Anand Teltumbde is an Indian civil rights activist who has been in the news for the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence and alleged links to 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 philosophy of BR Ambedkar.
Contents
Wiki/Biography
Anand Teltumbde was born in 1952 (age 68 years; as in 2020) in a small village called Rajur in Yavatmal district of Maharashtra. He was a brilliant student since his school days. After his schooling, he joined Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology in Nagpur to pursue B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering in 1973. Later, he had to leave the master’s program at India’s top engineering college; Because he could not afford the fees. In 1982, he did MBA from Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. Subsequently, he did his 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. Shri Teltumbde has also been awarded the Honorary Doctorate (D.Litt) degree 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 education, he was an executive in Bharat Petroleum and managing director of Petronet India Limited.
Description of Anand Teltumbde
family and caste
Anand Teltumbde belongs to a family of Dalit farm labourers.
parents and siblings
His parents were farm laborers in Maharashtra. His mother’s name is Anusaya. He is the eldest among eight siblings. His brother Milind Teltumbde has reportedly been involved in Naxalite activities.
Relationships, wife and children
Anand Teltumbde is married to Rama Teltumbde, the 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 extensively advocated for the rights of Dalits. His activism began in 1967 when 14-year-old Anand Teltumbde was studying in 9th class in a school in Wani town in Yavatmal district of Maharashtra. In his school, he rebelled against the “Brahmin” Students wearing black caps; Instead of the white caps that were part of the school uniform. Black cap is usually worn by RSS members. Since then he has been advocating the rights of Dalits.
Anand Teltumbde in a press conference
Bhima Koregaon case
Anand Teltumbde’s name is reportedly involved in the Bhima Koregaon case; The incident took place on 1 January 2018 in a panchayat village called Bhima Koregaon in Pune, Maharashtra, where violence broke out after thousands of Dalits gathered at the Bhima Koregaon War Memorial to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Koregaon of 1818. One person died while several people were injured in the violence. According to the police, the violence was started by participants of the Elgar Parishad. Police arrested around ten intellectuals and activists for having links with Maoists and instigating the Bhima Koregaon violence.
Conspiracy to assassinate Narendra Modi
Officials investigating the Bhima Koregaon violence later expanded it to a broader conspiracy, which also included a plot to assassinate Narendra Modi. Apart from the nine people arrested in the case, Anand Teltumbde’s name was also added to the list. Although the police did not provide any details of their investigation, some of the allegations against Teltumbde were reportedly based on four letters and a ledger entry that the police allegedly recovered from the computer of another person accused in the investigation. Being a staunch critic of Narendra Modi was another clue cited by the police as being behind the conspiracy; At a literary festival in 2017, he had called Narendra Modi an “arrogant par excellence” who could prove more dangerous than Hitler. He further said that Mr Modi’s politics, which were rooted in Hindu nationalism, were like “fascism plus something”.
Raids and arrests
On 29 August 2018, law enforcement officials raided his house in Goa in connection with his alleged links to the 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 an accused to obtain bail. After his arrest he denied the allegations and said,
I can’t describe the humiliation.”
Against his arrest he approached the Supreme Court to quash the First Information Report (FIR) lodged against him. Although the Supreme Court rejected his request, it gave him four weeks to apply for anticipatory bail. Later a Pune court rejected his anticipatory bail application. Subsequently, he appealed to the Bombay High Court, and was arrested by the Pune Police at the airport at 3.30 am on 3 February 2019, while he was on his way to Mumbai to meet his lawyer. The court ordered his immediate release; Because the Supreme Court’s protection against arrest was in force till 11 February 2019.
Anand Teltumbde talking to the media after his release from Pune court.
Intellectuals’ anger over his arrest
The allegations against Mr. Teltumbde and his arrest shocked many in India and abroad, including the writer Arundhati Roy, who said,
Teltumbde’s detention will silence a “powerful” voice with “an impeccable intellectual track record”.
Protest against the arrest of Anand Teltumbde
Additionally, over 150 organizations and intellectuals, including Cornel West and Noam Chomsky, signed a letter to Antonio Guterres (Secretary-General of the United Nations), denouncing the allegations as “fabrications” and calling on the UN to intervene.
Protests outside India against the arrest of Anand Teltumbde
Dedication
After the Supreme Court on 16 March 2020 rejected his plea for anticipatory bail and gave him three weeks to surrender, Anand Teltumbde surrendered before the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Mumbai on 14 April 2020. His arrest was condemned by many intellectuals and historians. Like Romila Thapar.
Anand Teltumbde reached NIA office to surrender in Mumbai’s Bhima Koregaon case.
Facts/General Knowledge
- During his school days, he used to paint cinema hoardings for pocket money.
- In 1994, he wrote his first book in Marathi – Jagatikaran Ani Dalit-Shoshit. Subsequently, he wrote 20 other volumes, 11 monographs and more than 500 articles.
- Although he has extensively advocated for the rights of Dalits, he himself never faced discrimination. Talking about this he says,
I don’t have any specific memories of me being discriminated against or any emotional factor that I can say made me who I am. But I remember that some students (in Wani, where he joined after class VII), who were from better-off families, disliked people like us who came from villages. I was bright from the beginning and that gave me confidence right 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. he says, referring to the biography of Stalin which he had won as a prize in a school competition in the seventh grade.
(BR) There was this folklore about Ambedkar that we had to be like him, a perfect role model. But I had assimilated Marx long before Ambedkar.”
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn