Opinion

Communalism

The Quasi-Official State of Apartheid in Today's India

Sarayu Pani
THE WIRE

INDIA

With respect to minorities, we risk the perpetuation of apartheid-like conditions under the cover of a legal system that, on paper, guarantees equality.

Student wing of the National Conference hold placards during a protest against the withdrawal of the permission letter for Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical College, in Jammu, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026. Photo: PTI

Last week, the National Medical Commission (NMC) withdrew permission previously granted to the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence in Jammu, to admit students into a medical programme. The medical college has been at the center of protests led by Hindu right-wing groups who objected to the religious composition of the first batch of students. Reportedly, of the 50 students (who were admitted based on their NEET ranks) over 40 are Muslim. The college which has received significant grants-in-aid from the state government is built on land owned by the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi shrine and is reportedly also funded by donations from the shrine.

While the NMC has cited “severe findings about non-compliance with minimum standards”, Hindu right-wing groups have celebrated the closure of the college as the consequence of their protests. The mostly Muslim students stuck in the middle of this conflict have found themselves deprived of a college admission they gained after a highly competitive entrance test. College officials have meanwhile said that the NMC’s findings are not factually borne out. It is particularly telling that the NMC itself had granted permission to the college to operate barely four months ago, presumably after completing due diligence.

This conflict offers yet another example of a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly commonplace in India today – where dominant sentiments are appeased by weaponising and deploying seemingly neutral administrative provisions and institutions against Muslims. As in the case of “bulldozer justice”, we are reminded that the creation of apartheid-like conditions in India does not necessarily require the enactment of discriminatory laws. When state institutions participate in the appeasement of dominant sentiments, a quasi-official state of apartheid can be created without apartheid laws.



On the face of it, quasi-official apartheid appears like a contradiction in terms because apartheid usually refers to a legalised de jure system of discrimination enforced by the state. In India however, this definition can become inadequate for analysis.

This is because an individual in India typically experiences the law at two levels. First, they experience the formal sovereign system contained in the written law of the land, and second, they experience a non-formal system, derived from caste, where the norms enforced are those dictated by the local dominant group. The enforcement of caste-based norms goes far beyond social convention. It often operates in practice like a parallel legal system that contains hard rules that are enforced by material sanctions like localised violence (including lynching) and social boycotts ordered by local panchayats. The norms enforced by this non-formal legal system today are not limited to caste norms. Hindutva effectively uses the same non formal system against minorities by redefining the dominant group in terms of religion.

The law, as it is experienced in any situation by an individual, is therefore best understood as a contestation between these two distinct legal systems running on contradictory principles. For example, a woman choosing to leave her house to escape a forced marriage or to marry outside of her caste or religion would be perfectly within her formal legal rights to do so, but would risk ostracisation, violence or even death from social and familial punishment, meted out to her or her partner. Similarly, a Muslim family purchasing a house in a Hindu dominated neighborhood has the legal right to do so but risks the neighbors refusing to accept their legal right to live there.
When institutions become enforcers of the norms created by the dominant group

In these contestations, institutions become critical in determining the system of law people really live under. Simply put, on what side does the state act in such contestations? Do they act against sanctions imposed by the dominant group and protect and uphold the rights of the individual granted under the formal legal system or do they themselves become enforcers of the non-formal system and the norms created by the dominant group on ground?

Several examples from the last decade suggest that institutions in India have shifted substantially into the latter role. Municipalities in multiple cities have enthusiastically acquiesced to demands for the demolition of Muslim owned homes in the days following communal conflicts or tensions. In cases of inter-faith marriage, instead of protecting the constitutional freedom of adults to love and marry whoever they choose, multiple states have enacted anti-conversion laws. These laws, which on-paper seek to prevent forced conversion, are often used by the police to arrest Muslim grooms, even when the bride has not been forced to change her faith.

With respect to cattle related lynching, the police rarely intervene when cow slaughter “vigilante” groups assault Muslim traders transporting cattle. Instead, the victims are often picked up and charged with violations of cattle slaughter laws. In multiple cases, Muslim homeowners have been unable to reside in houses they have legally purchased in Hindu majority neighbourhoods after protests by neighbours. The failure of institutions to protect these property rights has hardened the de facto religious segregation of neighbourhoods in Indian cities, and the ghettoisation of Indian Muslims.

