“This Could Happen to You

The Bhima Koregaon case is not only about those who were imprisoned. It is also about the fate of democracy itself

- Alpa Shah

THERE are things in life that somehow wrap themselves around us. Things we never would have dreamed of doing—ideas that once seemed dangerous, crazy, or simply foolish. They arrive quietly, almost by accident, and before we know it, they surround us, occupy our thoughts, and slowly take over. Until one day, there is no turning back, and we can’t imagine thinking about anything else.

Writing The Incarcerations was a bit like that. It was the middle of the COVID pandemic—a time when friends and family were dying. I had asked my editor an almost rhetorical question: how were we supposed to keep hope alive? His reply stopped me in my tracks.

“I’m thinking aloud, but I’ve been mulling it over for some time. One way to keep hope alive is to try and do what’s in my hands, which is to facilitate a book and hope it helps draw attention to the subject. And I was wondering if you could be the one to write it?”

I gulped as I read on. He laid out the reasons why I was the right person to write about how the Bhima Koregaon case had sucked in some of India’s brightest minds.

“Would be keen to know what you think.”

I ran out of the house, through the meadow and into the woods, hoping the movement would clear my head.

The lawyer Susan Abraham’s words echoed through the cathedral of oak, birch, and alder:

“So whoever challenged it [the Bhima Koregaon arrests] found their name in the next round of arrests.”

She had been calmly explaining the case to a journalist in a YouTube video released two years before: