Artists, Educators, Publishers Speak Out Against 'Rising Attempts' to Stifle Their Voices
New Delhi: A collective of artists, authors, publishers and educators have issued a statement condemning "rising attempts" to curtail free speech and creative voices in India. Referring to incidents including Anand Teltumbde's panel being cancelled at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival and water being thrown at historian S. Irfan Habib, the signatories say that "these disruptions set a dangerous precedent if left unaddressed in the current political climate".
The full statement is below.
§
This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.
~ Toni Morrison
With a nod to Morrison, we — a collective of artists, authors, publishers, and educators — draft this joint statement in condemnation of the recent and rising attempts to stifle the voice and work of various creative practitioners across the country. This statement vocalises our concerns about the patterns and consequences of this censorship, and the ways in which it threatens to demolish the ecosystem within which artists, authors, and educators can go to work and speak up fearlessly. We would like to highlight some of the recent attacks which have taken place onsite at different festivals and also spilled over into the online space:
1. BlueJackal — an independent publishing platform for comics and picture books — invited at Udaan, a Children’s Literature Festival organised by PRAYOG (Professionals Alliance for Youths Growth) in Patna, at the Bihar Museum on
February 7 and 8, 2026, was forced to pull down their stall.
2. A book discussion on The Cell and the Soul: A Prison Memoir, featuring activist and academic Anand Teltumbde at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival (KGAF) in Mumbai was cancelled on February 6th in Mumbai.
3. Pune’s MIT World Peace University witnessed disruption during its World Cultural Festival after a Bangladesh food stall was allegedly vandalised by a group of individuals.
4. At the Political Science Department’s fest at Ramjas College, the Progressive Artists’ League’s stall was vandalised by a group of individuals who took issue to some of their literature and posters. The administration was involved and the fest organisers were eventually pressured to cancel their exhibition and pull the stall down.
5. Historian and professor S. Irfan Habib had water thrown at him while he was delivering a lecture at a literature festival at the Arts Faculty of Delhi University.
6. The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), under the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, denied permission to screen Da’lit Kids, a Malayalam animation short film project of SRFTI made by Appu Soman and Tony Joppan of the 17th batch of SRFTI, at the Animela Animation Festival in Mumbai in Feb 2026.
7. In the light of this growing censorship and suppression of freedom of expression, content on online platforms has also not been spared. In January 2026 Kolkata based cartoonist twins Bob and Bobby noticed that seven of their animation reels were restricted in the country. The platform cited “local law” as the reason even when the content did not violate social media guidelines. The same reels are visible to viewers abroad. Similarly, Indian cartoonists Satish Acharya and Manjul were told that their drawings violate India’s information-technology laws last year.
(For specific references to each of the above, please refer to links at the end of the statement.)
These incidents highlight only a few examples of festivals and online platforms which have been targeted. This is not an exhaustive list of the various ways in which artists’ work which critically examine dominant caste hegemonies, or which question government policies, have been stifled in recent times across the country. In this statement, we position these incidents within the rising suppression and censorship of the work of artists, authors and educators — especially our rights and freedoms to dissent against power and injustice. We then strongly assert that these disruptions set a dangerous precedent if left unaddressed in the current political climate and ponder about the permitted limits of inclusivity that institutional spaces allow.
These attacks have taken place in various forms, but each follows a pattern of impunity enabled by a rising culture of intolerance and suppression. When the festival organisers, the state, and individual elements who lay claim to tacit support from the state pro-actively disrupt/block creative and critical expressions, the dominant ideology flows through the lines, and pressure tactics are used through social media, physical protests, and threats which can sometimes include actual attacks. Sometimes it is a 'lone' disruptor who walks into an event and threatens to bring a larger mob to vandalise what he labels as 'anti-national', 'anti-Brahmin' content in a book/film/poster, like what happened at the UDAAN Children's Literature Festival held at the Bihar Museum, Patna. At other times, the festival organizers are approached directly and told to pull down a particular event by the police or by Hindutva outfits because it purportedly hurts 'Hindu' religious sentiments, like in the case of the Kalaghoda festival, Mumbai.
