समाजवादी चिन्तक संच्चिदानंद सिन्हा का पत्र जेल प्रशासन के नाम

नीचे दिया गया पत्र समाजवादी चिन्तक संच्चिदानंद सिन्हा ने 1965 में गिरफ़्तारी के दौरान मुजफ्फरपुर जेल में उत्पीडन के खिलाफ अनशन के लिए लिखा था। हालाँकि उस अनशन की जरूरत नहीं पड़ी क्योंकि जेल प्रशासन ने अनशन से एक दिन पहले ही उनकी जायज़ मांगो कों मान लिया था।

Prisoner’s Petition

From (Name number and class)- Sachchidanand Sinha s/o Brajnandan pd singh Division (b) and class X (symbol c)

16.9.65

From Muzaffarpur Jail

To

The District Magistrate

Muzaffarpur

Sheweth

That this petitioner had put up a petition on 10^th Sept. 1965 through the jail authorities for immediate removal of symbol ‘c’. However, no action has been taken in this respect till now. That five days is not normally a long duration for those who are free. But for a man under confinement for an indefinite period every day might appear an eternity. This delay is made all the more oppressive when one has to live under the inhuman condition imposed by the diabolical symbol ‘c’. The provisions of the Rules for those stigmatized under this symbol are unjustified even for the worst of criminals. Such a prisoner is shut out from all light both physical and intellectual Denial of books and paper, virtual denial of all intercourse with the friendly world and denial of air and comforts, makes the life of such a prisoner a living entombment. Even Criminals are human beings and imprisonment by an enlightened government is a means towards prevention of crimes or reformation. Any attempt to subject them to conditions of beastly indignity smacks of sadism and can have only a brutalizing effect on the administration. It may be instructive to remember that a man like Oscar Wilde could be imprisoned for criminal offences and the great novelist Costoyevsky had a reprieve and to be exiled in Siberia after living for a long time under orders of execution It is true that your are powerless in remedying these evils in the law. But this has been pointed out because it lies within your power to classify the prisoners and you can take a more charitable view of their crimes.

Taming to my own case and that of other political prisoners who have been favored with this symbol ‘c’, the issue takes on a wider significance when political prisoners like us are classified ‘ habitual criminal’ of ‘goonda’, the words simply lose their meaning. George Orwell pointed out just this condition of thought process when he elaborated the theme of ‘double talk’. In an essay, ‘Politics and English Literature he set forth the view that the corruption of language through misuse paves the way for dictatorship. He was then concerned about the fate of British democracy. Our Indian democracy is much too fragile to stand such corruption of thought.

Thus what has been done to us is a threat to democracy itself. If we read recent European history, we must be aware that Hitler came to power in Germany through the Waimer constitution, which was considered one of the most democratic constitutions in the world. But though while the framework of the constitution remained intact, through persecution of the opposition parties, its vitals had been eroded away and it finally collapsed. Your decision to penalize the opponents of the ruling party for their political conviction, by treating them as criminals is a repetition of much the same process. As a democrat I am bound to protest against this decision both on personal as well as on political ground.

I have, therefore, decided to undertake a fast unto death from the morning of 18.9.1965 against your decision to treat me as a habitual criminal or a goonda.

Yours faithfully

P.S. I was released from the jail one day before my fast was to begin.