Mahesh Raut, a TISS alumnus and rights activist working for Adivasis and marginalised communities, was arrested in June 2018 in the Bhima-Koregaon Maoist conspiracy case and has since been incarcerated in jail
Taloja Central Prison, located in Kharghar, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, houses primarily male undertrial prisoners under the jurisdiction of various courts in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (e.g., Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan, Panvel and Belapur Courts). Like many prisons across India, Taloja is severely overcrowded, accommodating thrice its sanctioned capacity. As an undertrial prisoner at Taloja, confined in Yard 03 (referred to as ‘Baba Barrack’), which includes separate barracks for male prisoners aged 18 to 23, my curiosity was stirred by the rising number of young inmates here and the socio-economic realities leading to their incarceration. 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
BK-16 Prison Diaries | The ‘ordinary’ in extraordinary times: A captive’s life in Covid-19
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.
Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project
BK-16 Prison Diaries: The ‘ordinary’ in extraordinary times: A captive’s life in Covid-19
14/05/2025
The Polis Project / by Gautam Navlakha
My journey as a captive began in extraordinary circumstances. The Covid-19 pandemic had afflicted the world and, in India, a countrywide lockdown was imposed on March 24, 2020. Travel by rail, road or air was suspended. A climate of fear and uncertainty prevailed. However, the Supreme Court had asked Anand Teltumbde and me to surrender before the National Investigation Agency (NIA) by April 14—incidentally, Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s birth anniversary. Anand presented himself before the NIA in Mumbai, while I, a resident of Delhi, surrendered myself at the NIA headquarters in New Delhi. Read more
Learning About Strength, Solidarity and the Injustices of Incarceration
04/04/2025
The Wire / by Meenaz Kakalia
In ‘The Feared’, Neeta Kolhatkar interviews 11 political prisoners and their loved ones about their struggles, their resilience and their joys.
While memoirs of political prisoners are not uncommon, what one doesn’t often find is their stories told through interviews which probe the more intimate aspects of their lives and the enduring ways in which their incarceration has affected their families and loved ones. Read more
Voices from the Purgatory
04/04/2025
The Telegraph / by Kartik Chauhan
The Feared is not only an urgent call for prison reforms but it also reveals an alarming history of forced and/or false incarcerations of political dissenters, opponents and activists in India
… The opening interview with Sudha Bharadwaj revisits her days in Yerawada and Byculla prisons. Bharadwaj talks about her daughter and the complexity of mulaqat processes in Indian prisons — a recurring conversation in the book wherein the interviewees report arbitrary rules that the prison authorities impose with impunity, often in flagrant violation of the prescribed Prison Manual. Read more
Also read: ▪ The Feared – Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners
Author: Neeta Kolhatkar
Publishing Date: Dec 2024
Publisher: S&S India
Pages: 272
During long discussions, sometimes taking place over multiple meetings, Kolhatkar unearths personal anecdotes from the time her interviewees were incarcerated, bringing into focus the human face of prison inmates, while also detailing the wretched conditions relating to space, hygiene, medical attention, and food that they experienced. Read more /order
A Bhima Koregaon political prisoner reflects on his release.
