Internationally acclaimed novelist and a poet Meena Kandasamy today wrote about the arrest. Her text is reproduced below. Today, two comrades I know from Kerala, Hari and C P Rasheed (who is President of Janakeeya Manushyavakasha Prasthaanam (JMP), a human rights organization) have been arrested in Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu. The reason for the arrest is the allegation that they were trying to hand over a pen-drive to prisoners in jail. I don't know what sort of person will give a pendrive to someone in jail, and I don't know what anyone can do with it in jail either! This crackdown on activism is an all-India phenomenon, we are already witnessing some of the worst attacks on human rights defenders and journalists. Two weeks ago, in the last week of May, one of my good friends Thirumurugan Gandhi was detained by the Tamil Nadu police under the Goondas act--a notorious law that allows for arbitrary detention arrests and is not the easiest act to apply for bail. He is the leader of the May 17 Movement--which has taken up several social issues such as protests against fracking and protests in support of Eelam Tamils. I was in touch with him in the earlier part of the year, during the Marina protests--trying to get him in touch with Amnesty International India and international media outlets--and AI India have been kind enough to start a petition for him and provide the support that they can. When I and Thirumurugan Gandhi spoke on the phone six months ago--I could not picture that such a draconian law would be slapped on him. As an individual, I feel helpless--largely from the geographical isolation, but also because I'm not at an easy place. Over the last two, three weeks I have done little else but answer the same version of the same sort of questions repeatedly--on the very depressing and agonizing theme of marital rape, violence and abuse--and which is as much an artistic engagement for me through fiction as it is a traumatizing experience that I have endured as a woman. As an artist and an activist, I'm happy to make the noise because it makes a very important topic get discussed. As a victim, I feel drained, emptied out, devoid of strength. When I see friends from two different states--friends with whom I've shared a meal, shouted in protests together, ran campaigns together--arrested overnight--I am caught between outrage and fear. Because. I don't know. Because--I always thought that when I went to jail for what I wrote (on Gandhi, on caste, on beef, on RSS, whatever)--in my mind, I thought that it would be the JMP in Kerala that would defend me. It would be the May 17 in Tamil Nadu that would help me. These were activists-comrades whom you could rely on--who, in my mind, were the bedrock of support to anyone who was being unfairly victimized by the state. Instead, I'm the one (sitting here, in the comfort of a London summer evening) writing about them. It feels so wrong and so hopeless. Please raise your voices. Please get them out.