In 2020, after stringent protests, the Indian government put on hold plans to create a National Register of Citizens, a move that many feared would lead to the mass disenfranchisement of Indian Muslims. And yet, today, Bengali speaking Muslims are arbitrarily targeted both by local “vigilante” groups, and by the police, who, acting on reports or tip-offs from local dominant groups have picked up people on the suspicion of being Bangladeshi and demanded proof of Indian citizenship. Multiple Muslim owned and Muslim employing small businesses have faced threats from Hindu nationalist groups to oust them from markets, and the state has not stepped in to meaningfully protect them from such threats.

This reimagination of institutions as legitimisers and executors of the dominant will, instead of enforcers of constitutional norms, has not been limited to local or executive controlled bodies like the police or municipalities. The judiciary has played its part as well. The Ram Janmabhoomi judgement for example points to a desire to appease dominant sentiments rather than strictly follow the letter of the law. While there have also been cases where the judiciary has attempted to push against this tide, including the Supreme Court’s bulldozer judgment or the recent refusal by an Uttar Pradesh court to accept the government’s decision not to prosecute the killers in the Akhlaq lynching, these have become the exception rather than the norm, and have been treated as such. The bulldozer judgement for example has failed to curb the punitive use of bulldozers on the ground.

This evolution of institutions in India is unsurprising given the recent trajectory of India’s democracy. Democratic backsliding can happen in two different ways. The manner of such backsliding often determines how the polity is reshaped by it. The first, best exemplified by Indira Gandhi’s Emergency, relies entirely on tools that exist in the domain of formal laws. While Emergency provisions contained in the Constitution suspend civil liberties and put in place an authoritarian structure, power becomes concentrated at the level of the state. Democratic institutions are suspended, but their legitimacy is not eroded in the public domain. While such authoritarianism also causes untold suffering, in the contestation between the formal legal system and the non-formal one, it strengthens the former.
Gradual erosion of democratic institutions

The second type of democratic backsliding, exemplified by the last decade or so, relies on the gradual erosion of democratic institutions. While rights remain untouched on paper, democratic institutions simply cease to enforce them, or enforce them in an increasingly arbitrary manner. In the contestation between the formal and non-formal legal systems, this erosion of democratic institutions weakens the formal legal system and strengthens the non-formal ones. Over time, institutions become rubber stamps for the dominant group’s rule, and political discourse moves away from the preservation of constitutional values and becomes recast as a race between different groups to attain dominance over the non-formal system.

There is a tendency in India today to frame instances of institutional failure as “lawlessness” or a breakdown of the rule of law. In a sense, this framework is comforting because it creates the idea that the formal legal system exists unchanged, and that the issues we face today are simple or individual instances of non-compliance with that system.

The actions of the NMC in this case suggest that our problems are deeper. When a wide variety of institutions repeatedly and consistently enforce the will of the dominant group over the letter of the law, the will of the dominant group effectively becomes the law of the land, enjoying both social legitimacy and the enforcement power of the state. The formal legal system, over time, is relegated to the sidelines, unenforced and delegitimised. Specifically with respect to minorities, this means that we risk the perpetuation of apartheid-like conditions under the cover of a legal system that, on paper, guarantees equality.

Sarayu Pani is a lawyer by training and posts on X @sarayupani.

Missing Link is her column on the social aspects of the events that move India.

INDIA

A Comradely Reply to Manoj Jha’s Letter to Communists

Amulya Anita , Aman Azad |

 07 Jan 2026

Communists are the only force who address the question of land distribution seriously, aware of its implications for caste and social justice.

Representational image.( File Image)

Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Manoj Jha’s “imaginary letter from Karl Marx to Indian Communist Parties”,

written in a spirit of solidarity and comradeship, however, carries significant elisions and misrepresentations. The letter, published in the form of an article in a national daily, reiterates criticisms that have traditionally been levied against communists, but merits a response given not just the commonality of this criticism but also because addressing such a critique can pave the way for a united and robust attack against the Hindutva forces that govern us today.

A historical and contemporaneous overview on communists and the caste question is hence critical in clarifying the theoretical weaknesses in Jha’s arguments, as it is in strengthening our praxis against the violence of caste.

Jha argues that Indian communists have failed to imbue their theory with “realities around it”. This marks the tone of the article, written in sweeping generalisations, peppered with strawman assertions, and alluding to debates and positions that have long been settled and thoroughly debunked.

Indian communists and their allied organisations have acted decisively against the social reality of caste, with the All India Democratic Women’s Association providing shelter to inter-caste couples in Haryana, under the threat of immediate physical violence; with communist parties in Tamil Nadu leading temple entry movements and with communist-led Kerala being the first state to utilise technology in cleaning manholes and sewers, signalling an end to the degrading practice of manual scavenging.

