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While students of National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, helped design the magazine, the prisoners did the editing, coordination and proof reading.
Shabbir Hussain Hussain Miya Sheikh's shayari touches the heart. A convict serving life sentence for murder, he “has been into shayari since he was young”, says his son Wasim Sheikh. Shabbir, 61, a class 11 dropout, has been part of all activites at the Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad.
The talents of people like Shabbir and Manish Parmar from Saurashtra (region), another convict serving life sentence, have been showcased in a literary magazine, Saad—The Voice of Prisoners. The Navajivan Trust, founded by Mahatma Gandhi in 1929, is printing and distributing the Gujarati magazine for free.
It has short poems, photographs, details of activities in the jail, crossword puzzles and stories. “Tapping the talent of prisoners was the idea of former jail superintendent Sunil Joshi. We plan to make the magazine a quarterly. To begin with, the prisoners from Sabarmati Jail will contribute, and thereafter inmates of other jails in Gujarat will join in,” says freelance journalist Prashant Dayal, who helped the Trust in the project. “Normally, people are unaware about what is happening in a jail. The magazine will change that to some extent.”
The magazine
While students of National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, helped design the magazine, the prisoners did the editing, coordination and proof reading. Each person was given a responsibility based on his talent. Parmar, a painter, is excited about the project.
Such an attempt, he says, would inspire other inmates to come forward and contribute. “There are many inmates who go into depression and do not participate in functions. This is natural as they do not accept the sentence,” says Parmar.
According to Ahmedabad jail superintendent Premvir Singh, the onus would be on the authorities to ensure that the magazine comes out every quarter. “People have different talents and they should be given opportunity and this is all the more necessary when they are behind the bars,” he says.
T.S. Bisht, inspector general of prisons, Gujarat, lauded Navajivan Trust for its role in bringing out the magazine. He added that Sabarmati Jail is where freedom fighters like Mahatma Gandhi and Bal Gangadhar Tilak were lodged. “Prisoners get influenced by Gandhiji's philosophy,” he says.
Says Vivek Desai, managing trustee of the Trust: “This is the first time that jail inmates have done everything but the printing. Their voices get vent and once they become regular there is a possibility that the magazine can be put up at stalls.”
