Alpa Shah: 'The Incarcerations'

'The Incarcerations': Alpa Shah in conversation with Preti Taneja

India decides: what price freedom in the world’s largest democracy?

As India’s April general election results reverberate around the world, The Incarcerations offers a sweeping, searing investigation into Indian fascism, cyber warfare and tech surveillance versus minority activism and resistance. Alpa Shah exposes the personal stories and shocking truth behind the arrests of the Bhima Koregaon 16 – professors, lawyers, journalists, poets fighting for the rights of India’s three main minorities – Adivasi, Dalits and Muslims – who have been imprisoned, without credible evidence and without trial. The case challenges India’s freedom of speech, of movement; the right to land, religion, language, and culture.

Essential and urgent, The Incarcerations reveals how this case is a bellwether for the collapse of democracy in India and discusses its ramifications for the future of human rights around the world. 

Alpa Shah is the award-winning author of Nightmarch: Among India’s Revolutionary Guerrillas (Hurst, 2018) shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing, 2019. In the Shadows of the State (Duke, 2010) and co-author of Ground Down by Growth (Pluto, 2017). She has written and presented for BBC Radio 4 Crossing Continents and From Our Own Correspondent. She was raised in Nairobi, and studied at Cambridge and the London School of Economics, where she is now Professor of Anthropology.

Preti Taneja is Director of NCLA and Professor of World Literature and Creative Writing at Newcastle University.

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