Saket Suman

Saket Suman
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Saket Suman is an Indian journalist and literary critic with The Statesman. Suman gained prominence for his insight reports on FYUP Row, before being acclaimed for his book reviews and literary reports. He writes in-depth articles on major events of national importance, travel, human interest, contemporary literature and is a prominent voice advocating “freedom of speech” and the “right to dissent”.

Focus

More recently, Suman has written extensively on the debate around Net neutrality in India, reported on the return of prestigious awards by Indian Intelligentsia against the alleged "rising intolerance and threat to free speech" and highlighted the plight of "Half widows", wives of men who have disappeared in the Kashmir Valley. In the aftermath of 2016 JNU sedition controversy, followed by the arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar, the elected president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union, Suman’s comprehensive feature report, “Who’s Cassius in Modi’s Rome?” created quite a stir on social media. The report drew a comparison between the then state of affairs to that of Shakespearean tragedy Julius Caesar, questioning the dangerous polarization in the country where anybody could be labeled “anti-national” by any “self-proclaimed nationalist.” He mentioned, “..these self-appointed defenders of nationalism deserve to be questioned, interrogated and penalised for creating such a dangerous state of polarisation as much as those booked under sedition charges for raising anti-national slogans.” He has also published one volume of poems.

Incident

On Saturday, 11 April 2015, Suman was heckled by Delhi Police when he took up the cause of an exploited child labourer at an eatery in east Delhi. Subsequently, an FIR was lodged and the child was reunited with his family.