Criminalising Dissent: The Activist And The Intellectual As ‘Threat’
Nivedita Menon | 29 November 2025 | Outlook
While opposing the bail pleas of those incarcerated for more than five years without trial in the Delhi violence of 2020, Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, appearing for the Delhi Police, is reported as telling the Supreme Court that “intellectuals when they guide terrorists, become more dangerous than those working at the ground.” He added that because of state subsidies, they become educated but then instead of practicing their professions they become “dangerous activists”.
The paucity of facts and the flourish of emotive phrases are stunning, given it was a courtroom. Activists and terrorists carry the same weight and meaning, the term “dangerous” is applied to both indiscriminately, and intellectuals can be dangerous too when they become activists/terrorists. The term “activist” has come to be used by the media and in courtrooms only to refer to opponents of the regime…