Dr.

ANAND TELTUMBDE’S ARREST ON AMBEDKAR JAYANTI: A NATIONAL SHAME

Jai Bhim!

Coinciding with the upcoming Ambedkar Jayanti, Dr. Anand Teltumbde , one of India’s foremost
public intellectuals and the strongest legatee of Babasaheb Ambedkar’s tradition of struggling for a
truly democratic India, will be complying with the Supreme Court’s order to surrender to the jail
authorities. He will be surrendering on the 14th April 2020, between 12 noon - 2 pm at the Sessions
Court in Mumbai. This is both tragic and shameful for all Dalits, Adivasis, OBC, and minorities on
many counts for all of India.

It marks a day

- on which this country will celebrate the 129th birth anniversary of one of its greatest minds and
hearts, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and on which the mighty nationalist machinery seeks to crush the
spirit that kept the flame of democracy alive in our midst;
- when even very repressive regimes around the world are releasing political prisoners in the face of
the Corona virus, great minds like Dr. Teltumbde are incarcerated;
- when we allow the Constitutional rights of such a person like Dr. Teltumbde to be sidelined;
- when the arrest of Dr. Teltumbde will be an obnoxious warning of the casteist Manuvadi regime to
Dalit, Adivasi, OBC and minority intellectuals not to raise their voices of protest.

This arrest reveals India’s deeply entrenched casteism for a ‘crime’ Dr.Teltumbde has not committed
and for which no proof has been produced.

We, the undersigned, call upon the Dalit, Adivasi, OBC, and minority leadership to stand up and seek
justice in the finest of traditions that Babasaheb has bequeathed to us. As Dr. Teltumbde writes in
his latest book The Republic of Caste, “The wrath of the wretched scares the world.“ It becomes our
duty to come together at this hour and demand that the Indian authorities allow Dr. Teltumbde to
live and write, to be a free spirit that enlivens our democratic selves, and remain the beacon that he
is for educating, organizing, and agitating for a better India and a better world.

Let’s unite in the name of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar.

Jai Bhim!

Signatories:

Dr. THOL THIRUMAVALAVAN, MP

Founder-President, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi

D. RAJA, MP (Rajya Sabha)

General Secretary, Communist Party of India

JIGNESH MEVANI, Independent MLA

Vadgam (Gujarat)

Dr. UDIT RAJ, Ex-MP

Indian National Congress
PRAKASH AMBEDKAR, Ex-MP
Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi

D. RAVIKUMAR, MP
General Secretary, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi

VINAY RATAN SINGH

National President, Bhim Army Bharat Ekta Mission

NAUSAD SOLANKI, MLA, Gujarat

Indian National Congress

Prof. Dr. SUJATHA SUREPALLY

Convenor, Bahujan Resistance Forum, Telangana

Dr. RAJKUMAR CHABBEWAL, MLA (Hoshiyarpur, Punjab)

Indian National Congress

--------