Humra Quraishi*
Once again, I’m focusing on those jailed. The immediate provocation for this is the very recent news reports – Politician Mukhtar Ansari’s son Umar Ansari’s plea in court that his father was given poisoned food while lodged in Uttar Pradesh’s Banda jail and there was no medical facility available to help save his life.
AAP leader and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s blood sugar levels are a matter of concern as he sits imprisoned in Tihar Jail; let’s not overlook the fact that he is severely diabetic and quite obviously the jailed state would be affecting his blood sugar levels.
This week’s news reports also focused on jailed BRS leader K Kavitha. She is lodged in Tihar Jail and had to be “rushed” to Delhi’s DDU hospital. These are just some of the reported cases of the week.
What is the fate of all those who languish in the jails and prisons of the country for years? A substantial percentage of these are under-trials and, technically innocent, yet they have wasted their lives in that jailed state.
Another vital fact not to overlook is that even when proven innocent and finally released, the going gets absolutely tough for them. They face not just economic struggles but also major social disadvantages, affecting their health and livelihood and connected offshoots.
These realities become evident after viewing the late filmmaker Shubhradeep Chakravorty’s documentary, ‘After The Storm’. It focuses on seven young Muslim men – Mukhtar Ahmed, Md. Fassiuddin Ahmed, Umar Farooque, Moutasim Billah, Harith Ansari, Md. Musarrat Hussain ‘Bobby’, Shaikh Abdul Kaleem – who were jailed on terror charges until they were proven innocent and acquitted by various courts.
Chakravorty had told me that these seven were among hundreds falsely implicated in bogus charges. He detailed how young Muslim men are detained and arrested by the police on flimsy charges or even without a charge, merely on suspicion or to create an atmosphere of fear. Even if they are acquitted after years, they remain ruined for a long time. With nobody even bothering to ask this vital question – what happens to the lives of innocent men whom the system had caged for so many years?
This documentary film was made several years ago, but the situation seems no better today. After reading books written by several of those, who were previously imprisoned, one wonders: shouldn’t books authored by former prisoners be read by the heads of various Human Rights Commissions?
The stark truth is that something is wrong with the way the system treats the imprisoned, yet there is no stopping nor questioning. Where is the much-required transparency? Why should we rely only on police hand-outs? Why shouldn’t a non-governmental agency be allowed to conduct simultaneous investigative probes? Why shouldn’t biased and corrupt officials be sidetracked and exposed? Why shouldn’t non-jailed citizens be aware of the prison conditions and how safe and secure they are?
It is pertinent to point out that last year several prisoners in various jails of Uttar Pradesh were found to be HIV positive in that jailed state.
Another reality not to be overlooked is that it isn’t difficult to arrest an innocent person and heap charges on them, leaving them languishing as an under-trial. It can’t be overlooked that the common one-liners that accompany arrests are that the arrested has ‘confessed’ to their ‘crime’ to the police. Who will believe that the arrested ‘confessed’ without those torture sessions? We are well aware that the police can make anyone confess to any possible crime amidst torture sessions.
Isn’t it time that a full-fledged commission is set up, which comes out with a thorough investigation of the functioning of jails and the treatment meted out to those languishing there?
I leave you to ponder on what Mahatma Gandhi had to say about the jailed and his views on those among us who sit jailed. To quote from the November 1947 issue of Harijan:
“All criminals should be treated as patients and the jails should be hospitals admitting this class of patients for treatment and cure. No one commits a crime for the fun of it. It is a sign of a diseased mind. The causes of a particular disease should be investigated and removed. They need not have palatial buildings when their jails become hospitals. No country can afford that, much less can a poor country like India. But the outlook of the jail staff should be that of physicians and nurses in a hospital. The prisoners should feel that the officials are their friends. They are there to help them regain their mental health and not to harass them in any way. The popular governments have to issue necessary orders, but meanwhile, the jail staff can do not a little to humanize their administration.”
*****
Whilst talking about prisoners, I recall these poignant lines by FAIZ AHMAD FAIZ:
‘LOVE’S PRISONERS
Wearing the hangman’s noose, like a necklace,
The singers kept on singing day and night,
kept jingling the ankle – bells of their fetters
and the dancers jigged on riotously.
We who were neither in this camp nor that
just stood watching them enviously.
shedding silent tears.
Returning, we saw that the crimson
of flowers had turned pale
and on probing within, it seemed
that where the heart once was
now lingered only stabbing pain.
Around our necks the hallucination of a noose
And on our feet the dance of fetters.’
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