Browsed by
Category: Prison conditions

NIA court directs prison authorities to provide Sagar Gorkhe treatment at J.J. Hospital

NIA court directs prison authorities to provide Sagar Gorkhe treatment at J.J. Hospital

Sagar Gorke. Pic: Kabir Kala Manch

The Leaflet / by Sarah Thanawala

An application was filed by Sagar Gorkhe, praying the court to direct urgent and necessary treatment for his mental and physical health. According to the application, the prison authorities have deprived Gorkhe of medicines and treatment for his psychiatric conditions.
Today, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) court of special judge Rajesh Kataria directed the jail superintendent of Taloja Central Prison to refer Sagar Gorkhe to J.J. Hospital, Mumbai to provide him with the required medical treatment.
Read more


Also read:
Securing the right to health of political prisoners (The Leaflet / Oct 2022)
Relatives of BK16 Flag Prison Authorities’ ‘Criminal Negligence’ and Deteriorating Health of Undertrials (Newsclick / Sep 2022)
Punished without trial: How India’s political prisoners are being denied basic rights in jail (Scroll.in / Aug 2022)
Hunger Strike unto death against the harassment from Taloja Central Jail’s apathetic administration (By Sagar Gorkhe / May 20, 2022)

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’ / ‘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.
Read more

Video: Sudha Bharadwaj: ‘A lot of democratic space has been lost’

By Frontline

en | 1:05:41 | 2023
Watch video


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.
Watch video


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.
Watch video


From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada

Author: Sudha Bhardwaj
Publisher: Juggernaut
Pages: 216
Order


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)

Sudha Bharadwaj | From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada

Sudha Bharadwaj | From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada

A Cage with a View: Under-trial life in an Indian jail

25/10/2023

National Herald / by Sudha Bharadwaj

Human rights lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj’s account of her time in Yerawada Jail is also a poignant lesson in keeping hope alive in the teeth of absurd injustice

The jottings that make up this book were my way of coping with incarceration. Some prisoners pray, some weep, some just put their heads down and work themselves weary. Some fight defiantly every inch of the way, some are inveterate grumblers, some spew gossip. Some read the newspaper from cover to cover, some shower love on children, some laugh at themselves and at others.
I watched through the bars, and I wrote.

Read more


Nano tales from an Indian prison: From Phansi Yard – My Year with the Women of Yerawada

25/10/2023

Business Standard / by Vipul Mudgal

Sudha Bharadwaj’s book offers a thought-provoking glimpse into the lives of prisoners in a colonial-era prison in Pune, leaving readers to ponder why some of them are languishing behind bars
This is a book of human sketches from the world of an Indian prison. Call it casual ethnography or participant observation, it is the author’s labour of love, brought together with empathy and a touch of wit. You get a string of nano tales of human bondage and its myriad ironies, of love, betrayal, loyalty, desire, and momentary lapses of reason, followed by bouts of rage, remorse and self-pity. These are stories of remediable injustice.
Sudha Bharadwaj takes you on a tour of the colonial prison in Pune. But when she introduces you to the inmates, an absurdity hits you — that most of them have no business being there, the author included.
Read more


`Being a dissident is not anti-democratic´

25/10/2023

Times of India / by Alka Dhupkar

Sudha 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
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.
Read more


Video: Dissent of All Forms Being Criminalised: Sudha Bharadwaj

11/10/2023


en | 14:51 | 2023

The Wire / by Sravasti Dasgupta

The lawyer and activist speaks to Sravasti Dasgupta of The Wire about her new book titled ‘From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada’.
Lawyer and activist Sudha Bharadwaj was released from Mumbai’s Byculla Prison in December 2021, three years after she was arrested by the Pune Police in connection with the Elgar Parishad case.
Lawyer and activist Sudha Bharadwaj was released from Mumbai’s Byculla Prison in December 2021, three years after she was arrested by the Pune Police in connection with the Elgar Parishad case.
Watch video


From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada

Author: Sudha Bhardwaj
Publisher: Juggernaut
Pages: 216
Order


Also watch/read:

● Video: The Conditions of Prisoners in Indian Jails

By All India Lawyers’ Association for Justice – AILAJ / March 2022

en | 1:21:23 | 2022
The huge number of undertrials, the overcrowding, and the disproportional numbers of Dalit, Muslim and Adivasi prisoners are part of the prison problem in India.
We are joined by Adv. Sudha Bharadwaj for a discussion on the Conditions of Prisoners in Indian Jails.
Watch video

