A Weekend in Tihar

Once you are handed over, Tihar begins its six hours of prisoner processing. We walked from the police bus to the big gate with the small door that you have to crouch to get through. I had three stitches on my left arm and a limp from a cut on the sole of my right foot. The cotton and gauze that were wrapped around it had started falling apart. We were seven out of the eight men in the JNU14. The women had been taken for a medical checkup, and the eighth man, Vishnu Tiwari, due to it being his second time in Tihar, was sent to another prison block altogether. He smiled as he was taken away.

We were ordered to discard all personal effects: belts, house keys, loose change. These were to be hung on the iron fencing outside the gate, along with the many other rusted house keys and weathered belts. Except for the loose change, which goes into the guards’ pockets. By this point, despite the two long days of abrasion with the police, the seven of us were still in high spirits. We were hoping for a short stay, and after all these years, I thought I would be more prepared.

Processing is designed to humiliate and prepare you for life inside. Most of it involves waiting in a line in the hallway with other would-be inmates. Two lines were going in opposite directions. That day’s intake and release. The ‘release’ line stood across us in the hallway with markedly different emotions. Through the iron grill, we could see a giant mural of a canal in Venice painted on the wall. 

Some of us hadn't eaten a full meal since the protest the day before. The food was served on the floor, on two plates for seven people. We hunched around it and ate quickly. The food came from what seemed like the mess intended to feed the prison staff. Through our jokes about prison food, we slowly realised that this would be the last meal we would recognise as food for the duration of our stay.

Processing involves confirming your identity over and over. You are questioned at one station and then another and then another. Names, addresses, affiliations, insults, names again. One by one, we were forced to squat on the floor to answer. You were hit for non-compliance. The floor felt cold on the skin. Someone was asking questions. The floor had a crack in it shaped like a river delta. Someone was asking questions. The crack ran from near the left boot of the man ahead of me to somewhere under the table. The questions continued.

We were stripped at two different points. First, in the medical room with the prison doctor and two guards. We were made to stand in a line with our foreheads leaning on the back of the person in front of us, and asked to strip one by one. We were probed for injuries. Evidence of what was done to us already before we arrived. We laughed at each other once it was done. The second was a strip search for contraband, which requires squatting five times, to make sure the body doesn’t contain anything other than itself. There was an unusual number of Tamil policemen in charge of intake, but my attempts at small-talk in broken Malayalam-Tamil were met with stonewalling.

At night, when the formalities ended, we were brought into the main compound of Prison No. 4. We were greeted by a giant statue of Buddha in the lotus position. It was surrounded by well-tended gardens and high walls. Here we were assigned our specific ward and barrack. They write your number on the palm of your hand with a ballpoint pen.

Of the seven of us, Nitish, former JNUSU president, and I were placed in Ward No. 1, though in separate barracks. This meant we would see each other during the six hours of yard time permitted each day. The five other comrades were distributed across five different wards, in which they were to spend the rest of their time alone, cut off from the rest and the outside world. We looked at each other helplessly as we were herded in different directions. 

Once in our ward, Nitish and I would have our first prison dinner. This meal consisted of dal, sabzi, and roti served on a plate that still contained the oil and grime of its previous meal. The dal was more of a yellow water. The sabzi didn't taste any different from the dal. The roti was unremarkable. We reassured each other that we would be out by tomorrow and then were taken into our own barracks. On the way, we were not provided the prison basics: a blanket, a towel, a toothbrush, a plastic tiffin box, and a cup. At that moment, we understood this as a good thing, hoping that it indicated the short duration of our stay.

A barrack is a giant rectangular hall in which around 140 to 150 prisoners sleep on the floor. It has small, high windows with a thick iron grill. The prisoners slept in three long rows along its length. It was cramped, and you had to tuck your limbs in to sleep. The middle row was called the “highway” because others passed over your head and feet while they moved anywhere, and was not preferred by anyone. First-timers are usually assigned to the highway, but having taken pity on my injuries, I was given a spot in the row by the wall. It was a cold night. I was offered a blanket by the Bihar inmate ecosystem. By custom, you introduce yourself by your name and what crime you are in for. The prisoners on my left and right introduced themselves to me as Rakesh, in for triple murder and Himanshu, a contractor who was in for negligence that led to the death of a biker. I was Varkey, in for protesting. Many sat up and demanded details. Most expressed solidarity. One of them asked me my age. I told him I was 28. He mockingly asked what I was still doing in university when I should be making an honest living. I asked him what he was in for. Credit card scam. 

