A piercing portrait of the injustices of the Indian prison system. For decades, the narratives around prisoners in India have perpetuated arbitrary notions of the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ citizen. Stories about Indian prisons rarely make it to public notice – from deplorable living conditions, lack of medical care and legal support to intense mistreatment, violence and all manner of horrific abuse. Despite the mounting evidence, any attempts to study the systemic frailties and chilling injustices that abound within a prison complex have been few and far between. In Hope Behind Bars, editors Sanjoy Hazarika and Madhurima Dhanuka draw upon extensive research, identifying prisoners and ex-prisoners, their families and associates and gathering first-person experiences about the Indian prison system. With ten essays contributed by subject specialists, including a former Supreme Court judge, lawyers, inmates, prison officials and activists, on a range of issues, such as the rights of prisoners, the journey to justice in the controversial Hashimpura killings case and life in a detention centre, this essential collection brings prisoners’ lives and liberties to the heart of public debate and policies, presenting accounts of how hope can flower in the most unlikely places. Searing and thought-provoking, it provides the reader with valuable insight into the vexed idea of incarceration and delivers a necessary human document of the true face of justice behind bars in our country

This book can be downloaded as a PDF file from here. A group of British sailors/veterans are in an Indian jail. I do not know if they have been freed, as yet. This news came to my attentions a couple of months back, even though they have been in jail for a few years now. This was a news, which I had been expecting for quite some time. In fact, when the BPO revolution commenced, I had the gut feeling that these kinds of happening are in the offing. ‘India’ cannot be understood from pristine-English, and ‘Indians’ also cannot be understood from pristine-English. It would like one animal trying to understand another animal, whose basic mental triggers are not clear or understandable to the first animal. So much is the difference. What comes into English as ‘India’, ‘Indians’, ‘Indian entrepreneurship’ etc. are mere translated-into-English versions, in which most of the Satanism remains hidden in translation. The very fact that Indian languages have a very evil feudal structure by which human beings can be literally flipped from a height to a stinking depth by means of a single word cannot be understood in English at all. No academic studies have been able to mention this. Even when it is mentioned, those who know it simply make funs of the contentions and lead the theme astray into disarray. The total fault is with Clement Atlee and his insane coterie who destroyed the aspirations of millions of peoples in the Indian subcontinent, when he handed them into the enslavement and indoctrination of traditional overlords, from whom they have had around 150 years of escape. What has happened to the British sailors have to be explained. It requires some background information.

On Feb 6th 2003, Anjum Zamarud Habib, a young woman political activist from Kashmir, was arrested in Delhi and jailed under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA). Her crime? Being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And being the Chairperson of the Muslim Khawateen Markaz and in that capacity, a member of the Hurriyat Conference. In this passionate and moving account of her days in prison, Anjum Zamarud Habib describes the shock and bewilderment of arrest, the pain of realizing that there is no escape for not days, not weeks, but years, the desperation for contact with the outside world and the sense of deep betrayal at being abandoned by her political comrades. Her story is both a searing indictment of draconian state policies and expedient political practices, and a moving account of one woman’s extraordinary life. “Prisoner No 100 illuminates the darkest corners of Kashmir’s political experience. A brilliant critique of patriarchy in politics, a searing tale of the terrible humiliations visited upon political prisoners, a poignant story of a woman who dedicated her life to political change in Kashmir, a passionate love letter to Kashmir. Everyone interested in Kashmir should read it.” —Basharat Peer, author of Curfewed Nights Published by Zubaan.