University spaces have become increasingly subject to the scrutiny of self appointed right wing mobs. Dissent against injustice has a much narrower space than before as more and more people, unwilling to engage in any dialogue, are given positions of power whether it be recruitment panels or deanships. What makes these disruptors threatening is the kind of physical crowd/online trolls that are seemingly at their beck and call.
Another ploy they repeatedly use is the threat of FIR.
What stands out among all these disruptions are broad and recurrent terms such as 'anti-national', anti-Hindu' and more
often now, 'anti-Brahmin' —in the wake of the new UGC guidelines. In their organisation and participation, many of the above events which saw a disruption, were rooted in imaginations of an equitable and inclusive world. Yet, the ease and
entitlement with which the air turns hostile, begs the question of -
1. The accountability of the organizers towards invited participants
2. The limits of equitable and egalitarian conversations permitted within institutional spaces
Are there unspoken understandings of “safe zones” of critical conversations within which we must domesticate our dissent? Who authorises what must be and what must not be tolerated within the realms of citizens’ voices, critiques, and dissent? Despite what Morrison writes about not being defeated by fear and silence, the sinister networks of power thickly dictate who can respond to such violations and violence — the organizers, participants, or the civil society? Who can speak up, to what extent, and bearing what costs — who is rendered vulnerable and isolated in the process? Who is deciding the dictum of these very tangibly shifting fabrics of what is still constitutionally a democratic and secular state, with rights of free speech.
As we unpack the structural patterns which enable and embolden this censorship, it is also vitally crucial to recognise its very significant consequences on our everyday lives and modes of expressions. With each violating incident, we have found the threats encroaching closer to our doorsteps — from films, books, publishers’ stalls, children’s literature, visual art, literature festivals and so forth — the attempts clearly, intentionally, and systematically are penetrating every sphere of our work, whether big, small, local, national, or global. If as communities of practice, we trust the necessity to have critical
and conscientious films, literature, books, art, and discourses for the health and longevity of democratic and constitutional values within our society, then we must reclaim voices and spaces for dialogue and dissent to build those works.
We must also rebuild our solidarities to defend ourselves and one another collectively, resiliently, and fearlessly. Event after event, we have observed that organisers buckle under the pressure, and most times there have been no collective stands taken by the other participating artists/writers/film makers/publishers either. Given this state of things, already a dangerous precedent has been set and the disruptors feel more and more entitled to make a random appearance at events and pull things down at will without facing any resistance, leave alone consequences! As we speak back to power within this letter, we also simultaneously speak to the larger civil society — emphasizing to communities with whom we share these journeys, the urgency to rebuild and reassert our voice and solidarity in these precarious times. It is time that we among the creative community consolidate strength, organise and prepare ourselves to address and tackle these attacks when they happen. If we allow these to go on unaddressed, we are surely helping worsen the already dire situation at hand.
As artists, authors and educators, we remain involved in the endeavor of expanding the boundaries of this world and of nurturing and protecting spaces for dialogue and discussion where marginalised voices, silenced stories, and uncomfortable truths can be shared without fear or threat of violence. We strongly, vocally, and intentionally resist any
attempts to diminish, threaten, and suppress that endeavor. As a collective, we speak up in solidarity and resilience, to demand for the safety and autonomy of artists, educators, and publishers, as we dream of a more fearless and equitable world, and go to work everyday to manifest that world.
References
1. https://frontline.thehindu.com/social-issues/kala-ghoda-festival-censorship-anand-teltumbde/article70603040.ece
2. https://thewire.in/media/hasna-mana-hai-the-joke-is-on-the-modi-governmen
3. https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/my-kolkata/people/kolkata-twin-cartoonists-say-instagram-blocked-political-reels-in-india-raising-concerns-over-livelihood/cid/2147911
4. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/bucket-of-water-thrown-at-historian-s-irfan-habib-at-du/articleshow/128269722.cms
5. https://www.instagram.com/p/DU_XTU7EoJF/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA=
The full list of signatories is below.
This article went live on March twelfth, two thousand twenty six, at eleven minutes past two in the afternoon.The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
