Anand Teltumbde is an Indian civil rights activist who has been in the news for his alleged involvement in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence and the Maoist plot to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Anand Teltumbde is also known for his writings on the Indian caste system and the philosophy of BR Ambedkar.
Wiki/Biography
Anand Teltumde was born in 1952 (68 years old in 2020) in a small village called Rajur in Yavatmal district of Maharashtra. He was a good student right from his school days. After completing his schooling, he joined Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur to pursue his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1973. Later, he had to withdraw from the Master’s program at the top engineering college in India due to his inability to pay the tuition fees. In 1982, he obtained his MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. Thereafter, he pursued his PhD in Cybernetics Modeling from the University of Mumbai in 1993. He obtained his PhD while working as an executive at Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Mumbai. Mr. Teltumde was also awarded an Honorary Doctorate (D.Litt) by the Karnataka Open University. He made a successful career in the field of management profession and after being a professor at IIT Kharagpur, he became a professor at Goa Institute of Management. Prior to his academic career, he was an executive at Bharat Petroleum and Managing Director of Petronet India Limited.
Description of Anand Teltumbde
Family and caste
Anand Teltumbde comes from a Dalit farm worker family.
Parents and siblings
His parents are farm labourers from Maharashtra. His mother’s name is Anusaya. He is the eldest of eight siblings. His brother Milind Teltumbde is allegedly involved in Naxalite activities.
Relationships, Wife and Children
Anand Teltumbund’s wife is Rama Teltumbund, the great-granddaughter of BR Ambedkar, and they have two daughters – Prachi and Rashmi.
Anand Teltumbde’s wife Rama Teltumbde
Anand Teltumbde with his daughters Prachi and Rashmi
Civil rights activist
Anand Teltumbund is a very popular civil rights activist in India who has extensively advocated for the rights of Dalits. His activism began in 1967 when 14-year-old Anand Teltumbund was a student in Grade 9 at a school in Vanni town in Yavatmal district of Maharashtra. At school, he rebelled against the “Brahmin” Students wore black caps instead of white caps as part of the school uniform. RSS members usually wear black caps. Since then, he has been advocating for the rights of Dalits.
Anand Teltumbde attends the press conference
Bhima Koregaon Case
Anand Teltumbde’s name is allegedly linked to the Bhima Koregaon case; the incident took place on January 1, 2018, in a Panchayat village called Bhima Koregaon in Pune, Maharashtra, where thousands of Dalits gathered at the Bhima Koregaon War Memorial to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Koregaon in 1818, following which violence broke out. The violence left one person dead and many injured. According to the police, the violence was sparked by participants of the Elgaar Parishad. The police subsequently arrested nearly a dozen intellectuals and activists on charges of having links with the Maoists and inciting the Bhima Koregaon violence.
Narendra Modi assassination plot
Officials investigating the Bhima Koregaon violence later expanded their probe to wide-ranging conspiracies, including one to assassinate Narendra Modi. In addition to the nine people arrested, the name of Anand Teltumund was added to the list. Although police have not revealed details of the investigation, part of the charges against Teltumund were reportedly based on four letters and a ledger record that police allegedly found from the computer of another accused person. Another clue cited by the police was that he had been a critic of Narendra Modi; at a literary festival in 2017, he called Narendra Modi a “classic narcissist” who could be more dangerous than Hitler. He went on to say that Modi’s political views were rooted in Hindu nationalism and amounted to “something like fascism plus one.”
Raids and arrests
On August 29, 2018, law enforcement officials raided his home in Goa, alleging that he was involved in the Bhima Koregaon violence and a Maoist plot to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mr. Teltumbde was charged with violating the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, which makes it extremely difficult for accused persons to obtain bail. After his arrest, he denied the charges and said:
I can’t describe how humiliating it is.”
Reacting to his arrest, he approached the Supreme Court to quash the FIR filed against him. Although the Supreme Court rejected his plea, it gave him four weeks to apply for preventive bail. Later, the Pune court rejected his preventive bail application. After that, he appealed to the Bombay High Court and was arrested by the Pune police at the airport at 3.30 am on February 3, 2019, just as he was heading to Mumbai to meet his lawyer. However, on the same day, the Pune court ordered his immediate release; as the Supreme Court’s arrest protection order was valid until February 11, 2019.
Anand Teltumde interacts with media after being released by Pune court
Intellectuals strongly protest against arrest
The charges against Mr. Teltumde and his arrest shocked many in India and abroad, including the writer Arundhati Roy, who said:
Teltumud’s detention would silence a “powerful” voice with an “irrefutable record of knowledge.”
Protest against arrest of Anand Teltumbde
In addition, more than 150 organizations and intellectuals, including Cornel West and Noam Chomsky, signed a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, calling the allegations “fabricated” and calling on the UN to intervene.
Protests outside India over arrest of Anand Teltumb
surrender
On March 16, 2020, the Supreme Court rejected Anand Teltumde’s preventive bail plea and gave him three weeks to surrender. Subsequently, Anand Teltumde surrendered to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Mumbai on April 14, 2020. His arrest was condemned by many intellectuals and historians such as Romila Thapar.
Anand Teltumbde arrives at NIA office in Mumbai to surrender in Bhima Koregaon case
Facts/Trivia
- As a student, he painted on cinema walls to earn pocket money.
- He wrote his first book, Jagatikikaran Ani Dalit-Shoshit, in Marathi in 1994. Since then, he has written 20 volumes, 11 monographs and over 500 articles.
- Although he advocates extensively for Dalit rights, he himself has never been discriminated against. Talking about this, he said,
I don’t have any particular memories of being discriminated against or having any emotional triggers that made me what I am now. But I remember some students from rich families (in Wani, where he studied after seventh grade) looking down on those of us from rural areas. I was very meritocratic from the beginning, and that gave me confidence very early on.”
- Anand first read Ambedkar’s works before he went to college, in the library of the Institute of Science at Nagpur University.
- Although he has written extensively about Ambedkar, he was more inspired by Marx. Speaking about his winning biography of Stalin in a seventh-grade school competition, he said:
There is this myth about Ambedkar: we have to be like him, a ready-made role model. But I absorbed Marx’s ideas much earlier than Ambedkar did.”
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education