This praxis of communists is also a product of the democratic structure of communist parties themselves, which ensures that at all levels of the party structure, cadres are educated regarding the criticality of participating proactively in social movements against caste. Thus, communists view the annihilation of caste as axiomatic and antecedent to their project of emancipation.

Further, Jha argues that communists merely view caste as a “cultural residue” and he also points to the prevalence of caste since pre-capitalist society. To understand Jha's point, one must consider pre-capitalist societies, where labourers were bound to their lords through custom, law, and force.

In India, the Brahminical ideology functioned as such a custom, rationalising why specific occupations were assigned to particular castes, while Dalits were barred from owning land and confined to toiling in upper-caste fields. As Ambedkar described it, this created "caste as an enclosed class," where dominant castes profited from the labour of exploited ones, degrading them as second-class citizens under the guise of religion.

Karl Marx viewed capitalism as a relatively progressive mode of production, which in Europe emerged after overthrowing feudal forces and their ideology. Unlike pre-capitalist systems, capitalism exploited labourers directly, through paltry wages, without relying on customs or religious justifications. This is why Marx and Engels write in the Communist Manifesto: "The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations".

On similar lines, old-guard communists like S.A. Dange argued that machine-based industrial production would erode caste distinctions. Since capitalism exploits labour without needing feudal ideologies like Brahminism, they believed the advent of capitalism would naturally dissolve caste-based exploitation. These ideas ultimately imply that there is no need to fight the caste system separately, as capitalism alone would eradicate it.

Does this view represent mainstream Indian communist thought? To that one can only respond with a resounding no. Most Indian communists argue that capitalism's progression in India was neither organic nor revolutionary; it was superimposed by British colonialism.

Post-Independence, unlike the West—where capitalism overthrew feudalism—India's weak capitalist class allied with feudal landlords rather than dismantling them. Consequently, capitalists preserved semi-feudal relations that sustain caste and its ideology. This materialist lens rejects caste as mere cultural residue, instead rooting it in the bourgeoisie-landlord alliance.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) Party Programme captures this precisely: “The problem of caste oppression and discrimination has a long history and is deeply rooted in the pre-capitalist social system. The society under capitalist development has compromised with the existing caste system…To fight for the abolition of the caste system and all forms of social oppression through a social reform movement is an important part of the democratic revolution. The fight against caste oppression is interlinked with the struggle against class exploitation.”

The CPI(M) programme thus many years earlier captured exactly what Jha is arguing today. Jha’s deliberate elision of such literature then is also revelatory of how such critiques often stem from vested political interests that knowingly misrepresent communists to malign them.

The refrain that caste is consigned to a post-revolutionary future yet again constitutes a stale criticism levied on Indian communists that Jha merely regurgitates. While Indian communists are internally diverse, there is overwhelming unity in decoding the struggle against caste as immediate and enduring rather than as an afterthought.

Communists adhering to dialectical materialism, view change as constant, and hence understand it as imperative to address casteism in the here and now, through a concrete analysis of the concrete conditions.

Further, since caste does not gain significance only through culture and instead has a material base, communist assertions against capitalism, toward land reform and against feudal remnants and landed elites, also means a direct assault against the caste system. The praxis of parties replicates this theoretical framework, with one-third of the Tamil Nadu unit of the CPI(M) specifically belonging to Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe communities, and with the party regarding anti-caste struggle as key to class struggle with Indian characteristics.

In their struggle against caste, communists place at the centre the necessity of cultivating class consciousness in place of caste consciousness, given how the latter fragments and divides the working class, and thus plays into the interests of the ruling classes. This privileging of class consciousness does not mean a negation of caste, instead indicating a battle to eradicate it.

Jha lectures communists that “to defend constitutional rights is not to abandon class politics,” conveniently erasing the fact that those martyred in defence of democracy and the Constitution, have overwhelmingly been working-classes organised under the banner of the red flag. Before sermonising communist parties on the necessity of defending the Constitution, Jha should have acquainted himself with the rich history in defence of parliamentary democracy that communists have fought for across India.

Even before India had achieved Independence, communists remained the only force that fought without compromises for the demand of universal adult franchise, with political outfits, such as Congress, reconciling themselves to limited franchise. Moreover, in states such as Bihar, communists have led movements against village elites who have prevented, with force, working classes from casting their right to vote.

In realising the secular promise of the Preamble of our Constitution, the communists have the most spotless of records, with the Kerala government passing a resolution against the divisive Citizenship Amendment Act and with the Jyoti Basu’s government in West Bengal undertaking rallies for communal unity in the aftermath of the destruction of the Babri Masjid. The Constitution’s truest allies have been none other than the communists.

