MUMBAI: Mumbai police denied permission for a programme titled Incarcerated: Tales from Behind Bars, which was slated to be held on Thursday as part of the ongoing Kala Ghoda Arts Festival (KGAF), late on Tuesday night. The event encompassed a discussion on activist and accused in the Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon violence case Anand Teltumbde’s book ‘The Cell and the Soul: A Prison Memoir’ and journalist Neeta Kolhatkar’s recently published work ‘The Feared: Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners’, at the David Sassoon Library and Reading Room.
Police informed the organisers of KGAF and the two authors about the move through emails on Tuesday night. Organisers were even asked to delete all social media posts and invites related to the programme, said an individual who was associated with the programme.
Throwing light on the reason behind the orders at the eleventh hour, especially when the KGAF schedule was put out on public platforms days ahead of its inauguration on January 31, an officer from Colaba police station said: “As the talk was on controversial issues and against the government, senior police officers decided not to allow the programme. The organisers of KGAF were informed about it.”
The officer said that police took the action after coming across posters and invites with details of the talk and the books that were up for discussion, and added that the department had “not received any formal application from the organisers to hold the event”.
Terming the police action “ridiculous and irrational”, Teltumbde said, “The book was published last year and has been well received. In fact, the launch programme was also held at the Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh. It is not a banned book; in fact, it is being translated in several languages. And now, a discussion on the book is not allowed.”
Kolhatkar called the police’s move “absolutely shocking and very shameful”. “It is a loss for the citizens, as they have been deprived of hearing about the experience of prisoners and the dismal condition of Indian prisons,” she said.
Seventy-five-year-old Teltumbde was arrested in the Elgar Parishad case along with 15 others and has spent more than 31 months in the Taloja Central Jail in Navi Mumbai.
The Mumbai police, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Maharashtra Tourism Department are the supporters of KGAF, a street festival which has been organised for the past 25 years. This year’s festival closes on February 8.
HT’s efforts to seek a reaction from KGAF director Brinda Miller remained futile.