The writer spent six years and seven months in jail before receiving bail in the Bhima Koregaon case.
On January 24, when Sudhir Dhawale walked back into the narrow lane in the Mumbai neighbourhood of Govandi where he lived until he was arrested in June, 2018, young men welcomed him with the beat of the dhol.
His neighbours then marched in a celebratory procession to a statue of BR Ambedkar 100 metres away. Dhawale garlanded the statue and gave a short speech about the importance of safeguarding Dalit rights. And just like that, he said, his life returned to normal. Read more
The activist and researcher was released on bail on January 8 after spending more than six years in jail without trial in the Bhima Koregaon case.
At 53, researcher Rona Wilson is trying to pick up the pieces of the life he was forced to leave behind when he was arrested in the contentious Bhima Koregaon case six years and seven months ago. Read more
Elgaar Parishad accused threaten hunger strike after Navi Mumbai Police diverts guards for Coldplay concert
18/01/2025
The Indian Express / by Express News Service
The Navi Mumbai police had said that 1,000 police personnel will be deployed for duty at the concert.
The Navi Mumbai police commissionerate has informed the Taloja Central Jail, where the male Elgaar Parishad accused are lodged. The jail was informed that all guards are deployed at the Coldplay concert which is to take place on Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday and hence, guards will not be available to produce undertrials for court hearings or other scheduled visits like the hospital. Read more
With Guards Unavailable Due to Coldplay Concert, Elgar Parishad Undertrials Mull Hunger Strike
18/01/2025
The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha
The unavailability of prison guards means prisoners will miss out on scheduled court and hospital visits.
For music lovers, while the Coldplay concert promises to be an exciting event to look forward to, for those incarcerated at the Taloja Central Jail located on the outskirts of Mumbai, the next three days of the concert come with an unintended consequence: missing their scheduled court and hospital visits. Read more
Better take complete bed rest if you are suffering: NIA court rejects Surendra Gadling’s plea for walks outside prison
12/01/2025
Hindustan Times / by Revu Suresh
NIA court denies activist Surendra Gadling’s plea for outdoor walks in jail, suggesting bed rest for his ailments instead, citing prison rules violations.
The special NIA (National Investigation Agency) court rejected a plea filed by activist-lawyer Surendra Gadling, 57, seeking permission to take morning and evening walks outside his prison cell circle within Taloja jail premises. The lawyer, who was arrested in connection with the Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon violence case, said he suffered from various ailments. In response, the court on Tuesday said if he really suffered, then he should take bed rest. Read more
Accused lawyer’s plea for morning, evening walks in jail premises rejected
11/01/2025
The Indian Express / by Express News Service
The court noted that while Gadling, who is lodged at Taloja Central Prison in Navi Mumbai, had cited various ailments to seek relief, the barrack in which he is kept has natural air and light available for all purposes.
… The order, passed by special sessions judge Chakor S Baviskar on January 7, was made available on Saturday. Read more
Court rejects Gadling’s plea to walk outside ‘circle’ in jail
11/01/2025
The Times of India / by Rebecca Samervel
Surendra Gadling, an advocate and Elgar Parishad case accused, submitted a plea to the special NIA court seeking permission to walk outside the “circle”—the designated space given to undertrials – but within the jail premises for two hours daily. He supported his request by attaching two Google Maps images to the plea. Read more
During the course of extensive research, Kolhatkar spoke to political prisoners and their family members.
Journalist and political analyst Neeta Kolhatkar has written about the life and struggles of the political prisoners in India. The prisoners include Dr Binayak Sen, paediatrician, public health specialist and social activist, and Prof Anand Teltumbde, eminent scholar, Dalit activist and management teacher. Read more
The Feared
Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners
simonandschuster.co.in / by Neeta Kolhatkar
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. Apart from being an urgent call to action for prison reforms, The Feared is thus also an account of hope and strength, narrating unique stories of survival and solidarity, and the unexpected bonds and relationships formed in prison.
Author: Neeta Kolhatkar
Publisher: S&S India (December 20, 2024)
Length: 272 pages Read more
Women in prisons booked under laws like UAPA and the colonial law sedition become a critical site of the exposition of the fallacy of law.
The state as a modern capitalist notion often pursues eliminationist policies to repress dissent. The law in a regime change becomes a repressive state apparatus which functions to crush revolutionary people’s movement and penalise dissent. The identity of a political prisoner thus becomes a contested category with an attempted condensation with criminalisation. The notorious Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act was amended in 2019 which is an instrumental act in dealing with the procedures to deal with terrorist activities. Read more
Also read: ▪ 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
Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project
The Polis Project / by Prashant Rahi
On October 24, the lawyers and activists accused in the Elgar Parishad case were brought to court from Taloja Central Jail for their hearing. This bare minimum satisfaction of their basic legal right to be present for their case had become far from routine. It happened for the first time in nearly two months, after many hearings held in their absence, and despite specific directions from the court for their production. In fact, it took a hunger strike by seven of the accused – the latest of numerous protests by the BK-16 over the denial of bare necessities and basic rights – for the prison administration to concede to their demands. 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.
Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project
BK-16 Prison Diaries: Varavara Rao on prisons as institutions of corruption, sadism and dehumanisation
16/10/2024
The Polis Project / by Varavara Rao
The term “correctional institutions,” as prisons are sometimes known, is actually a misnomer. It would be more appropriate to term them institutions of sadism, dehumanisation and corruption, given that the whole system is rooted in these practices. The state does not in fact want the prisons to be correctional institutions like those shown in the Hindi films Do Ankhen Barah Haath or Bandini. Read more
English professor Shoma Sen and singer and activist Jyoti Jagtap, both accused in the Bhima-Koregaon case, discuss the issues they experienced in prison, such as overcrowding, inadequate healthcare, and poor living conditions. They describe the lack of access to education, systemic inequalities, and the challenges faced by marginalised women and LGBTQ+ individuals in India’s prison system. Both women spoke of the importance of sisterhood and resilience and expressed hope for change. Read more
Also listen / read: ▪ Episode 18 of CJP’s Podcast Series RightsCast en/hindi | 13:18min | 2023 By Citizens for Justice and Peace (cjp)
How does the Indian Prison system strip the women inmates of their basic rights and dignity? In a patriarchal society, within a prison system that’s designed to focus on male inmates, how do female prisoners navigate their incarceration?
Listen to this in-depth podcast on the conditions of women inmates in India’s prisons where human rights activists, Adivasi leaders, student activists, lawyers and citizens-in-resistance share stories of horror and explore the plight of women in prison. Listen to the podcast
▪ Video: Healthcare and Mental Health inside Prison | Sudha Bharadwaj | QUAID KE PARE By Citizens for Justice and Peace hindi | 5:51min Watch video
The bail conditions do not allow her to leave Mumbai or discuss her case.
I am revisiting Sudha Bharadwaj’s courageous, revealing and inspiring book From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada (Juggernaut Books, Rs 799 hardcover, Rs 499 online). Early one morning in August 2018, Bharadwaj was arrested. She is a respected trade unionist and human rights lawyer, who actually gave up her US citizenship and took up Indian citizenship, choosing to work for the rights of the poor and tribals in India, in Chhattisgarh and elsewhere, for over three decades. She was charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, UAPA, of inciting violence in Bhima Koregaon village in Maharashtra. Read more
From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada
by Sudha Bharadwaj Publisher: Juggernaut Books Edition: Nov 2023 Language: English Pages: 216
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 PhansiYard, from November 2018 to February 2020. Read more/order
Also read/watch:
▪ From Phansi Yard: My Year With The Women Of Yerawada, by Sudha Bharadwaj
Artice 14 / by Samar Halarnkar / Sudha Bharadwaj | Nov 2023
Arrested on 28 August 2018, human rights lawyer, teacher and IIT graduate Sudha Bharadwaj is among 16 accused in the Bhima-Koregaon case, charged under sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860, and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), 1967…
EXCERPT On 1 November, I mark my second birthday in custody. Diwali was in late October this year, and Shoma Di has saved a bit of her Diwali faral (snacks, in Marathi) as a treat for me. She gives me a beautiful card with a hand-drawn Sudoku on the front and a ballerina ‘dancing away to her freedom’ on the inside. It’s an ode to my Sudoku mania. Read more
▪ Video: Barkha Dutt speaks to Sudha Bharadwaj on her book ‘From Phansi Yard’
Mojo Story | Nov 2023 en | 21:03min | 2023 Barkha Dutt speaks to Trade Unionist, activist and lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj on her book ‘From Phansi Yard’. The book records stories of her time in jail. She is out on bail after 3 years in the 2018 Bhima-Koregaon violence case.
Sudha speaks about her days in jail and how her time in a women’s prison made her aware of the gender gap in legal aid. “Many women are jailed- because their husband committed some crime and are now absconding- they don’t even know about the crime,” she says.
Sudha further says that she lives in the house of a friend, as she “can’t afford rent”. Trade unions support her, she does legal cases for them, she says. Watch video
▪ A Cage with a View: Under-trial life in an Indian jail
National Herald | by Sudha Bharadwaj | Oct 2023 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
▪ Sudha Bharadwaj speaks – A Life in Law and Activism Publisher: Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) Edition: January 2021 Language: English Paperback: 316 pages Access a free PDF copy of the book here (2,1 MB)
