Siddique Kappan wrote about many of the things I write about: India’s majoritarian turn and discrimination against Muslims. That he is in j...
Siddique Kappan wrote about many of the things I write about: India’s majoritarian turn and discrimination against Muslims. That he is in jail, and I am not, reflects my privilege – as a Hindu and as a journalist writing in English.
Kappan has now been in jail for a year, facing charges that include sedition, conspiracy to incite violence, outraging religious feelings and sundry terrorism charges. If he could face such charges merely for trying to do his job, so could we all.
Kappan was picked up by the police in Uttar Pradesh while on his way to the site of an alleged gangrape and murder of a young Dalit woman in a village called Hathras, the kind of journey all reporters make in the course of their jobs. In December 2020, the Uttar Pradesh police told the Supreme Court that Kappan – a family man of modest means – was not a journalist but only “posed” as one. But Kappan very clearly was a journalist, with a decade’s worth of reporting under his belt.
In a 5,000-word chargesheet – the kind of voluminous submissions now common when cases stand on legal quicksand – filed in April 2021, less than six months after the submission to the Supreme Court, the Uttar...