The author and activist Sudhir Dhawale was released on 24 January, after six years and seven months in jail. Dhawale, who founded the anti-caste group Republican Panthers Jatiantachi Chalwal and publishes the Marathi magazine Vidrohi, was one of the organisers of the Elgar Parishad, on 31 December 2017, a day before caste violence broke out on the two-hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon. …
Shahid Tantray, a multimedia reporter at The Caravan, spoke to Dhawale at his organisation’s Mumbai office. Read more
Govt gets SC notice on plea asking better facilities for disabled prisoners
11/03/2025
Business Standard / by pti
Citing instances of professor G N Saibaba and activist Stan Swamy to highlight the “severe neglect” of disabled prisoners, the plea said necessary provisions should be incorporated in Prisoners Act
The Supreme Court has sought a response from the Centre on a plea seeking adequate facilities for disabled prisoners in jails, and implementation of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, in prisons across the country. Read more
Supreme Court to examine lack of facilities in jails for disabled prisoners after PIL cites Saibaba, Stan Swamy
08/03/2025
Bar & Bench / by Ummar Jamal
While Stan Swamy had passed away while lodged in jail as an undertrial prisoner, Saibaba had passed away last year a few months after he was acquitted and released from prison
The Supreme Court on Friday sought the response of the Central government to a Public Interest Litigation(PIL) seeking adequate facilities for disabled prisoners in jails and and full implementation of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act of 2016 in prisons across the country [Sathyan Naravoor v. Union of India & Ors.] Read more
SC takes up the cause of disabled prisoners on the basis of a plea invoking Saibaba, Stan Swamy
07/03/2025
The Hindu / by Krishnadas Rajagopal
Petition raised a “serious” issue about the lack of disabled-friendly accommodation and facilities in prisons across the country
The Supreme Court on Friday (March 7, 2025) said a petition highlighting the trauma and inhumane conditions suffered by Professor G. Saibaba and the elderly Stan Swamy raised a “serious” issue about the lack of disabled-friendly accommodation and facilities in prisons across the country. Read more
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.
Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project
BK-16 Prison Diaries: Sudhir Dhawale’s poem, “Prisoners of Consciousness”
07/03/2025
The Polis Project / by Sudhir Dhawale translated to English by Vernon Gonsalves
Of the six-and-a-half years I spent in prison in the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case, four-and-a-half years were in the Anda cell. The Anda cell is a prison within a prison. Its stony walls and sight-obscuring forest of iron bars put the mental fortitude, ideological endurance and courage to the test. What happened to political prisoners like me confined to these cells of darkness? Why have prisons been built? For whom, and by whom? Prison is marked by many contradictions—between exploitation and theft; prisons and justice; prisons and democracy; prisons and correctional homes. Read more
‘The Message Is Loud & Clear.’ Author Of New Book On 11 Indian ‘Prisoners Of Conscience’ & The Costs Of Defiance
07/03/2025
Article 14 / by Zeyad Masroor Khan
Political prisoners are among the most discriminated against of India’s prisoners, says Neeta Kolhatkar, author of ‘The Feared’, a book that explores the lives of 11 such prisoners and their families. They talked to her about their experiences while incarcerated and—for those on bail—after. Kolhatkar tells us how she got access to India’s ‘prisoners of conscience’, and why she thinks they were arrested; how they struggle for basic facilities, including medical tests; the impact on their physical and mental health, on their spouses and children; and their survival strategies.
“I will not come out alive if I am jailed again.”
That is what Binayak Sen, 75, says in “The Feared”, a new book by Mumbai-based journalist Neeta Kolhatkar, chronicling the experiences of 11 Indian political prisoner. A medical doctor arrested in 2007 while working in the Adivasi lands of Chhattisgarh, Sen was convicted of sedition in 2010 before being granted bail in 2011. Read more
The Feared: A wake-up call to the gross human rights violations inflicted on thousands of undertrials
05/06/2025
Sabrang India / by Harsh Thakor
The Feared is a collection of interviews conducted by Neeta Kolhatkar with 11 political prisoners and, in some cases, their loved ones. Through these conversations, she vividly portrays their everyday lives within multiple prisons across India. This landmark work is a path breaking contribution to resurrecting the spirit of dissent and resistance at a time when proto-fascism is reaching unprecedented heights.
