Anand Teltumbde is an Indian civil rights activist who has been in the news for his alleged connection to the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence and a Maoist plot to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Anand Teltumbde is also known for his writings on the caste system in India and the philosophies of BR Ambedkar.
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Wiki/Biography
Anand Teltumbde was born in 1952 (age 68; as on 2020) in a small town called Rajur in the Yavatmal district of Maharashtra. Since his school days, he was a deserving student. After education from him, he attended Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology in Nagpur to obtain B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering in 1973. Later, he had to drop out of a master’s program at the Higher College of Engineering in India; since he could not pay the fee. In 1982, he did an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Subsequently, he obtained a PhD in cybernetic modeling from the University of Mumbai in 1993. He did his PhD while working as an executive at Bharat Petroleum in Mumbai. Mr. Teltumbde was also awarded an honorary doctorate (D.Litt) from Karnataka State Open University. He has enjoyed a successful career as a management professional and after serving as a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, he became a professor at the Goa Institute of Management. Before pursuing a career in academia, he was an executive at Bharat Petroleum and a managing director at Petronet India Limited.
A Description of Anand Teltumbde
Family and Caste
Anand Teltumbde belongs to a family of Dalit farm workers.
Fathers and brothers
His parents were farm workers in Maharashtra. Her mother’s name is Anusaya. He is the eldest of eight siblings. His brother, Milind Teltumbde, has allegedly been involved in Naxalite activities.
Relations, wife and children
Anand Teltumbde is married to Rama Teltumbde, a great-granddaughter of BR Ambedkar, and the couple have two daughters: Prachi and Rashmi.
Anand Teltumbde’s wife, Rama Teltumbde
Anand Teltumbde with his daughters, Prachi and Rashmi
civil rights activist
Anand Teltumbde is a very popular civil rights activist in India and has been an extensive advocate for Dalit rights. His activism began in 1967, when 14-year-old Anand Teltumbde was studying in the ninth grade at a school in the town of Wani, in the Yavatmal district of Maharashtra. In his school, he rebelled against the “brahmin” students with black caps; instead of white caps that were part of the school uniform. RSS members often wear black caps. Since then, he has been advocating for Dalit rights.
Anand Teltumbde at a press conference
Bhima Koregaon case
Supposedly, the name of Anand Teltumbde has been involved in the Bhima Koregaon case; an incident that occurred on 1 January 2018 in a Pune panchayat village called Bhima Koregaon in Maharashtra where violence erupted after thousands of Dalits gathered at the Bhima Koregaon war memorial to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the 1818 Battle of Koregaon. One person was killed in the violence and many were injured. According to the police, the violence was triggered by participants of the Elgaar Parishad. Police have arrested nearly ten intellectuals and activists accused of having Maoist links and instigating the Bhima Koregaon violence.
Narendra Modi assassination plot
Officials investigating the Bhima Koregaon violence later expanded into a far-reaching conspiracy, including a plot to assassinate Narendra Modi. Apart from the nine people who were arrested in the case, the name of Anand Teltumbde was added to the list. Although police did not give any details of their investigation, some of the charges against Teltumbde were reportedly based on four letters and a ledger entry that had allegedly been recovered by police from the computer of another person accused in the investigation. Being a relentless critic of Narendra Modi was another clue cited by the police behind the conspiracy; As at a literary festival in 2017, he called Narendra Modi the “quintessential narcissist” who could prove more dangerous than Hitler. He went on to cite that Mr Modi’s policy, which was rooted in Hindu nationalism, amounted to “fascism plus something”.
raids and arrest
On 29 August 2018, his home in Goa was raided by law enforcement officials in connection with his alleged links to Bhima Koregaon violence and a Maoist plot to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mr. Teltumbde was booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, a law that makes it extremely difficult for the defendant to obtain bail. After his arrest, he downplayed these accusations, saying:
I can’t describe the humiliation.”
Faced with his arrest, he approached the Supreme Court to annul the First Information Report (FIR) against him. Although the Supreme Court rejected his request, it gave him four weeks to apply for early bail. A Pune court later rejected his request for early bail. He subsequently appealed to the Bombay High Court, and it was while traveling to Mumbai to meet his lawyer that Pune police arrested him at the airport at 3:30 a.m. on 3 February 2019. However, on the same day, a Pune court ordered his immediate release; as the Supreme Court’s protection against arrest was in effect until February 11, 2019.
Anand Teltumbde interacting with the media after his release by a Pune court
The clamor of the intellectuals for his arrest
The accusations against Mr. Teltumbde and his arrest shocked many in India and abroad, including author Arundhati Roy, who said:
Teltumbde’s arrest would silence a “powerful” voice with “an impeccable intellectual record.”
A protest against the arrest of Anand Teltumbde
In addition, more than 150 organizations and intellectuals, including Cornel West and Noam Chomsky, signed a letter to Antonio Guterres (United Nations Secretary-General), calling the charges “fabricated” and calling for UN intervention.
A protest against the arrest of Anand Teltumbde outside India
Surrender
After the Supreme Court dismissed his early bail application on March 16, 2020 and gave him three weeks to turn himself in, Anand Teltumbde turned himself in to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Mumbai on April 14, 2020. His arrest was condemned by many scholars and historians, including Romila Thapar.
Anand Teltumbde Arrives At NIA Office To Surrender In Bhima Koregaon Case In Mumbai
Facts/Curiosities
- In his school days, he used to paint movie billboards for pocket money.
- In 1994, he wrote his first book in Marathi: Jagatikikaran Ani Dalit-Shoshit. Thereafter, she went on to write another 20 volumes, 11 monographs, and more than 500 articles.
- Although he has long advocated for Dalit rights, he himself has never faced discrimination. As he talks about it, he says:
I don’t have any particular memory of being discriminated against or an emotional trigger that I can say made me who I am. But I do remember that some students (in Wani, where he enrolled after class VII), who were from wealthy families, looked down on those like us who came from the villages. I was creditable from the beginning and that gave me confidence from the beginning”.
- Anand first read Ambedkar during his pre-university days in the library of the Institute of Science, Nagpur University.
- Although he has written extensively on Ambedkar, he is more inspired by Marx. Referring to a biography of Stalin that he had won as a prize in a school competition in class VII, he says:
There was this folklore around (BR) Ambedkar that we had to become like him, a ready role model. But I soaked up Marx long before Ambedkar.”
Categories: News
Source: dienchau2.edu.vn
