The demand for the release of political prisoners is necessary because any democracy claims pride in guaranteeing fundamental rights
The demand for the release of political prisoners today is haunted by a dangerous vagueness. As the category expands, its meaning becomes thinner.
… there is remarkably little organised effort to secure the release of political prisoners. Whatever exists has steadily retreated from sustained collective organising to the fragile and easily targeted space of social media. This shift appears logical only because the state has relentlessly criminalised even the mildest attempts to raise the issue of political imprisonment. The most chilling example remains the case of Delhi University professor G. N. Saibaba. After his arrest, a defence committee was formed to campaign for his release. At least five of its members were later arrested in the Bhima Koregaon Elgar Parishad case. Read more
Voices From Prison: Of Lives Stolen For Dissent
20/01/2026
Outlook / by Outlook News Desk
Outlook’s February 1 issue, Thou Shalt Not Dissent, shines a light on the lives of political prisoners who were slapped with anti-terrorism charges and continue to face long trials and curbing of rights.
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In Outlook’s February 1 issue, Thou Shalt Not Dissent, first-person accounts of political activists who were slapped with anti-terrorism charges under different political regimes, explore life behind bars, the trauma, sights and sounds of a world bereft of freedom, normalcy and reason. Weaved with the accounts are stories of individuals who carry the burden of incarceration like a tumour on the face, afraid to cover it, so it doesn’t chafe, and hesitant to let it free, so it does not translate into their only identity. Read more
Voices From Prison: Mahesh Raut | A Broken Prison System Is In Dire Need Of Critical Care
22/01/2026
Outlook / by Mahesh Raut
Mahesh Raut, the youngest accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, was granted interim bail on medical grounds. Many prisoners have no hope.
What constitutes freedom? What does it constitute for the person who is confined or for the one who comes out of jail, only to get entangled in another web of chains; some similar, but for others, different from what they experienced behind bars. In a prison, your identity is reduced to just a number. You are dehumanised at the whims of authorities and burdened by numerous hurdles and difficulties to secure bail. Many are not able to come out of prison even after securing bail due to financial constraints. All these factors take a toll on the physical and mental health of prisoners. Read more
Lives Lost: How Prolonged Incarceration Failed Pandu Narote, Kanchan Nanaware, Stan Swamy
22/01/2026
Outlook / by Priyanka Tupe
Pandu Pora Narote, Kanchan Nanaware and Stan Swamy never lived to learn their innocence or guilt after years of incarceration under the UAPA. Narote was acquitted by the Bombay High Court only after his death. It was too little, too late. Nanaware and Swamy also died as undertrials. For their families and lawyers, justice exists only on paper, not in life.
Pandu Pora Narote, 33, a tribal youth from Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district, was arrested in August 2013 on allegations of links with the banned CPI (Maoist) and its frontal organisation, the Revolutionary Democratic Front. The case later widened to include former Delhi University professor G.N. Saibaba and several others. Read more
Voices From Prison: Of Lives Stolen For Dissent
20/01/2026
Outlook / by Outlook News Desk
Outlook’s February 1 issue, Thou Shalt Not Dissent, shines a light on the lives of political prisoners who were slapped with anti-terrorism charges and continue to face long trials and curbing of rights.
…
In Outlook’s February 1 issue, Thou Shalt Not Dissent, first-person accounts of political activists who were slapped with anti-terrorism charges under different political regimes, explore life behind bars, the trauma, sights and sounds of a world bereft of freedom, normalcy and reason. Weaved with the accounts are stories of individuals who carry the burden of incarceration like a tumour on the face, afraid to cover it, so it doesn’t chafe, and hesitant to let it free, so it does not translate into their only identity. Read more
Voices From Prison: ‘In Jail, I Measured Time From One Court Date to Another’
21/01/2026
Outlook / by Shoma Sen
Women’s rights activist and professor Shoma Sen, who was arrested in 2018 for her alleged involvement in the Bhima Koregaon riots, writes how in prisons, time comes to a standstill, literally
Though it is true that I did time, it appears more as if time did me. One cloudy evening, on June 21, 2018, when I was being taken to the Yerawada jail in Pune, I knew that watches were not allowed in jail, yet I had clung on to my basic Titan watch. I had to submit it at the gate. It was returned to me, looking like a museum relic, almost six years later. Time, trapped in a brown sarkari envelope, sealed in a metal box. Time that had stopped ticking. Read more
Me Coming Out Alive Is A Miracle: Hany Babu, Bhima-Koregaon Accused, On Life Behind Bars
21/01/2026
Outlook / by Hany Babu M.T.
