“Love and Rage”: Natasha and Devangana’s letters of hope and resistance from Tihar Jail 6 https://caravanmagazine.in/crime/love-and-rage-natasha-narwal-devangana-kalita-letters-tihar-jail Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal 13 June 2021
It is women’s defiance collectively that helped one survive “outside,” it is the same that is crucial to surviving “inside,” in jail. Every day I draw strength from the women who have been here for many years; women who have no-one “outside”; [women] who are endlessly waiting through long trials; women who are from far away countries and don’t even speak English or Hindi; women who have delivered their babies here and bring them up here; women who do not have money to hire lawyers and patiently negotiate the arduous process of the government legal aid system; women who have not spoken to anyone in their families for months because they just cannot remember or find a contact number and no one responds to their letters “home”; women who are as much “criminals” as prisoners of structural oppressions.
… Basically prison is an extension of the logical end of all the unfreedoms in the society one has been fighting against, everything meant to crush one’s autonomy. But I have seen—even in a place like this which is meant to strip away one’s autonomy and humanity, reduce people to bare life—people still manage to retain some, hiding them in nooks and corners, hiding them from always prying eyes. They still manage to laugh, cry, sing together, form intimacies and friendships, dream about another future. I have also realised the infinite creativity people have, how they transform things, places into something else for survival with dignity.