Locating Carceral Heritage in the Indian Independence Saga

Abstract

In recent years, there is renewed attention on India’s freedom struggle by the Indian state
and its people alike. This paper, focuses on two particular ways this is happening. Firstly,
there are concerted efforts by diverse actors towards the (re)discovery of lesser-known or
erstwhile unacknowledged revolutionaries with a bid to give them their due place in the
ever-growing pantheon of India’s freedom fighters. Secondly, several heritage sites have
been developed to honour and commemorate the lives and work of those revolutionaries
who participated in India’s independence movement. These two modes of chronicling the
contributions of India’s freedom fighters are interconnected and mutually constitutive, and
prominently draw on narratives of criminalisation, police repression, and incarceration of
India’s freedom fighters by the British colonial powers. Their contributions to India’s
independence is often appraised through the tales of their suffering as political prisoners.
This paper draws from ethnographic fieldwork conducted at 4 former British-era prisons
which have been recently revived by the post-colonial Indian state as heritage sites
dedicated to India’s freedom fighters. And is complemented with a close reading of their
prison memoirs, diaries, letters, auto/biographies etc. which document their carceral lives. I
ask, how is the figure of the colonial political prisoner being reimagined today? How do the
recently emerging carceral heritage sites contribute to this?