More than five years after his arrest under the UAPA in the Bhima Koregaon case, former Delhi University professor Hany Babu was granted bail in December 2025. He shares his experience of prison life.
Mornings start very early in jail, but they never come with an air of freedom. It has only been three to four weeks since I came out; the bail arrived quite late for me. Five years is a long time compared to my co-accused. Throughout these five years, hope never left my sight, even when I contracted Covid. But there were indeed times when a little despair did creep in. Read more
Correctional Facility Or The World Of Endless Repetition, Solitude and Boredom?
21/01/2026
Outlook / by Rona Wilson
The prison system in India, persistently mediated and nourished by its colonial and retributive sensibilities, cannot be wished away by just changing the names of the prisons as correctional facilities, writes Rona Wilson, accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case.
I had trouble in my barrack with some of the inmates smoking heavily beside me and some among them playing ludo till the wee hours. As the game intensifies with gambling, so does smoking and use of tobacco. I requested the officer-in-charge of my circle to intervene. Read more
Voices From Prison: Life After Jail Is Tough, But Surveillance, Harassment Continue, Says Sudha Bharadwaj
20/01/2026
Outlook / by Sudha Bharadwaj
I am enormously relieved that the separation from my only daughter, Maaysha, has ended. We can speak to each other every day.
A couple of weeks ago, cops in civil dress—or so they claimed to be—arrived in the society where I live in a friend’s accommodation on rent. The police have my mobile number, which, no doubt, they monitor regularly. Besides, I report to the local police station every 14 days, and I regularly attend court dates, at least once every 15 days, if not more frequently. Despite this, the police did not bother to call me. Read more
Voices From Prison: In The Isolation of the Anda Ward, We Dared To Sing, Writes Gautam Navlakha
20/01/2026
Outlook / by Gautam Navlakha
I realised that the more intense the sense of despair, the harder hope kicks in.
‘Those who speak of humanity in this system
Are thrown into prison to acquaint them
With the vocabulary of ‘criminology’’’ — Varavara Rao, Schools and Prisons
Hope and despair are basic human emotions and I believe that all human beings, now and then, swing between these two ends of the spectrum in life. I experienced these emotions acutely during my time in prison and captivity. Read more
Voices From Prison: Alienating A Poet From A Language He Deeply Loves Is Painful, Writes Varavara Rao’s Daughter
20/01/2026
Outlook / by P Vanava
The poet and activist was jailed in connection with caste violence that erupted in 2018 in Bhima Koregaon. He was 78 then. Though he was released on medical grounds in 2022, he is still confined to Mumbai. In this first-person account, his daughter Pavana writes about how multiple incarcerations could not break her father’s strength and soul
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This wasn’t his first arrest; he has been arrested many times in the past, since the Emergency in 1975, for his political activism. I was a newborn baby (a month old), when appa was arrested. Read more
Voices From Prison: Bail Is Little Solace As I Lost My Life Anyway, Says Anand Teltumbde
19/01/2026
Outlook / by Anand Teltumbde
We became victims of two things—unjust investigation and a media trial that was used as a weapon. The Media Trial was Deeply Painful.
The tragic dimension of jail has been exhaustively mined. What remains scandalously underexplored is its comic genius. Prison is a factory of absurdity, running at full capacity every day, and I made it a habit to collect its specimens—especially during the so-called free hours, when the cells were opened each morning. This ritual began with the ceremonial clanking of batons, as guards slid them menacingly across steel bars, producing a sound—less like an alarm than a declaration of sovereignty. Read more
Voices From Prison: What Happened In Bhima Koregaon Could Happen To You
20/01/2026
Outlook / by Alpa Shah
The Bhima Koregaon case is not only about those who were imprisoned. It is also about the fate of democracy itself
There are things in life that somehow wrap themselves around us. Things we never would have dreamed of doing—ideas that once seemed dangerous, crazy, or simply foolish. They arrive quietly, almost by accident, and before we know it, they surround us, occupy our thoughts, and slowly take over. Until one day, there is no turning back, and we can’t imagine thinking about anything else. Read more
▪ THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project
Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project
Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project
Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project
Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project
To mark six years of the arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of political dissidents in the Bhima Koregaon case, The Polis Project is publishing a series of writings by the BK-16, and their families, friends and partners. By describing various aspects of the past six years, the series offers a glimpse into the BK-16’s lives inside prison, as well as the struggles of their loved ones outside. Each piece in the series is complemented by Arun Ferreira’s striking and evocative artwork.
