Hierarchy in jail is formed by class: Anand Teltumbde on his prison memoir ‘The Cell and the Soul’

Hierarchy in jail is formed by class: Anand Teltumbde on his prison memoir ‘The Cell and the Soul’

The Mint / by Prachi Pinglay-Plumber

Scholar Anand Teltumbde examines a country driven to a dead end, where the opposition is silent and citizens have been terrorised into normalcy

In an interview with Lounge, he discusses the writing of his prison memoir, why class trumps caste within the confines of prison, and the pitfalls of a caste census.
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Also read:
No mosquito nets, no medicine—Teltumbde recounts life in prison in ‘The Cell and the Soul’ (The Print / Nov 2025)
I never thought I’d qualify for arrest, says Teltumbde (Hindustan Times / Nov 2025)
Taloja Jail: Lives Fading in Silence Behind Iron Walls (Outlook | by Sudhir Dhawale | Sep 2025)

▪ The Cell and the Soul – A Prison Memoir

Author: Anand Teltumbde
Publishing Date: Sep 2025
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Pages: 256
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I saw firsthand how callous prison officials and their negligence led to Stan Swamy’s death (Scroll.in | by Arun Ferreira | Jul 2025)
BK-16 Prison Diaries: The ‘ordinary’ in extraordinary times: A captive’s life in Covid-19 (The Polis Project | by Gautam Navlakha | May 2025)
BK-16 Prison Diaries: Sagar Gorkhe on his battle to survive Taloja jail’s brutality (The Polis Project | by Sagar Gorkhe | Feb 2025)
Ramesh Gaichor on the Elgar prisoners’ defiance of the neo-Peshwai prison system (The Polis Project | by Ramesh Gaichor | Sep 2024)
Some personal reflections on prison medical care (The Leaflet | by Vernon Gonsalves | Apr 2024)

▪ The Feared – Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners

Author: Neeta Kolhatkar
Publishing Date: Dec 2024
Publisher: S&S India
Pages: 272
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▪ From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada

Author: Sudha Bhardwaj
Publishing Date: Oct 2023
Publisher: Juggernaut
Pages: 216
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▪ How Long Can the Moon Be Caged? Voices of Indian Political Prisoners

Authors: Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia
Publishing Date: Aug 2023
Publisher: Pluto Press
Pages: 247
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