Book Review: Alpa Shah’s The Incarcerations- an investigation and an intervention
One of the many things that you realise reading Alpa Shah’s The Incarcerations is how little you knew before about the Bhima Koregaon violence and the spate of arrests that followed it, even if you had been following all the updates through news and social media. It lays out a comprehensive and comprehensible account of the entire series of events which couldn’t be more convoluted and confounding considering the apparent arbitrariness of the procedure and power employed.
Though online independent media has virtually become the only reliable source of information in India in present times, it often becomes difficult for many readers to process all the news and grasp the complete picture because of so many updates from multiple sites. Moreover, public memory often fails to sustain attention on different issues because of the fast-paced nature of online news. That’s why Shah’s remarkable effort to document not only the arrests of activists and intellectuals (collectively now known as the BK-16) that alarmed people both in India and globally but also the violence that unfolded at Bhima Koregaon which became the grounds on which the BK-16 were arrested, becomes extremely significant for the public memory.
But Shah doesn’t use the Bhima Koregaon violence merely as a pretext to explain the arrests. She takes a deep dive into the incident itself and explains in great detail the violence that occurred at the Bhima Koregaon celebrations in the beginning of January 2018, the role of the alleged perpetrators as revealed by the victims and witnesses of the violence, the way the investigation in the matter was handled or rather mishandled and the incomplete quest for justice for the people aggrieved. The details of the case in the book show that the logic and narrative behind the arrests of the BK-16 in connection to the Bhima Koregaon violence is very untenable.
The book has a layered narrative with sketches of all the BK-16 prisoners, some more detailed than others depending upon the extent of Shah’s interactions with them both prior to and after the arrests. Her interactions with some of the BK-16 prior to the arrests took place in connection with her previous research and documentation work during the course of which she met them. The narrative links their life sketches with their work in fields of research, activism, journalism and social work. The detailed account of their work in turn provides an important clue to understand the reason behind their implication in this case and their subsequent arrests.
The BK-16 include lawyer and trade unionist Sudha Bhardwaj, priest and activist Stan Swamy, writer, scholar, professor and activist Anand Teltumbde, Kabir Kala Manch artists and activists Jyoti Jagtap, Sagar Ghorke and Ramesh Gaichor, poet, writer, publisher and activist Sudhir Dhawale, professor and activist Shoma Sen, activist Mahesh Raut, lawyer and activist Surendra Gadling, activist and researcher Rona Wilson, writer and activist Vernon Gonsalves, lawyer, artist, writer and activist Arun Ferreira, professor Hany Babu, journalist, writer and activist Gautam Navalakha and poet, writer and activist Varvara Rao. There are many more facets to their professional and personal identities but suffice to say all of them constituted the civil society who raised their voices for rights, liberties and justice. Their arrests under the draconian UAPA law has had a chilling effect on the voices of dissent in the country as their bail has been repeatedly denied by all levels of judiciary and they have been forced to live in prison without trial for years together. While some of them have been released on bail after long periods of incarcerations, many are still languishing in jail. Stan Swamy in fact died during his imprisonment as he succumbed to poor health which deteriorated rapidly in jail.
The book accounts in extensive details the grassroot level work of the BK-16 for the protection of rights and liberties of people especially from the marginalised communities for past many decades and the ire of successive governments both at the central and the state level that most of them have faced throughout. Most of the BK-16 have also been helping different communities to mobilise and organise to fight for their rights and entitlements and for their protection against massive corporate entities and other adversaries. They were also working to ensure that procedural and substantive justice do not elude the most disadvantaged sections who are most reliant on the guarantees and protections of a rules-based order. It was perhaps their work for strengthening grassroots democracy and justice that had painted a target on their backs as the book explores.
The book also reveals the pain and hardships of the prisoners during their incarcerations and highlights their enduring courage, hope and concern for their fellow inmates. In fact, through the accounts of their lives in jail we also get a glimpse into the condition and lives of other prisoners, unrelated to Bhima Koregaon case, many of whom are themselves victims of arbitrary arrests and have been helplessly awaiting their trials. Thus, the title of the book acquires a larger meaning and significance.
Through Shah’s investigation into the implication of the BK-16 we come across yet another scary and chilling phenomenon, that of cyber espionage except in this case it was not employed against some foreign state actors for internal security purposes and was not limited to spying alone. As she peels layers upon layers of this case, we find some alarming details about the ruthless cyber warfare campaigns that were launched against most of the BK-16 who were caught completely unaware when a host of incriminating files were found planted on their computers and other digital devices, later used to implicate them. The global cyber experts in their interviews to Shah as mentioned in the book, describe these attacks as extremely coordinated, ruthless and audacious, and also unprecedented mainly because of the suspicion of involvement of certain officials. What is even more concerning is that an entire cyber warfare industry is thriving in India that is being used to target unsuspecting civilians, especially those working to defend human rights and social justice.
The book is an extensive account of the Indian political scenario from recent years and therefore resonates with people who have been concerned with the deterioration of many facets of Indian democracy and constitutional republic. But it does not shy away from looking further back and identifying the problems especially in governance and policing that have existed from long ago and have exacerbated rapidly recently. In this regard Shah’s book truly becomes a search for democracy in India as the subtitle of her book aptly reads.
The BK-16 arrests serve as an alarming symptom of longstanding underlying issues with the state of human rights and justice in the country. Shah’s documentation of these arrests contextualising them in the broader democratic framework has helped highlight these concerns. At the same time, the importance of the quick turnaround time in which Alpa has completed her book cannot be stressed enough.
The Incarcerations is an urgent history of our times both in terms of the time in which it has been completed and the response it seeks to evoke from its readers. It is thus both an investigation and an intervention at the same time.
