{"id":286463,"date":"2018-05-08T14:02:15","date_gmt":"2018-05-08T08:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tehelka.com\/?p=286463"},"modified":"2018-05-08T14:02:15","modified_gmt":"2018-05-08T08:32:15","slug":"the-untold-tragedy-of-indias-prisoners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/the-untold-tragedy-of-indias-prisoners\/","title":{"rendered":"The untold tragedy of India\u2019s prisoners"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jail<\/a>
\nNaively, I was under the impression that after covering the two nights that Salman Khan spent in jail, we would go a step further and find out what the other prisoners face, languishing night after night, in those hell holes. But,\u00a0nah, we didn\u2019t bother to find out the condition of our \u2018caged\u2019 men and women, sitting imprisoned in that Jodhpur Jail or in the other jails and prisons of the country. Mind you, this apathy when almost seventy-five percent of the imprisoned are undertrials and with that technically innocent.
\nWe weren\u2019t jolted by the near death condition of Indrani Mukerjea; even as news reports relayed she was either poisoned or else drugged with an overdose of medicines. Yes, all these murky build-ups well inside the high prison walls. Quite obviously, it\u2019s not just the jail staff that rules and overrules the jailed, but also the political mafia. But how would we know the actual and factual happenings; fed that we are on government releases in the form of police briefings and handouts!
\nWe haven\u2019t even bothered to study the crucial \u2018why\u2019 inmates run away from prison hellholes. Perhaps, they are unable to cope with the daily round of humiliation and cannot pick up the courage to talk about the trauma they are undergoing. Who will listen to their long list of woes? How will they articulate details of those torturous rounds?
\nHow will they or their families cope with the aftermath, in the backdrop of the fact that their unofficial tormentors are their official protectors!
\nToday, amidst the bogus developmental cries, where\u2019s that required focus on the jails and on those languishing in jails? If the political rulers carried even faint traces of genuine connect with the disadvantaged the first thing they would have done was to reach out to the jailed inmates, at least in terms of reforms. To begin with, they ought to have expanded the very concept and idea of open jails. Let the jailed breath fresh air. Even if they have committed crimes it does not give the State the sanction to throttle them, slowly
\nand steadily.
\nIn fact, way back in 2003, the then chairman of National Human Rights Commission, Justice AS Anand, had focused on the dismal conditions that the jailed face. During my interactions with him, he had detailed the congestion cum overcrowding in prisons, also the trauma faced by the undertrials, because of the delay and hurdles in getting bail.
\nTo quote him from an interview given to me in 2003, \u201cYes, nearly 75% of our jail population consists of undertrials, many of whom are innocent\u2026 A large number of undertrials languish in jails even after they are granted bail because they are unable to raise the surety amount. In this context, we should consider the release of undertrials on personal bonds.\u201d Justice Anand had also focused on the plight of the women prisoners. He had mentioned about two specific jails where women prisoners complained of the unavailability of sanitary napkins and with that of poor menstrual hygiene.
\nAnd if one were to read any of the books written by former prisoners, harsh truths come out. Anjum Zamarud Habib\u2019s \u2018Prisoner No. 100: My Nights and Days In An Indian Prison\u2019 (Zubaan), Mohammad Aamir Khan\u2019s \u2018Framed As A Terrorist\u2019 (Speaking Tiger), Abdul Wahid Shaikh\u2019s \u2014 Begunah Qaidi (Pharos Media), Mufti Abdul Qayyum Ahmad Mansuri\u2019s \u2018I Am A Mufti & I Am Not A Terrorist:11 Years Behind the Bars\u2019 (published by Jamat Ulama Ahmedabad and Maharashtra), Iftikhar Gilani\u2019s \u2018My Days in Prison\u2019 (Penguin) \u2026 Space constraints come in way of my detailing the horrifying level of torture these hapless humans went through during their imprisonment, till they were proven innocent and set free by the Courts.
\nShouldn\u2019t these books authored by former prisoners be read by the heads of the Human Rights Commissions? Also, shouldn\u2019t we, the not-so-jailed, question and query: Why jails and prisons are not getting developed and spruced up along the developmental cries? Where is the transparency in the treatment meted out to the jailed? Why should we go only by police hand-outs? Why shouldn\u2019t a non-governmental agency be allowed to carry simultaneous investigative probes? Why shouldn\u2019t the biased and corrupt and ruthless police officers be dismissed from service? Why is it getting easy for the police and agencies to arrest an innocent and frame terror charges on him; with which he sits languishing as an undertrial for years to come? Why are details to jail deaths and tortures not probed by an independent agency or any watchdog? What is the condition of the \u2018alive\u2019 jailed; not to overlook the fact that all those who cannot take the strain die, slowly and steadily, day after day? Slow death!
\nFor God\u2019s sake, can there be some degree (not third degree!) of transparency to what\u2019s taking place inside those high walls? Also, how I wish that several of the jailed political prisoners of the day write what\u2019s taking place in their jails. Lalu Prasad Yadav should write his autobiography, with ample focus on his jailed years.
\nLeaving you with these lines of Faiz Ahmad Faiz-
\n\u201cLOVE\u2019S PRISONERS
\nWearing the hangman\u2019s noose, like a necklace,
\nThe singers kept on singing day and night,
\nkept jingling the ankle-bells of their fetters
\nand the dancers jigged on riotously.
\nWe who were neither in this camp nor that
\njust stood watching them enviously.
\nshedding silent tears.
\nReturning, we saw that the crimson
\nof flowers had turned pale
\nand on probing within, it seemed
\nthat where the heart once was
\nnow lingered only stabbing pain.
\nAround our necks the hallucination of a noose
\nAnd on our feet the dance of fetters.\u201d
\nletters@tehelka.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Naively, I was under the impression that after covering the two nights that Salman Khan spent in jail, we would go a step further and find out what the other prisoners face, languishing night after night, in those hell holes. But,\u00a0nah, we didn\u2019t bother to find out the condition of our \u2018caged\u2019 men and women, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286464,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[481,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286463"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}