Jha makes a compelling point: class formation in India bears the indelible imprint of caste hierarchy. Thus, the fight against caste cannot be confined to self-respect alone; it must target material bases like land, which underpins upper-caste power in the countryside.

Landlessness enforces dependence on upper-caste holdings, perpetuating subservience. However, RJD’s own history reveals a sketchy record on land reforms. Karpoori Thakur—a leader from an oppressed caste—ruled Bihar contemporaneously with Jyoti Basu, yet Thakur's contributions barely touched land redistribution. In stark contrast, Basu, a communist Chief Minister, spearheaded massive reforms in West Bengal.

The Ministry of Rural Development's 2006-07 Annual Report reveals that of 2.1 million SC beneficiaries nationwide had received land, out of which almost 50% SCs who obtained land were from West Bengal. Dalits in Left-governed Bengal, Kerala, and Tripura gained not just land but dignity—stripping upper castes of dominance. However, no comparable land struggle erupted in Bihar either under Karpoori Thakur or RJD’s Lalu Prasad, who positioned himself as an oppressed-caste champion. The record visibly reveals that communists are the only force who address the question of land distribution seriously, aware of its implications for caste and social justice.

We extend Jha our comradely greetings in the New Year, and agree that the evil of caste must be banished to the dustbin of history. In this struggle against caste, it is critical to transcend caste as merely an identity and also the utilisation of caste as merely a metric to toy with during elections. Instead, we hope to see Jha and his party further land struggles and struggles for dignity across Bihar.

Amulya Anita is a student of history and a graduate of law, interested in questions of labour, legality and people's movements.  Aman is a PhD scholar in history at the University of Delhi, with research interests in caste dynamics, agrarian relations, and social movements. The views are personal.

Indore

India’s ‘Cleanest City’ Fails The Test Of Life – OpEd

January 7, 2026 

By Tang Lu

Polluted water killed 11 and made 2000 ill in Indore , a city in Madhya Pradesh that was declared “India’s Cleanest City” seven times

During my years in India, I personally witnessed the nationwide rollout of Prime Minister Modi’s “Swachh Bharat Mission” (Clean India Campaign). I traveled across multiple cities to observe the transformation firsthand.

In my view, the most significant achievement of this campaign has been a psychological one: it successfully elevated the collective consciousness regarding public hygiene and sanitation among Indians.

However, a shift in awareness does not automatically translate into a shift in infrastructure. India’s path to true cleanliness remains fraught with deep-seated structural challenges. The recent public health catastrophe in Indore—the very city hailed as the “Seven-Star” model of Indian urbanity—serves as a grim reminder. When the nation’s cleanest city stumbles so fatally over its own drinking water supply, it exposes a critical disconnect: the campaign has mastered the optics of hygiene, but it is yet to conquer the engineering of survival.

This article explores that disconnect, starting with the life of a man whose identity was defined by a broom, and ending with a city whose glory was undone by its own pipes.

The Artist and the Broom

Years ago, in a Mumbai school dedicated to the children of manual scavengers, I met Ramesh Haralkar. A social activist born into the Dalit community, Haralkar once dreamed of being a painter. Instead, to retain his government accommodation, he was forced to inherit his father’s municipal broom—a prerequisite established by Mumbai’s municipal corporation for sanitation worker housing.

Haralkar vowed his children would never walk this path; today, his sons have become journalists and visual storytellers. When I asked his views on the Swachh Bharat Mission, he harboured a profound skepticism that stays with me to this day:

“Indians often litter or defecate in the open because they know that people of my caste will always be there to clean up after them. As long as this structure exists, no amount of sweeping can truly clean this country.”

Fatal Flaws Beneath the “Seven-Star” Glory

Indore was supposed to be the exception. In the Swachh Bharat Mission, this Madhya Pradesh city won India’s cleanest city title for seven consecutive years, earned a seven-star “garbage-free” certification, and generated 90 million rupees annually through carbon credits. In 2021, Indore even became the first city in India to receive “Water Plus” certification for its outstanding performance in wastewater management.

But a tragedy in late 2025 shattered this myth. Starting in late December, residents of the Bhagirathpura area began experiencing diarrhea and complained of foul-smelling tap water, but officials turned a deaf ear. By early January 2026, at least 11 people had died (including a six-month-old infant), and over 2,000 fell ill.

The culprit: a police outpost toilet built directly above the main water supply pipeline—without a septic tank. Sewage had been seeping into cracked, 120-year-old pipes. When questioned, the Minister for Urban Development in Madhya Pradesh dismissed the issue as ‘utterly meaningless’—a contemptuous attitude that laid bare a shocking evasion of responsibility.

