The Feared: Conversations with Eleven Political Prisoners by Neeta Kolhatkar. Published in 2024 by Simon and Schuster India, 818, Indraprakash Building, 21, Barakhamba Road, New Delhi 110001 and Yoda Press LLP, C-28, Basement, Mayfair Gardens, New Delhi 110016, www.simonandschuster.co.in; www.yodapress.co.in. Pp: xxx+240. Price: Rs 399.
In the Nobel Prize winning novelist Dorris Lessing’s Briefings for a Descent into Hell (1972), there is only one individual who is portrayed dealing with what may be described as the tyranny of the state, never mind the state, or the country, that she’s described.
Neeta Kolhatkar’s experience talking to 11 political prisoners in Indian jails across......