The prisoners were winding down for sleep. The man across from me on the ‘highway’ looked ill. His neighbours were tending to him. He was picking on old scabs to see if they bled. The lights are turned off at 11 pm. I could not sleep on night one. My right leg had become sore from limping. The cut on my left arm was hurting as the inflammation began stretching the stitches. I was missing my lungi and the loving touch of my comrades who would press my legs on such days.

I remembered how I got here. Earlier that day, I was the only one among the 14 who, due to getting sidetracked to Safdarjung hospital, and due to my terrible comprehension of Hindi in the courtroom, did not know that we were going to be kept in Tihar. The previous morning, after being granted bail, we were herded onto a police bus, where I took a long and tired nap. I was awakened by the racket of the plastic fans inside the bus, to the bright afternoon sun glaring off Tihar’s imposing walls and its watch towers with armed guards. I asked Shyam where we were.

Day 2

In the morning, the prisoners were awakened by shouting. It was 6 am. We got up and left the barrack in an orderly manner. Most would hurry to reach the toilets, which had no bolts to lock the doors. The distance from where you sat to the door was such that you could not reach both simultaneously, leading to many unfortunate incidents. So the best you could do was pray or sing to mark your presence. 

Hot tea is brought in front of each barrack in transparent plastic bathroom buckets. A wooden stick skewered through a Wai-Wai cup noodle cup is used as a makeshift ladle to serve it into your own Wai-Wai cup. I did not try drinking it and rushed to find Nitish. 

He was sitting under a tree in the yard. He had vacant eyes and was scrubbing away the green nail paint from his right toe. We greeted each other with exhausted relief. We compared our nights. He’d had it worse. Due to overcrowding, the inmates in his barrack had to sleep on their sides, in full contact with the person in front of and behind them. We sat together without saying much.

Yard time is divided into two parts. Six to nine in the morning, and three to six in the evening, the barrack in between. During this time, we were free to roam around the ward, around 120 metres squared. We spoke about our possible release later that day. We also shared our worries about our other comrades, who would have been going through this same ordeal, but alone. I wondered what Shyam would be doing. This was his first brush with the law. He was worried about his mother. We started wondering about the people who have been here for years. We thought of Umar Khalid, who had been here for five years without trial. We couldn't know which corner of this sprawling complex he was kept in.As we walked through the yard, I had procured a copy of the Times of India from some of the Telugu inmates who were in for cybercrime. We searched eagerly for any news about our release and found nothing we didn’t already know.

Also read: For JNU, Three Days in Tihar

There is only one clock in the ward. Due to this, you are quickly taught the skill to tell time based on the angle of the sun and the length of the shadow by other inmates who are tired of your constant inquiry about time. Time sagged under the weight of having nothing to fill it with. This, combined with general anxiety, puts you in a deep time-warp. I would stare at a tree in the yard and examine its details. The way the light moved through it. The particular arrangement of its branches and scars. What felt like two hours of this was fifteen minutes. I know because I checked the clock and it had barely moved, and I went back to the tree and started again.

In the evening, I found the three other Malayalees in the ward. Arjun and Vishnu were on NDPS charges, trying to smuggle marijuana from Thailand through the Delhi Airport. They had been here for thirty-eight days. Riaz had an unpleasant run-in with the Delhi Police in Kerala over Hawala money laundering just a week ago. We complained about the food. One of them told me about the far superior prison menu in Kerala, especially about having meat three days a week. Here we were given two meals a day. It's the same meal twice, every day.

