Explores how dissent and activism are increasingly treated as crimes, with anti-terror laws turning the legal process into punishment.
Brings together first-person accounts from political prisoners, revealing the physical, emotional and familial toll of prolonged incarceration and trials.
Investigates the state of democracy in contemporary India, asking what is lost when protest is branded as conspiracy and silence becomes safer than speech.
When Speaking Truth Becomes A Crime
In its February 1 issue, Thou Shalt Not Dissent, Outlook turns to the voices of those who have lived this reality, mapping the human cost of repression, imprisonment and unyielding courage in the face of state power
Summary
“I am not a silent spectator, but part of the game and ready to pay the price whatever be it.”
When Stan Swamy spoke these words, he was 85 years old, physically frail but unyielding in spirit. Arrested in 2020 in connection with the 2018 Bhima Koregaon case, the Jesuit priest and Adivasi rights activist became the oldest person in India to be charged under anti-terror laws. Months later, with his bail application still pending, he died in custody, his life caught in limbo between accusation and justice.
His story is not an isolated one. It is part of a larger, uneasy narrative about dissent, democracy and the cost of speaking truth to power. Alpa shah writes on the case. Gautam Navlakha pens down with Sudha Bhardwaj on Voices From Prison.
In its February 1 issue, Thou Shalt Not Dissent, Outlook turns its gaze toward this uncomfortable terrain. The issue brings together first-person accounts of political activists who have faced anti-terrorism charges under different political regimes. It examines what it means to live behind bars, not just as an inmate, but as a political prisoner. Shoma Sen writes how in prisons, time comes to a standstill.
The stories move beyond courtrooms and charge sheets, into cramped prison cells, echoing corridors and waiting rooms where time drags to a crawl. They recount trauma, the clang of iron gates, the suffocation of overcrowded barracks, the uncertainty of trials that stretch on endlessly. They speak of lives interrupted: families grappling with stigma and survival, ageing parents and growing children measuring time through absence. Chinki Sinha writes on GN Sahibaba. She inks how The acquittals in the alleged Maoist-links case expose the vagueness and inhumanity of long-drawn terror litigation in India, which has also claimed lives such as that of Pandu Narote, who died in prison awaiting justice.
Weaved through these testimonies are narratives of resilience and quiet endurance. Of letters written from prison by Umar Khalid. Of hope rationed carefully. Of the psychological toll of incarceration, whether inside prison walls or while out on bail, tethered by legal uncertainty.
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Thou Shalt Not Dissent is not simply an issue about imprisonment; it is an examination of the condition of dissent in contemporary India. It asks unsettling questions: what happens when protest is recast as conspiracy, when activism is labelled extremism, and when the process itself becomes the punishment?
Through reportage, personal essays and on-the-ground accounts, Outlook chronicles a world stripped of normalcy and reason, and the individuals who continue to speak out, even when silence would be safer.
Read Outlook’s February 1 issue to understand the human cost behind the headlines, and the stories that refuse to be forgotten.
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