Heavy-handedness of Indian law enforcement agencies plummets to new low under Modi Regime
Varavara Rao coming out of the Gandhi Hospital after the health checkup in Hyderabad on Tuesday, after his arrest by Pune police | Express Photo
“My thirty years of academic life has been destroyed in five minutes. They asked me ‘Why are you reading Mao?’, ‘Why are you reading Marx?’, ‘Why are you having the songs of Gaddar?’ and, ‘Why are you keeping the photos of Ambedkar and Phule instead of gods and goddesses?’ They also asked me, ‘Why do you want to become an intellectual, why can’t you be happy with the money you are getting?’ I am happy, but I have to read and teach.”-Prof. Satyanarayana
The Maharashtra and Telangana Police raided the residence of Prof. K. Satyanarayana, the Head of the Cultural Studies department and the Dean of School of Inter-Disciplinary Studies at EFL University, Hyderabad. The raid was part of the larger raids and arrests of eminent scholars and activists across the country, allegedly in connection with the protests at Bhima Koreagaon.
Prof. Satyanarayana was given no prior intimation regarding the raid, and he, along with his family were, in effect, imprisoned inside the house for the whole day. He was not allowed to come out of the house and talk to his colleagues and students who had gathered outside his residence.
Prof. Satyanarayana has told us that the police conducted the raid without citing any valid charge against him than the fact that he is the son-in-law of the prominent social activist and poet Varavara Rao. He also said that his thirty years of life and work have been destroyed in five minutes and that he felt humiliated.
The Police has confiscated laptops, hard discs, pen drives and all academic materials from his house and blocked his phone and email.
Students and the teaching and non-teaching faculty have condemned the illegal and arbitrary raid and called for a protest.