Mumbai-based activist Arun Ferreira kept a prison diary during his incarceration in Nagpur Central Jail. We reproduce here a shortened version of his experiences and some of the sketches he drew in prison
BY Arun Ferreira EMAIL AUTHOR(S)
Tagged Under | naxalite | prison | Arun Ferreira | diaries
Hell
Prison nurtures spirituality. It has the merit of at least temporarily inducing the type of peace obtained by casting your lot with the supernatural (Illustration: ARUN FERREIRA)
But more than the brutal, claustrophobic aesthetic of the anda, it’s the absence of human contact that chokes you. If you’re in the anda, you spend 15 hours or more alone in your cell. The only people you see are the guards and occasionally the other inmates in your section. A few weeks in the anda can cause a breakdown. The horrors of the anda are well-known to prisoners in Nagpur jail, and they would rather face the severest of beatings than be banished to the anda.
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