Elgar Parishad case: Anand Teltumbde writes an open letter to people of India before NIA arrest; notable parts you don't want to miss

A special court on Tuesday remanded Dalit scholar and activist Anand Teltumbde in the custody of the National Investigation Agency till April 18 in Elgar Parishad-Maoist link case. Teltumbde was arrested by the NIA earlier in the day after he surrendered before it following the Supreme Court's directives. The grandson-in-law of Dalit icon Dr B R Ambedkar, before surrendering, Teltumbde wrote an open letter explaining his side of the story. Excerpts...

'The jingoist nation and nationalism have got weaponised by the political class to destroy dissent and polarize people. The mass frenzy has accomplished complete derationalization and inversion of meanings where destroyers of the nation become deshbhakts  

'I have an unblemished record of service for nearly five decades to this country in various roles in corporate world, as a teacher, as a civil rights activist and a public intellectual. In my voluminous writings comprising over 30 books, and numerous papers/articles/comments/columns /interviews, published internationally, not an insinuation of support to violence or any subversive movement could be found.'

'Strangely, police had started holding press conferences soon after they embarked on the Maoist story. It was clearly meant to whip up prejudice in public against me and other arrested with the help of obliging media. On 31 August 2018, in one such press conference, a police officer read out a letter purportedly recovered from the computer of previous arrestees, as an evidence against me. The letter was clumsily constructed with the information on the academic conference I had attended which was easily available on the website of American University of Paris.'

'Although, I was aware that police used to visit the organizers of my lectures, mostly universities, and scare them with enquiries about me, I thought they might be mistaking me for my brother who left family years back. While I was teaching at IIT Kharagpur an officer of BSNL phoned, introducing himself as my admirer and well-wisher, informed me that my phone was being tapped. I thanked him but did nothing, not even to change my sim.'

'When I was illegally arrested by Pune Police while still under protection of the Supreme Court, a cyber-gang of Hindutva vandalized my Wikimedia page. Some students later told me that whenever they tried restoring the page, or editing the page, this gang would pounce upon and delete everything and put derogatory content. Ultimately, Wikimedia intervened and the page stabilized with some of their negative content.'

'The RSS hand in the entire case was not hidden. My Marathi friends told me that one of their functionaries, Ramesh Patange, had written an article in their mouthpiece Panchjanya targeting me in April 2015. I was identified as Mayavi Ambedkarwadi along with Arundhati Roy and Gail Omvedt.'

'Nothing has been recovered from me. The letter make reference to “Anand”, a common name in India, but the police unquestioningly identified it with me. Notwithstanding the form and content of these letters, which was trashed by experts and even by a justice in Supreme Court, who was the only one in the entire judiciary who went into the nature of the evidence. The content does not refer to anything that could be remotely construed as even a simple crime. But taking shelter under the draconian provisions of the UAPA Act, that renders a person defenceless I am being jailed.'

'I am aware this may be completely drowned in the motivated cacophony of the BJP-RSS combine and the subservient media but I still think it may be worth talking to you as I do not know whether I would get another opportunity.'