▪ How Long Can the Moon Be Caged? Voices of Indian Political Prisoners
How Long Can the Moon Be Caged? includes visual testimonies and prison writings from those falsely accused of inciting the Bhima Koregaon violence, by student leaders opposing the new discriminatory citizenship law passed in 2020, and by activists from the Pinjra Tod’s movement. In bringing together these voices, the book celebrates the courage, humanity and moral integrity of those jailed for standing in solidarity with marginalised and oppressed communities.
Authors: Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia
Publishing Date: Aug 2023
Publisher: Pluto Press
Pages: 247 Read more / order
Imperative for Understanding Evolution of Human Rights Paradigm: Whither Human Rights in India
‘Whither Human Rights in India’ is a comprehensive exploration of how the devastation of human rights over the parts decade symbolise a crucial departure or rupture, manifesting a new fascist paradigm
‘Whither Human Rights in India,’ edited by Anand Teltumbde, is a critical and outstanding collection of essays navigating India’s human rights landscape, exploring diverse arenas Ike majoritarianism, state violence, systemic inequality (Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims), judicial issues, hate speech, and threats to vulnerable groups.
Resurrecting the outlook of Father Stan Swamy and Prof. G. N. Saibaba, Whither Human Rights in India is both a chronicle of resistance and a call to reshape the future of democracy and human dignity. Read more
▪ Whither Human Rights in India
Critical Essays on Democracy, State Power, Civil Liberties & the Lived Realities of Dalits, Adivasis, Minorities & More
Whither Human Rights in India, edited by Anand Teltumbde, one of India’s prominent human rights activists, is a searing and indispensable anthology that brings together some of the most important thinkers, activists and human rights defenders of our time. The essays trace the historical and ideological roots of India’s human rights discourse—from colonial legacies and constitutional guarantees to the challenges posed by majoritarian politics, state violence and systemic inequality.
Scholar Anand Teltumbde examines a country driven to a dead end, where the opposition is silent and citizens have been terrorised into normalcy
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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. Read more
▪ The Feared – Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners Author: Neeta Kolhatkar Publishing Date: Dec 2024 Publisher: S&S India Pages: 272 Read more/order
▪ From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada Author: Sudha Bhardwaj Publishing Date: Oct 2023 Publisher: Juggernaut Pages: 216 Read more/order
▪ 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 Read more / order
‘No one dies in prison, They die on the way to hospital’
Hany Babu entered Navi Mumbai’s Taloja prison in July 2020. Anand Teltumbde followed the same year. Babu spent five years inside before being released on bail; Teltumbde was released on bail; Teltumbde was released in 2022 after spending about two-and-a-half years in prison. Neither has faced trial.
According to the India Justice Report 2025, undertrials now account for around 75% of India’s prison population. Read more
Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project
Scroll.in / by Sahil Hussain Choudhury
The law speaks the language of liberty, but power uses to the grammar of postponement.
In The Cell and the Soul: A Prison Memoir, Anand Teltumbde notes that incarceration does not only test the body – it also tests whether the mind will refuse to surrender. …
The National Crime Records Bureau’s Prison Statistics India 2023 shows that nearly 73.5% of India’s prisoners are undertrials – people not yet convicted of any crime. Behind that abstraction lies a quieter truth: for most who enter the system, justice never arrives; only waiting does. Read more
▪ From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada Author: Sudha Bhardwaj Publishing Date: Oct 2023 Publisher: Juggernaut Pages: 216 Read more/order
▪ The Feared – Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners Author: Neeta Kolhatkar Publishing Date: Dec 2024 Publisher: S&S India Pages: 272 Read more/order
▪ 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 Read more / order
Teltumbde barred from attending Hortus, makes his voice heard online
28/11/2025
Onmanorama / by Team Onmanorama
At the Manorama Hortus, the stage was set for two speakers, but only one chair was occupied. Writer S Anand sat alone, while the face of renowned scholar and activist Anand Teltumbde looked down from a large screen behind him.
“He is everywhere, but not here,” S Anand told the audience, explaining the “unfortunate turn of circumstances.” Read more
Out on bail in Bhima Koregaon case, academician Teltumbde’s request to attend lit fest rejected by court
27/11/2025
The Print / by Mayank Kumar
Mumbai court said invite to speak at Kochi festival was a ‘luxury’. The Dalit rights activist was set a pre-condition by Bombay HC in 2022 to take trial court’s nod for travel.
