Sudha Bharadwaj | ‘A lot of democratic space has been lost’ / ‘Social contradiction get magnified inside prisons’
Sudha Bharadwaj: ‘A lot of democratic space has been lost’
02/11/2023
Frontline / by Shreevatsa Nevatia
The human rights lawyer and activist says that while in jail, she saw the human cost of a dysfunctional justice system.
The lawyer and activist, spent three years and three months in jail following her arrest under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act on August 28, 2018. Her book From Phansi Yard isabout her days in Pune’s Yerawada Jail.
As a trade unionist, Bharadwaj has seen police heavy-handedness up close, but she did “not envisage the kind of thing” that happened to her. The charges against Bharadwaj, one of the 16 accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, include a plot to kill Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But the 62-year-old is confident she will be acquitted; her bail conditions disallow her from saying anything more.
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Video: Sudha Bharadwaj: ‘A lot of democratic space has been lost’
By Frontline
en | 1:05:41 | 2023
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Video: Sudha Bharadwaj interview: ‘Social contradiction get magnified inside prisons’
By The Federal
en | 37:33 | 2023
Sudha Bhardwaj (62), trade-unionist, human rights activist and lawyer, lived and worked in Chhattisgarh for over three decades. On August 28, 2018, she was arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case, and was released on bail in December 2021. Her book, From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada (Juggernaut Books), is an account of women prisoners (their suffering as well as the solidarities they have forged behind bars) in Pune’s Jail, where she was incarcerated in a high-security wing called Phansi Yard from November 2018 to February 2020. In this interview to The Federal, Bhardwaj, whose bail conditions do not allow her to talk about the case, and leave Mumbai, recounts her journey, and what gives her hope after a lifetime of struggle.
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Video: Sudha Bharadwaj on life in jail, importance of being a dissent and her hopes for justice
By Times of India
en | 4:20min | 2023
Sudha Bharadwaj was born in 1961 in the US and spent the first 10 years of her life on the University of Cambridge campus in England. After her parents returned to India, she grew up on the then newly created Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus and then spent decades working as trade unionist and human rights lawyer in Chhattisgarh. Bharadwaj is among the 16 persons arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case. She and the others were arrested for allegedly having links with Maoists, and for allegedly plotting to kill Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They are accused of conspiring to spark caste-based violence that erupted at the Bhima Koregaon memorial in Maharashtra in 2018. Between 2018 and 2021, she was housed in the Yerawada and Byculla jails in the state. In this interview with TOI+, Bharadwaj who is out on bail in the Bhima Koregaon case, talks about her experience of being an undertrial, how it inspired a book and why democracy needs dissidents.
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From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada
Author: Sudha Bhardwaj
Publisher: Juggernaut
Pages: 216
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Also read:
● Sudha Bharadwaj speaks – A Life in Law and Activism
Publisher: Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL)
Edition: January 2021
Language: English
Sudha Bharadwaj’s interview by: Darshana Mitra and Santanu Chakraborty
Paperback: 316 pages
Access a free PDF copy of the book here:
Sudha_Bharadwaj_speaks (2,1 MB)