The Trap of Performative Politics: Gleaming Streets and Rotting Pipes

Indian policy commentator Ajay Prakash hit the nail on the head: “Clean streets are easy to photograph, but clean water pipes are not. That’s the disturbing truth behind the ‘Clean India’ campaign.”

From 2014 to 2024, the Indian government invested over 1.8 trillion rupees in the mission. However, the bulk of this went to toilet construction subsidies, rewards, and ranking competitions, while investment in invisible infrastructure like underground sewage networks remained minimal.

“Because pipes are underground and don’t photograph well,” Prakash noted sarcastically. “Awards are given based on what the camera can capture. Indore is clean on the surface but rotting from within.”

An editorial in The Economic Timessaid – “Cities love to flaunt rankings and report cards. But if what flows into homes is disease, not life, none of it matters.”

Indore’s water supply network is 120 years old, with many pipes in use for over 50 years, and drainage ditches laid directly above them. As early as 2019, India’s Comptroller and Auditor General flagged serious risks in Indore’s water management. Yet these warnings were ignored because they don’t appear in “cleanest city ranking” criteria.

Performance Over Human Accountability

Strategic advisor Srinath Sridharan coined a sharp acronym for this model: POHA—“Performance Over Human Accountability.”

POHA stands for Performance Over Human Accountability. It’s a critique of a governance model where visible metrics (like city rankings and toilet counts) are prioritized over the essential but invisible systems that sustain life (like sewage integrity and water safety). It explains why a ‘7-star’ city can win awards while ignoring 8 months of complaints about contaminated water.

Officials are rewarded for rankings and events—painted walls win applause, while sewage pipes do not. This creates an environment where immediate visible results are reinforced, while systems requiring sustained investment, like drinking water safety, are undervalued until they fail through disease and death.

The Double Deception of Inequality and Data

This tragedy hit Bhagirathpura, one of Indore’s poorest areas. Business Standard noted: “This reveals the vast inequality in access to municipal services between rich and poor.” The wealthy afford private purification; the poor suffer the consequences of municipal inertia.

The crisis also exposed data fabrication. The 2019 declaration of India being “Open Defecation Free” (ODF) lacked independent verification and was bound by a political deadline. Millions of toilets were built without water sources or sewers—what Prakash calls a “concrete joke.”

A National Wake-Up Call

Indore is not isolated. Outbreaks in Bhopal, Chennai, and a January 2026 typhoid outbreak in Gandhinagar (over 100 cases) show that sewage contamination of drinking water is a national crisis. India ranks 120th out of 122 countries in water quality, with nearly 70% of water contaminated.

The Times of India remarked sarcastically: “In India, if something seems too good to be true, unfortunately, it often is.”

From Optics to Systems: Redefining Cleanliness

When I recall Ramesh Haralkar’s words now, they take on new meaning. India’s cleanliness problem stems from a governance philosophy: prioritizing visible, short-term achievements while ignoring the invisible infrastructure that affects people’s lives.

The Indore tragedy sounds an alarm: a city that creates miracles in waste segregation yet cannot provide safe water is living a self-deceiving illusion. As Ajay Prakash summarized:

“Cleanliness is not a broom, not a ranking, not a speech. It’s about pipes, water supply, sewage treatment, and honesty. Until India understands this, the ‘Clean India’ campaign will forever remain the cleanest lie we ever applauded.”

True sanitation requires engineering integrity and institutional accountability—placing the daily protection of life at the core of governance. If India’s urban governance cannot shift from “performative politics” to “systemic construction,” tragedies like Indore will recur. Seven-star honors may embellish political achievements, but only clean water flowing into every household can truly define a city’s civilization.

Tang Lu
Ms. Tang Lu has served in India, Sri Lanka and Maldives as a journalist for many years.

 

India 2025: What Free Speech Collective Report Reveals About a Year of Silencing

Tanya Arora | 26 Dec 2025

• 
  
• 
  

Based on data documenting 14,875 violations, the Free Speech Collective’s latest report traces how killings, arrests, mass censorship, corporate pressure and regulatory overreach combined to shrink India’s public sphere in 2025.

Image: Human Rights Watch

According to the report Free Speech in India 2025: Behold the Hidden Hand, released by the Free Speech Collective (FSC) in December 2025, the past year marked one of the most severe erosions of free expression in India in recent history. Drawing on granular, nationwide data collected through its Free Speech Tracker, the report documents 14,875 instances of free speech violations in 2025 alone—ranging from killings and arrests to mass censorship, legal intimidation, and institutionalised regulation of speech. The report argues that these figures do not represent isolated excesses but point to a systematic, multi-layered assault on the constitutional right to free expression.

