This event is organised by the Centre for the Study of Democracy, South Asia Solidarity Group, and Peace in India.
About the event
Join us for the book launch of How Long Can the Moon Be Caged? (Aug 2023, Pluto Press). The book includes visual testimonies and prison writings from those falsely accused of inciting the Bhima Koregaon violence, by student leaders opposing the new discriminatory citizenship law passed in 2020, and by activists from the Pinjra Tod's movement. In bringing together these voices, the book celebrates the courage, humanity and moral integrity of those jailed for standing in solidarity with marginalised and oppressed communities.
Silencing and punishing critical voices is a project that lies at the heart of Narendra Modi's authoritarian regime in India. The BJP's political dream is clear: to achieve the ethno-nationalist aim of an exclusively 'Hindu' India, while targeting anyone who dares to question or dissent. In this unique book, Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia look at the present of India through the lived experiences of political prisoners. Combining political and legal analysis with firsthand testimonies, the book explores the small gestures that constitute resistance inside and outside jail for the prisoners and their families, telling a story of destruction of institutions and erosion of rights.
In this event, Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia, authors of How Long Can the Moon Be Caged? Voices of Indian Political Prisoners, will introduce the book. This will lead into responses from Dr Kalpana Wilson, Dr Stavit Sinai and Dareen Tator and finally a Q&A from the audience.
The book launch will be followed by a wine reception.
Location
This event will take place at Fyvie Hall, 309 Regent Street, University of Westminster, W1B 2HT.
About the speakers
Suchitra Vijayan is an American writer, essayist, lawyer and photographer working across oral history, state violence and visual storytelling. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India (Melville House, New York). Her essays, photographs and interviews have appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Nation, The Boston Review, Foreign Policy, Lit Hub, Rumpus, Electric Literature, NPR, NBC and BBC. As an attorney, she worked for the United Nations war crimes tribunals in Yugoslavia and Rwanda before co-founding the Resettlement Legal Aid Project in Cairo, giving Iraqi refugees legal aid. She is the founder and executive director of the Polis Project, a hybrid research and journalism organisation. She teaches at NYU Gallatin and Columbia University’s Oral History Program and lives in New York.
Francesca Recchia is an independent researcher, educator and writer whose work is grounded in the values and principles of decolonial philosophy and radical pedagogy. Over the last two decades, Francesca has worked in different capacities in Palestine, Pakistan, India, Kashmir, Iraq and Afghanistan. Her latest assignment in Kabul was as Acting Director of the Afghan Institute for Arts and Architecture. Francesca is a founding member of The Polis Project, a hybrid research and reportage humanities collective that works with communities in resistance in the Global South She directed the Fourth Afghanistan Contemporary Art Prize and Caravanserai – Kabul in Karachi, a regional cultural festival bringing together cultural expressions from Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. She is the author of The Little Book of Kabul (with Lorenzo Tugnoli), Picnic in a Minefield and Devices for Political Action (with a photo-essay by Leo Novel).
Dr Kalpana Wilson is a Lecturer in Geography at Birbeck University of London. Her research explores questions of race/gender, labour, neoliberalism, and reproductive rights and justice, with a particular focus on South Asia and its diasporas. She is a founding member of the South Asian Solidarity Group.
Dr Stavit Sinai (Stav) is a philosophy lecturer, Israeli dissident and anti-apartheid activist who recently spent one month in prison following the shutting down of the Elbit HQ in Bristol.
Dareen Tatour is a Palestinian poet, photographer, political activist and social media activist from Reineh, Palestine. In 2018, she was tried and convicted in an Israeli occupation court for inciting violence and supporting a terrorist organisation, following the publication of a poem on social media. She was released in 2018 after serving a prison term.
Jasmine York is a human rights activist and prison abolitionist. Last year she was incarcerated for her involvement in the Kill The Bill protests that took place in Bristol, 2021. Since the protests Jasmine has been focusing on supporting individuals exploited by the criminal justice system, and since her release from prison she has been raising awareness about prison conditions.
