The statement, issued in the backdrop of violence in West Bengal, is signed by noted activists, academics, former public officials, artists, journalists, faith leaders, and members of civil society
NEW DELHI — More than 140 prominent figures from diverse fields have warned of the risk of nationwide violence, citing unchecked repression and brutality in West Bengal following the state assembly election results at the end of May.
The statement, issued in Mumbai on Wednesday, was signed by activists, academics, former public officials, artists, journalists, faith leaders, and members of civil society.
Signatories include former Union minister Yashwant Sinha; writers and journalists Susie Tharu, Raju Parulekar, Navin Kumar, Venkitesh Ramakrishnan, Teesta Setalvad, Javed Anand, Chitra Palekar, and Indra Kumar Theradi; retired civil servant Ashish Joshi; activists Shabnam Hashmi, Ram Puniyani, Dolphy D’Souza, and Virginia Saldanha; artists Shakuntala Kulkarni, Navjot Altaf, and Kripa; photographer Ram Rahman; Nandita Narain, associate professor (retd.), St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University, and several others. Other signatories include Gandhian Tushar Gandhi, Jesuit leaders Fr. Frazer Mascarenhas and Cedric Prakash, filmmaker Avinash Das, and medical practitioner Harsha Hegde.
The statement condemned the breakdown of the rule of law and the failure of Parliament and other institutions to follow the Constitution, law, and due procedure. It warns that mass violence is imminent unless citizens organise and speak up.
The signatories stated that recent attacks in West Bengal, including those on Members of Parliament Abhishek Banerjee and Kalyan Banerjee, should not be treated as isolated incidents. They described these events as part of a wider breakdown of the rule of law and a warning sign of possible mass political violence if institutions, political leaders, and ordinary citizens remain silent.
The document sharply criticized the response of central authorities, the police, and the Election Commission, accusing them of an “institutional freeze and silence.”
Following the election results in May, clashes broke out across several districts in West Bengal, resulting in casualties among supporters of both the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Opposition parties have accused the ruling state machinery of orchestrating a targeted campaign to suppress dissent. State authorities, in contrast, claim that external elements and opposition parties instigated the local conflicts.
In the weeks following the declaration of results, civil rights groups noted that despite the continued deployment of central forces, localised retaliation and property destruction went largely unchecked.
The collective concluded its declaration by urging citizens to break their silence and organise peacefully, warning that remaining mute spectators will endanger the nation’s democratic future.
At the heart of the statement is an increasingly urgent question: When democratic institutions freeze, when elected representatives are attacked, when constitutional procedure is ignored, and when violence is normalised as a political language, will silence be the only answer?
The entire statement may be read here:
Concerned Citizens
Mumbai, June 3, 2026
The Saturday May 30-31, 2026 brute attacks in West Bengal, first on Lok Sabha Member of Parliament (MP), Abhishek Banerjee and thereafter on another MP of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), Kalyan Banerjee mark yet another, but new, all-time low under the present regime under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the current prime minister. The violent attacks 26 days after an election result that has been shrouded under a cloud with the conduct of the Central Election Commission (CEC) –with 91 lakh previous voters divested of their voting rights—needs to be condemned with rigour and foresight.
These violent attacks –while Central forces are still deployed in the state —not only signify the utter and complete breakdown of any semblance of the Rule of Law in West Bengal. They send out grim warning signals to the rest of the country, and are a sign that all out fratricide (more physical, unchecked attacks on the Opposition) may follow. Widespread physical threats and violence in states governed by the same party may well become the norm and it is time, for those Indians, with conscience and voice, to speak out. Now.
Just a day after the controversial May 4, 2026 results in West Bengal, none less than another discredited and authoritarian oligarch leader of the world’s second largest (and ‘oldest’) democracy, Donald Trump doled out widely-publicised words of congratulation to the Indian Prime Minister. These words from one head of state to another, after a state/federal election where several parties participate, were sharply condemned by some members of the Opposition who deemed this as ‘direct interference in internal affairs’ and an ‘attack on Indian federalism.’ Trump is a discredited world leader who’s moral and other failures on the domestic and international front, bear no recounting. Yet the overall immunity that this Regime is functioning under/with, clearly comes from this unholy alliance that it has individually built with a world leader and its state, at the cost of Indian economic and defence interests and its sovereignty.
We, Indian writers and activists who condemn in no uncertain terms the near fatal attacks on Abhishek Banerjee and Kalyan Banerjee, both Members of Parliament, have little hope that the Indian Lok Sabha (Lower House of Elected Representatives) will either move a Privilege Motion nor out rightly demand a response from the ruling dispensation as is the well-established law and practice. On one previous and rare occasion, when an MP like Phoolan Devi was attacked and killed outside her New Delhi residence, in July 2001 in broad daylight, it was also a previous NDA government, led by Bharatiya Janata Party’s Atal Behari Vajpayee that was in power in Delhi. However, there was not just uproar and condemnation but Parliament took note.
This time, the brute attacks that have been widely documented on social media have been met, largely with institutional freeze and silence. This silence from autonomous and independent bodies bodes ill for India and Indians. We remain mute spectators only to our own peril.
