How Long Can the Moon Be Caged: Voices of Indian Political Prisoners

Nargis Saifi spoke with immense courage of the challenges of a mother to bring up three children while their father is in jail. Khalid Saifi, who was arrested in connection to the Northeast Delhi pogrom and the anti-CAA protests, has been in jail since 2020 and, as a Muslim man, was subjected to a horrific media smear campaign where he was portrayed as a terrorist. That's when Nargis decided to turn off the TV and stop watching the news as she was worried about the psychological impact this could have on their children. Nargis told us of the huge effort it takes to keep a brave face even as she feels lonely and devastated by the absence of her husband. He has always been the main provider for the family, he would buy groceries, clothes for everyone and even make-up for her.

His infectious laughter would fill the house, and now, without him, there was an unbearable silence. The arrest was particularly hard on their daughter, who for a long time struggled to sleep as she was in the habit of falling asleep while hugging her father. As a mother, it was difficult for Nargis to make sense of such hardship, and in the early days after he was taken away, she would find herself at the window looking out in the direction where Khalid would usually come home from, waiting for his return. It took time and determination to yank herself out of that state of suspension as she had to be present and alert for the kids.

There was one moment that had almost pushed Nargis to breaking point: it happened the last time she took their eldest son to a court hearing. As the boy was about to start boarding school, Nargis wanted him to see his father before he moved to a different city to study. The moment the boy saw his father he instinctively reached out to touch his arm, but a policeman intervened and violently pushed the boy away 'for security reasons'. Nargis recalled that her son had been brave and strong and had never cried once throughout his father's detention-until that day. There and then he started sobbing uncontrollably and kept repeating: 'How can I be a danger to my father?' Nargis was horrified and kept wondering: 'Who is going to dering answer this?'

Noorjahan, Athar Khan's mother, had felt the same in court when she saw her son and went to sit behind him so they could be somewhat close. She had a plastic bottle of water in her hands and her son asked for a sip so that, even if indirectly, he could feel his mother's touch. She remembered that she felt her heart melting at her son's request. When Athar reached out for the bottle, however, a policeman slapped at his hand and moved him away; Noorjahan felt her soul crush.

A conversation with Meeran Haider's eldest sister, Farzana, transmitted to us the unspeakable pain that families try to handle in their day-to-day life. She had systematically declined to speak to the media for fear of being tricked or forced to say things she did not intend to or of being outright misrepresented. She agreed to talk to us only because of the intercession of an influential member of the community, who told her that she could trust us. Her pain and the sheer effort it took to be there were palpable when we met her and sat down together in a windowless room. We arrived at her house in the midst of recurring power cuts, and when she started speaking, it was pitch dark even in that early morning hour. Her droning voice and muffled sobs emerged from the darkness as the disembodied sound of ancestral pain.

We did not stay long as we did not want to inflict further trauma on her with our presence and questions. Meeran had been under Farzana's care since he was in the ninth grade, and now, he was in jail. Farzana struggled to make sense of all Meeran had always been a good boy and a diligent student, if a little too selfless for her own taste. Now Meeran was in jail and her life was upended. Farzana told us that he was well liked in the community. Even walking around in the neighbourhood at times became too difficult as everyone knew she was Meeran's sister, and every single time she would walk past the Jamia Millia Islamia campus, where Meeran was pursuing his PhD, her eyes would well up with tears.

The disruption of life that these targeted arrests brings to the families and communities they belong to is pervasive and all-encompassing. Reference points are uprooted, certainties wiped out, geographies deterritorialized.

(Excerpted with permission from ‘How Long Can the Moon Be Caged: Voices of Indian Political Prisoners’, by Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Rechhia, with permission from Westland Books)