From Indias largest newsroom, I'm Arun George and this is the
Times of India podcast. Sudha Bardwaj's book, titled
From Fasiyad, recently won an award in the nonfiction
category. A while back we'd done an
interview with her. We're bringing back that episode
today. Mana Ki abhi tere mere armano Ki
Ki mat kuch bhi nahi mitti ka bhi hai Kuch mola magar in Sano
Ki Ki mat kuch bhi nahi in Sano Ki E jate Jab jisdin jute si ko
ma toli na jaye Ki Bo suba kabhi tohi.
That's trade unionist and human rights lawyer Sudha Bhardwaj
singing her favorite song pinned by Sahir Ludhianvi.
Sudha Bhardwaj has been out of the headlines for a while, so
let's refresh your memory. Sudha Bhardwaj is one of the 17
people arrested in what is called the Elgar Parishad case.
One of those accused and arrested in the case was Jesuit
priest Stan Swami who died in custody in 2021.
The 17 people arrested in the case are accused of delivering
inflammatory speeches at the Elgar Parishad conclave in Pune
on the 31st of December in 2017. The Maharashtra police claimed
that the speeches triggered violence at the Bhima Koregaon
War Memorial, which is a significant place for the Dalit
community. The police claimed that the
Elgar Parishad event was backed by Maoists and the probe was
later taken up by the National Investigation Agency. 2 Hindutva
group leaders accused of making hate speeches before the Elgar
Parishad event never faced any serious charges.
Sudha Bhardwaj was granted bail in 2021.
She can't talk about the specifics of the case yet, but
she can talk about her new book titled From Fasi Yad, My Year
with the Women of Yerwada, which has just been released.
The book is an account of the world of women prisoners in
Yerwada jail in Pune, where Bhardwaj was launched for two
years in the high security wing that is called Fasi Yad.
My colleague Alka Dukar caught up with her at the house in
Mumbai that she is required to stay in as part of the
conditions for her being granted bail, among other things.
Alka spoke with Sudha Bhardwaj about her time in prison, what
her book documents, why she's still an optimist and the
importance of dissidents in a democracy.
I don't know if we should congratulate you on this book
because, as you have named it, Farsi Yard dedicated this book
to all who are unjusticely incarcerated.
Do you count yourself in one of those?
Yes, I think I do. But I think I'm one of many.
Many people have been in Justly Incarcerated and yeah, that is
why the book is dedicated to them.
One of your bail conditions says that you must not leave Mumbai.
You have described this situation previously as you're
in exile. So would you like to elaborate
on this? How badly do you miss
Chhattisgarh? Actually, at a very young age,
at the age of 25 itself, I got involved with the trade union of
late, comrade Shankar Guhaniyogi, and ever since then
I have been in Chhattisgarh working with the 1st in Delhi,
Rajara, then in Bhilai. Then it was the trade union
movement itself which made me a lawyer and then I shifted to
Bilaspur where we had a group of lawyers called Janhit.
So my entire life has been there and my friends, my colleagues,
my comrades, my young associates, everybody out there.
So it is really exiled for me. I miss everything about
Chhattisgarh. Are you a true Mumbaikar now?
To be fried. Oh yes.
I find Mumbai still a very much working class city.
Even though all the mills have closed down, it still has a very
working class flavor about it. And now that I've got used to
travelling in the local trains and all that one thing, I find
that it's a very it's a very alive city.
It's a very, you know, all the time bustling, moving, and of
course, rents are prohibitively expensive.
I'm just very lucky that I have friends who are willing to allow
me to live in their houses, otherwise I couldn't have
afforded it. But yes, food.
Maybe you can purchase for ₹5 a meal and ₹5000 a meal.
Also, all kinds of people are here and the city in a sense,
embraces all of them. So I am also one in the crowd.
