Episode 18 of CJP’s Podcast Series RightsCast
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: Being inside the Jail is a dehumanising experience | Sudha Bharadwaj | QUAID KE PARE
By Citizens for Justice and Peace hindi | 3:13min Watch video
Video: Healthcare and Mental Health inside Prison | Sudha Bharadwaj | QUAID KE PARE
By Citizens for Justice and Peace hindi | 5:51min Watch video
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
The country’s jails teem with poor and marginalised people detained without justification.
Since there was no one to furnish a Rs.30,000 surety bond, Jai Parkash, 47, spent over 22 years in judicial custody without a trial. On November 21, Parkash, a stout man with swollen hands and a puffy face, was finally released on bail as part of the remissions granted under “Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav”.
… Quoting the Prison Statistics India report, Raghavan said: “Nearly 85 to 90 per cent of prisoners are SCs, STs, OBCs and Muslims. There is no data available on their socio-economic background, but our work with prison populations in Maharashtra shows that more than 60 per cent have a monthly family income less than Rs. 10,000. 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
● Video: The Prison Song of Surendra Gadling
By The Wire hindi | 11min | 2021
In August, when human rights lawyer Surendra Gadling was released on interim bail for a week, he made a quick visit to the Nagpur sessions court to meet his colleagues and friends. 51- year-old Gadling, a well-known criminal lawyer in Nagpur, was once a cultural activist, who sang songs of political resistance. The 11- minutes-long rendition tells you what it means to be incarcerated in Indian prisons. From food, water, to medical care, everything is a struggle, Gadling narrates. Watch video
Eminent trade union activist Sudha Bhardwaj was released on 9 December 2021 after being in jail for three years. She is not allowed to go out of Mumbai. How has this one year been for her, Chhattisgarh has been the field of work, the regret of not being able to go there, what were her experiences in jail, what were the challenges of being a trade union leader as a woman. Workers’ Unity talked to him in detail on these subjects. Watch video
● 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
Pictures credit: PUCL
Cover Design / Layout: Vinay Jain
Paperback: 316 pages
Access a free PDF copy of the book here: Sudha_Bharadwaj_speaks (2,1 MB)
Bhima Koregaon Accused (BK16) | 1 Dead, 1 on House Arrest, 3 on Bail: What of the Rest?
The remaining 11 continue to languish in jail — Who are they and what is the status of the case against them?
Anti-caste writer Anand Teltumbde, who walked out of jail on Saturday, 26 November, after he was granted bail on merits in connection with the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case said:
“I am definitely happy. It has been 30 months that I have been in prison. The sad part, however, is that we had to spend time in jail after being booked in a fake case.”
In the same case, two others, poet Varavara Rao and lawyer-activist Sudha Bharadwaj – were granted bail earlier due to different reasons, while academic Gautam Navlakha was allowed house arrest on health grounds by a 19 November Supreme Court order. Read more
Explainer: As activist Gautam Navlakha is allowed house arrest, what does this actually involve?
11/11/2022
Scroll.in / by Umang Poddar
When allowing him to leave Taloja jail for house detention, the Supreme Court on Thursday listed stringent conditions he would have to follow.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court allowed human rights activist Gautam Navlakha, who has been in Taloja jail since April 2020 in the Bhima Koregaon case, to be placed under house arrest for a month. The activist, who is 70 years old, said that he was suffering from various health ailments and had asked to be shifted out of jail.