The book serves as a wake-up call to the gross human rights violations inflicted on thousands of undertrials. Kolhatkar’s detailed discussions – some spanning multiple meetings – reveal personal anecdotes from the prisoners’ time behind bars. She brings to light not only their experiences but also the deplorable prison conditions, including issues related to space, hygiene, medical care, and food. Read more
‘If I’m A Hindu, It Does Not Mean I’ll Put Non-Hindu Behind Bars,’ Says Retired Justice BN Srikrishna At Book Launch
27/02/2025
Free Press Journal / FPJ News Service
If I’m a Hindu, it does not mean that I hate a person who’s a non-Hindu or put him behind the bars for their religion or political ideology, said retired justice BN Srikrishna, who headed the Srikrishna Commission to investigate the Bombay Riots of 1992-93.
… The book includes conversations with political prisoners including Sudha Bharadwaj, Nilofer Malik and Sameer Khan, Koel Sen, Prashant Rahi and Shikha Rahi, Sanjay Raut, Kishorechandra Wangkhem, Anand Teltumbde and Rama Ambedkar, Binayak Sen, Kobad Gandhy, Muralidharan K and P Hemlatha. Read more
Also read: ▪ The Feared – Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners
Author: Neeta Kolhatkar
Publishing Date: Dec 2024
Publisher: S&S India
Pages: 272 Read more /order
Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project
Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project
The Leaflet / by Hany Babu and Surendra Gadling
The Supreme Court’s reassurance that video-conferencing improves access to courtrooms misses a crucial point. Through interviews with over 300 prisoners in the Taloja Central Jail, two of India’s foremost civil rights activists reveal how the producing of accused through video-conferencing, and the State’s continual excuse of insufficient police personnel, sustains an architecture of injustice, ripping apart the lives of India’s prisoners. Read more
Having spent six and a half years in jail, the Elgar Parishad accused also said that prisons in India are in a ‘state of emergency’.
Rona Wilson has long been an advocate for prisoners’ rights and a staunch proponent of the term “political prisoner”. However, during his prolonged incarceration in the Elgar Parishad case, Rona found himself grappling with a “moral quandary”.
With new firsthand experiences, observations from his six-and-a-half-year stay in two central prisons in Maharashtra – Yerwada in Pune and Taloja in Navi Mumbai – his activism while incarcerated, and research conducted within the confines of prison, 53-year-old Rona now views the term from a different perspective. He now approaches the subject with a deliberate focus on caste and religious dimensions. 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
▪ 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
Many Prisoners at Taloja Jail Not Produced Before Court For Years, Reveals Survey by Surendra Gadling and Sagar Gorkhe
Many Prisoners at Taloja Jail Not Produced Before Court For Years, Reveals Survey by Jailed Activists
10/02/2025
The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha
Both Gadling and Gorkhe have moved the Bombay high court seeking direction to ensure regular court visits for those in judicial custody.
… Human rights activist Surendra Gadling and cultural activist Sagar Gorkhe, with the help of others arrested in the Elgar Parishad case have identified at least 300 such cases where incarcerated persons lodged at the Taloja central prison have not been produced before the court for years at end. Read more
2 Elgar accused move HC, seek regular production of undertrials in courts
12/02/2025
Hindustan Times / by Revu Suresh
The petition provided details of 305 undertrial prisoners lodged in Taloja jail who were not being produced before the trial courts on due dates
Advocate Surendra Gadling and Kabir Kala Manch activist Sagar Gorkhe, arrested in connection with the Ekgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon conspiracy case and lodged in Taloja jail in Navi Mumbai, have moved the Bombay high court, seeking directions to ensure the regular production of undertrial prisoners in the jail in respective trial courts. Read more
Two Elgar Parishad Accused Approach Bombay High Court to Ensure Regular Court Appearances for Undertrials
12/02/2025
Law Trend / by Law Trend
In a significant move, Advocate Surendra Gadling and Kabir Kala Manch activist Sagar Gorkhe, both accused in the Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon conspiracy case and currently incarcerated in Taloja jail, Navi Mumbai, have approached the Bombay High Court. They are seeking judicial directives to ensure that undertrial prisoners in the jail are regularly produced in their respective trial courts. Read more