The report identifies the reported disappearance and killing of journalist Mukesh Chandrakar in Bastar in early January as emblematic of the dangers faced by those who speak truth to power. Chandrakar had reported on poor-quality road construction in the region shortly before he went missing; his body was later found in a septic tank. The FSC notes that this incident set the tone for a year in which nine people were killed for exercising their right to free speech, including eight journalists and one social media influencer. It underscores that violence against journalists—particularly those working in rural and semi-urban districts—remains one of the most visible and brutal forms of silencing.

Journalists as primary targets

The FSC report records 40 attacks on free speech actors in 2025, of which 33 targeted journalists. It notes that reporters covering local corruption, illegal mining, liquor mafias, and administrative failures were especially vulnerable. In several cases, the police initially attempted to attribute killings or deaths to personal disputes, accidents, or intoxication, even when the journalists had recently published sensitive stories. The report highlights the case of Uttarakhand-based YouTuber Rajeev Pratap, whose body was recovered from the Bhagirathi, river days after he aired a video exposing liquor consumption inside a local hospital. Despite colleagues raising serious doubts, police claimed he had driven into the river while drunk.

The FSC further draws attention to the continued incarceration of journalists Irfan Mehraj and Rupesh Kumar under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, noting that their prolonged detention without trial exemplifies the use of counter-terror laws to suppress journalism. Threats and harassment accompanied physical violence: at least 14 of 19 harassment incidents and 12 of 17 recorded threats were directed at journalists engaged in professional work. The report cites, as illustrative, a threat by TDP MLA Gummanur Jayaram to force journalists “to sleep on railway tracks” if they published allegedly false information about him.

The return of sedition and criminal lawfare

One of the most troubling findings of the report is the resurgence of sedition prosecutions, despite repeated assurances that colonial-era speech offences had been rendered obsolete under the new criminal codes. The FSC documents multiple sedition cases filed in 2025 against satirists, journalists, and political commentators for online posts questioning state action.

The report details how satirists Neha Singh Rathore, Madri Kakoti (Dr Medusa), and Shamita Yadav (Ranting Gola) were charged with sedition for social media commentary following the Pahalgam attack. It flags the Allahabad High Court’s rejection of Rathore’s anticipatory bail as a significant departure from earlier judicial reluctance to allow sedition prosecutions for speech. The FSC also records the filing of sedition FIRs by Assam police against the leadership and columnists of The Wire, including founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan and consulting editor Karan Thapar, as well as against journalist Abhisar Sarma for a YouTube programme that relied on publicly available judicial observations.

According to the report, these cases exemplify “lawfare”—the strategic use of criminal law not necessarily to secure convictions, but to intimidate, exhaust, and silence critical voices through prolonged legal processes.

Mass censorship and platform control

The largest category of violations documented by the FSC in 2025 relates to censorship and internet control, with 11,385 instances recorded. The report highlights mass government takedown requests to social media platforms, particularly X (formerly Twitter). In May and July 2025 alone, over 10,000 accounts were withheld in India. Citing X’s submissions before the Karnataka High Court, the report notes that the platform received 29,118 takedown requests from the Indian government between January and June 2025 and complied with the overwhelming majority of them.

The FSC identifies the Sahyog portal as a key institutional mechanism enabling decentralised censorship by allowing state agencies, district officials, and local police to issue takedown notices directly to platforms. Following the Pahalgam attack, numerous accounts belonging to journalists, news organisations, and international media outlets—including The Wire, Maktoob Media, Reuters, and many senior journalists—were withheld without public disclosure of reasons. The report notes that the Karnataka High Court’s decision upholding the Sahyog portal effectively legitimised large-scale, opaque censorship of online speech.

The ‘Hidden Hand’: Self-censorship and corporate influence

Beyond formal orders, the FSC report devotes significant attention to what it terms the “hidden hand” of censorship: informal pressures, verbal directives, and institutional intimidation that rarely leave a documentary trail. The report cites instances of journalists receiving “friendly calls,” media houses quietly dropping stories, and investigative platforms being financially crippled through regulatory action, such as the revocation of The Reporter’s Collective’s tax-exempt status.

Corporate power, the report notes, increasingly intersected with state censorship. It documents the September 2025 ex-parte injunction obtained by Adani Enterprises leading to the takedown of over 200 pieces of online content critical of the company, as well as sustained attempts to suppress reporting on the Vantara wildlife project linked to Reliance Industries. Even where courts later set aside gag orders, the report observes that the chilling effect on media coverage persisted.

