J A I L

As a writer the thought of being incarcerated for one’s writing has to me always seemed romantic. It represents a sort of heroism where one will not be cowed down by the establishment, but will fearlessly say what one wishes to say, without resorting to that most emasculating of evils, self-censorship. Self-censorship implies that one has thrown in the towel, accepted defeat as it were. It is in this spirit of defiance and rebellion that I have often fantasized about being behind bars, the hardships of jail life being compensated for by the idea that one is here because of what one has written, which, in a way also proves that one’s work is recognized, and one has earned the right to be called a writer. In short, one has arrived.

In my long career of thirty-five years, I have written enough books (25 at last count) made up of both literary and critical writing; newspaper, magazine and digital publication articles; book reviews; academic essays in journals and anthologies, and so on, and have also given numerous interviews to print and online publications, where I may have said things that can be seen to offend.  At the Bangalore Literature Festival in December 2024, Unmana, the moderator of our panel, wondered how I ‘do this’, write as I want, and go scot-free each time. She was speaking with special reference to my 2024 novel Mahmud and Ayaz. But if I have not been taken to task for my work, it could be for a variety of reasons. The most obvious reason would be that my writing hasn’t been noticed by those likely to take offence, for I am not important enough, persona non grata.  The other reason could be that I write in English which isn’t read or understood by the majority in India. But whatever the reason, the fact is that I have remained unscathed, even at a time when homosexuality was a crime in India, and most of my literary, academic and journalistic output, as well as the interviews I have given (including a TEDx talk) have centered around homosexuality. Since September 2018, of course, homosexuality is no longer a crime here, but then my brand of radical queerness, reflected in my writing and personal life, is still viewed with disfavour.

It is for this reason, I suspect, that the government-run Sahitya Akademi, which once invited me to all their annual literature festivals (the last gig being in Simla in June 2022), and regularly published me in their journal Indian Literature, has suddenly started to ignore me. To the extent that they don’t even reply to my emails! The irony is that after the decriminalization of Section 377 of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code, the Akademi has itself gone berserk, and regularly has panel discussions on what it calls LGBTQ literature, of which I am now no longer a part, though others like Hoshang Merchant and Kalki Subramaniam invariably are.

But let me return to the topic of this blog which is the glamorization of the idea of being in jail for what one has gutsily written. I have jettisoned the idea once and for all after ordering and reading a book titled The Feared: Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners by Neeta Kolhatkar. Most of the interviews conducted by the author are with political prisoners and their families. They have been branded as (what the government calls) ‘Urban Naxals’ and some of them have been arrested for attending the Elgar Parishad in Koregaon-Bhima near Pune City in 2018.  The respondents include well-known authors and activists such as Sudha Bharadwaj, Anand Teltumbde, Binayak Sen, Kobad Gandhy and Sanjay Raut, as well as others. There is even an interview with P. Hemalatha, wife of the poet Varavara Rao who was also in jail and has now been released on ‘conditional bail’.  

What have these conversations revealed that have so demystified the idea of jail for me? Sudha Bharadwaj talks about overcrowding in Indian prisons. She says, “We were sleeping on 3’x6’ (feet) laadi (tiles). We would be stuck to each other. In Byculla jail, there were 56 other women in the first barracks where I was put, while the actual capacity is 36…We slept close to one another; the bathrooms were common and there was no body space anywhere as we stood in queues.”

To Anand Teltumbde, jail “was not something I had ever imagined in my worst nightmare.” Speaking of police highhandedness, he says, “They kept me in the lockup for 13 hours…because they did not have to worry about the consequences. Effectively…in this country you lived at the mercy of an ordinary policeman. If he does not like you, he can take away your dignity and reputation and ruin your family; it has happened in hundreds of thousands of cases and continues to happen with impunity. In one way, it was a good experience to see what people face in this country.”

Binayak Sen was placed in solitary confinement. His daughter Pranhita tells us that “…solitary confinement cells are dark rooms. The only source of light or air is through one vent. [Prisoners] have to stay in that room for most of the day. Imagine if any person is kept in such a solitary confinement cell, where there is no light and only brief interaction with others for a few hours, while most of the time one is by oneself and not able to see the world, it makes the whole situation rather depressing. That took a toll on him [Sen] and we have seen a change in him after that. After he was released, he would have sleepless nights, or wake up screaming at night.”

Kobad Ghandy lets us know his routine in jail. He says, “I’ve seen almost everyone break down. From the beginning, I made it a point to have a regime for yoga and exercises in the morning and maybe sometimes a little bit in the evening. In Tihar, we were locked up practically the entire day. We were isolated but I had Afzal Guru with me. He was extremely helpful and cooperative because it was my first jail experience. I spent most of my time studying and writing. I was not allowed, but I got an outlet to publish my work. I made it a point not to break down and keep my sanity intact. I ensured I was physically and mentally active all the time. I had a lot of health problems. I still managed.”

P. Hemalatha talks of her husband Varavara Rao being sick in jail. She says, “…it started on the day of Ramzan when he was in Taloja jail. It was in May and he was admitted to JJ Hospital in the last week. Our lawyers met him in the hospital and they informed us that he was to be kept there till the first week of June…When I went to JJ Hospital to meet him, the staff informed me that he was shifted back to the jail. I hadn’t been informed of it till then. Worse, I realized they had sent him back to the prison despite his ill health. VV [Varavara Rao] was suffering from dysentery and was vomiting. He suffered from a urinary tract infection. We were told VV was kept in the cell…with 30 other people. There were only three toilets and no bathrooms. He told us later, he would have baths in front of the toilets, such were the pathetic conditions. There was all likelihood of him falling down. In fact, the police rushed him back to the prison from the hospital without removing the catheter tube. It had to be changed every fortnight which they did not.”

Incidentally, the infamous Taloja jail was the place where the ailing Father Stan Swamy died, being denied even the simplest of things like a straw sipper. I have written about it in Kashmir Observer.

I started this blog by calling self-censorship emasculating. But perhaps the time has come for me to voluntarily emasculate myself.