Sudhir Dhawale: "This is a bigger prison"

A Bhima Koregaon political prisoner reflects on his release.

- SHAHID TANTRAY

The author and activist Sudhir Dhawale was released on 24 January, after six years and seven months in jail. Dhawale, who is one of the founders of the anti-caste group Republican Panthers Jatiantachi Chalwal and the editor of the Marathi magazine Vidrohi, was one of the organisers of the Elgar Parishad, on 31 December 2017, a day before caste violence broke out on the two-hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon. He was part of the first wave of arrests that followed, being picked up by the Pune police in June 2018 and charged under various sections of the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, with the police claiming that he was part of a conspiracy to assassinate India's prime minister, Narendra Modi. Along with another activist, Rona Wilson, he was granted bail by the Bombay High Court, in January 2025, on the grounds that their trial had not yet started. Shahid Tantray, a multimedia reporter at The Caravan, spoke to Dhawale at his organisation's Mumbai office.

You were in prison for over six years. How does it feel to be out?

When I came out of jail, I felt like I was moving from one prison to another. While we are in jail, the police are constantly around us. Police are with us whenever we leave our barracks for any work. Police are with us at court hearings. When we visit the hospital, the police are with us. This time, the police were not there—that is the small change—and there was a sense of calmness knowing that no one was following me, but this does not mean that we are completely free. We know that, today, all citizens of India are under so-called surveillance. We are all living under this surveillance. So, sure, we have come out of jail, but this is a bigger prison, which is open. If you want to call this freedom, that’s your choice.

You were arrested before as well—in 2011, under Congress rule. Do you feel there is a difference between the two arrests?