There was conflict in every issue. In jail, any request, no matter how basic, is not immediately accepted. It starts with denial
“Those who talk about humanity here
hey, put them in jail
Make people aware of ‘Criminology’.
Varavara Rao, School and Jail”
Hope and despair are basic emotions. All humans, at one time or another, oscillate between these two extremes. I felt these emotions deeply in jail. I remember, I kept swinging between these two positions from time to time. There was frustration when bail was rejected in the court or there was no progress in my acquittal (discharge from charges) plea, the long duration of the legal process or when I approached the court for relief for the most urgent things.
In comparison to life outside, there are many moments in jail which keep changing the mood of the prisoners. Because prison is designed to punish prisoners, whether convicted or under trial. Whose guardians, strangely enough, are court and jail officials.
It is considered the basic job of a jailer to exercise his authority over the prisoners. But there were discussions, debates and even angry exchanges about this between prisoners and prison officials. But I learned how to deal with such restrictions. We broke prison rules that prohibited us from singing, talking loudly, or laughing. In the solitude of the egg ward, we dared to sing, talked and laughed to each other from a distance of a yard. We found ways to meet and talk to each other face to face. Some rules are made to be broken.
Prison life revolved around the bare necessities: food, water and medical aid, followed by a variety of restrictions, including access to the library and outdoor recreation. Censorship of letters and articles without our knowledge, sharing of our personal and legal letters with agencies in violation of rules and difficulty in getting clothes, stationery, etc. from the family. We fought against it.
There was conflict in every issue because in jail, any request, no matter how basic, is not immediately accepted. It starts with denial. The prisoners then have to stick to their demand until it is accepted or they approach the court for a solution. From filing the demand to the slow pace of hearing, the refusal from the court, all this affected me emotionally. Two issues that affect prisoners are delays in the legal process and the fight to get the right medical help.
The most disturbing moment during the punishment was the 28 days I spent in quarantine. In April 2020, less than two months after my arrest, I was suddenly brought from Tihar Jail to Mumbai. During the pandemic, new prisoners arriving at the Taloja jail gate were asked to attend a school. One wing of the school was converted into a prison quarantine. There were already about 300 prisoners crammed into seven classrooms, which had been converted into barracks. By the time I left there, the number of prisoners had increased to 400.
