On November 26, 1947, a little over three months after India’s independence, Mahatma Gandhi presciently cautioned that use of media by a ruling party for its own propaganda and image building would usher in dictatorship. He said this while dealing with a complaint that the Congress party was employing radio for broadcasting information about itself and its activities. “If the Congress uses the radio, etc., like this for its own propaganda, it is bound to bring about dictatorship in the end,” he warned.

https://thewire.in/media/press-freedom-under-modi-worse-than-during-emergency 

During the 11 years of Modi’s regime, there has been no official proclamation of emergency, yet the status of media is worse than during the Emergency period of 1975-77. The essence of Mahatma Gandhi’s warning – that if the ruling party used media for propaganda it would lead to dictatorship – is being played out more viciously during Modi’s tenure, with adverse consequences for democracy and the Constitution.

In the press freedom index, India occupies the 151st position among 180 countries. This low ranking has been accompanied by coercive measures against journalists, many arrested using draconian laws. A news platform like NewsClick has faced raids by agencies including the police and the enforcement directorate.

by S N Sahu

26/06/2025

In recent years, the election process in India has been converted into one party’s fiefdom. Two sets of methods have been weaponised to subvert the verdict of the people, which are adopted at each stage of the electoral voting system. They are used before voting day, or on the voting day, and after the voting day.

https://thewire.in/government/election-malpractices-india-voter-rolls-evm 

Names from voter lists were allegedly deleted ahead of the Delhi elections, as well as Maharashtra state elections. Both occurred in quick succession after the Lok Sabha polls. This is an age-old method which has now been taken to new heights.

The root cause behind the voter registration manipulation is Rule 18 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, which allows for deletion of voter data without notice or an opportunity to be heard by the affected citizen. At the EC’s assurance, the Supreme Court also disposed of a PIL which challenged the constitutional validity of Rule 18.

to insert travelling voters of one party from other states (with duplicate identity cards) to polling booths in a state where elections are taking place, by duplicating Electronic Photo Identity Card (EPIC) numbers across states. This method was used, allegedly in Maharashtra and Delhi, to general acceptance. I

there is always the possibility of toppling the government already formed by buying out the MLA or MP.

Over the period 2015 to 2024 as many as 10 state governments led by opposition parties were toppled by the ruling party government at the Union. This is done by simply buying the MLAs of the state ruling party, with the goal of making them support the party with the largest financial ability to buy MLAs. The defence of the ruling party is that this method has historically been adopted for a long time.

by Santosh Mehrotra and Jagdeep Chhokar

09/06/2025

Social platforms have transformed how we communicate, often encouraging users to share without reflection. Rather than appealing to our reasoning faculties, these systems exploit cognitive biases, fostering addictive behaviours that erode our capacity for focused thought. This manipulation of attention has far-reaching implications, not only for individual cognition but also for collective autonomy.

https://theleaflet.in/digital-rights/in-the-age-of-algorithm-we-must-revitalise-the-conversation-on-the-freedom-of-thought 

Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court once noted, “Minds are not changed in streets and parks as they once were. To an increasing degree, the more significant interchanges of ideas and shaping of public consciousness occur in mass and electronic media”. This observation underscores a shift from traditional public discourse to algorithmically mediated interaction, where information flows are technology driven.

A darker potential looms in the prospect of technologies capable of influencing, interpreting, or even controlling thought itself—akin to the phenomenon of “Doublethink”, to borrow from  Orwell’s ‘1984’, where individuals were compelled to abandon personal perception in favour of officially sanctioned narratives. In such a world, privacy of thought vanishes, replaced by surveillance so pervasive that even dreams or diary entries could incriminate.

The United Nations raised red flags in 2021 about the ethical risks of emerging neurotechnologies designed to decode, predict, or alter human thought. Companies like Meta and Neuralink are racing to develop brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) that can convert neural activity into digital output in real-time. 

These systems could allow users to control devices with their thoughts but they also risk breaching the last bastion of human freedom: the mind itself. 

Despite its critical importance, the right to freedom of thought (‘FoT’) remains underdeveloped in both law and discourse.

Importantly, safeguarding FoT is not just the duty of governments. Citizens, too, must recognise its value. Thinking critically is neither easy nor always comfortable. It requires effort, courage, and openness to uncertainty. 

As noted, “Relatively few people want to think. Thinking troubles us; thinking tires us.” But the cost of neglecting this right may be far greater. If freedom of thought is eroded by invasive technologies, coercive platforms, or passive disinterest we risk losing not only our dignity and democracy, but our humanity itself. As we navigate the complexities of the digital age, we must ensure that the last refuge of freedom “the human mind” remains protected from prying eyes and manipulative hands.

by Mahima Garg

02/06/2025

In the spectrum of himsa and ahimsa, we are free to look at the whole story. The reward may not be complete freedom from fear, but in refusing to glorify the use of fear, we may tap hidden strengths.https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/in-refusing-to-glorify-the-use-of-fear-violence-we-may-tap-hidden-strengths-10025062/ ..(not turning the other cheek ) the worst forms of impotence are a consequence of rage, not nonviolence. The essence of how contemporary practitioners understand “ahimsa parmo dharma” is: If you act from a higher level of awareness, drawing on finer human emotions, you can work out effective, refined strategies to overcome injustice... Nonviolence defines victory as standing firm in your strength and having the willingness to co-exist, co-thrive with the “other”.

