Tag: Dissent

Free Speech in India 2025: What the Free Speech Collective report reveals about a year of silencing

Based on data documenting 14,875 violations, the Free Speech Collective’s latest report traces how killings, arrests, mass censorship, corporate pressure and regulatory overreach combined to shrink India’s public sphere in 2025

Singing Faiz’s ‘Hum Dekhenge’ is ‘Sedition’: Nagpur Police Book Organisers of Vira Sathidar Memorial

A group of young cultural activists sang the lyrics of Faiz’s famous poem last week. The police complaint says, 'At a time when the country valiantly fought Pakistani forces, the radical left in Nagpur were busy singing Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poem.'

A Republic That Listens: The Supreme Court’s poetic defence of dissent through Imran Pratapgarhi judgment

In quashing the FIR against MP Imran Pratapgarhi, the Supreme Court reasserts that metaphors are not misdemeanours and that in a democracy, the right to dissent is not a crime but a constitutional commitment

The Price of Dissent: In India, demanding accountability in times of grief must toe the line

From folk songs to Instagram posts to digital newsrooms, voices of resistance are under attack. FIRs against Neha Singh Rathore, Dr Madri Kakoti, and the shutdown of 4 PM News reflect a deepening free speech crisis in India

Dissent Under Siege: Police action, suspensions, and the shrinking democratic space at TISS

Dalit scholar’s suspension for participating in protest, police detentions, and a court-backed curb on campus activism signal deepening threats to academic freedom and democratic expression in Indian universities

Maharashtra: Free speech has remained on the line of fire of the current regime, democracy on trial as state goes for election

Amid violent threats, legal crackdowns, and silencing of dissent, Maharashtra’s election becomes a crucial moment for safeguarding civil liberties

‘X’ distances itself from the clampdown on freedom of expression by blocking accounts on the executive orders of the Union government

As ‘the social media giant states that they are complying with the orders of government, what are the legal consequences it would face if it does not?

Speaking truth to power often means paying the price: India in 2023

These are critical times in India’s history: in fact,...

Breaking silences makes civilisations heal: theatre director, Sunil Shanbag

In this thought-provoking essay, the theatre director producer of 45 years explores multiple worlds, political, artistic and personal

Uneven yet Eloquent: PEN America’s anguished cries on India at 75

Over a 100 Indian and diasporic writers wrote, or gave statements about the suppression of dissent (among other things) in India at 75 

Right to dissent is a hallmark of democracy: Justice Deepak Gupta

Justice (retd.) Deepak Gupta, in a panel discussion opined that India cannot progress if dissent is stifled

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