Voices From Prison | Book Excerpt: Colours Of The Cage: A Prison Memoir, By Arun Ferreira

25/01/2026

Outlook / by Arun Ferreira

In May 2007, human rights activist Arun Ferreira was arrested by the Nagpur Police on charges of being a Naxalite. This book is a stark and unsparing account of the nearly five years that he spent in jail.

Excerpt
I was afraid they’d kill me. Thus far, there was nothing official about my detention. They hadn’t shown me a warrant, nor had I been taken to a police station. I feared that the police could murder me and pretend that I’d been killed in an encounter. I’d read about many situations in which the police claimed to have had no option but to open fire when suspects they were attempting to arrest had resisted. I knew that the National Human Rights Commission had noted thirty-one cases of fake encounter killings in Maharashtra alone in the previous five years. The physical torture, though painful, was relatively tame compared to this prospect.
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▪ Colours Of The Cage

Author: Arun Ferreira
Publishing Date: Sep 2014
Publisher: Aleph Book Company
Pages: 176

In May 2007, human rights activist Arun Ferreira was picked up from the railway station and arrested by the Nagpur Police on charges of being a Naxalite. Over the next few months, he was charged with more crimes—of criminal conspiracy, murder, possession of arms and rioting, among others—and incarcerated in one of the most notorious prisons in Maharashtra, the Nagpur Central Jail.

This is an account of the nearly five years that Ferreira was imprisoned.

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Voices From Prison | Photo Feature: Art Drawn Inside The Carceral State, By Arun Ferreira

25/01/2026

Outlook / Outlook News Desk, curated by Arun Ferreira

Drawn from inside prison walls, Arun Ferreira’s artworks document incarceration not as an abstract idea but as a lived, grinding reality.
Cell Alone: I, me and myself. If only sleep would silently ship me to some sociable shore. Photo: Art work by Arun Ferreira
Drawn from inside prison walls, Arun Ferreira’s artworks document incarceration not as an abstract idea but as a lived, grinding reality. A Mumbai-based lawyer, activist and trained cartoonist, Ferreira has long been involved in social and political movements, beginning with his student years at St. Xavier’s College.
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Also read/watch:
▪ Voices From Prison Series: Of Lives Stolen For Dissent (Outlook / Jan 2026)
▪ Supreme Court grants bail to Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira, with tethers (The Leaflet / Jul 2023)

▪ Video: Arun Ferreira speaks about Life in an Indian Prison

en | 12:51 min | 2014
Watch video

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