While ordering house arrests, courts have the power to impose conditions as they deem fit, so that the trial is not hampered. In a 2021 case, the Supreme Court ruled that house arrests can also be used as a form of detention. Read more
Gautam Navlakha
Varavara Rao
Sudha Bharadwaj
Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon accused struggle to find house in city
11/11/2022
Hindustan Times / by Charul Shah and Gautam S Mengle
Getting a house in and around the city has been a challenge – both due to financial reasons as well as the fact that they were arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and charged under sections of the UAPA for alleged Naxalite links
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Elgar Parishad – Bhima Koregaon violence case accused Gautam Navlakha for a month’s house arrest on account of his old age and ill health. Read more
Report Release: In the Name of Development / Snooping on Civil Society
India Trains Its Sights on Dissent in Chhattisgarh – Snooping on Civil Society
28/10/2022
Voelkerrechtsblog / by Allison West
Development in the form of profit-driven resource exploitation ventures in India’s central state of Chhattisgarh, led by corporations and facilitated by the state, have wreaked havoc on the lives and livelihoods of the region’s indigenous Adivasi peoples. In the face of widespread dispossession, corporate land grabs, environmental degradation and militarized policing in Chhattisgarh, Adivasi activists and organized civil society play a vital role in monitoring, documenting and challenging ongoing human rights violations on the ground…
In 2020, Amnesty International and Citizen Lab uncovered a coordinated spyware campaign targeting nine human rights defenders in India, including several active in Chhattisgarh. Between January and October 2019, the targets received spearphishing emails with malicious links that, if opened, would have installed NetWire, a commercially manufactured Windows spyware that monitors a user’s actions and communications..
The common link between the human rights defenders targeted in the NetWire attack seemed to be a record of speaking out on behalf of those imprisoned in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon Case. Read more
Report Release: In the Name of Development – Indigenous Rights Violations and Shrinking Space in Chhattisgarh
03/11/2022
By India Justice Project & ECCHR
The report presents insights into the ongoing assault by the Indian state and powerful corporations on the indigenous peoples of the country through a case study of Chhattisgarh. In particular, the report highlights the legal and institutional means through which powerful state, military and corporate actors appropriate land and shrink space for Adivasi rights and resistance in Chhattisgarh. Read full report (PDF, 72 pages)
When she was released on conditional bail in the Bhima Koregaon case, for which she spent over three years in jail, one of the first things Sudha Bharadwaj asked her daughter to send from her home in Bilaspur were her black coat and her lawyer’s sanad.
Her black lawyer’s coat hangs from the back of her chair, the computer on the table has multiple windows open – the websites of various courts in Maharashtra – and a stack of handwritten letters await her attention. Read more (for HT subscribers only)
● 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
Pictures credit: PUCL
Cover Design / Layout: Vinay Jain
Paperback: 316 pages
Access a free PDF copy of the book here: Sudha_Bharadwaj_speaks (2,1 MB)
Securing the right to health of political prisoners
It is time that the right to health becomes a reality, in letter and spirit to every person, irrespective of their incarceration status. This will have to be done through a wide scale, public health campaign, and rapid recruitment of qualified doctors with training in evidence-based medicine that can provide adequate care to prisoners.
It has been good law in India since Bandhua Mukti Morcha versus Union of India (1983) that the right to health is a fundamental part of right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution…
However, what happens when you are a political prisoner in India? These rights are vitiated, and the process becomes the punishment. 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
Video: Sudha Bharadwaj on activism, her time in jail & why Chhattisgarh will always be home
The trade unionist and lawyer sits down with Manisha Pande in Mumbai.
Sudha Bharadwaj loves mathematics, wonders whether she gave her daughter the “right” kind of childhood, and became a lawyer when she was 40 years old.
“Had I not become a lawyer,” she says, “I don’t think I would have been very easily accepted as a leader.”
Sudha was released from Mumbai’s Byculla Jail in December last year after spending three years in prison. She was arrested in connection with the #BhimaKoregaon violence and was repeatedly denied bail until December 1. She was also dubber an ‘urban naxal’ by TV channels that made little attempt to understand her work. Sudha says she now wants to go to her real home, to Chhattisgarh, where she’s lived since the 1980s.
In this interview, she talks about her childhood in Bilaspur and her educational journey, culminating in IIT Kanpur. Her mother, a #JNU professor, helped shape the ideology of this self-proclaimed #Marxist – though she confesses her mother had many “apprehensions” – who began working with trade unions at the age of 25.
