"Well, I am off to NIA custody and do not know when I shall be able to talk to you again. However, I earnestly hope that you will speak out before your turn comes."
- Anand Teltumbde, on the eve of his incarceration in April 2020
Alpa Shah’s book on the Bhima Koregaon incarcerations is not an easy read. When I first decided to review the book – before laying my hands on it – I thought it would not take me longer than a week. How could it? I was familiar with the case, having covered it as a legal journalist, and I am usually a quick reader. It took me nearly three times the intended period to just finish reading. I had to pause several times simply to catch my breath before I allowed the tsunami of pain, anguish and terror to wash over me again. For this book is a relentless collection of uncomfortable truths. It is alive with accounts of fearlessness, but also of the cost it extracts. It is about the inequality of power, the absence of justice and the fragility of democracies. And that is precisely why you must read it.
But The Incarcerations (published by Harper Collins in March 2024) is also about hope. It juxtaposes the malleability of social structures with the unbreakability of conviction. And it is about the cracks in everything around you, that even in the darkest of hours, pave the way for some light to slip in.