● 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)

Sudha Bharadwaj Unveiling The Reality Of Life Behind Bars / ‘It is difficult for me being ‘exiled’ from Chhattisgarh’

Sudha Bharadwaj Unveiling The Reality Of Life Behind Bars / ‘It is difficult for me being ‘exiled’ from Chhattisgarh’


It is difficult for me being ‘exiled’ from Chhattisgarh: Sudha Bharadwaj

21/10/2023

New Indian Express / by Paramita Ghosh

Well-known activist Sudha Bharadwaj was arrested in 2018 in Bhima Koregaon and released in 2021 on bail. Her book on life in Yerawada jail is an act of solidarity towards her former fellow inmates.
There was nothing inevitable about activist-lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj’s landing in Yerawada jail. But her conscience and outrage about injustices faced by working people, especially among whom she lived and worked in Chhattisgarh, made her interested in other fights; she would envision ways of resisting and challenging the state’s control over the lives and labour of workers.
Read more


‘Women in jail need therapy, not punishment,’ says Sudha Bharadwaj

20/10/2023

The Print / by Manasi Phadke

Sudha Bharadwaj spent almost all her time at Mumbai Byculla Women’s Jail helping fellow prisoners with filing legal petitions and applications.
Bail should be the normal, jail an exception. And when the system puts a woman behind bars, it inadvertently affects an entire family, says lawyer and activist Sudha Bharadwaj …
Sitting on the elegant white steps of Mumbai’s iconic Asiatic Library, a place where the city’s rich and poor, old and young have all left an imprint, Bharadwaj, on a humid Tuesday evening, talks about the world she saw inside prison, which she has captured in her book, From Phansi Yard.
Read more


I wrote to tell of others’ sufferings. It helped me get through jail: Sudha Bharadwaj

16/10/2023

Deccan Herald / by Shree DN

“The only advantage of people like us going to jail is that at least we can bring out some of our experience. We can articulate it. Those who are suffering mostly can’t even articulate. So, hopefully, it will bring some attention to these issues,” says Sudha in a tete-e-tete with DH’s Shree D N about the book and beyond. Excerpts:
Read more


Sudha Bharadwaj’s book records episodic stories of her time in jail

15/10/2023

MidDay / by Jane Borges

Lawyer-trade unionist Sudha Bharadwaj, out on bail after three years in the 2018 Bhima-Koregaon violence case, says her time in Yerawada and Byculla women’s jail made her acutely aware of the gender gap in legal aid.
Mumbai was Bombay, when Sudha Bharadwaj first visited the city in her teens. This was in 1978, the trade unionist-activist-lawyer tells us. “My mother [an academic] had gone abroad for a year, so I moved here to do my Class XI. I lived with my mama in Prabhadevi, and I’d travel all the way to Navy Nagar to my school [Kendriya Vidyalaya]. I still remember that beautiful bus journey, passing by Worli seaface, Haji Ali and Mantralaya. I have such fond memories of that time.”
Read more

Video: Activist & Lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj Unveiling The Reality Of Life Behind Bars (By Midday India / Oct 15, 2023)


en | 2:23min | 2023
Watch video


Video: Dissent of All Forms Being Criminalised: Sudha Bharadwaj

11/10/2023


en | 14:51 | 2023

The Wire / by Sravasti Dasgupta

The lawyer and activist speaks to Sravasti Dasgupta of The Wire about her new book titled ‘From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada’.
Lawyer and activist Sudha Bharadwaj was released from Mumbai’s Byculla Prison in December 2021, three years after she was arrested by the Pune Police in connection with the Elgar Parishad case.
Lawyer and activist Sudha Bharadwaj was released from Mumbai’s Byculla Prison in December 2021, three years after she was arrested by the Pune Police in connection with the Elgar Parishad case.
Watch video


It brought a whiff of freedom: Sudha Bharadwaj recalls celebrating Women’s Day in jail

11/10/2023

Scroll.in / by Sudha Bharadwaj

An excerpt from ‘From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada’, by Sudha Bharadwaj.
International Women’s Day, which falls on 8 March, is officially celebrated at the Yerawada Women’s Jail sometime during that month with a two-hour cultural programme. Prisoners show off their talents before senior jail officials, including the Director General of Prisons (who happens to be at the present time a woman). Very good performances can occasionally lead to a couple of months of remission in sentence. There are no speeches or talks, let alone debates and discussions, around women’s rights or laws relating to women. No one is going to be discussing patriarchy here, or the long struggle that women have waged and still wage for equality. Still, the very observance of 8 March does generate enthusiasm and a feeling of freedom.
Read more