Academia, cinema, and the right to think

The FSC records at least 16 serious instances of censorship in academia, including the cancellation of conferences, denial of permissions, deportation of visiting scholars, and the revocation of OCI status of academics critical of the government. In Kashmir, the report notes, authorities banned 25 books on the region’s history and politics and raided bookstores.

In cinema, the report documents excessive cuts, prolonged certification delays, and outright denial of certification to films addressing caste violence, state abuse, or social injustice. It notes that even internationally acclaimed films and centenary classics were barred from screening, underscoring how certification had become a tool of prior restraint rather than classification.

An uneven judicial response

While acknowledging some notable judicial interventions in favour of free speech, the FSC concludes that the judiciary’s overall response in 2025 was inconsistent. The report contrasts strong Supreme Court observations protecting poetry, satire, and art with orders that imposed gag conditions, endorsed expansive censorship mechanisms, or demanded apologies from artists. This inconsistency, the report argues, has failed to provide a stable constitutional shield for free expression.

A shrinking democratic space

In its concluding assessment, the Free Speech Collective warns that the cumulative impact of violence, lawfare, mass censorship, corporate pressure, and regulatory overreach has fundamentally altered the conditions under which speech is exercised in India. The report cautions that free expression has not been extinguished outright, but increasingly conditioned, surveilled, and constrained, creating a climate in which self-censorship becomes a rational act of survival.

As the report starkly concludes, the “hidden hand” shaping India’s speech landscape in 2025 is no longer subtle—it has become structural.

The complete report may be read here.

Courtesy: Sabrang India

 

Abdullah Öcalan: Let’s reclaim socialism through peace and building a democratic society

By Abdullah Öcalan

Published date 24 December, 2025

Abdullah Öcalan’s message to the International Conference for Peace and Democratic Society. Republished from Ocalanvigil.net.

Esteemed thinkers, dear comrades, valued delegates, and all people who continue to believe that socialism is still possible;

I address you today from İmralı Island under the conditions of isolation of 26 years, at a moment when a new dialogue with the state over the Kurdish question in search for peace and a democratic society have resumed again.

To address you, at the International Conference on Peace and Democratic Society, on the path of rebuilding socialism, is both meaningful and significant.

As Kurds, over the course of 52 years of PKK struggle, we have completed our fight for existence and dignity, and we now enter a period in which a democratic republic and a democratic society can be rebuilt.

The PKK has fulfilled its historical mission by securing the national existence of the Kurdish people, while also exposing the limitations of nation-state socialism. Twentieth-century socialism emerged as a negative revolutionary intervention, yet failed to present a lasting alternative. Despite enormous sacrifices, this struggle has become a legacy enriched through both theoretical and practical critique. 

To honor and to own this legacy properly requires transforming socialism from a mere memory to a living social force beating at the heart of the people. The socialist tradition in history must be understood as a legacy aimed at building both peace and democratic society, and the path forward lies in fulfilling internationalist responsibilities — in theory and in practice.

Although utopian socialists and Marxists have offered comprehensive critiques of the capitalist hegemonic system since the 19th century, they failed to develop a decisive line with concrete results. Today’s capitalism is no longer merely a crisis; it has become a disease threatening the very survival of humankind. The monopoly of violence in the form of the nation-state plays a defining role in this collapse.

Just as capitalism cannot be explained solely through economic motives, the failures of socialist movements cannot be explained only by capitalist repression. Historical and contemporary mistakes have also been decisive.

My critiques of Marxism must be understood correctly. I do not blame Marx; in his era, history was not better understood as it is today and there was no ecological crisis, and capitalism was still on the rise. Even so, Marx was a thinker of profound self-questioning and intellectual courage. He perceived the importance of women’s liberation, yet approached it superficially, believing that once economic exploitation was overcome, gender oppression would naturally dissolve. His attempt to interpret social history exclusively through class, and his insufficient analysis of the state and the nation-state, led to serious consequences. 

While offering these critiques, I would like to underline my deep respect for Marx’s efforts and have no doubt of his sincerity, and note that I distinguish Marxism from Marx himself. When we critique Marxism and actual existing socialism on certain fundamental questions, what we feel — as socialists — is the spirit of self-critique from within.

Anti-systemic forces must revisit historical materialism in a way that aligns with the reality of human society. It is essential to understand that capitalism did not “descend from the heavens” in the 16th century; rather, its roots extend back to the 10–12 thousand years of evolution of civilization that began in Lower Mesopotamia. Archeological sites such as Göbeklitepe and Karahantepe shed light on this historical origin. 