I feel embraced by this city. One of the things Sudha Bhardwaj
documents in her book is being forced to trade in her sarees
for the salwar kurta in jail. When Alka spoke with her, she
was dressed in a blue kurta in Salwar.
She explains to Alka how the sari became a part of her life
and why she had to change what she wore in jail.
I used to wear Salwar Kutta in my early union days during the
Bhilai movement, which was the major movement of the contract
workers of Bhilai. So that time, during that
railroad Co agitation, there was a police firing, 17 people had
died, many people were in jail, some people were wounded, they
were in the hospital. And at that time, I used to be
rushing around from place to place, sometimes to the
hospital, sometimes to the court, sometimes to the Union
office. And I became very conspicuous
because of my Salwar kurta, which is not a very normal race
in Chhattisgarh, mostly grown up.
Women wear Saudi, I think just to, you know, be normal like
everybody else. In 1992, I just took a decision
I'll only wear Saudi and that continued till I was arrested.
I was surprised by the the jail not permitting T-shirts and
pants and so on. And later on I realized that
that is because the jail has a concept of being feminine and it
is very concerned about women who dress like men, because I
think it also has that typical stigma about lesbianism.
So that is the real reason and that is why they insist that
either you wear Salwar Kutta or you wear Saudi.
And because we have to wash all our clothes and Saudis too
difficult to do so much of washing, there's no space to dry
it. So yeah, so I shifted to Salwar
Kurta and I've continued with that.
Otherwise, for many, many years, I had been wearing Saudi.
Why would you name the book the the name you have?
Given from Fancy R, this was me looking out from Fasi yard at
1:00 when we went to Baikala. We were in the barracks and it
was probably we had much more opportunity to talk and discuss
with other prisoners. But because there I'm more or
less became a lawyer, I was writing applications and all
that. So there's a certain ethics of
being a lawyer. You don't talk about your cases
to people. So that that's when my writing,
the stories about the women stopped and my notebooks were
only filled with, you know, CR number, police station sections
and what is to be written in the application and all that because
we were in the in the, in that single cell.
It would be surprising how did I get to know these stories at
all. And that is what I've tried to
explain in in the section about how this book came to be
written. It's when we went for Mulaka, or
when we went to the courts, or when we went for canteen or to
the hospital, or when we're queuing up to get the water.
Or, you know, these were the occasions on which we would bump
into these women and talk to them.
So actually the sketches were written when I felt that I knew
enough about a person, but it would happen over many, many
encounters with that person and that's why there's no date or
it's not really a diary, its gathering that.
And then when I felt I knew a woman well enough, then I would
write about her. How did you keep your connection
with the outside world when you were in?
Prison as a prisoner under the UAPA, we have restrictions on
who can come and meet us, so it is only either our lawyers or
blood relatives. They're very strict about that.
For example, people from my union could not come, so it
would be just lawyers and my daughter, basically because I
don't have nobody else in my family really.
But yeah, when we went to the court, many people would come to
the court to meet us, but they would be restricted.
They would not be allowed to talk to us.
They were kept at a distance. We actually got a remarkable
number of letters and postcards in solidarity from all over the
world. But we were not given most of
them because all letters which go to the jail are censored.
So actually it takes about a week within the jail for those
letters to be read and then passed on to us.
And most of these, because they'd say, who are these
people? Unknown people are writing to
them. In Yedvada, I hear that many
people wrote to me on my birthday, but I never got those
letters. But in Baikala we were given
those letters and that was a beautiful thing.
And otherwise of course newspapers.
When we were in Yedvada between Professor Sen and myself, we
would take The Indian Express in The Hindu and in Baikala we
would also take Mumbai Mirror. We really missed it when it
went. That was one of our favorite
newspapers. Of course in Baikala when we
were in the barrack then there was the television also.
But you know how it is the remote of the of the TV is with
the Kamvali. So she is the one who decides
which Nagin serial we have to see and which SAS bow serial we
have to see sometimes. You know when there will be tea
time. Please, please, please 5
hundreds NDTV Dekhna Dhona and then put on for the to see what
is the use of the farmer's agitation or whatever it is.
