Bhopal: “As a community worker, I was prepared to sacrifice many things, but I never imagined paying such a heavy price – losing my mother. I was terribly shocked by the news of her demise. All I could do was make a short video call from jail using the conferencing system. My mother was resting at the pyre, gone but smiling. It was all tears. The whole moment was blurry,” recalls Saurav Benarjee. The Madhya Pradesh high court granted him bail the very next day.Benarjee, a journalist and founder of the HOWL (How Ought We Live) Collective in Dewas, was arrested on July 24 after right-wing groups accused the collective of religious conversions. However, the FIR, per the copy received, was filed only on July 26. Known for their cultural and educational work in Dewas, the group found itself at the centre of hostility due to misinformation. Once a spirited space for theatre, art and community learning, their Shukrawasa campus was demolished soon after the arrest.The court noted on October 16 that the chargesheet had already been filed and that Benarjee’s mother had passed away a day earlier. Observing that the trial would take time, Justice Subodh Abhyankar ordered his release on bail. Saurav was released after spending nearly three months in jail for charges under section 299 (outraging religious sentiments) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. Later, section 302 (deliberately insulting religious feelings) of the BNS was also added in the chargesheet. As per a report in The Indian Express, the Madhya Pradesh police have listed among their evidence an 88-page Hindi booklet on fascism and another 70-page book on the communist movement. Politicising the collectiveThe controversy stirred in late May, when Lok Swami, a local daily, carried a full-page article titled “‘Bhediyon’ ka ‘garajta’ dharamantaran Shukrawasa ke jungle mein: Ladke-ladkiyon ki sandigdh gatividhiyan (Religious conversion by ‘wolves’ in the forests of Shukrawasa: Suspicious activities by boys and girls). The article accused the HOWL Collective of promoting religious conversion, intoxication and other illegal activities. The unverified reports gave legitimacy to right-wing groups that had been targeting the collective for their work on empowering the marginalised, the Adivasis in the region. The Hindi media followed the path. However, confusion had begun much earlier in the village. “Local leaders with criminal backgrounds politicised the HOWL group after the Panchayat elections for their own interests. Benarjee sounded like a Christian name to the opponents. Such confusion spread quickly among the Hindutva mob, even the police. It was easy for everyone to buy the logic that floated. Ignorance made them believe I must be a Christian, and they got the story to fit their idea of conversion,” says Saurav, laughingly. From press conference to imprisonmentThe collective had sought to address the allegations directly. They organised a press conference in Indore on July 24, bringing nine members of their Parvatpura Panchayat Samiti from Shukrawasa, along with documents and evidence showing that no religious conversions had taken place. The event, however, was disrupted by a Hindutva mob, which attacked Benarjee and assaulted members of the Samiti. According to the FIR filed on July 26 at the Barotha police station, complainant Sachin Bamaniya alleged that Benarjee made derogatory remarks about Hindu deities during a visit to his home on July 14. The complaint stated that Benarjee questioned religious beliefs, called Hindu gods “stone idols”, and urged villagers to stop worshipping them. As a result, the FIR accused him of hurting religious sentiments.“My client’s reputation was maligned through false allegations of religious conversion,” says Advocate Jwalant Singh Chouhan, who represented Benarjee in court. “Politically motivated individuals targeted him because of his work with the community and pushed for enhanced sections in the chargesheet. Even though the case never warranted such custody the police took him on remand for a week. It was a routine FIR, without any serious offence. Benarjee is not a criminal or a terrorist. The HOWL Collective had, in fact, filed complaints earlier about the threats they faced. No one has ever come forward to say he converted them. The court could see the manipulation. It will soon be clear that the case was built only to damage his reputation,” he says.‘Felt like solitary confinement’Benarjee alleges that jail staff initially treated him like a criminal involved in forceful conversions. Some even labeled him a terrorist. However, their attitude softened with time. “They might have realised I am an innocent man,” he says. He spent his days in jail nearly in isolation, with his mind stuck on his ailing mother. “I was kept alone in a barrack meant for 50 people. It felt like solitary confinement. I thought about my mother and other mothers in Shukrawasa village whenever despair struck. Their strength gave me courage, reminding me that I had not committed any crime. A friend, during mulaqaat, informed me she was unwell. “The next time I heard, she had passed away on October 15, a day before my bail. I was broken and cried like a child. Even the guard came running to me in sympathy. She was a homemaker – the queen of a three-hundred-year-old Bengali Hindu family – and had been alone after my father’s passing,” he says.Not once could Saurav speak to his mother while in jail. She had medical conditions that prevented her from even traveling to her daughter abroad. She was living with Saurav at the Shukrawasa campus, enjoying the cultural atmosphere. In his absence, Saurav’s colleagues were taking care of her. “We carried the heart of a typical Bengali family – warm, secular and rooted in culture. The village was a family to her, with villagers visiting us during Durga Puja. My imprisonment was a trauma to my mother. She would wake from sleep, begging people for my release, insisting that I was falsely accused,” he says, adding that she was no more, by the time he walked out.Faith in media, and price of dissentAs a journalist, Benarjee found little support from the press. He instead recalls hostility. “I was not trying to fight. I just wanted to tell my part of the story. They destroyed my faith, shattered it. The press was like a temple that I worshipped deeply. Journalists should have a big heart. It took me time to accept what happened. They attacked us for educating people. They did not just implicate me but targeted the entire spirit of people doing good work, making us pay the price.”A flurry of rumours and misleading messages began circulating on WhatsApp groups while Benarjee remained in jail. The posts targeted his personal life and painted the HOWL Collective as a front for immoral and religious activities, shaping public opinion against the group. “I missed my partner in jail. I missed writing, reading and speaking with people. They destroyed everything we had built. It felt like death after death. I am not ashamed of my past, but the police shared private information with hooligan groups to assassinate my character. Personal is political for an activist. We have the right to live freely. Nothing about my life is illegal or wrong,” he says.