'Never had real independence in India'

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'We've Never Had Real Independence in India': Dr Jenny Rowena On Prof Hany Babu’s Arrest, House Raids And Casteism

“Day in and day out we are reminded that there is no justice in this country. And there is no peace without justice,” Hany Babu Musaliyarveettil Tharayil, an associate professor of English at Delhi University tweeted one day in July this year. Babu is a vocal and influential voice against India’s discriminatory caste system.

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Weeks later on 28 July, Babu, who is 54 years old, was arrested by the National Investigation Agency in connection with the Elgaar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case — a sprawling, open-ended investigation into the caste violence near Pune on 1 January, 2018, and the so-called assassination plot against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that critics say, is being manipulated to imprison those dissenting against India’s increasingly authoritarian regime.

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Days later on 2 August, his wife Jenny Rowena found a team of NIA officials at her doorstep at 7:30 AM.

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“To find ten men trying to enter your home early in the morning is disturbing. We are not hardened criminals. We are teachers and academics. My teenage daughter was at home,” said Rowena, an assistant professor in the English Department at Delhi University’s Miranda House college. “I didn’t know how long they would stay. I was very worried.”