Working with people on the ground, Sudha is only too aware of how “alien” the judicial process is to the majority of India’s population. “The notification comes out in the gazette. You are somewhere, miles away in a village which is not even accessible, and nobody even tells you about it,” she says. She also thinks it’s important for young lawyers to cut their teeth by representing the most marginalised.
In Byculla jail, where she remembers she once saw #RheaChakraborty, Sudha continued her work, trying to secure legal aid for those imprisoned with her. She believes in the importance of a “united front” – the farm law protests are an example, with people holding differing ideologies coming together – and worries that the lack of this unity gives rise to dogma. Watch 13 min video clip here
by newslaundry (Oct 21, 2022):
‘He was never an opportunist in his politics.’ @Sudhabharadwaj talks about labour law leader and founder of the #Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha Shankar Guha Niyogi and the actual movement that led to his assassination. Watch video clip (3:46min)
by newslaundry (Oct 20, 2022):
In conversation with @MnshaP @Sudhabharadwaj details the #Sarkeguda encounter case in #Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district in which unarmed villagers including minors were killed, and the legal battle that ensued. Watch video clip (4:30min)
by newslaundry (Oct 19, 2022):
‘So much money goes to defend the state.’ Speaking with @MnshaP, @Sudhabharadwaj
talks about legal aid in India and how there is no level playing field for citizens. Watch video clip (2:34min)
Day to day hearing of discharge applications in Elgar Parishad case begins
28/09/2022
India Today / by Vidya
A special National Investigation Agency court in Mumbai began a day-to-day hearing of four discharge applications filed by the Elgar Parishad. Highlights
▪ Mumbai’s special National Investigation Agency court began a day-to-day hearing in Elgar Parishad case
▪ The court to hear four discharge applications filed by the accused
▪ Three more discharge applications were filed on Tuesday
… Procedurally, courts hear the discharge applications, and if it finds no material against the accused in the charge sheet filed by the investigators, it discharges the accused.
However, if the court finds substantial evidence, the discharge plea gets rejected, and a full-fledged trial ensues. Read more
Bhima Koregaon case trial process begins over four years after case was registered
28/09/2022
Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff
An NIA court started hearing a discharge plea filed by Sudhir Dhawale, one of the accused persons.
A Mumbai court on Tuesday started hearing the first of the seven discharge applications filed by accused persons in the Bhima Koregaon case, Bar and Bench reported. The hearing marks the beginning of the trial process in the case four years after it was filed in 2018.
The development came after the Supreme Court, on August 19, ordered a National Investigation Agency court to decide on framing charges against the accused persons within three months. Read more
Mumbai Court begins hearing discharge applications of accused
28/09/2022
Bar & Bench / by Neha Joshi
The Court also rejected an application filed by octogenarian P Varavara Rao seeking permission to live in Hyderabad for 3 months in order to conduct cataract surgery.
A Mumbai court on Tuesday began hearing the first of the seven discharge applications filed by the accused in the Bhima Koregaon case of 2018.
The hearing on discharge is the first step towards framing of charges, thus, kick-starting the trial in the case which has been pending in the pre-trial stage since 2018.
This development comes in compliance with the directions of the Supreme Court in August asking the special court to decide on framing of charges within 3 months. Read more
Three more accused, including activist Navlakha, seek discharge in Elgar case
27/09/2022
The New Indian Express / by pti
While Navlakha and Babu are currently in jail under judicial custody, Bharadwaj is out on bail.
Activists Gautam Navlakha, Sudha Bharadwaj and Delhi University professor Hany Babu, all accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, on Tuesday moved discharge applications before the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court here …
Meanwhile, the court on Tuesday heard the arguments on the discharge plea of another accused, Sudhir Dhawale. The arguments will continue on Wednesday …
The discharge pleas of some other accused – Jyoti Jagtap, Anand Teltumbde and Mahesh Raut – were also pending before the court. Read more
