The rigours of resistance

In a milieu where civil society is demonised by the power establishment, Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia's book is a successful attempt at humanising the dehumanised

How Long Can the Moon Be Caged?: Voices of Indian Political Prisoners

Authors: Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia

Publisher: Context

Pages: 312

Price:  Rs 599

A question has been bothering me for some time. Apart from telling stories and educating us, can books serve any other purpose? Reading How Long Can the Moon be Caged? the author and director of the Polis Project Suchitra Vijayan and researcher Francesca Recchia set my curiosity at rest as I’ll explain later.

After the formation of a nation-state, democracy always competes with people in power who would like to have some discretionary and unbridled control over others; it is in this context that questioning such acts becomes the greatest form of patriotism, which often leads protestors to be imprisoned. This book focuses on several such individuals who had to face the ire of the government for speaking out on behalf of those who are unable to speak for themselves.

The book’s seven chapters are prefaced with an introduction, offering readers a quick recap of the several major incidents that led to the incarceration of most political prisoners. The first chapter, “A Season of Arrests”, sets out a detailed calendar of the excesses that political prisoners have suffered, especially focusing on the legal aspect of their incarceration, starting from the arbitrary arrest of G N Saibaba on May 9, 2014 to his acquittal on March 5, 2024. An educator by profession, Professor Saibaba is disabled and was charged and later convicted in 2017 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) among several other charges. The following chapter goes deeper into its details and reveals the inconsistencies around the prosecution by the police and other investigating agencies. Hateful slogans by prominent leaders associated with the ruling party are ignored whereas student activists are roped in and charged with stringent laws limiting their chances to apply for a bail.

In “The Lies Factory” the authors unearth how an investigating officer of the infamous Bhima Koregaon case (the accused under this case are collectively known as BK16) declared before a two-member judicial commission that there is no proof that the riots that took place were the direct result of the Elgar Parishad. This basically implied that all the allegations against the BK16 activists —of making incendiary comments leading to riots — were bogus. The chapter shows how suspicion devoid of proof seems to be enough to jail people for an indefinite amount of time in several other cases.

In the following two chapters, “Small Things” and “Voices of Indian Political Prisoners”, the authors have tried to go beyond the standard discussion of the oppression of these political prisoners and have dealt with their stories with a human touch. In the former chapter, close friends, partners and relatives share pictures and stories of their relationship with those in prison and what keeps them hopeful against all odds. Khalid Saifi, a member of United Against Hate, was arrested by Delhi Police in connection with the 2020 Delhi riots and was not even allowed to receive a card that his daughter had made for him after which she had the message drawn on her hand using henna. Saifi’s wife Nargis shared a photo of both the card and the henna. Similarly, Gautam Navlakha’s partner Sahba Husain shares a photo of their living room with a rocking chair, his favourite place in the entire residence. These seemingly insignificant photos hold a special kind of power that keeps these families going.

The latter chapter contains the prison writings written not just to their families and friends but also to the authorities reclaiming their rights that the constitution promises. In a letter to the National Investigation Agency judge concerned, Sagar Gorkhe, who was associated with Kabir Kala Manch, writes of being asked to remove his slippers before a high-ranking official, which he refused to do. As a Dalit, he did not want to reaffirm casteist rituals. Since then, he has been harassed regularly, his medicines stopped and books, clothes and other personal items confiscated. These writings reveal a layered form of punishment that is not limited to incarceration but also expands its limitations to accommodate the whims and fancies of the authorities.

In recent years, Indian civil society has been systematically demonised by the power establishment. If the last century teaches us anything about fascism, it is that it starts by dehumanising and othering people who question them so that when the fascist forces attack them, the general public remains indifferent to their plight. Apart from going into the finer details of several cases in which political prisoners are still languishing in jails, this book is successful in humanising the dehumanised. The sheer apathy of both government and judiciary is highlighted in many incidents, which is no surprise given the number of bureaucrats and judges who join the ruling dispensation after they retire from service. To answer the question that I started with, reading How Long Can the Moon be Caged?  made me realise that a book can serve as a reminder that when oppression becomes the norm, there are always people firmly standing against it.

The reviewer is a writer-translator and  co-founder of RAQS