For many Indian women jail sets them free. ‘Home had become a prison’
13/02/2026
The Print / by Sakhi Mehra
Seema Azad’s Unsilenced and From Phansi Yard by activist-lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj were the topic of discussion at Delhi’s Press Club last week. Both books were born of incarceration.
In prison, for all its cruelty, one can still breathe—unlike many other spaces in society. That was the unsettling truth that became the centre of a book discussion at the Press Club of India on 7 February. Writers, activists, and scholars gathered to talk about incarceration as a lived reality. Read more
Beyond Bars and Charges: What Women’s Jail Diaries Reveal About Society
09/02/2026
Outlook / by Mrinalini Dhyani
At a discussion on women’s prison writings, the conversation centred on memoirs by two women political prisoners, Unsilenced: The Jail Diary of an Activist by Seema Azad and Phansi Yard by Sudha Bharadwaj which brought together feminist historian Uma Chakravarti, activist-journalist Seema Azad, legal scholar Shailza Sharma, and researcher Mary, among others.
Incarceration in India is not an exception but a long-standing social reality, one that has shaped women’s lives across generations, from the years immediately after Independence to the present moment of prolonged undertrial detention. This was the central argument that emerged at a discussion on women’s prison writings held at the Press Club of India on Saturday evening. 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 Cell and the Soul – A Prison Memoir
Author: Anand Teltumbde
Publishing Date: Sep 2025
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Pages: 256 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
Voices from Prison Series: Of Lives Stolen for Dissent │ Various accounts of political activists
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
Book review | Inside the walls: Stories of suffering, survival and systemic injustice
Born in 1961, Sudha Bharadwaj chose a life of service and struggle over one of comfort and professional prestige. After returning to India with her mother, who later joined Delhi University’s Economics Department, she completed her postgraduate studies at IIT-Kanpur and briefly taught at Delhi Public School. Instead of pursuing an academic or corporate career, she committed herself to working among industrial workers and tribal communities in Chhattisgarh as a trade unionist for nearly three decades and a human-rights activist for two. 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
Also read: ▪ The Cell and the Soul – A Prison Memoir Author: Anand Teltumbde Publishing Date: Sep 2025 Publisher: Bloomsbury India Pages: 256 Read more / order
▪ Sudha Bharadwaj speaks – A Life in Law and Activism Publishing Date: January 2021 Interview: Darshana Mitra and Santanu Chakraborty Publisher: Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) Pages: 316 Access a free PDF copy of the book here
▪ 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
Civil society gears up to protest Public Security Bill / PSA a bid to criminalise organisations
Civil society gears up to protest Public Security Bill
03/09/2025
Hindustan Times / by Mayura Janwalkar
Civil society in Maharashtra plans protests against the “draconian” Special Public Security Bill, claiming it suppresses dissent and violates rights.
Civil society groups in Maharashtra are preparing to launch protests against the Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill, 2024, calling it “draconian” and an attempt to suppress dissent against the state. Read more
PSA a bid to criminalise varied organisations: Sudha Bharadwaj
31/08/2025
Hindustan Times / by HT Correspondent
Bharadwaj was among the speakers at a webinar organised by All India Inquilabi Youth and Students Alliance (ALIYSA) and National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) along with senior advocate Mihir Desai and activist Ulka Mahajan
Human rights lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj said on Saturday that it was a great thing that the civil society in Maharashtra had already begun protesting against the Maharashtra Special Public Security Act, passed by the state’s legislative assembly in its recently concluded monsoon session. Read more
The Bombay High Court on Thursday ordered the Maharashtra Government to put up the State’s Prison Manual and also Police online so as to help prisoners and their relatives learn more about their rights, while in jail.
… The judges are presently hearing final arguments in the plea by senior advocate Gayatri Singh assisted by advocates Susan Abraham and Sudha Bharadwaj. Also tagged along is another petition wherein the primary focus is on the mental health of prisoners. This petition is being argued by advocate Vijay Hiremath.
The final hearing will continue on Monday (April 28). 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
Protecting the Protectors: AILAJ Demands Advocates Protection Act
Lawyers demand protection from harassment, sexism, and state repression as AILAJ finalizes draft Advocates’ Protection Bill after month-long campaign.
All India Lawyers Association of Justice (AILAJ) Delhi culminated its month-long campaign for the enactment of an Advocates’ Protection Act in a state-level consultation held on 12 April at the Press Club of India. …
Advocate Rohin Bhatt … urged that the Bill must have provisions that discourage the state from maliciously prosecuting lawyers, as it has done to lawyers like Sudha Bhardwaj and Surendra Gadling in the Bhima Koregaon case. Read more
▪ 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
Learning About Strength, Solidarity and the Injustices of Incarceration / Voices from the Purgatory
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
‘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
Accused raise high cost of living, difficulty in finding jobs and houses on rent to restart life
While the bar for granting bail itself is high in stringent anti-terror laws, for several accused released on bail by Mumbai courts, the real ordeal begins after being granted bail- to find a local address to live in the city.
Just last week, Bombay High Court, while granting bail to Elgaar Parishad accused Rona Wilson and Sudhir Dhawale, directed them not to leave the territorial jurisdiction of the trial court without permission. While Dhawale is a resident of Mumbai, Wilson, whose originally from Kerala, resided in New Delhi before his arrest in 2018. Read more
By the end of the 1990s, both capital and a willing state had eviscerated the labour movement. The death blow will be dealt in the 2020s.
The 1990s marked a watershed in the attitude of the Indian state towards labour, with the ushering in of “liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation” (LPG) policies.
The early years of the LPG era saw sensational murders of trade unionists. The theatre activist Safdar Hashmi and members of his troupe, Jan Natya Manch, were brutally attacked with iron rods by the henchmen of a Congress corporator as they performed a street play that campaigned for minimum wages in Jhandapur village in Sahibabad Industrial Area on January 1, 1989. Read more
