The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 307

social science, experimented with innovative approaches to problem-solving. She founded the highly successful Naviyoti, a police foundation providing free one-month residential detox programs for Delhi drug addicts. The no man's land behind the floodlit, barbed-wired walls of Tihar Jail would likewise be the proving ground for radical ideas. Previous prison governors had ceased coming to work, discouraged by incidents such as the one in which a former inspector-general had his finger bitten off during an inspection tour. There was trepidation when Bedi announced she would be making daily visits, walking unguarded along the metal pathways between the barracks and dormitories, trademark notebook and pen in hand.

A deeply spiritual woman, she began her first such tour by encouraging male prisoners to join her in prayer. After some initial reluctance, they did, and the voices of jailer and jailed joined in a chorus of Aye Malik tere bande hum, aise hon hamare karam, neki par chalen (Lord, we are your creation, may our actions be worthy). Soon the floodgates of reform were open. An early target was the notorious "20 the black hole in the black hole, where Tihar's "mad" were held in solitary confinement, without clothes or toiletries. A jail official who visited the cells had reported that anyone kept there "for even a week would definitely go Bedi closed the cells.

Creating order out of chaos: (top) Bedi with prisoners in the education program she began; (above) scanning the papers. Homeopaths began making daily visits to rupees, but just down the road the foreigner will ease the agony of drug-addicted new arrivals be stopped and searched by other police, who will going through withdrawal in isolation wards. demand bribes of 100,000 rupees to turn a blind The Indira Gandhi National Open University eye. Often the backpacker won't be carrying that set up shop within the prison walls. Computers kind of money and they're carted off to jail." and cable television were introduced.

Panchayats, Australians are among those caught in the or local governing groups, were formed, with maelstrom of injustice. In November, a 66-yearthe prisoners organising educational programs, old Australian citizen was released from Pune HIV and AIDS awareness programs and cultural jail after charges of drug trafficking against him activities. A nursery school was opened, sports were thrown out of court. He had spent three were reintroduced and, for the first time, years in custody. the children of Tihar were taken on excursions The man, who did not want to be named, told to visit gardens, museums and the city zoo.

GOOD WEEKEND: "First they put me in Bombay The prison became a strict no-smoking jail and then I was moved to Pune. The jails are a zone. Its motley crew of murderers, rapists nightmare. Whatever you want, you have to pay. "They loved me and I loved them.

The experience of Tihar can be universal. Wherever determination is based on innate goodness anything is possible." and terrorists began attending meditation classes If you want to contact your family, if you want led by gurus brought in by Bedi. Significant your visitors to be able to come and see you, if reductions in anxiety, depression and hostility you want to see a doctor, everything costs money. were noted as a result. Also, the overcrowding is tremendous.

There were At first, prison toughs tried to disrupt classes. 200 people in one ward, and you only get water But ignoring their jibes and taunts, the gurus twice a day, even in the heat of summer. It's like persisted. Warders who opposed the changes hell there. There are no human rights." were paid to stay at home.

For every advance she made, Bedi had to VEN IN THE FLUSH OF HER FIRST EXPERIMENT confront entrenched bureaucratic obstacles. But with change in her new job, Bedi concedes her persistence was recognised by the awarding not everyone in the police force will buy her new of the Magsaysay Award Asia's Nobel Prize thinking: "The old are too old to unlearn," she and other honours. says. "They've grown up in a backscratching Despite her enthusiasm for social reform, system which protects the rich and powerful. I'm Bedi could be a stickler for the old ways.

She mainly interested in teaching the young to swim refused to allow condoms into the prison, for with the sharks, without getting eaten away." example, because homosexuality is illegal in Her many supporters believe her style of India. And she faced accusations that she was policing can overcome corruption in the ranks. a publicity hound and favoured prisoners whose One of her Tihar helpers, an American Buddhist high profiles matched her own, such as Charles nun and social worker called Sister Max Sobhraj (since released and now living in Mathews, observes: "I wasn't initially sure how France). Bedi dismisses her critics. "I felt within I could make a success of the project.

But after me that Devi Sarawati, the Hindu goddess of you meet Kiran Bedi, you can't say no." learning, had started to reside inside Tihar," Even if change does come to the Delhi she writes in It's Always Possible. force, will it last? Since Bedi's departure from Tihar jail in May 1995, bureaucratic inertia AT 49, HAVING MADE A DIFFERENCE AT TIHAR, has returned. More than half the 300 nonBedi has returned to the streets of a violent city government social organisations which were of more than 10 million people, where respect working inside have gone. Without support for law is at an all-time low. In the 10 months from the jail administration, money-spinning to October last year, New Delhi recorded 310 initiatives such as composting the jail's garbage murders, 172 abductions and 194 rapes.

The have collapsed. The media who, under Bedi, Indian capital has 60,000 police, but 40,000 are had unprecedented access to the jail are now deployed in VIP security duties. Their "Dad's banned from entering. The self-managing Army" weapons are no match for criminals panchayats have been wound up and only armed with AK-47s automatic rifles capable institutionalised programs such as the Open of spraying 30 bullets a second. University have survived.

All the evidence is that the criminal justice When Bedi's sudden transfer from Tihar was system is collapsing. Of the 9,000 prisoners held announced, inmates went on hunger strike for in Tihar, 90 per cent have not been convicted days and tensions prevailed for months. A small of any offence. More than 20 million cases are group of warders distributed sweets to celebrate pending in India's judicial jungle, and court delays her forced departure, in what writer Khushwant are the main factor in Tihar's overcrowding, Singh described as "a victory for a handful of despite the fact that the Supreme Court held small-minded, envious people over a gutsy recently that a speedy trial is a right guaranteed But, true to what she had taught her under India's Constitution. charges, peace prevailed and, when released, India's main jails have foreigners' wards, where many Tihar prisoners make a pilgrimage to see young Western tourists wait, usually on drugs- the woman who gave them hope of life after related charges which diplomats say are often and during incarceration.

trumped up by bribe-hungry police. "Often "They loved me and I loved them," Kiran plainclothes police will approach young foreigners Bedi once said of the prisoners. "The experience and offer them charas form of or of Tihar can be universal. Wherever combined to one foreign embassy. "It will only cost 40 anything is possible." brown sugar," says a consular official attached determination is based on innate goodness AUSTRAL.