Aakar PATEL

A writer, journalist and political activist, Aakar Patel remained subject to bail conditions restricting his freedom of movement at the end of the year.  On 6 April 2022, he had been due to fly from India to speak at several academic conferences in the US on topics including attacks on civil society in India and the use of social media as a tool for social and political change. However, when he attempted to board his flight at Bangalore airport, immigration authorities prevented his travel, citing a look-out circular (LOC) issued by CBI. Despite a Delhi court order directing the CBI to rescind the LOC against Patel, when he returned to the airport on 7 April 2022, he was again blocked from leaving the country. On 8 April 2022, a judge directed Patel not to leave the country without prior permission. 

While the CBI initially refused to publicly comment further on the reason why it initially attempted to restrict Patel’s travel outside of India, he was informed by the CBI that the LOC emanates from ongoing litigation against him in relation to his former role as head and Chair of the Board of Amnesty International India. The human rights organisation was forced to cease its operations in September 2020 following a campaign of intimidation orchestrated by the Indian government that included multiple raids, a smear campaign, and the freezing of Amnesty International India’s bank accounts after authorities accused the organisation of committing foreign funding violations under the FCRA. In December 2023, the CBI named Patel in a supplementary chargesheet it filed in connection to its ongoing probe against Amnesty International India (see Case lists 2023/2024 and 2022).

Aakar Patel, born on 15 December 1969, is a human rights and political activist, journalist and writer. He published his first novel titled After Messiah in September 2023. He has also authored four non-fiction works, including Price of the Modi Years (2021), which provides a critical examination of the performance of the Indian government since Narendra Modi’s election as prime minister in 2014. In 2020, he published Our Hindu Rashtra, which charts the rise of Hindu majoritarian nationalism in India and how it has accelerated under Modi’s government. In 2014 he authored The Anarchist Cookbook, a guidebook on the role of campaigning in effecting democratic change, and Why I Write: Essays by Saadat Hasan Manto, which Patel edited and translated into English.