A Mumbai court has rejected the plea of academician Anand Teltumbde to attend a literature festival in Kochi organised by the media house, Malayala Manorama.
The court ruled that an invitation to speak at the festival was not an extreme circumstance that could fulfil the bail conditions imposed by the Bombay High Court in November 2022. Read more
NIA court refuses Teltumbde’s request to travel for Kochi literary festival
27/11/2025
Hindustan Times / by Vikrant Jha
Teltumbde was arrested by the NIA in April 2020 for alleged involvement in the Elgaar Parishad event in Pune on December 31, 2017, which investigators claim fuelled caste violence near the Bhima Koregaon war memorial the following day
A special court constituted under the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday rejected a plea by scholar and human rights activist Anand Teltumbde, an accused in the 2018 Elgar Parishad–Bhima Koregaon case, seeking permission to travel to Kochi later this week for an academic engagement. Read more
Elgaar case accused’s plea rejected: Going to speak at literature event ‘sort of luxury’: Court to Teltumbde
27/11/2025
The Indian Express / by Sadaf Modak
The court said that the Bombay High Court while granting bail to Teltumbde in November 2022 had imposed a condition with a specific intention, directing him not to go beyond local limits of the court.
Observing that travelling outside Mumbai to speak at a literature event for academic purposes is “sort of a luxury”, a special court Wednesday rejected permission to scholar Anand Teltumbde, booked in the Elgaar Parishad case, to travel to Kochi for two days. Read more
The memoir transforms personal suffering into a forensic examination of institutional decay.
Anand Teltumbde’s The Cell and the Soul: A Prison Memoir stands as one of the most searing indictments of contemporary Indian democracy, transforming personal suffering into a forensic examination of institutional decay. Read more
Noted social activist Anand Teltumbde entered the Taloja Central Prison as accused number 10 in the Bhima Koregaon case and spent 31 months as an undertrial until he was released on bail. As an intellectual who was stripped of his freedom, he lays bares the chilling realities of India’s prisons in his gut-wrenching prison memoir. Part memoir, part diary, Cell and the Soul is a descent into the heart of India’s carceral state, ripping open the belly of the beast-the prison industrial complex-and exposing the brutal, pulsating injustice within.
▪ From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada Author: Sudha Bhardwaj Publishing Date: Oct 2023 Publisher: Juggernaut Pages: 216 Read more/order
▪ The Feared – Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners Author: Neeta Kolhatkar Publishing Date: Dec 2024 Publisher: S&S India Pages: 272 Read more/order
▪ 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 Read more / order
Book Launch | ‘Never Imagined I’d Be Qualified For Arrest, Let Alone Write a Prison Memoir’: Anand Teltumbde
Anand Teltumbde’s Memoir ‘The Cell and the Soul’ is An Important Read to Understand Post-2014 India
03/11/2025
The Wire / by Apoorvanand
Prison mirrors society in its hierarchies. Its walls replicate the structures of caste, class, and privilege with cruel precision. This book joins a growing canon of India’s prison literature.
The history of the enterprise of language in Hindutva-dominated India after 2014 will surely reserve a significant, if dark, place for prison literature. By “prison literature,” we mean the books, essays, and poems written by those imprisoned – accounts born of the experience of incarceration. Read more
‘Never Imagined I’d Be Qualified For Arrest, Let Alone Write a Prison Memoir’: Anand Teltumbde
02/11/2025
The Wire / by The Wire Staff
Speaking at the launch of his new book ‘The Cell and the Soul’, Teltumbde said his incarceration “exposed the inversion of Ambedkar’s republic into one of repression”.
“I never imagined I would write a prison memoir,” scholar Anand Teltumbde said at the launch of his latest book The Cell and the Soul, adding: “I never thought I’d be qualified for arrest.”
Written during his 31-month stint of pre-trial imprisonment between April 2020 and November 2022, The Cell and the Soul is Teltumbde’s documentation of “a heartless state that criminalises dissent with political imprisonment, of the relentless grind of injustice and the profound cost of speaking truth to power”, per the website of its publisher Bloomsbury India. Read more
No mosquito nets, no medicine—Teltumbde recounts life in prison in ‘The Cell and the Soul’
02/11/2025
The Print / by Cauvery Bhalla
The Bombay High Court granted him bail in November 2022, finding insufficient evidence of Teltumbde’s involvement; the Supreme Court upheld this decision, and he was released on November 26, 2022.
