Queer filmmaker Moses Tulasi was arrested March 22 with students and faculty members on the campus of Hyderabad Central University located close to the outskirts of the Southern India city.
The director of the acclaimed documentary Walking the Walkwhich is set in Hyderabad and focuses on events surrounding and following the murder of a local trans woman named Pravallika was rounded up while he was documenting a protest against the return of the University's Vice Chancellor P Appa Rao.
Rao had left the campus owing to the outcry which followed the January 2016 suicide of research student Rohith Vemula shortly after he and fellow students were expelled from university housing.
They were each members of the Dalit. There are almost 170 million of them in India who suffer systemic and society-wide discrimination, horrific physical and mental abuses and are forced into menial, low paying work such as cleaning up human feces or removing the corpses of dead animals. The unluckiest of them are forced into a life of scavenging just to survive.
For centuries, India's Hindu religion has divided society into castes or Varnas. But there are those who are forced to live outside the lowest of those castes, considered below even those servants who belong to it.
Told that they were paying dues for sins committed in past lives, they were called Untouchables.
Dalit is the term in use today but the conditions are very much the same.
With rare exceptions, Dalits are denied access to education. Extreme poverty, illiteracy and debilitating health problems are rampant. There are similar restrictions placed on marriage and, indeed, every aspect of their day-to-day lives even with whom they can or cannot have a meal.
According to Greeshma Aruna Raia lawyer based in Bangalore, Indiabefore his death, Vemula was raising questions about issues such as Capital Punishment.
"He was being a leader," she told Windy City Times. "He was talking constantly about discrimination faced by his community and other minorities. After about eight months, he and four other students were completely excluded from university housing but they continued the struggle from the campus."
Without access housing, remaining on campus meant that the students had to pitch tents in which to live while they organized activities in order to raise awareness of their situation.
Over two weeks of the struggle overcame Vemula who, according to news reports, hanged himself from a hostel room ceiling fan.
Protests erupted across India after his death at what people called "an institutional murder."
Students shut down the university and called for the removal of Rao, claiming that his policies and actions ultimately bore responsibility for Vemula's death.
"There were many actions that [Rao] took that aggravated the situation," Rai said. "And he had also come under the pressure of the central government. Thanks to his allies there, he was extremely repressive to Rohith and the other students."
After a two-month absence, Rao obstinately returned to the campus to resume his role. The students were outraged claiming that the university was being run "by a murderer."
On March 22, Tulasi was filming one such protest for a documentary when he, alongside over 24 other students, two faculty members and a filmmaker, were taken into custody on charges of vandalism.
"They were sitting on the lawn and shouting slogans when members of the local state police and the Rapid Action Force [RAF] came and took them away," Rai said.
The RAF is renowned for their extremely brutal tactics.
"We didn't know where they were," Rai said. "Later we realized that they were all beaten up inside the van and were taken to the district police station. The Magistrate remanded them to 14 days custody."
Not only was their appearance before the Magistrate long after the 24-hour limit mandated by Indian law, Rai asserted that the charges against Tulasi and the others are completely erroneous.
"The allegations against them are ransacking the Vice Chancellor's office which they had absolutely no access to," she said. "The only thing the police have are photos of the office but it was completely blocked off by another group of students so there was no way the protestors had access. This whole story has been blown up so that all the people who were active in the movement and the protests are now in jail."
Tulasi and the others remain held in the Cherlappally central jail. Meanwhile, the university has been completely locked down.
"Power has been cut off, access to food and water has been shut down, there is no access to internet, Rai said. "Media cannot enter. The only people who can are the police and the army."
A petition for bail for Tulasi and the others arrested was taken up following opposition from the public prosecutor. Bail was granted March 29. Rai said that a team of human rights lawyers are working on the case.
Tulasi had been on campus documenting the outcry which followed Vemula's death.
"He was a constant source of help," Rai said. "But [during the arrest] his camera was taken away and trashed and he was also beaten up."
During a Facebook post about a March 25 visit to the jail, Tulasi's friend Vaikhari Aryat said that "he seems good in spirit[s]. His mother also was there to meet him, by the time we reached [the jail]/"
Tulasi serves as a board member emeritus of Trikone Chicago. Since 2008, the organization has worked to "provide supportive, empowering, and affirming community for queer/trans South Asians in the Chicagoland area"
Trikone Chicago released a March 24 statement concerning his arrest.
"We are deeply concerned and disturbed by these recent developments," the statement said in part. "Whatever the reasons for police action at the university, we have no doubt that the arrest of Moses Tulasi was entirely unwarranted. We read this as an attempt by the local administration to muzzle free speech, and destroy evidence of human rights violations by persecuting individuals who attempt to document the protests. Our thoughts and prayers to Moses and his family for his safe return home."
In an interview about Walking the Walk released by IndieMeme, Tulasi said that, as a gay man, he wanted his work to throw a light on social issues.
"When I went to India in search of a subject for my first film, I got in touch with a group of activists who were trying to do something different in terms of bringing in intersectionalities and forming alliances," he said. "I felt the least I could do is to provide a platform."