So that's how we we kept ourselves in touch with the
world. True stories.
You have portrayed life inside the prison and the harsh
realities which we are aware of. But more details.
But tell me about yourself. How was your journey and how
were your days inside prison? Did you ever lose hope?
How did you manage your stress when bail was rejected?
I think that is just, that is me as a personality, that right
from my young days and from the age of 25 or so, I've always
worked in collectives. So I I worked with the trade
union and in a collective of lawyers in the UCL, always with
groups and always with with a lot of people.
So it was very, it was a very isolating experience to be in
the cell. And I think actually my way of
getting over what you're saying that, you know, how did you feel
my way of getting over was writing these stories.
I mean, this was really cathartic for me that I was
trying to make sense. I was trying to reach out to
these women without being able to really reach out to them.
It is not that it was an unthinkable thing that happened
to me, but of course when it happens, it is shocking
initially. But I think the positive thing
about me is that I am very conscious that even in that
situation we were still much more privileged than most of the
women around us. Many of them were very poor, a
lot of them were uneducated, some of them were completely
illiterate. Many of them had been abandoned
by their families. They didn't have proper lawyers.
They didn't know what was the condition of their case.
And in Baikala, I had no time. Once they got to know that, you
know, aunty is a lawyer and aunty is ready to help and ready
to write the applications in triplicate in Hindi.
I didn't know that much. I didn't know Marathi so I'd
write it in Hindi for them. And also that aunty doesn't tell
stories but Ted doesn't tell tales.
She doesn't gossip about the case.
She doesn't talk about 1 prisoner to another prisoner.
So when they got this idea about me, they started lining up.
Aunty made a please charge sheet Pardo you know please write this
application for me. I would be busy sometime till
12:00 at night. I was interacting the
applications, of course, the disappointment about bail and
all that in a way. When I came into jail, I told
myself, look, one has to just trust on friends outside that
they will get get me the best possible legal defense and one
just has to wait. So in that sense, I sort of
steeled myself for a long stay and that is why I didn't have to
suffer so much when bail was rejected so many times.
And that was deliberate. But yes, I really missed my
daughter and I think my daughter really missed me.
I had come to Delhi thinking I need to give time and place to
my daughter. It's a critical time in her
career. She needs some support.
I need to earn something also to put her through college.
So it's ironical that that was the time I was picked up.
So at a time when I was acutely aware that I need to give her
time, that is exactly the time when I was taken away from her.
So it was a bad time for her. When Sudha Bhardwaj was released
on bail, one of the photos released by a friend on social
media showed her inside a car, smiling broadly at the camera.
It's a smile that pops up often during the interview as well.
Alka asked her about why even photos taken of her while she
was being arrested captured her smiling.
When the situation is very bizarre, when you don't even
understand, you know, why are you being picked up?
What is happening with you? Why is this happening with you?
I think my reaction is to laugh. What else can you do?
Even just as to smile and bear it?
And that is what I did. There were very rare occasions
when I would feel very bad. Most of the time when I got
letters from my daughter, I would feel very bad because the
letters were full of her sadness or loneliness difficulties that
she was having, and I knew that by the time I write the reply to
her, that moment will have come and gone.
I'm not able to comfort her. It was only on very few
occasions that that would happen and otherwise I would keep
myself busy. We're back in conversation with
trade unionist and human rights lawyer Sudha Bhardwaj, who has
just released a book called From FASI Yard.
In this segment, Alka speaks to Sudha Bhardwaj about her entry
into trade unionism, what drives her activism, and what fuels her
hope that she will get justice one day.
So you were born in USA, you spent your primary school days
in England, grown up in JNU campus and then studied at IIT
Kanpur before pursuing law degree.
How did your educational journey impacted your?
