Justice delayed is justice denied. That's the maxim that some people have brought up in connection to political activists who have been imprisoned without their bail pleas being heard, some for years on end. The country's criminal justice system is in the spotlight at a time when people are voicing their concern about the pending cases of activists Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Shoma Sen and hundreds of others like them who have been spending their nights in jail cells. Recently, disability groups and citizens also raised their voices about basic amenities like a sipper not being allowed to Fr Stan Swamy, who suffers from Parkinsonism and is in jail.

Those are some of the issues that will be raised at a protest performance this weekend. Titled Here to Stay: Ideas Cannot be Arrested, it features four different sets of artistes who have one thread in common — all of them have consistently raised their voice against perceived injustice through the medium of their art. There's Kaladas Deheriya, a member of the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha, who writes poetry about the plight of workers there. Narayanswamy, meanwhile, is a musician who composes tunes on caste, gender and land oppression, living atop a hill in Karnataka's Kolar region. Then there's Wannadaf, a collective of Bengaluru-based rappers who spit rhymes against systemic injustice. And Yalgaar, a group of singers and theatre practitioners, will shift the focus to Maharashtra, raising a voice against caste-based hatred.