A prison peer-view that I cherish is a drawing by the artist Arun Ferreira, when we were fellow inmates of Nagpur Central Prison in 2011. He shows me sitting at the gate of my cell, writing-pad in hand, and writing—or rather, trying to write. It’s aptly titled, “Some Sophisticated Self-Deception.” Perhaps I like it because it’s an image that I, like many other political prisoners, wanted as a prison self-image—someone who’s not wasting away his years behind bars. Someone who has some output, even if “only” intellectual output. But such aspirations (or delusions) have to confront and cross sundry barriers put up by every prison administration. The prison system conditions the average superintendent or jailor to display a Pavlovian distrust of any form of cerebral activity among prisoners, particularly political prisoners. Writing materials, and even reading material, are seen with skepticism and suspicion, inviting restrictions and bans, which do not…

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