Personality. Apart from mathematics, I also
loved history. I loved literature, particularly
history of the Freedom struggle. I'm extremely interested in and
that passion remains with me. The rigorous science background
which I the study, which I did in IIT Kanpur for a mathematics
degree, I think helped me in a way logic and law go well
together. I became a lawyer only much
later, at the age of 40 or so, and that was because my union
needed a lawyer, and it's difficult for workers to afford
a lawyer. But what helped me the most was
being with people. What you learn from being there,
from living with people, from struggling with people.
It is when you try to change something that you understand
most about it. That's when you you really
understand how things work. The theory was important, but
the practice was far more important.
Highly educated person like you could have got into any foreign
university and focused on personal financial growth.
Why did you become a human rights activist or trade
unionist? You are mentioned in the book
that your parents return to India in response to the appeals
made for nation building efforts.
Do you have the satisfaction of continuing their legacy?
How did I come to those choices? I mean, it happened so gradually
and naturally that I it's difficult for me to really point
out exactly how and when. My parents also took choices of
this guy and my mother chose to return from Cambridge, chose to
come and set up a Centre for Economic Studies and Planning.
It was a centre of excellence within the the JNU became one of
the most celebrated departments of economics in history.
In in in political science and economics.
They were really very the original minds working there in
in that university. So I think all that definitely
had an impact when I started interacting with the working
class. That is where I think the whole
shift from an academic or intellectual profession to
deciding to go with the people's movement, go with the union,
that I think that decision came to me pretty early.
It came to me during my my period in of study in IIT Kanpur
around the end of that. 8384 was the time when the Asiad was
happening and all those construction work was happening
in Delhi. And all these labourers were
being brought from Rajasthan, from Chhattisgarh, from the poor
rural areas, from the hinterland and being brought to construct
all these stadia and flyovers and all that.
There's a transformation in in Delhi because of the virtually
bonded labor conditions of those workers.
And I think that was when I decided that, you know, I have
to pick my lot in win them and and it has to be a whole time
thing. It can't be a part time thing.
It has to be whole time. And then I was lucky enough that
we got introduced to Shankar Guhan Yogi.
And then when I went to Delhi, Rajaratho, I was completely
floored by it. And that that union, it was such
a experience being part of it. It was like sitting in the lap
of the people. It was a bustling place and so
many experiments were being carried out and people were so
enthusiastic about it. And there there was a hospital,
there was schools being run by the union, there was the anti
alcohol movement and all that. And then gradually, when it came
to the Bhilai movement, then Neogi suggested that we should
get involved in the trade union itself.
Initially I thought that I will go and teach in the school there
and so on, But then I became part of the union.
And then later the union workers told me to become a lawyer.
So I became a lawyer. Did you ever regret renouncing
American citizenship? Never.
Not for a moment. Never.
See, I am very much, very much an Indian.
My parents were Indian and very much an Indian.
And from becoming an urban Indian, I wouldn't say I have
become a rural Indian. I have become very much a part
of Chhattisgarh and of of of that community of workers and I
have interacted with workers and farmers and Adivasis from that
area. I I consider myself completely
Chhattisgarhi. So what is the need to go to
America or anywhere else? Do you hold any passport now?
No. Ever since I renounced my
citizenship, I never got a passport made.
I didn't bother to get a passport made.
I asked this question because we know that the numbers of people
renouncing Indian citizenship is only growing every year today.
Be part of nation building efforts or not?
I don't know is it difficult for me.
I mean, these are personal choices, but I believe that
building the nation is not just the growth concept which is
given that you know, the corporates are making a lot of
money, but the actual living conditions of people is getting
more and more miserable. That is not my idea of
development or my idea of growth.
My idea of growth and development is when peoples
lives become better, when they have a secure livelihood, when
they have a decent house to live in, when the children can go to
school, they have decent medical facilities.
When we are able to protect the environment, we we at least have
clean water and clean air. So I think those things are
worth fighting for and working for.