‘I saw brutality, but also solidarity,’ says Sudha Bharadwaj, author of From Phansi Yard, of her days in prison

11/10/2023

The Hindu / by Ziya US Salam

Arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case, activist-lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj kept a diary of prison life. Released in 2021, she writes about her experience at Yerawada jail
Sudha Bharadwaj, an IITian, turned her back on American citizenship and chose to work instead with the faceless multitudes of Dalli Rajhara and Bhilai. A well-known trade unionist, she has concentrated her energies for the uplift of the poor in Chhattisgarh, and taken brave positions against concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. In 2018, Bharadwaj was arrested for allegedly inciting violence in Bhima-Koregaon. She was imprisoned for a year and three months at Pune’s Yerawada jail, and for another year at Mumbai’s Byculla jail. She was released in 2021. In jail, she lived amid women, and decided to write about the life of fellow prisoners in her book, From Phansi Yard.
Read more



E-Book: From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada
By Sudha Bharadwaj (Author)

Publisher: Juggernaut (10 October 2023)
Language‏: English
Some prisoners pray, some weep, some just put down their heads and work themselves weary. Sudha Bharadwaj watched through the bars of her cell, and she wrote. This is her remarkably granular account of the world of women prisoners in Yerawada Jail in Pune. Bharadwaj was incarcerated here, in a high-security wing called Phansi Yard, from November 2018 to February 2020. She takes us through jail life, her own and the other women’s, from one season to the next, weaving in lively portraits of her fellow prisoners, their children and even their pets, and reflecting on everything from absurd rules, caste hierarchies, food, fistfights and friendships, to the dismal absence of legal aid for the most defenceless of women.
Order

A Discussion with Sudha Bharadwaj: Learning from the Trade Unionist Shankar Guha Niyogi

A Discussion with Sudha Bharadwaj: Learning from the Trade Unionist Shankar Guha Niyogi

by Akash | @akash_falaq (Sep 29)


Do join this fascinating conversation on 30 September, with trade unionist and advocate Sudha Bhardwaj, organized by #Spark.
#ShankarGuhaNeogi #BhagatSingh


Also read:
Whither Contract Labour Abolition? From Rise to Repeal – A Paper By Sudha Bhardwaj (Workers Unitiy / May 2023)


Statement by CMM-MKC and other workers unions: On the granting of bail to advocate Sudha Bharadwaj (Dec 2021)
Sudha Bharadwaj To Be Released After NIA Court Sets Bail Conditions (The Wire / Dec 2021)



E-Book: From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada
By Sudha Bharadwaj (Author)

Publisher : ‎ Juggernaut (10 October 2023)
Language‏ : ‎ English
Some prisoners pray, some weep, some just put down their heads and work themselves weary. Sudha Bharadwaj watched through the bars of her cell, and she wrote. This is her remarkably granular account of the world of women prisoners in Yerawada Jail in Pune. Bharadwaj was incarcerated here, in a high-security wing called Phansi Yard, from November 2018 to February 2020. She takes us through jail life, her own and the other women’s, from one season to the next, weaving in lively portraits of her fellow prisoners, their children and even their pets, and reflecting on everything from absurd rules, caste hierarchies, food, fistfights and friendships, to the dismal absence of legal aid for the most defenceless of women.
Pre-order

Prison Not The Reform Centre As Claimed, It’s Centre Of Sadism: Prof. Anand Teltumbde

Prison Not The Reform Centre As Claimed, It’s Centre Of Sadism: Prof. Anand Teltumbde

Live Law / by Sharmeen Hakim

Professor Anand Teltumbde fought for civil and labor rights while holding various managerial profiles during his illustrious corporate career and had only ever passed by a prison while commuting to work.
“If a profile like mine could be tarnished over night as such an oxymoron as urban Naxal, then I thought nothing would be impossible in the world”, he says months after his release on bail in the Bhima Koregaon – Elgar Parishad Case where he is accused of Maoist links along with several rights activists.
In this interview, Teltumbde talks about his observations from behind prison bars, the four books he authored during his time in prison, including a book dedicated to Ambedkar and why he declined to avail court permission to meet his mother.
Read more


