 For more videos and people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. One year ago, on June 6th, five activists and human rights defenders were arrested in India in a highly publicized media charade and slapped with serious charges of inciting violence and sedition. These arrests mark a growing trend in India of state-sponsored repression and witch hunts against activists and dissidents. Keys of suppression and arrests have witnessed a notable rise in the present regime of the far-right Hindu-conservative government led by the Bharatya Janata Party. The BJP came to power in 2014 and was recently re-elected in May this year. Apart from activists, this government has been cracking down on minorities, indigenous people and oppressed Dalit communities. In this environment of repression, the police action around the Elgar Parishad, also known as the Bhima Kuregao incident, was a new low. On January 1st, 2018, the Central Indian State of Maharashtra witnessed massive violence by far-right forces against the Elgar Parishad Conference. The conference, which began a day earlier, was organized to commemorate 200 years of the 1818 battle of Kuregao. This battle is considered to be a victory of the oppressed over the oppressors. The ruling upper caste Peshwas who belonged to the Brahmin caste, which is the highest caste in the Indian caste system, were challenged by Dalit Mahars, who was serving in the British Indian Army. Dalits belonged to the lowest-rung in India's caste hierarchy and continued to face oppression in modern-day India. Post this violence, instead of arresting Samaji Bhide and Millind Ekbote, the far-right leaders behind the incident, the local police began hatching a conspiracy. The first victims of this conspiracy were union activists and workers of Reliance Industries. These workers were arrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for alleged links to the armed Maoist movement in India. Shankar Gundey, Ravi Marappale, Baba Shankar Banguri, Satya Narayana, were arrested on 12th January and were members of the Mumbai Electricity Employees Union. They were active participants of the wage-hike struggle in Reliance Industries. The union office was sealed off on 19th January, which made it clear that this was a planned attempt by the state to decimate this union. As the fabricated police story against his migrant contract workers began to crumble and get exposed, the police took the conspiracy a step further and framed it as a Maoist attempt to kill Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and overthrow the ruling government. The police began targeting prominent activists who were active in various peoples' movements and struggles against state repression and corporate exploitation. On June 6th, Sudhir Dhabli, Rona Wilson, Suryendra Gaddling, Shoma Sen and Mahesh Rao were arrested by the police in connection to the Elgar Parishad Conference. On August 25th, 2018, in another Pan-India police crackdown, Suda Bhardwaj, Arun Farera, Vernon Gonzalez, Gautam Navlaka and Varavara Raur were arrested. All were accused of being part of a Maoist conspiracy to overthrow the government and they were all charged with the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, which is a colonial era law often used by the state to silence dissent. Now let's take a look at the activists who were arrested on June 6th and their role in people's struggles. Sudhir Dhabli has been active in the struggle for the effective implementation of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Prevention of Atrocities Act and has also been active in struggles against the caste system and caste-based discrimination in India. After the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat, he launched a bi-monthly Marathi magazine called Vidrohi. He is also the founder of the Dalit Liberation Organization called Republican Panthers. Dhabli was previously arrested in 2011 on the same charges of belonging to a Maoist organization, but he was acquitted after 40 months in prison. Shoma Sen is a former English professor at Nagpur University in Maharashtra and she has also been affiliated to several women's rights organizations in India. She is also a member of the Committee for the Protection of Domestic Rights and Women's Organization in Nagpur called Sthri Chetna which campaigns against issues such as violence against women and dowry debts. Mahesh Raut is an indigenous rights activist from Maharashtra's Gaciroli district. He is part of struggles demanding forest land rights for indigenous communities, particularly in areas affected by mining projects. He was also a fellow in the Prime Minister's Rural Development Program. Surendra Gadling is a human rights lawyer and activist who had been campaigning for the rights of political prisoners in India. He had fought the case of Arun Farera who was charged of being a Maoist. Gadling was also handling the case of the disabled political prisoner Jeehan Sai Baba who is also currently in prison. Rona Wilson is a political activist and was the public relations secretary of the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners in Delhi at the time of his arrest. He has worked in the cases of various political prisoners including Essayar Gilani who was arrested in the case of the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament and he was also later acquitted. Rona Wilson is a PhD scholar from New Delhi's prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University. All the five activists continue to remain in prison. The comrades, family members and the members of various people's movements in India continue to stand behind these activists in their fight against the state conspiracy.