For this reason, I find it more accurate to define the existing system of civilization as a “caste-based system of social murder.” Archaeological and anthropological findings show that male hunter castes, through the development of killing techniques, suppressed and enslaved women-centered clan communities. This marks the deepest rupture in human history — indeed, a major counter–revolution shaping all subsequent developments of civilization.

Understanding capitalism from this long historical perspective allows for far more eye-opening analysis. This system not only deepens internal social contradictions; it also threatens the extinction of the human species by producing chemical and nuclear weaponry that can annihilate the planet, by polluting the environment, and by plundering nature’s riches both above and below the ground. It is one of the essential duties of the international to offer the humanity with a new analysis of capitalism founded upon this grave reality.

We need to examine the history of the oppressed through the perspective of the commune, which emerged first and foremost as a formation of self-defense. This requires seeing early tribal communities as the beginnings of the commune and adopting a historical perspective stretching to today’s proletariat—and to all oppressed groups.

On this basis, we state that history cannot be reduced solely to class struggle. While class struggle is indeed part of it, it is more accurate to read history as a long process of relation and conflict between communal development and anti-communal development extending back roughly 30,000 years.

I anticipate that this conference also by engaging with the theoretical analyses I have offered here, will foster important debates that can contribute to the development of a new perspective of political program and organization. In this process, the fundamental method is dialectical materialism. 

However, certain excesses of classical dialectics need to be overcome. We must see contradictions not as opposing poles destined to eliminate one another, but as social phenomena that also sustain and shape each other. For without the commune, there would be no state; without the bourgeoisie, no proletariat. Thus, contradiction must be assessed not with a logic of annihilation, but through a transformative historical perspective.

Scientific developments show that the dialectical method remains an effective tool for social analysis, so long as it is not treated as absolute. With this framework, updating the commune–state and class–state dialectics is imperative. 

The failure of 20th-century real socialism stemmed from an inability to interpret this historical dialectic correctly: state-centered socialism seized the state, only to be defeated by it. By binding the right of nations to self-determination to the nation-state, it became confined within the boundaries of bourgeois politics. The concept of a “proletarian nation-state” similarly produced nothing but a reproduction of statist mentality.

Interpreting this reality correctly, I stated the following: nation-state socialism leads to defeat, whereas democratic society socialism leads to victory. Today, the time has come to advance toward democratic emancipation on the basis of democratic society socialism.

On this path, I move forward with the conviction that we will succeed in reconstruction not through the state, but rather through the paradigm of a democratic republic and a democratic nation founded upon principles of women´s freedom, ecology and democratic society.

This awareness has renewed our movement ideologically and politically, revitalized its organizational dynamism, and deepened its roots in society — enabling it to develop a socialist program capable of responding to the needs of the century.

The relationship between democratic socialism and the state is also being reshaped within the context of the peace and resolution process. I define my relationship with the state as a relationship of democratization. 

The concept of the democratic republic requires that the state not function as a divine power standing above society, but rather as a structure operating within the framework of a democratic contract made with society. Through a strategy of democratic politics, it is possible to bring about change and transformation of the state and to rebuild society on democratic foundations.

Grounding this strategy in law will form the lasting basis of peace. Law is a mechanism that guarantees and balances the democratic relationship between state and society, serving as an instrument that prevents violence. At the same time, it will institutionalize the establishment, legitimacy, and reconstruction of the democratic republic. 

In relation, one of the key strategic arguments I have proposed is the concept of democratic integration and its legal framework. Democratic integration law, in which legal norms are reconstructed in favor of society through individual and universal norms along with collective rights, must rest on the following three fundamental principles:

• A law of the free citizen
• A law of peace and democratic society
• Laws of freedom

Democratic integration law will not only transform the state into a normative one but will also allow to institutionalize the societal gains, enabling society to realize its freedom. The “Call for Peace and Democratic Society” process that I launched is in itself a process of dialogue. In a region such as the Middle East — defined by complex relationships of ethnicities, religions, and sects — much can be achieved through democratic dialogue and negotiation. 

In addition, I believe that a meaningful socialism can be organized not through a violent revolutionary method but through a positive system of construction and existence — one that takes shape through democratic dialogue. Without comprehensive and profound democratic dialogue, it is difficult to believe that socialism can be built, or that it could endure even if it were built.

Lenin, too, said: “Without an inclusive and advanced democracy, socialism cannot be built.” With these thoughts and determination, I once again wish you a successful conference, and extend my enduring comradely greetings and affection.