People, planet, politics: the search for democracy in India

In 2018, Indian authorities arrested 16 prominent activists, intellectuals, and human rights defenders in connection with violence at a Dalit rights event in Bhima Koregaon. Known as the BK-16, these individuals - including respected professors, lawyers, journalists, and poets - were imprisoned without trial and accused of being Maoist terrorists. 

Join us for an illuminating lecture by award-winning author Alpa Shah as she delves into this complex and controversial legal case, drawing from her new book, The Incarcerations: BK-16 and the Search for Democracy in India. 

Shah will explore why the Indian government viewed these activists as such a threat, focusing on her work exposing human rights abuses against indigenous communities. She'll reveal how this case intersects with environmental justice issues and the interests of major fossil fuel companies, including one with significant operations in Australia.  

Drawing on her extensive research, Shah will introduce the concept of 'planetary care' - a framework for addressing global environmental challenges that emerges from the grassroots struggles of the BK-16 and similar movements worldwide.  

This thought-provoking lecture offers crucial insights into the connections between human rights, environmental justice, and democracy in our era of climate crisis. 

Supported by the Macgeorge Bequest, and hosted by the School of Social and Political Sciences in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne.

Alpa Shah is the Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford, with a Fellowship at All Souls College. She is an award winning author of four books: The Incarcerations: BK-16 and the Search for Democracy in India (2024); Nightmarch: Among India’s Revolutionary Guerrillas (2018); Ground Down by Growth: Tribe, Caste, Class and Inequality in 21st Century India (co-authored 2018) and In the Shadows of the State: Indigenous Politics, Environmentalism and Insurgency in Jharkhand, India (2010).  She is a twice-finalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing and has written and presented for BBC Radio 4 Crossing Continents and From Our Own Correspondent.