Govt incarcerating activists, academics: Arundhati Roy on DU prof's arrest

Writer Arundhati Roy on Wednesday slammed the government for the relentless and ongoing incarceration of activists, academics and lawyers, a day after an associate professor of the Delhi University was arrested by the NIA in the Bhima Koregaon Elgar Parishad case.

Roy said people representing secular, anti-caste and anti-capitalist politics posed a threat to the government's disastrous Hindu Nationalist politics.

The NIA accused Hany Babu Musaliyarveettil Tharayil (54), an associate professor in the Department of English, of propagating Naxal activities and Maoist ideology and being a "co-conspirator" in the case.

"The relentless and ongoing incarceration of activists, academics and lawyers in this case is a manifestation of this Government's understanding that this nascent, emerging secular, anti-caste and anti-capitalist politics that these people represent, provides an alternative narrative to Hindu fascism and poses the clearest threat -- culturally, economically as well as politically -- to its own disastrous Hindu Nationalist politics that has led this country into a crisis that has blighted the lives of hundreds of millions of people which ironically includes its own supporters," Roy said in a statement.

The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) also condemned the arrest of Babu.

"The botched investigation into the Bhima Koregaon case has been single mindedly directed at implicating activists and intellectuals who question the policies of the regime in power and its connivance with communalism and anti people policies," the JNUSU said.

The JNUSU appealed to students, academics and all progressive sections of the citizenry to stand together in solidarity at this "dark hour of witch hunts".

"We demand immediate release of Dr. Babu and other activists and an end to politically motivated investigations," they said.