And and this is my country, I I have to work and fight here.
So you started your first formal job at the age of 58.
It went on for a couple of years and then three years in prison.
Did you try to get employment after you released on bail?
Well, it was at the age of 58 and I was only lucky enough to
teach for a year. I love teaching in the National
Law University. I was fortunate enough to teach
there and I had some marvellous students and I thoroughly
enjoyed teaching there. In fact, I had been given an
extension, so I would have probably taught for another year
at least had I not been arrested after coming out.
I have really not tried for a formal employment because I am
quite aware that it will be very difficult for any university or
any institution to take me up as an employee because of this case
and so on. I'm very lucky that I'm a lawyer
and Lloyd is an independent intellectual in that sense and
they're sort of self-employed at the moment.
Basically it is unions which are supporting me.
I do legal cases for them and I'm lucky enough to be
associated with the senior advocate for whom I'm able to
draft cases and so on. So basically it is my legal work
which sustains me. A person like you has social
capital, but general assumptions or biases are that human
activists like you get a lot of foreign.
Funding. Well, I think somebody just
needs to look at my bank account and they get to know that the
only regular money which came in was when I taught for that one
year. And no, I have never been funded
by anybody before. It was my union which supported
me throughout my years in Chhattisgarh later on, To some
extent, yes. My legal work.
I never earned money. I earned a lot of friends.
I think that is what I really earned and that is what has
helped me instead. I mean, that is why I'm
surviving today. I think again, not because of
money, but because of friends. You were saying that when you
walked out of jail you had nothing in your bank account.
Absolutely. I had nothing.
That's absolutely correct. You have called yourself a
constitution abiding person, but do you feel that people like you
were looked up as dissidents in current time?
See, being a dissident is not being anti democratic.
A democracy demands dissidents of certain kind.
For example, a democracy requires a Free Press, and the
Free Press is a critical press. Democracy demands that there
should be a an opposition. Without an opposition, you can't
have a democracy. So certain kinds of dissidents
are built into democracy. And I think as a lawyer, as a
trade unionist, as a human rights activist, it's perfectly
constitutional to be a dissident in that form.
In fact, it's required in order that you actually have a, you
know, living, growing democracy. So for you, what is the true
meaning of freedom? I think the true meaning of
freedom is to be able to what one thinks is right, to be able
to be with people and what I've done all my life, which is be
with people, be along with them in their fight to have a better
society. That is my greatest freedom
within whatever limitations. I mean, I have to be here in
Mumbai and I can't go back to the place of my work.
That's why I call it an exile. But Despite that, I would say
within my restrictions, I'm still continuing with my life in
the same way. How do you and your daughter
prepare for the future? Being lodged inside the jail one
more time cannot be ruled out. Right.
I think this is the reality that we have to face.
I mean I am still only out on bail.
The trial is extending ahead of us, though I believe that I will
be acquitted, but trial is yet to happen and the the judgment
is yet to be passed. Do you ever discuss this
possibility? My daughter doesn't like
discussing it and I quite see why.
I just hope that I get the time at least to help her stand on
her own feet before such an eventuality comes.
And I also hope that we will all be acquitted of this case.
Do you believe that you will get justice from the system?
I think justice and equality are two things which are very innate
to the human being. Even if they're two very small
children and you give one child one roti, give another child 2
rotis, the child with one roti will throw away that one roti
and say you give me just like that person.
So the sense of equality and justice is very deep inside us,
and I believe that that cannot be suppressed for long, even if
for some time in a system it appears that these these very
basic, fundamental emotions are being suppressed.
It cannot go on forever. No kind of suppression, no kind
of tyranny can last forever. It's not possible.
So you are an optimist and. Very much I believe in, in
humanity, I believe in people, and I think they're powerful
enough sometime or the other to make those changes.
Today's episode was produced by Jayaraj Singh and Anuja Singh.
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