It's been 35 years , (1990 to 2025), since we assembled at Bhim, in Rajsamand District to launch the MKSS.  The early years were tumultuous but the path to equality and justice was clear, and the impediments many. 

The minimum wages battles led to the RTI and MGNREGA and later to the Rights based laws. The years have passed packed with the million issues of denial of basic rights to survive, yet the struggle continues,  despite usympathetic structures and governments. 

Work and workers  now operate in  a different paradigm. The laws have changed and work is contract work, without guarantees. The Gig Workers law, a law for old age pension and an urban employment scheme amongst otgers have seen the light of day. 

The few windows of opportunities we  see, have been relentlessly pursued. 

We celebrate today's Mazdoor Mela in Bhim, in the spirit of a celebration of ourselves and our struggles - the right to survive with dignity and joy.

Aruna, Nikhil and Shankar and the MKSS.

https://www.freedominfo.org/2004/06/the-right-to-know-is-the-right-to-live-3/ 

https://youtu.be/-TXSb2ofJLM  Shankar : Hum Kya Mange

Nikhil De On 15 years of RTI  https://youtu.be/1Q_XUnNfHaQ

And I must speak, not softly but starkly:
I am no confessor for a stranger’s sins.
No tribunal sits above my brow.
I owe no one the hippodrome of guilt.
The sun rises without my bidding,
and so too do the madmen fall—without my nod.

I am Indian. Not as an addendum.

https://www.farahdeen.com/2025/04/i-am-not-your-apology.html

Sanjay Singhvi was a signatory to the registration of doccentre as Centre for Education & Documentation in 1978.  Barely out of the Xaverian Union Agitation, where he finally went on a fast unto death for 9 days, he spent hours on the typewriter and cyclostyling machine preparing handouts on the issues of the day.    It is too much to ask him to Rest. We therefore wish him "Amar Rahe"

Indira Jaisingh's tribute https://theleaflet.in/miscellaneous/an-ode-to-sanjay-singhvi-for-whom-life-was-an-unwavering-commitment-to-labour-justice   Sanjay, too, belonged to a disappearing class of labour lawyers who did not represent management for ideological reasons. Today it is fashionable to say: “I will take any case that comes my way.”  It is the cab rank rule but some of us make choices and he made his choices regarding which side of the line he wanted to be on. A friend, who is also a lawyer for management, told me, “He made life hell for employers, but that is what is needed. These people will never change when it comes to the rights of workers.“

https://freespeechcollective.in/par-yaad-rehti-bas-tareekh-gulfisha-fatima-a-saga-of-arrest-and-re-arrest/  Gulfisha has also begun to write very powerful and heart-wrenching poetry to capture the experiences of her incarceration alongwith making beautiful paintings and writing letters to her friends. 
Some links to reports and Gulfisha’s prison poetry, art and letters:

‘These Walls Around Me’: Gulfisha Fatima’s Prison Poetry https://thewire.in/rights/these-walls-around-me-gulfisha-fatimas-prison-poetry 

‘Days Become Like A Ladder’: Gulfisha Fatima’s Letters from Prison https://thewire.in/rights/days-become-like-a-ladder-gulfisha-fatimas-letters-from-prison 

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VLQlLH35dgk 

The full long version of this story is  behind a paywall. https://www.thenewsminute.com/long-form/rss-and-bjps-quiet-takeover-of-auroville

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/aurovilles-dream-turns-into-legal-chaos-land-encroachment-and-drug-allegations-surface/articleshow/113437250.cms ,,In September 1988, the Union govt took control, enacting the Auroville Foundation Act to resolve internal disputes between community power centres and representatives of the Sri Aurobindo Society. By January 1991, the Auroville Foundation was formally established. The Mother had laid out Auroville's vision in its charter, comprising four key tenets: "Auroville belongs to nobody in particular; it belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville, one must be a willing servitor of the divine consciousness. Auroville will be a place of unending education, constant progress, and youth that never ages."..

The Union govt's recent involvement in Auroville's administr ..The lands are held by the Auroville Foundation under the Auroville Foundation Act of 1988. "These are not govt lands, and the GB and secretary's office alone do not constitute ‘the Foundation' to exchange lands without due process or consultation with the RA and IAC. It is troubling that, instead of addressing the issue, the education ministry has simply asked the Foundation's administration to investigate, essentially tasking those involved in the land mismanagement to investigate themselves. No honest outcome can be expected from such a process," they said.
The committee has urged the Union govt to appoint an impartial and independent inquiry panel to engage with all stakeholders, including committees recognised by the RA, and conduct an investigation.  ,, With the working committee alleging that since 2021, the new administration of the Auroville Foundation (AVF) has systematically undermined decades of progress through authoritarian measures and arbitrary actions, one can only wonder what lies ahead for Auroville, the "first and only internationally supported experiment in human unity". 

https://thesouthfirst.com/news/why-the-idyllic-auroville-township-is-split-down-the-middle-by-a-facelift-programme/ 

Auroville Under Existential Threat  https://auroville.media/crisis/  There has been a systematic takeover by the AVFO of all of Auroville’s major internal working groups and committees that manage the key areas of administration, media, and finances, resulting in the concentration of power in a handful of people who were not appointed by the residents and who do not represent the needs and aspirations of the majority... In June 2024, 98% of 945 residents voted to halt, review, and reverse land deals undertaken by the Secretary, yet these concerns were dismissed and more land exchanges were approved by the Governing Board in October 2024.

https://auroville.media/auroville-in-crisis-report/