Also read/watch:

● Multi-part interview by Neeta Kolhakar

○ Part 1: Anand Teltumbde: I never imagined I would have a jail life (Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhakar / Jul 25, 2023)
○ Part 2: Anand Teltumbde: If my mother knew of my arrest, she would have died of shock (Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhakar / Jul 28, 2023)
○ Part 3: Rama Teltumbde: We struggled to see each day through (Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhakar / Jul 31, 2023)

● Video: The Conditions of Prisoners in Indian Jails

By All India Lawyers’ Association for Justice – AILAJ / March 2022

en | 1:21:23 | 2022
The huge number of undertrials, the overcrowding, and the disproportional numbers of Dalit, Muslim and Adivasi prisoners are part of the prison problem in India.
We are joined by Adv. Sudha Bharadwaj for a discussion on the Conditions of Prisoners in Indian Jails.
Watch video

Anand Teltumbde: I never imagined I would have a jail life (Part 1)

Anand Teltumbde: I never imagined I would have a jail life (Part 1)

Poster by @/bakeryprasad

Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhatkar

‘I was under the illusion that this could never happen to me because my background was such — corporate CEO, IIT professor, IIT alumnus, IIM…’
Anand Teltumbde was born into a family of Dalit labourers and excelled in his studies. He went on to get an MBA from one of the top IIMs in this country…
Anand Teltumbde, in an interview with Rediff.com Senior Contributor Neeta Kolhatkar, reveals, “I was made to stand naked and they took photos. This is the sort of humiliating experience you undergo at Taloja jail.”
The first of a multi-part interview.
Read more


Also Read:
Rama Teltumbde: We struggled to see each day through (Part 3) (Rediff.com / by Neeta Kolhakar (Jul 31, 2023)
Anand Teltumbde: If my mother knew of my arrest, she would have died of shock (Part 2) (Rediff.com /Jul 28, 2023)
Why the Bombay High Court granted regular bail to Dr. Anand Teltumbde: An explainer (The Leaflet / Dec 2022)

Prisoners to get hot water, bedding, phone call facilities from state govt

Prisoners to get hot water, bedding, phone call facilities from state govt

Drawing by Arun Ferreira

Hindustan Times / by Vinay Dalvi

Fr Swamy, who passed away two months later at a private hospital, was provided with a mattress, bedsheet, pillow, walker, walking stick and commode only after he moved the Bombay high court for temporary bail on medical grounds.
In May 2021, 84-year-old Jesuit priest and tribal rights activist Father Stan Swamy, who had been sent to jail by the government in the Elgar Parishad case, found himself in dire straits. A Parkinsons’ sufferer, Fr Swamy was unable to drink water from a glass and had requested a straw or sipper, which was denied to him. Eventually he was compelled to approach the special NIA court, but received his straw and sipper only a month and a half after he had filed his application.
Read more


Also watch/read:
Stop Denying Political Prisoners the Right to Healthcare in Jails (PUDR / Sep 2022)
Punished without trial: How India’s political prisoners are being denied basic rights in jail (Scroll.in / Aug 2022)
Hunger Strike unto death against the harassment from Taloja Central Jail’s apathetic administration (By Sagar Gorkhe / May 20, 2022)

● Video: The Conditions of Prisoners in Indian Jails

By All India Lawyers’ Association for Justice – AILAJ / March 2022

en | 1:21:23 | 2022
The huge number of undertrials, the overcrowding, and the disproportional numbers of Dalit, Muslim and Adivasi prisoners are part of the prison problem in India.
We are joined by Adv. Sudha Bharadwaj for a discussion on the Conditions of Prisoners in Indian Jails.
Watch video

Video: Remembering Father Stan and demand justice for the BK-16!

Video: Remembering Father Stan and demand justice for the BK-16!

Remembering Father Stan and demand justice for the BK-16!

05/07/2023

By People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) / fb Videos

Announcement
Join us to remember Father Stan Swamy, and demand justice for his institutional murder.
We will have family members and friends of the accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, speak about the experience of the prison conditions and this unjust prolonged arrest.
We will also be joined by political leaders, international human rights organisations and lawyers, to help take the campaign forward to defend democracy!
Repeal UAPA!
Release all political prisoners!

en / hindi | 2:49:57 | 2023
Watch recording


Let’s Not Forget Father Stan Swamy!

