 Hello and let's talk about the arrest of the pinjanathot activists in New Delhi. The activists Devangana Kallita and Natasha Narval were arrested on Saturday. They were granted bail on Sunday but were immediately re-arrested and this time the charges included murder. Now the Delhi police has been saying that it has been conducting investigations into the February riots in New Delhi or 50 people were killed in these riots, places of worship were destroyed and the majority of those affected were Muslims. But if you look at the pattern in the police investigation, it seems that those being targeted are those who are organizing the protests against the CAA in the months before. So what exactly has been happening here? We talked to Oishi Kosh, the president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union on this issue. Yesterday student leaders across the country had held a press conference in which they condemned the using of the pandemic to crack down on those who are raising voices of dissent against the government. So here is what Oishi had to say. So first of all I wanted to ask you about the arrests themselves. So we've seen that over the past month there have been a number of such instances both of students and of activists and in various universities. So there have been students of Jamia, JNU, other universities across the country. So how are the students movements across the country seeing this trend? See, there is a continuous threat as far we see now and the pandemic at this moment has been used as an opportunity to repress the voices of dissent which we were expecting what sort of but we didn't know that what kind of pandemic is going to come and how long we will be locked up. So this lockdown has been manipulated, it has been used in a negative way. And what the PGP government, like this government was trying to do, they knew that before the pandemic started there was full-fledged protests going on which was very much inclusive with nature. Every part of the country corners people were getting united against this government against this policy which were anti-people. Because even the students what they were demanding is a scholarship, better education system protesting against the new education policy and every other thing. Again the CA, NRC, NPR and what happened with the pandemic that all of us understanding the importance of our role in this pandemic fighting against this COVID, we all dropped us back having said that the government will be fighting against this pandemic at this moment and even in Shaheen Bagh and all everyone came back as the lockdown started saying that this is not the end of our protest but we are keeping everything at a halt understanding the present situation. So now what the government is trying to do is exactly the opposite, they are taking opportunity of this pandemic and trying to target students because they fear that after this pandemic the lockdown is over so that students are not again back to the streets. This is a tactic what I can understand or foresee or students are not having the courage to maybe come back again on the streets. This is just a kind of vilification used against student voices trying to curb the dissent voices so that tomorrow when students again come back to the streets they will think 10 times before coming out. Yesterday's notification by the Pondicherry University administration that whoever participated in the protest will not be given scholarships are exactly threats that has been used by the government, used by these administrations just so that students participation becomes lesser and lesser in the coming days. Right and we also see this because the Delhi police has been supposedly investigating the riots that took place in February, the anti-Muslim violence but all the people who are being arrested are those who are involved in organizing the anti-CA protests those who took part of those protests so it is clear that this whole enquiry is basically just kind of a hogwash. Yeah that is obviously because the Delhi police at this moment and the crime drugs whoever associated with the Delhi police especially I will talk about Delhi is working as a henchman of the RSS and there is no doubt in it. We start from the 5th January attack and I would again go back to 15th December the attack that happened on the Jamiha students nobody can forget that how police went into the university whatever be the situation as the police cited that there were other people who are getting into the university doesn't in any way give any democratic rights to the police or the state to go inside a university and shoot inside a library just to catch hold of certain people and there is no proof till date that who were the people what happened and not. Secondly in front of the police when Jamiha students again were wanting for justice they were trying to come out with a march we saw how they were young like Hingutpur Brigade supported people boys, young age boys who came out and shooted in front and Shradha Jamiha student was hurt did you find any like justice given to Shradha after they let no so there has been instances thousands of instances that where the Delhi police has acted very biasedly in front of them they have been shooting happening and they have casually said that we couldn't control how we didn't know what was happening we just we just didn't know and now the police is gaming all these people Jamiha students who were organizing protests or everything and how I want to specifically talk about Devangana's case and Natasha's in three four days back when they were like brought in front of the DM and then the court said that they can be granted bail on the fact that there has been no instances of proof and when how dramatically the crime grand taken comes in and the special sale comes in and said no we have different cases for them so it's just the attitude the political motivation that no we just have to keep them behind the bars because this is a revenge sitting attitude we have and whatever you don't have proof okay we will bring in more cases it's just engaging you into 10 more cases so that you can never come out approving yourself right and this media targeting that goes on first they will name you that you appear you know what you appear does it immediately targets you as a terrorist and the problem with the law like you is that it is not on the government of the state to prove that you are a terrorist or not a terrorist it's on you to prove yourself that you are innocent so it becomes really difficult in a situation like that and immediately the media narratives that goes around you that you are already the breaking news of the country that you have been you are maybe suspected terrorists people don't follow up the next two days what is happening whether you're innocent not what I'm just not even going to the details but that immediate assumption that oh she's from JNU or he's from Jamia or she's from Jamia or he's from JNU you are a terrorist and you see the character assassination that throughout happened like it is nobody's concern whether she's married she's pregnant and what not she's she's the citizen of this country she has every democratic right to protest and the kind of nasty unethical comments by ministers or people associated closely with the ruling party has not been summoned till date the Delhi commission of women made an office to Delhi police Kapil Mishra is still making pathetic comments all over Twitter but nothing is happening it's sad at this moment that how people who are trying to like talk about justice are trying to talk about and to hold the real picture of this country I've been told that you are anti-national but what is nationalism for us it's so that our country doesn't break into parts our country today doesn't break into the name of Hindu Muslim or whatever religious kind of fundamentalism this RSS people are