Restless: Vernon Gonsalves’ prison letter

Introduction

Vernon Gonsalves, one of the co-accused in the Bhima Koregaon/ Elgaar Parishad case is currently in hospital following a diagnosis of dengue fever and possibly pneumonia. Gonsalves, 65, had registered complaints of ill health on 30th August 2022, but it took an appeal from his lawyer and the intervention of the Court for the Taloja Jail authorities to shift him to JJ Hospital for treatment. The fact that he was immediately put on oxygen support at the hospital, points to the apathy of the Jail authorities regarding the health of prisoners lodged in their custody.

We, members of the international academic community, are deeply concerned about his health and that of countless other undertrials in Indian prisons. We call on their release and we demand justice for the BK16!

The text below was written by Vernon Gonsalves in November 2019, during his time in the Yerawada Central Prison, Pune. The Bhima Koregaon 9 (VV, Sudha Bharadwaj, Shoma Sen, Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut, Arun Ferreira, Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson and Vernon Gonsalves) have since grown to the ‘BK-16’, a figure that includes Father Stan Swamy, who died in custody following post-covid complications in July 2021. The following letter was written before his case was transferred to NIA and shifted to Mumbai.

Restless
Vernon Gonsalves

These bars here are quite secure, quiet and very secure. They are solid iron. They cast such stolid familiar shadow patterns. Then, there’s the ungentle clang of their thick stout bolts. Lock, open, lock again, again open - very regular and oh so soothingly predictable. All in all, a surrounding so secure, so reassuring - even sometime comforting.

The other day I had this nightmare, running scared hither and thither. At every stop there was this smiling portly clerk, peeping up from behind his big bad book. Slamming it shut with an ominous thump, his eyes boring down on me, he’d voicelessly mouthed the verdict, “Not in Register!” Chasing me wherever I ran, “Not in Register!”

Drenched in sweat, I awoke. The bars were in place, so were the shadows. The ungentle clang was proceeding predictably up the corridor. All assuring me that I’m booked… and I’m in the book. I felt so secure, so safe.

Time and again, they come closing in. Mounted on giant bulldozers, they’re flattening my village. I run and run, I try to hide behind trees and rocks, but it’s useless. They spout fire, send explosions all around. Helicopters hover and bullets fly. They close in tighter. Most terrifying is that well-dressed man. He’s egging on the armed hordes with single minded dedication. I can’t shake off the threat of his eyes. They’ve got the righteous earnestness of corporate social responsibility.

Finally, I must get up - to the silent steadfastness of the chipped granite walls around me. They are not closing in. There are also those familiar bars with their unwavering shadow patterns. It feels good to know I’m not being broken down, not being flattened out.

Nowadays, it’s despair that’s dominating. The scenery is beautiful, but enveloped in a gloom of terror and sadness. War echoes in the distance. Someone is being bombed. A child cries, and the lovely lake turns a ghastly red.

I awake with a chill and a shiver. My beloved bars calm me, bring warmth. I’m behind bars. In their embrace, what have I to fear?

I don’t even need to remind myself how fortunate I am. Isn’t it nice to be sheltered when a hundred horrors abound? I even have a cast-iron alibi for not being out on the streets fighting fascism.

Yet, I’m restless.


About Vernon Gonsalves

Characterised by a loose cotton half sleeve shirt, loose trousers, spectacles, a jhola and a hearty laughter, Vernon Gonsalves comes across as an effervescent wise man. Gonsalves gets along well with everyone from the age of six to sixty. His demeanour reflects an inner happiness.

Vernon’s pen is as sharp as his vision for an equitable, just society without distinctions of class, caste, race, with principles of gender equality and justice at its core. He is an acute political observer and makes nuanced arguments about complex socio-political-economic issues. Vernon has shown a keenness to understand the latest undercurrents in progressive politics.

He was born to a Mangalorean Catholic couple and grew up in a chawl in a modest locality in Byculla in Mumbai. Vernon was always good with academics and won a gold medal in Commerce from Mumbai University. Subsequently, he left his corporate job in Siemens to work with trade unions, workers, slum dwellers and the working class in Mumbai. During this period, he taught in prominent colleges in Mumbai including Ruparel College, HR College of Commerce and Economics, and Akbar Peerbhoy College of Commerce and Economics. Very few know that, in college he wanted to be a musician. Rumours say that he had also started a band but could not find meaning in it.

Around 1983, he moved to Chandrapur near Nagpur to work with unorganised sector workers including the coal-mine workers in the area.

On 19 August 2007, the Maharashtra ATS arrested Vernon from his residence in Andheri, Mumbai. His arrest was falsely shown as from the residence of his co-accused S. Shridhar in Govandi. They were charged with being a "top-level" Naxalites having explosives in their possession. For some months prior to this, he had been working for the rights of tribal communities in the Maharashtra district of Chandrapur. 20 cases were filed against him. He spent nearly six years in jail while his trial dragged on as an undertrial. He was acquitted in 18 cases, convicted in one against which his appeal is pending in the Nagpur HC while the application for discharge in the last case in Gujarat is pending before High Court.

During his years as an undertrial in jail, Vernon spent most of his time writing. Before his arrest, he was working on a collection of prison writings. He edited a set of short stories written while imprisoned, one of which, “Jailbird Jabbar” was written in a typical staccato Bambaiya patois style. He also translated a story by Annabhau Sathe from Marathi to English for Aleph Publication’s “A Clutch of Short stories.” After his release he wrote articles on prevailing law, rights of Dalit and tribal communities, the condition of prisons in India, land grabbing by the nexus of Corporates and the Government, misuse of the criminal justice system by the governments against marginalised communities, and scrapping of UAPA. One of his last published articles titled Harsher Punishments and Retributive Criminal Justice, is a landmark commentary on the trends of crime control vis-a-vis justice system in the country

In 2017, in reference to UAPA, the Act under which he is currently charged, he wrote, “If, on the other hand, should the oppressed dare to show some militancy in resistance, they must be ready to face all the vehement violence that the security agencies are capable of – lathi-charges, firing, implication in false cases under draconian laws, and even torture.”