Tribal teacher and political leader Soni Sori speaking in an interview. Screenshot from YouTube Indigenous political leader and human rights defender Soni Sori, who has spoken out against the brutalization of tribal people by security forces in Bastar district in the central Indian state of Chattisgarh, was attacked by unidentified men on February 20. The assailants rubbed oil paint possibly mixed with chemicals on her face, which blackened her skin and caused a burning sensation, sparking initial reports that she had been the victim of an acid attack. Sori had received death threats prior to the attack. As news of the violence against her spread, many condemned it on social media, speaking out in support of Sori. Rama Lakshmi, India social media editor for the newspaper The Washington Post, tweeted: Acid attack on Soni Sori — silencing an inconvenient woman who speaks inconvenient truths about incredible India. — rama lakshmi (@RamaNewDelhi) February 20, 2016 Activist and columnist Sudheendra Kulkarni pushed authorities to act: I strongly condemn the attack on tribal activist and Aam Admi Party leader #SoniSori. #Chhattisgarh Govt must nab and punish the culprits. — Sudheendra Kulkarni (@SudheenKulkarni) February 21, 2016 Ashutosh, a spokesman for the Aam Aadmi political party to which Sori belongs, wrote: Attack on Soni Sori is another attempt to muzzle the voice of dissent.1 might disagree with one's views but this is no way to deal with. — ashutosh (@ashutosh83B) February 21, 2016 India, the largest democracy in the world, has within itself spaces that are neither democratic nor free. Bastar is one such place. In an effort to tackle a Maoist insurgency, special police officers were deployed in 2005 by the state of Chattisgarh's government with backing from the Indian home ministry. Before being declared illegal by the Supreme Court of India in 2011, these special police officers, comprised largely of uneducated youth, perpetrated violence against tribal people of the region on mere suspicions that they could have links with Maoist militants. Tribal people endured human rights violations such as unlawful arrest, violence, rape and even death at the hands of the special police officers, and later other authorities in Bastar. In a blog post published in 2009, before the Surpreme Court ruled that special police officers were illegal, Umar Khalid explained: Hundreds of villages have been evacuated in Chattisgarh alone and the mainstream media [barring a few exceptions] never found time to document it. Women of Chattisgarh are alleging rape by Salwa Judum [special police officers] men, but the courts in India refuse to listen. […] And precisely when the people retaliate on these forces, these mercenaries become national heroes overnight for the government. Soni Sori has been a vocal activist against the atrocities in the region. In 2011, she was taken into custody on accusations that she was helping Maoists operating in the area. She remained in jail for more than two years before being released in 2014 on bail; six out of the eight cases against her were dropped, but it’s unclear what became of the final two. She said while behind bars at the Raipur Central Jail, she was raped and sexually abused, revealing through letters that stones were rammed into her genitals and she was subjected to frequent electric shocks. Poster from Amnesty International Amnesty International described her as a “prisoner of conscience”, saying that the charges brought against Sori and her nephew Lingaram Kodopi were filed in retaliation for the fearlessness they exhibited in speaking out against human rights violations regularly faced by tribal people living in areas considered by the Chattisgarh state and security forces as Maoist strongholds. Sori's husband, Anil Futane, was first among the three to be arrested on charges of masterminding an attack on a local leader of the Indian National Congress political party; he spent nearly three years in jail before being acquitted of all charges. He died shortly after being released from jail. Sori's story has largely been ignored by the India's and the world's mainstream media, both of which often fail to reach out to India's rural poor. Facebook user Rahul Sen ruminated on the possibility of the attack against Sori never making national headlines like the recent arrest of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union leader Kanhaiya Kumar on sedition charges over supposedly anti-India slogans shouted at a campus rally. He wrote on Facebook (reposted with permission): Soni Sori was also an anti-national in the eyes of the state, seditious beyond the limits of common sense.