trying to do we are trying to stand against these kind of thing and trying to say that we want to save our secular fabric of the country and what we want at this moment is to fight against this pandemic or later we would want better environment for education better job facilities and immediately you say that you are being targeted that you are from JNU then you should be anti-national you are from Jamia you should be like terrorist so these certain demarcations that has been made for students is really going to is going to go long and it is going to harm the fabric of our country of course. In our next segment we bring you a section of an interview between Vijay Prashat and noted writer Arundhati Roy. Arundhati Roy talks about her plans after the pandemic and this primarily includes setting up an international tribunal or working for an international tribunal which will try or which will examine the role of the governments during this pandemic. This is especially relevant considering how the Indian government has failed massively with respect to migrant workers during this lockdown. Here's what you have to see. What's really powerful about the most recent piece in the financial times it's called after the lockdown we need a reckoning. You know most people after the lockdown ends are going to you know go to the park or visit people and so on but Arundhati Roy is going to spend her time organizing the COVID trials as you call them you say at the end we need COVID trials in an international court at the very least that's my post lockdown reverie. Could you talk a little about the COVID trials? So actually the financial times really what they did was they asked me can you write 150 words for us about what you're most looking forward to doing when the lockdown ends like meeting a friend or going to a place in the city that you missed so I said listen sorry I don't have these 150 happy words so just ask someone else and the editor said no come on just write whatever you want you know so I wrote this little piece and but I mean I was talking about the fact that you know you have a situation where there were 545 COVID positive cases with 10 deaths when they announced the sudden lockdown after Dili Dali for two months and then this punitive lockdown at the end of which even by the own fake fake government figures now you have more than 125,000 cases and it's spread all over because of the exodus and so on so and then you have this stigmatization that took place you have the you had the stigmatization of Muslims as the spreaders of disease you've had killings so so and then now you have a situation where you created this exodus people jammed into into sort of labor camps which were known as quarantine camps and people jammed in bus stops people jammed on highways no social distancing that horrible term that people use who don't understand caste but then you've created a situation where this labor force is now gone home in these traumatic conditions and is spreading the virus in the countryside meanwhile you have you know the elite and we have TV shows about how planes are being sanitized and airports are being sanitized for them and I said so what what are we thinking now are we going to her met in the age of covid doing this means you have plans to hermetically seal the flying classes off from the walking classes so so I said so so apart from caste apartheid you're going to have religious apartheid with your new citizenship law and the lynchings and the detention camps and and you're going to have a kind of class apartheid where one class their bodies are a biohazard to the other class you know so in this context I said that this kind of havoc that has been created we need an accounting and when I say covid trials obviously I would have liked to say revolution you know but the point is with when I say covid trials it comes from me as a person who has lived so many years in this country where you stop expecting any result from a trial but you know that the documentation that it creates is in itself an act a revolutionary act and we really need to know what the hell happened you know you had this media you had weird sort of virologists and epidemiologists just throwing out whatever theories they wanted everyone has been terrorized everyone is stigmatized nobody knows what to believe you you really led us into a horror show so somehow to unravel this you need some kind of systematic information that's that's what I meant you know I can't bloody well go and have a walk in the park when when all of us are just it's been harrowing you know for those who are walking it's been harrowing for those who are thinking it's been harrowing for everybody I think this is a very good idea and I look forward to the international tribunal it's like the Russell tribunal for covid trials and I think starting in India and Brazil may be a good idea like the iraq war tribunal you know I was on the jury there and I saw how much work happened because unless we can unpack this thing it will be done to us again and this moment of panic it's a panic themic it is being used to control us more and more all kinds of things are happening even now you know fake news fake videos scare videos the fake phone calls you know it's it's it's it's a it's a state that's preparing to to kind of steal our oxygen forever and we've got to break out I just want to ask one little question in the middle of all this there was a poll release I'm sure you saw it because the media made a lot of it which showed the Prime Minister's popularity has risen what are we to make of these kind of polls the strike media is more propaganda than actual evidence of anything and yet here it is it's a poll well you know first of all I don't know like in this situation who could they have poll you know those people who have phone numbers or on the internet or something so this particular poll I wouldn't pay much mind to however I think that we have to be prepared to understand and I think quite often the left in its rationality doesn't understand there's a massive game of psychology of aspiration and imagination going on like one of the things that's going around is you know saying that Modi is Abhimanyu he's alone he's caught in the chakra view people are ghrowing him so the Hindus you must come to his rescue so the man who effed up like a billion people is now the victim of you know everybody else including those people but then one cannot minimize the appeal of something like this you know so I think people are psychologically fragile frightened so what I actually don't I don't know what's going to come out of this all I know for sure is that if there's a breakdown you know now you can see the seams coming apart at the edges you can see rioting you can see people fighting for food it's not political is sporadic right now but if there were some kind of massive unrest it will be immediately sought to be managed with more Hindutva more Communalism more trying to blame a particular community or particular you know kind of politics or particular people you know so we can expect more of the same in a heightened situation of fear and control I mean as you know while everyone's lockdown these people are moving their chessmen very fast people are being arrested Muslim students young people being arrested under draconian under the ua pa even today two young students again you were arrested everything is being put into place in the hope that when things reopen the old protests against caa and or don't rise up again so while we are locked up they are doing everything to to consolidate their positions including the arrests including our friend a news click friend Gautam Navlaka and a leftward author Anand Teltundey picked up in the middle of this lock up that's all we have in this episode let's talk we'll be back tomorrow with the latest news developments of the day until then keep watching news click