Scholar in prison

Acclaimed journalist and author Rana Ayyub speaks to Maktoob about how she became the “story and storyteller” of the current India. Ayyub opens up about media suppression and the genocidal situation of Muslims in Modi’s India.

Jenny Rowena, the wife of jailed Delhi University professor Hany Babu, laments the situation of prisons in India and accuses that, as a society, we failed to have a social ethos that never undermines prisoners’ rights. While talking to Maktoob‘s Shaheen Abdulla, she emphasized that medical negligence in prisons has led to serious conditions for Babu, who is booked under UAPA in the Elgar Parishad Bhima Koregaon case. Independent forensic reports found that Babu’s laptop was hacked to plant incriminating evidence.

For Safoora Zargar, a Muslim student leader, hardly a day goes by​ without online abuse from India’s right-wing trolls for her dissent against Modi’s Hindutva regime. But none of it could silence her from asking difficult questions to the establishment. Zargar speaks to Maktoob about the traumatising chronicle of hate that goes unchecked in India against Muslim women.

Syed Ali Shah Geelani wanted himself buried at Mazar E Shuhada — Martyrs’ graveyard. But even after his soul departed, he remained a ‘security threat’ to New Delhi. Geelani’s ‘will’ was abrogated as were the rights of Kashmir on that night. The demise of Kashmir’s tallest separatist leader, SAS Geelani, on the night of 01 September immediately became a political crisis. India raced to bury him in the dead of the night to stifle anti-India protest while Pakistan announced ‘official mourning’. But amidst the chaos, Naseem Geelani, son of SAS Geelani, struggled to keep it together. Listen to Naseem Geelani on Maktoob podcast