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’Let us vote against hate politics . . . for an equal and diverse India’ - Appeal from writers on the eve of India’s 2019 general elections

1 April 2019

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Text of appeal from writers on the eve of India’s 2019 general elections

April 1, 2019

The upcoming election finds our country at the crossroads. Our Constitution guarantees all its citizens equal rights, the freedom to eat, pray and live as they choose, freedom of expression and the right to dissent. But in the last few years, we have seen citizens being lynched or assaulted or discriminated against because of their community, caste, gender, or the region they come from. Hate politics has been used to divide the country; create fear; and exclude more and more people from living as full-fledged citizens. Writers, artists, filmmakers, musicians and other cultural practitioners have been hounded, intimidated, and censored. Anyone who questions the powers-that-be is in danger of being harassed or arrested on false and ridiculous charges.

All of us want this to change. We don’t want rationalists, writers and activists to be hounded or assassinated. We want stern measures against violence in word or deed against women, dalits, adivasis and minority communities. We want resources and measures for jobs, education, research, healthcare and equal opportunities for all. Most of all, we want to safeguard our diversity and let democracy flourish.

How do we do this? How do we bring about the change we need so urgently? There are many things we need to do and can do. But there is a critical first step.

The first step, the one we can take soon, is to vote out hate politics. Vote out the division of our people; vote out inequality; vote against violence, intimidation and censorship. This is the only way we can vote for an India that renews the promises made by our Constitution. This is why we appeal to all citizens to vote for a diverse and equal India.

1 AJ Thomas
2 AR Venkatachalapathy
3 Abhay Maurya
4 Adil Jussawalla
5 Ajai Singh
6 Akeel Bilgrami
7 Ali Javid
8 Alok Rai
9 Amit Chaudhuri
10 Amit Bhaduri
11 Amitav Ghosh
12 Anand
13 Anand Teltumbde
14 Ananya Vajpeyi
15 Ania Loomba
16 Anil Joshi
17 Anita Nair
18 Anita Ratnam
19 Anita Thampi
20 Anjali Purohit
21 Anupama HS
22 Anuradha Kapur
23 Anuradha Marwah
24 Anvar Ali
25 Apoorvanand
26 Arjumand Ara
27 Arjun Dangle
28 Arun Kamal
29 Arunava Sinha
30 Arundhati Roy
31 Arvind Krishna Mehrotra
32 Asad Zaidi 102 MMP Singh
33 Asghar Wajahat
34 Ashok Vajpeyi
35 Ashokan Charuvil
36 Ashwani Kumar
37 Atamjit Singh
38 B Rajeevan
39 Badri Raina
40 Bajrang Bihari Tiwari
41 Bali Singh
42 Bama
43 Basharat Peer
44 Benyamin
45 Bhasha Singh
46 Bina Sarkar Ellias
47 CS Chandrika
48 Chaman Lal
49 Chandradasan
50 Chandrakant Patil
51 Civic Chandran
52 Dalip Kaur Tiwana
53 Damodar Mauzo
54 Datta Damodar Naik
55 Deepan Sivaraman
56 Devdan Chaudhuri
57 Devendra Chaube
58 Devi Prasad Mishra
59 Dinesh Kumar Shukla
60 E Santhoshkumar
61 EV Ramakrishnan
62 GN Devy
63 Gagan Gill
64 Gauhar Raza
65 Geeta Kapur
66 Geetanjali Shree
67 Girdhar Rathi
68 Girish Karnad
69 Githa Hariharan
70 Govind Prasad
71 Gulam Mohammed Sheikh
72 HS Shivaprakash
73 Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar
74 Hariyash Rai
75 Harsh Mander
76 Hemant Divate
77 Hemlata Maheshwar
78 Hiralal Rajasthani
79 Huchangi Prasad
80 Ishrat Syed
81 J Devika
82 JM Parakh
83 Jaidev Taneja
84 Jaishree Misra
85 Jeet Thayil
86 Jerry Pinto
87 Joy Mathew
88 JV Pawar
89 K G Shankara Pillai
90 K N Panikkar
91 K Satchidanandan
92 Kalpana Swaminarayan
93 Kalpana Swaminathan
94 Kavery Nambisan
95 Keki Daruwalla
96 Kiran Nagarkar
97 KM Shrimali
98 KP Ramanunni
99 Kunal Basu
100 Kutti Revathi
101 M Mukundan
102 MMP Singh
103 Madhu Bhaduri
104 Makarand Sathe
105 Malavika Kapur
106 Mamang Dai
107 Mamta Sagar
108 Manash Bhattacharya
109 Manasi
110 Mangad Ratnakaran
111 Mangalesh Dabral
112 Manishi Jani
113 Manmohan
114 Manoj Kulkarni
115 Manoj Kuroor
116 Maria Couto
117 Meena Kandasamy
118 Megha Pansare
119 Mogalli Ganesh
120 Mrinal Pande
121 Mukul Kesavan
122 NS Madhavan
123 NP Hafiz Mohamad
124 Nabaneeta Dev Sen
125 Nalin Ranjan Singh
126 Namita Gokhale
127 Namita Singh
128 Nancy Adajania
129 Nayantara Sahgal
130 Neeraj Singh
131 Nityanand Tiwari
132 Noor Zaheer
133 Orijit Sen
134 P Sivakami
135 PN Gopikrishnan
136 PP Ramachandran
137 Pankaj Bisht
138 Paul Zacharia
139 Prabha Varma
140 Prabodh Parikh
141 Pradnya Daya Pawar
142 Prem Tiwari
143 Priya Sarukkai Chabria
144 Purushottam Agarwal
145 R Unni
146 Rahamath Tarikere
147 Rahman Abbas
148 Rajendra Chenni
149 Rajendra Rajan
150 Rajesh Joshi
151 Rajiv Ranjan Singh
152 Ramprakash Tripathi
153 Ranjit Hoskote
154 Raosaheb Kasbe
155 Rakesh Tiwari
156 Ravishankar
157 Rekha Awasthi
158 Ritu Menon
159 Robin Ngangom
160 Romila Thapar
161 Ruchira Gupta
162 Rukmini Bhaya Nair
163 S Joseph
164 Sachin Ketkar
165 Saleem Peeradina
166 Salim Yusufji
167 Salma
168 Samik Bandyopadhyay
169 Sanjeev Kaushal
170 Sanjeev Khandekar
171 Sanjeev Kumar
172 Sarabjeet Garcha
173 Satish Alekar
174 Savitri Rajeevan
175 Sethu
176 Shafi Shauq
177 Shailesh Singh
178 Shanta Acharya
179 Shanta Gokhale
180 Sharankumar Limbale
181 Sharmila Samant
182 Shashi Deshpande
183 Shekhar Joshi
184 Shobha Singh
185 Shubha
186 Smita Sahay
187 Srilata K
188 Subodh Sarkar
189 Sudeep Chakravarti
190 Sudeshna Banerjee
191 Sudhanva Deshpande
192 Sudhir Chandra
193 Suresh Chabria
194 TM Krishna
195 Tekchand
196 Udayan Vajpeyi
197 Urvashi Butalia
198 Vaasanthi
199 Vanamala Viswanatha
200 Vijay Prashad
201 Venita Coelho
202 Vijayalakshmi
203 Vinita Agrawal
204 Vinitabh
205 Vishnu Nagar
206 Vishwanath Tripathi
207 Vivan Sundaram
208 Vivek Shanbhag
209 Volga
210 Zoya Hasan