Civil rights activist and author Anand Teltumbde never thought he would ever be writing a prison memoir. He also never thought he would ever see the inside of a prison.
On Thursday, as Teltumbde spoke about his book, ‘The Cell and the Soul’, in his book launch at the Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh, he thanked the government for the opportunity, for the “unexpected reward”. Read more
I never thought I’d qualify for arrest, says Teltumbde
01/11/2025
Hindustan Times / by Prateem Rohanekar
On Thursday, ‘The Cell and the Soul’ was launched, a prison memoir by scholar and human rights activist Dr Anand Teltumbde, written during his incarceration in the Taloja Central Jail under the Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case
The haunting strains of Hum Dekhenge, Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s timeless song of resistance, filled the auditorium at the Marathi Patrakar Sangh on Thursday evening, setting the tone for an evening of remembrance, reflection and resistance. Read more
“The people are naked before the government but the government is opaque to them”
31/10/2025
The Caravan / by Ajeet Mahale
Anand Teltumbde on the caste census and his prison memoir
… Ajeet Mahale, an assistant editor at The Caravan, spoke to Teltumbde about his recent writing, ideas of the caste census, recollections of time in prison and life afterwards, the criminalisation of dissent and more. Read more
Video | ‘Called a Terrorist, Denied COVID Treatment’: Anand Teltumbde Talks Jail Horrors
en | 48:23min | 2025
The Quint / Eshwar Gole in conversation with Anand Teltumbde
Anand Teltumbde, social activist accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, discusses imprisonment, Ambedkar, and caste.
On the landmark 50th episode of Badi Badi Baatein, Teltumbde revisits the years that tested his faith in the justice system, recalls the silences of prison nights, the impact on his family, the fleeting warmth of letters from home — and the unshakeable spirit of Father Stan Swamy, who became a symbol of moral courage. Read more Watch video
Video | Anand Teltumbde opens up about his years in prison
en | 42:12min | 2025 Video production team: Akhtarista Ansari, Saleem Ul Haq, Sonia Chand & Nidhi Jacob
Maktoob / Nikita Jain in conversation with Anand Teltumbde
Human rights defender and scholar Anand Teltumbde opens up about his years in prison, his new autobiography The Cell and the Soul, and what life has been like since his release with Maktoob’s Nikita Jain. Teltumbde, implicated in the Elgar Parishad–Bhima Koregaon case in 2018, spent 31 months in jail before being released on bail in November 2022. He reflects on the emotional toll of incarceration, the losses he faced, and the strength that kept him going. Watch as Teltumbde discusses survival, resistance, and reclaiming life after imprisonment, a powerful account of endurance and conviction. Watch video
Noted social activist Anand Teltumbde entered the Taloja Central Prison as accused number 10 in the Bhima Koregaon case and spent 31 months as an undertrial until he was released on bail. As an intellectual who was stripped of his freedom, he lays bares the chilling realities of India’s prisons in his gut-wrenching prison memoir. Part memoir, part diary, Cell and the Soul is a descent into the heart of India’s carceral state, ripping open the belly of the beast-the prison industrial complex-and exposing the brutal, pulsating injustice within.
An Elegy For A Comrade: Excerpt From The Cell And The Soul By Anand Teltumbde
19/10/2025
Outlook / by Anand Teltumbde
‘The Cell And The Soul’ Marks the first death anniversary of Father Stan Swamy, these reflections were written from within the Anda cell—recalling the loss, the silence that followed, and the conditions that led to his passing.
Stan Swamy’s death was an unbearable loss to us, the BK-16—a quasi-family bound together by the regime’s foul design to silence dissent. At 84, Stan remained remarkably healthy, save for his Parkinsonian tremors and impaired hearing. His death was not of age, but of neglect—born of a judiciary and prison system that habitually withholds medical care until crisis, refusing outside treatment for fear of exposing the emptiness of prison hospitals. Stan’s passing was the price of this callousness. Read more
Noted social activist Anand Teltumbde entered the Taloja Central Prison as accused number 10 in the Bhima Koregaon case and spent 31 months as an undertrial until he was released on bail. As an intellectual who was stripped of his freedom, he lays bares the chilling realities of India’s prisons in his gut-wrenching prison memoir. Part memoir, part diary, Cell and the Soul is a descent into the heart of India’s carceral state, ripping open the belly of the beast-the prison industrial complex-and exposing the brutal, pulsating injustice within.
