrained policing convert speech into a pathway to detainment. The case matters here because it illustrates this immediacy of the carceral leap: a single FIR, typically framed as ‘communal’ is potential for arrest, then detained (which can last indefinitely), and an undertrial is then captured as a unique entry status backed into an undeterred victimized group in yearly NCRB tables – but without record of the chilling context the data point entries rely on.

Caste, Community, and Architecture of Incarceration

If the data of 2023 offered a snapshot of social disparity, 2025 is telling us how deeply rooted that disparity is. Dalits still comprise more than one-fifth of India’s prisoners, Adivasis make up close to one-eighth and Muslims about one in six – these numbers have barely budged, nor has official concern.

The NCRB’s lack of willingness to make claims about any overrepresentations is simply political silence repackaged as bureaucratic neutrality. To them, these disparities are naturally occurring, which they are not. From police profiling to the refusal of bail, the criminal justice pipeline re-generates, with unsettling accuracy, India’s social order. Sociologist Harsh Mander once called Indian prisons “the moral underside of democracy”. By 2025, that description feels literal. The undertrial prisoner, mostly poor and caste-characterized, remains India’s longest-term prisoner.

Walled in, the caste labour persists. Dalit and Adivasi prisoners still carry out daily cleaning, cooking, and sanitation duties – caste work that replicates caste labour outside of prison. Freedom, as this data shows, is not evenly distributed, and neither is labour.

Faith Behind Bars

Faith-based profiling is no longer an accusation; it is well-established as an open secret. As with the speculative basis for immediate detention and discredited action, Muslim men are disproportionately subjected to both the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and preventive provisions of the National Security Act (NSA), particularly in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi.

India’s jails have become a reflection of its hierarchies rather than a place of justice. In Prison Statistics India 2023, India has 5.8 lakh prisoners, of which 77.9% (≈ 4.5 lakh prisoners) are un-convicted, which is the highest proportion in over a decade. Overcrowding was reported at 133% of capacity on a national level, mostly in jails of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh. Behind the numbers is a familiar trend: Dalits at 22% of all prisoners, Adivasis at 13%, and Muslims at 16% of all prisoners, which is all considerably higher than their percentage of the population in India. The tables in the NCRB’s report list out these categories without any comment, presenting social injustices as administrative facts. By refusing to analyse factors surrounding why certain groups have disproportionately higher rates of representation in the prison system, the state legitimizes exclusion by normalising systemic inequality into statistical fact, reported The NEWS Minute.

Discrimination is not only seen in prison numbers, but also in parole and the speediness of trials. Baba Ram Rahim, who is a convicted murderer and rapist, was granted parole a staggering 14 times, from October 2020 to August 2025, with three terms being in 2025 itself. In contrast, Umar Khalid, who is an activist, has been in jail for five years without trial, and his bail has been denied multiple times under the pretext of “threat to national security.”

In flattening faith into numbers, the NCRB reduces prejudice to neutrality. The state of the prison, like the data, either becomes a place of discrimination in plain sight.

Women, Gender, and the Data of Absence

Women made up 4.3% of prisoners in the NCRB’s 2023 data – enough of a smidgeon that it could begin to be ignored. But, as reports from Sabrang India and the NHRC (2024) point out, their invisibility is not statistical; it is structural.

Most women’s incarceration is tied to a survival offense: theft, domestic disputes, or moral policing. Very few get access to a lawyer, healthcare, or childcare. By 2025, only 22 prisons in the country had crèches available to inmates.

Gender minorities are truly invisible. NCRB continues to count “male/female” – which leaves out transgender and non-binary prisoners. Activists are quick to inform us about the fact that data does not equal policy – no transgender cells, no hormone therapy, no protections against abuse.

The prison manual has not been updated to adjust to constitutional morality; its silences are administrative, but the reality is lived experience.

The Data of Denial

One of the more evident lessons of 2023, then, was the degree to which data can make inequality appear normative. Two years later, the lesson has only gained in strength.

The NCRB’s refusal to disaggregate incarceration data according to religion, caste or class across the bail stage and the conviction stage continues to obscure systemic bias. By counting only what fits within bureaucratic constructs, all of it can work to conceal acts of discrimination as neutrality.

The same governmental decision to stop collecting data on lynchings and hate crimes after 2017 appears again in the prison context — a continuation of silence on the part of the state. What the state does not collect, it cannot be held accountable for reporting.

In Jammu & Kashmir, where hundreds have been pre-emptively detained under the Public Safety Act (PSA) after the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019, the NCRB’s Crime in India 2023 – with its stunningly low figures – reported zero cases of sedition or communal violence. However, reports on the ground indicate otherwise, as do court files. Fahad Shah, the editor of Kashmir Walla, and journalist Sajjad Gul were jailed under UAPA and PSA in March 2023, despite numerous bail orders, for their articles deemed “anti-national.” In the same year, the Jammu & Kashmir Police reported under RTI, accessed by Article 14, that they had invoked PSA against 412 persons on a preventive basis. The contradiction here is not criminality versus adherence to justice but rather the moral experience of being measured: if one is not on the record, proof of adherence is sworn. The fewer crimes, the more the state can claim it has successfully imposed “peace.” What one measures is not justice but rather compliance.

The Republic Behind Bars

Looking back from 2025, India’s prisons do not seem an exception to justice, but its crucible. The state’s preoccupation with order has turned imprisonment into governance. The 77% undertrial rate isn’t about the administration of justice; it is about the exercise of power.

As Dr. B.R. Ambedkar warned, democracy in India does not rest on what we write on paper, but on how the state treats the utterly powerless; two years on from the NCRB 2023 report, the statistics continue to accuse us.

They illustrate a Republic where faith dictates remand, caste controls bail, and poverty dictates punishment. If freedom is going to mean anything, it will have to mean spilling the data. Prison reform, bail parity, and accurate evidence-based transparency reporting are not just procedural niceties; they are unfinished business from the Constitution itself.

Until then, the incarceration ledger will remain the most honest reflection of modern India — meaning a nation where justice, for far too many, begins only after imprisonment ends.

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this resource has been worked on by Preksha Bothara)

Related:

Almost 2 Lakh Undertrials Languishing Behind Bars: Outbreak of COVID-19 Exposed Inequality in Indian Prisons

Data Without Justice: What NCRB’s Prison Statistics Reveal About Caste, Faith and Inequality

Who Gets Bail, Who Stays Behind Bars: A Tale of Unequal Liberty in India’s Criminal Justice System

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