Kovan, the popular Tamil protest singer was again taken into custody on April 13, 2018 following the release of a new song. Two days earlier, the head of the local youth wing of the BJP (Indian People’s Party, of which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a member) filed a complaint alleging that Kovan’s song had “offended his religious sentiments” and that it “offended Prime Minister Modi.” The lyrics of the song criticize Modi’s government and its alleged control over Tamil Nadu’s current ruling party.

Previously arrested in October 2015 over a song criticizing the then-governor of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Kovan was the subject of a Voice Project advocacy campaign in October of 2015, and Kovan was released on bail on November 17, 2015 per a Tamil Nadu high court order. The state government raised a petition to remand Kovan in court and maintain the charges against him, but this petition was dismissed by the Indian Supreme Court on November 30, 2015.

Since February, the neighboring states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have been locked in fierce debate about how to implement a Supreme Court decision mandating a new agreement to share water from the Cauvery river. Kovan premiered his new song, which now has nearly three hundred thousand views on YouTube, in March 2018 during a demonstration in favor of establishing a Cauvery Management Board to implement the policy, which the Modi-backed political party that governs Tamil Nadu opposes.

Acting on the complaint, local police arrested Kovan at his home on April 13 in a dramatic scene that saw the singer’s family and neighbors attempt to impede his departure. According to Kovan’s son, a lawyer, a group of 15 men in civilian clothes surrounded Kovan’s home and attempted to force entry. “The persons […] did not introduce themselves as police and did not come by police vehicles. I am a lawyer, but I have not seen any of them in any Tiruchy police station. When everyone started questioning them, they got into the vehicle. The villagers attempted to block the vehicle by placing sofa[s] and other items on the road but they managed to escape,” he said. Kovan believes that the first group of men may have intended to harm him before they were driven off by his neighbors.

Only after this bizarre ordeal did uniformed policemen arrive to arrest Kovan, taking him not to Tiruchy police station but rather to KK Nagar police station, where he was not allowed to speak to a lawyer. Authorities charged Kovan under sections of the Indian Penal Code related to promoting enmity between groups, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace, and inducing others to commit and offense against the State.

Kovan appeared before a magistrate the day of his arrest and was released on conditional bail requiring him to appear at the police station each day for 15 days. No date has yet been set for a trial.

The current arrest and subsequent processing mirror Kovan’s previous run-in with Tamil Nadu authorities in 2015. That time, in response to the Governor’s support for state-owned liquor stores, Kovan released a song expressing his disagreement with that stance. After being accused of sedition for expressing his opinion, Kovan was arrested, released on bail, and eventually had the case dismissed by the Indian Supreme Court.

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