I tried to appeal for an OPD visit to get my wounds re-dressed. By this point, all of it had come apart, and I remembered the nurse’s warning not to get it infected. My appeal was rejected. I met Nitish, and we practised our new routine of reaffirming hope. He told me he had applied for his prisoner ID number. This meant that he would get his one-time phone call tomorrow, just in case. With the hopes of meeting again later that night, we parted for the day’s last headcount. 

After dark, the barracks fill with the song from the hour-long RSS prayer meeting. I was told it was a daily affair. I joined it out of sheer boredom. A group of inmates were gambling in the corner with cards made out of scrap notebook paper with the suits and numbers written on them with a pen. I was allowed to join despite my relative prison poverty. 

The man across from me on the highway had continued his decline. He hadn’t eaten the whole day. Other inmates were pleading with the guards for him to be taken to the OPD. Their requests were denied. I tried to ask him what was wrong. He did not speak much.

The roll call for anyone who was going to be released that day would happen between eight and nine. I listened to each announcement. The hour came and went. The other inmates offered me words of comfort. But they also told me that releases generally don’t happen on Sundays (tomorrow) and that the court would go on break for five days of Holi starting on Monday. I stared at the fan hanging from the high ceiling. The fans were high enough to prevent any kind of funny business. I tucked myself in for the long night.

Day 3

7 am. I was dragged out of sleep by Nitish, who had snuck into my barrack to confirm that I was still there. We wandered around the ward. We tried to make sense of why we weren’t released last night and decided to make use of his phone call today to gather some information. Luckily for both of us, he remembered the phone number of a comrade-in-arms.

The prison phone is a cruel object. It is always crowded and surrounded by an air of desperation. The phone itself is an armoured computer with a mouse and a classic handset connected to it. It ran Windows 95. You get one call. If the person on the other side doesn't pick up, that's it. If they accidentally cut the line, that's it. If there is a technical glitch after you dial, that's it.

He stood in the queue, and I waited nearby, sucking on a piece of jaggery that was given to me by the Tamil inmates. After a long wait, I saw him dial. I could not make out what was being spoken. I could see the expressions slowly draining from his face. Five minutes. The call ended, and I quickly enquired for news. He did not speak. I kept pressing him. He broke down. My mind raced to find the worst possibilities. I tried to comfort him. When he finally spoke, he said that they were delaying our release. Verification of addresses was the reason given. A few more days. No one knows how many. I felt relief.

The man across from me on the highway was finally taken to the OPD in the evening. At night, when we were having dinner, someone from the OPD came by the barracks and asked for the man’s possessions. He was dead. We paused and looked at each other. His possessions were gathered and handed over. I started going blank. Prabhu, one of the Tamil inmates, saw this and offered me his mango pickle. For reasons which are still not quite clear to me, I wept through the rest of my meal. I went for an early night and tucked myself in. I was kept up by the noise of the conversation in the hall when I heard my name being called.

Once you are cleared for release, Tihar begins its exit processing. The seven of us were brought to the same hallway we had been through three days earlier. We held each other in a deep and long embrace. I looked at the mural of the Venetian canal. As we crouched through the big gate with the small door, we were greeted by the slogans of our comrades. I found my house keys still hanging on the iron fencing. The belt was gone.

On February 26, 2026, the 14 of us were marching along with hundreds of other students in the JNU Long March demanding the resignation of JNU V-C Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit. Over the past several weeks, she had rusticated the elected student union representatives of JNU and aired casteist remarks regarding the “victim mentality” of the marginalised. The Delhi police attempted to stop the march by locking the JNU main gate with chains. Right outside the gate, they had posted enough personnel, barricades, and weaponry to stop a small war. None of this was out of the ordinary, and many of us were more than familiar with this song and dance. What was out of the ordinary this time was that students were sent to Tihar for an otherwise routine protest. The idea, it seems, is that by increasing the consequences, the state expects students to back down from any organised resistance out of fear. But the students are aware that the violence of letting things be is far more frightening.

And we only have one response to this. We will defend public education and the nation’s collective political life, come what may.

Varkey Parakkal is not a student of JNU and is currently a research scholar at the Department of Sociology, Jamia Millia Islamia.

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