08/07/2023

Rediff.com / by Jyoti Punwani

The tributes to Father Stan by his associates and his co-accused (which were read out) provided a clue to why his death continues to touch so many.
“We don’t want this to be forgotten or forgiven.” — senior advocate Mihir Desai.
“Do not forget, do not forgive.” This theme ran through the Zoom meeting organised by the National Campaign to Defend Democracy, a coalition of human rights groups, on the second anniversary of Father Stan Swamy’s death.
Read more


Ashirvad and PUCL Karnataka – Remembering Father Stan Swamy

05/07/2023

People’s Union for Civil Liberties fb Videos / by Ashirvad and PUCL Karnataka

Ashirvad and PUCL Karnataka – Remembering Father Stan Swamy
Fr. Frazer, Dr. V Suresh and Maitreyi

en | 18:19min | 2023
Watch recording Part 1

en | 1:07:37 | 2023
Watch recording Part 2

Stan Swamy’s second death anniversary: Stand Up for What Is Right, demand Co-Accused

Stan Swamy’s second death anniversary: Stand Up for What Is Right, demand Co-Accused

poster by @/bakeryprasad

In a Letter From Jail, Stan Swamy’s Co-Accused Ask President Murmu to Stand Up for What Is Right

05/07/2023

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

Today is Father Stan Swamy’s second death anniversary.

Two years ago on this day, 84-year-old Jharkhand-based tribal rights activist Father Stan Swamy breathed his last while in custody. His death exposed the state’s negligence and inability to protect prisoners. Swamy, a Parkinson’s patient, spent close to a year in jail, deprived of the most basic facilities – one of which was a sipper to drink water from.

On his second death anniversary, 11 of his co-accused (Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson, Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Hany Babu, Ramesh Gaichor, Sagar Gorkhe and Jyoti Jagtap) – all human rights activists and academics – write a letter to President of India Draupadi Murmu, who belongs to the tribal community that Swamy worked very closely with. Murmu, who recently spoke passionately about the conditions of Indian prisoners, was the governor of Jharkhand when Swamy’s organisation, Bagaicha, was raided and eventually he was arrested by the National Investigation Agency.
Along with the letter, the still-arrested human rights defenders also announced their one-day symbolic hunger strike in Mumbai’s Taloja and Byculla jails, where they are presently lodged.
The full text of their letter to the president is below.
Read more


Caged birds and prison songs: In chorus, Stan Swamy and the Bhima Koregaon accused kept hope alive

05/07/2023

Vernon Gonsalves

Scroll.in / by Vernon Gonsalves

A fellow prisoner’s recollections of the Jesuit priest, who died on July 5, 2021.

“…I am ready to pay the price, whatever be it. But we will sing in chorus. A caged bird can still sing.”
– Father Stan Swamy

When Stan Swamy, in his last message before landing in Navi Mumbai’s Taloja Central Prison in October 2020, declared that a “caged bird can still sing”, he was not talking about the tunes prisoners sing in jail. He had then not been imprisoned before that and was probably not acquainted with prison-singing in its various forms.
Read more


On Father Stan Swamy’s second death anniversary, two letters, a painting and the triumph of memory against forgetting

05/07/2023

The Leaflet / by Sarah Thanawala

Father Stan Swamy’s death was an international shock the ripples of which can still be felt, and a blot on the record of a State that treats criminal justice as its plaything. His legacy is treasured by his co-accused in the Bhima-Koregaon case inside the prison, and everyone who stands for justice and democracy outside the prison.
… The 11 incarcerated accused persons in the Elgar Parishad case are set to go on a day-long hunger strike today. They pen an imaginary letter from Swamy to the President of India Droupadi Murmu, terming it “Prayers that never came to be”.
Read more


“Hopefully waiting” writes Shoma Sen from prison

07/07/2023

InSAF India / by Shoma Sen

This handwritten note by Shoma Sen marks five years in prison for the activist and academic.
As we enter the sixth year of our incarceration the predominant feeling over the last five years is that of waiting. From waiting for default bail in the seventh month of our imprisonment, most of us are still waiting. In jail, we sit there waiting for court dates, waiting for mulakaat, waiting for the newspaper, waiting for bail and for the jail God called Memo. In jail, our sense of time itself gets warped. When a lawyer tells a prisoner that she will get bail in one or two days, it may actually mean one or two years. 24 hours of clock time could mean 24 months in judicial time.
Read more