Jailed for anti-govt cartoons, Mumbai man now hosts free speech talk show

Amid anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) stir and outrage over the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC), an event organised under the banner of free speech talk called 'Undeclared Emergency' took place on Sunday at Versova's Aram Nagar area in Mumbai.

Free Speech Talk is a platform organised by political cartoonist Aseem Trivedi, who was jailed in 2012 by the then UPA government for his work highlighting corruption.

The event was attended by many public figures, including actress Swara Bhaskar, Dr Kafeel Khan, student leader Fahad Ahmed, director Avinash Das and actor Zeeshan Ayyub.

"This is our second event. The first event took place on December 29 last year in Delhi on the subject of NRC. Response in Mumbai was better and there is hardly any space to fit in people," Trivedi told India Today TV.

"There are many talking platforms available, but they don't allow political opinions. Your script is censored before you take up a mic. Hence we thought of starting these sessions to bring activists who want to express dissent on one platform," added Trivedi.

Trivedi went to say that the idea behind this talk is to bring dissenting voices on one stage.

While speaking to take more such initiatives forward Trivedi said, "Our NGO Free Speech Foundation is also planning a website to keep a track of cases against free speech and compile a state-wise data regarding it. Till now, we don't have an India based platform which collects such data. We will collect the data on such cases and protest against it. You can't keep the freedom to express alive without keeping a track of it."