Black Warrant: The True Story of JNU’s Tihar Jailbreak

A still from Black Warrant's JNU episode. / Netflix Official Site

Black Warrant, a new Netflix series receiving rave reviews, has the Indian diaspora mesmerized. Ex-denizens of Delhi have been watching episodes as the city's criminal history plays out.

The Netflix series tells the story of Tihar jail’s inmates on death row. Sprinkled in their story is the fascinating case of 1983 documenting a bold escape from Tihar jail by 168 students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Some 250 JNU students were arrested for arson and rioting, but amazingly, 168 students, including 55 women, managed to escape right under the noses of the jailors. Among the 80 who were bailed out was Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee, JNU dean Amitabh Mattoo and civil servant Dr Amiya Chandra.

Ex-student-inmates tell what happened

One of the JNU idealists who was arrested and sent to Tihar Jail was Amitabh Mattoo, presently Dean of the School of International Studies, JNU. He was a member of the Free Thinkers, a JNU student group in May 1983, and subsequently became its Convenor. He tells the story of that time. 

“In May 1983, I spent nearly 10 days at Delhi’s Tihar jail for the first and, till now, the only time in my life. With me were several hundred young men and women, many of whom are today leaders across the globe: including diplomats, professors, and members of parliament, scientists, and editors. The Tihar experience was transformational.”

Why were the students jailed?

“Everyone has his or her version of 1983,” wrote Mattoo, adding: “For most others, it was a question of principle, at a time when everyone believed that student power was supreme and the student union almost sovereign. A student had been suspended from the hostel without a proper inquiry; the students’ union restored the room to him, after breaking the ‘official’ lock. Two of the office bearers were rusticated, as a consequence. The ‘inhumane’ gherao of the Vice Chancellor and the Rector that followed was difficult to justify.”

Police were called by the university as student protests broke out. 

“We thought we were voluntarily ‘courting arrest’ as a symbol of protest, and believed totally in the righteousness of our cause, only to wake up next morning in the jail to the news that we were charged for ‘attempt to murder’ and ‘rioting’ by a  Delhi government wanting to ‘clean up’ the campus of ‘romantic revolutionaries’.” 

Dr Amiya Chandra, Zonal Development Commissioner, Gujarat SEZs and EOUs Rtd, who was a student of JNU at the time felt under a moral obligation to board the bus to Tihar.  “I was all of 20 years-old. I had never even voted in an election in Bihar out of fear. And here I found myself in Tihar jail!”

“It would be cowardice to evade arrest, I was told by my fellow students,” said Chandra. “We were idealists and truly believed in our power to change the world.”

The plan was hatched on the bus

The students, while singing “Hum honge kamyab (We will overcome” and other motivating songs, entered Tihar. Some tore up their ID cards and used fictitious names. Boys and girls were separated and sent to separate rooms. 

Taking a false name had its own complications. Two boys had both called themselves Ram Prasad, son of Dashrath Prasad. When the name was called out, both boys would stand up. “We then had to call them Ram Prasad 1 and Ram Prasad 2,” chuckled Chandra. 

All charges were put on everyone: attempt to arson, loot, dacoity, attempt to rape, attempt to murder, etc. “Except for murder, they levied all charges on us. Girls too were charged with attempt to rape,” guffawed Chandra. 

Life in jail

“Taking a bath was a problem. For 12 days we had no showers and did not shave our facial hair. When we went to use the bathroom, we had to whistle all the time so the authorities knew we were still alive and had not used the half torn curtain of the toilet to hide and commit suicide,” said Chandra. “When we heard a whistling sound we knew the toilet was busy.”

The students were given substandard food. “The curry was just chilies floating and the roti was so hard it was impossible to break,” recalls Chandra. They went on a fast to death. Within three days they were moved up a class and the food and treatment improved. Pickpockets and other petty thieves were now their cooks.    

In a few days, Chandra recalls, the food had become better than the JNU’s mess food!! Pooris, vegetable curries and halwa was served. 

Sushil Singh, who was a pukka non-vegetarian, would use the transfer-visitor’s stamp-to-own-arm method to leave the jail, eat chicken and return to the jail.

The cellmates played volleyball in the evening. “I learnt a new sport and became very good at it,” remembers Chandra. 

Visitors kept the morale up students

Sunil Kumar, education minister of Bihar, recalls visiting his St Stephens college classmate, Gopinath in Tihar. “I was sent off to buy a couple of cigarettes by him,” he remembers with a smile. 

Girlfriends of some of the students would bring dry fruits etc. “We would eat their dry fruits,” said Chandra. 

KVS Rao visited his classmates in Tihar, “On that fateful day, when all were entering the truck voluntarily, I was somewhere near Ganga Dhaba watching. Few days later, I visited Tihar jail escorting my senior Aroon Raman's sister there.”  

Now a retired civil servant, KVS Rao imagines what must have gone through the traumatized minds of the poor students, “Psychological experience varies, though. But surely traumatic for a young, educated non-criminal. What would have been most important thing going on their mind at that moment, I can guess, were: will release ever happen? what will family think? and what will the impact on future education be and then career?”

Students got depressed. Two students had their birthdays in jail. Lemons and water were procured and lemonade was offered to them instead of champagne. A makeshift celebration was arranged. A  smuggled Playboy-ish magazine was used to read out aloud stories of Savita bhabi. These storytelling sessions to improve the mood of the cell mates became quite regular. 

Eventually, the 80-odd students were bailed out by politicians at the end of 12 days. 

“Two of the students who were arrested had cleared their Civil Services exam. One of them had a father who was also very senior in the government. In order for the concerned students to continue on their path to civil service the charges needed to be dropped quickly, said one student. 

The great escape

In the episode of Black Warrant, the jailers are flummoxed when 168 students escape a jail that hardened criminals had been unable to run away from. 

One audacious cellmate, KM, thought up the scheme of transferring the stamp of a visitor onto his wrist in the sweltering May heat and escaped first, leading to a trend.  

“But his audaciousness reached its limits in the US. The American system was less kind to him. He was convicted of a criminal offence committed in 1997 in Rhode Island and spent time in a US prison as well!” said a classmate from School Of International Studies, JNU. In 2005, the Supreme Court of Rhode Island upheld the judgement against him. 

The aftermath

The episode inspired students to achieve greater goals. Dr Chandra took to fighting for students’ rights and was elected President of the JNU students’ union in 1986-87. 

One of the escaped students returned to Tihar Jail as Inspector General and became the boss of the jail officer who had been suspended for the great escape. 

“The experience of Tihar was itself life-changing. It was as much about recognising the virtues of idealism, as well its limits. About recognising the importance of freedom, as well as its limits. About recognising the power of the Indian state, and the limits of resistance. And, above all, about how confinement can, initially, cripple you psychologically, but once the initial distress has been overcome, it can be truly liberating and can help you to come to terms with your inner self– much like Vipassana meditation.  We were all bailed out, the charges dropped in a few years, and most of us went on to return to our petit bourgeois world of careers, and families and ambition. But who could ever forget May 1983? You can and you did, as must be said, take me out of Tihar, but not the Tihar out of me,” wrote Mattoo.