New Delhi: Early afternoon sunlight floods into Sahba Husain and Gautam Navlakha’s home, which is full of books and art, and cool and airy even in the Delhi summer.When I visit them, a little ahead of the second anniversary of Navlakha’s bail (May 14), I ask them if I can photograph them, by the entrance of their flat, in front of a painting of a bird in flight. My hope is to recreate a photograph from six years ago, clicked in April 2020, right before Navlakha, then a 68-year-old human rights activist, was compelled to surrender before the National Investigation Agency.The two images of Gautam Navlakha and Sahba Hussain. The left was clicked before Navlakha’s arrest in 2020. The right, a few days ago in 2026. Photos: Mekhala Saran.Post surrender, he was held captive for over four years under terrorism-related charges. Six years later, his case remains under-trial with no conclusion anywhere in sight. The case against him and his 15 co-accused has often been decried by civil society and human rights organisations as a “witch-hunt” against political dissidents. An array of independent investigators from across the world have also reported indications of malware use and fabricated evidence in the case.I, however, am only partially successful in my attempt at recreating the old picture. For while they sit the way they did, where they did, there is a certain lightness that now envelops Navlakha and Husain. They appear at ease and smile for my camera. While Navlakha alone went to jail, the sense that I get is that they have both been handed their life back. At least to the extent possible, at the moment.Navlakha confirms my suspicion when he says: “My jail account would remain incomplete without also Sahba’s account coming into it.”When Navlakha was locked up in Maharashtra’s Taloja central jail, Husain fought a legal battle for as little as permission to see him.She would then shuttle up and down from Delhi for brief mulakats (the term for jail meetings) at the prison, and during court hearings. She would also often wait for long spells — “two or three weeks” — for his letters to reach her. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a period of 110 days when she did not hear from him. When his spectacles broke in jail, and he was denied a fresh pair, she rallied to get them to him. When he wrote to her from the cramped classroom where he was quarantined with 40 other prisoners during the pandemic – that he did not think he would survive it – she waged a battle to get him shifted out of there. When his health dwindled drastically, and he was finally moved into house arrest in 2022, Husain left her work and her life in Delhi and moved into “partial-captivity” with him in a hall above the CPI(M) library in Belapur, a Mumbai suburb.“Nobody would have shown the kind of courage and commitment that Sahba showed. I mean, it’s just amazing that she chose to be with me for 20 months of house arrest where she was half captive. I was moving from jail to house arrest. She was moving from freedom to captivity,” says Navlakha.Once Navlakha was allowed bail in May 2024, but forbidden from leaving Maharashtra, the couple struggled for three months to find a place to rent. Husain notes that the struggle came from three reasons: Navlakha’s case, the fact that they were an unmarried couple, and that Husain was a Muslim.An image of Gautam Navlakha and Sahba Husain at their house. Photo: Mekhala Saran.‘The place I dreamt about’A year and a half later, when they returned to Delhi in January 2026, after the Bombay high court finally allowed him to do so owing to Navlakha’s health, the predictive length of the trial, and on humanitarian grounds, they were finally truly happy.“I still have to get over the emotional relief that I experienced returning to Delhi. And I’m looking at this city with new eyes and a new perspective, because it’s this place that I dreamt about, that I longed for,” Navlakha says.We sit in Husain’s study, where Navlakha had sat and written his last public letter before he went to jail. The letter, dated April 14, 2020, had said:“Such Acts (like the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, under which Navlakha was incarcerated) turn the normal jurisprudence upside down. No longer is it the axiom that ‘a person is innocent unless proven guilty’. In fact, under such Acts, ‘an accused is guilty unless proven innocent’…In this Kafkaesque domain, process itself becomes punishment.”And the process did become punishment for those accused in the Elgar Parishad case. Jesuit priest Father Stan Swamy, 84 years old and ailing from Parkinson’s disease, died an incarcerated undertrial. Even after eight years of imprisonment, lawyer Surendra Gadling remains behind bars: now in connection with a different case, having got bail in this one. Navlakha himself suffered from failing health while in custody, and the inconsiderations of prison-life.When a political prisoner arrives…When I ask Navlakha more specifically about his experience, he tells me that the prison-authorities treat all inmates with suspicion, but more so if they are political prisoners. “Whenever a political prisoner arrives, the superintendent briefs the jail authorities and tells them about the case, and they go by what the investigative agencies feed them. But the investigating agencies’ version is highly exaggerated. So when you are accused of something like Maoist-links or terrorism, the jail authorities really see you in the image of a terrorist. They don’t look at us as fellow human beings,” he says.But the nightmare-perception shatters if the prison authorities take the time to get to know the prisoners. For instance, Navlakha recalls the case of one particularly compassionate jailer, who was initially very tough with him, but grew to respect him. Subsequently, the jailer even went on to allow Navlakha the “perk” of sitting in an outdoor area, while he conducted evening meetings with prisoners who had complaints or requests. “He understood that I crave open space and to be able to breathe in fresh air.”Prison, however, both Husain and Navlakha concur, is an institution meant to dehumanise those trapped within. “So you can call it a ‘correctional centre’ and things like that. But that’s only a name you are giving,” Navlakha says.Gautam Navlakha and Sahba Husain. Photo: Mekhala Saran.What the jail doesHe offers the example of the pandemic: “What did the jail do? They stopped newspapers. They prevented people from coming out of their wards. Even when the bandhi [lockdown] opened and we were let out of our cells or barracks, we had to remain inside the ward. And in that crowded space, we had to find some way of moving around and stretching our limbs,” Navlakha says.Husain recounts feeling a sense of horror when she learned that Navlakha slept in a tight space – “you turn this way, you are almost breathing into each other” – between a man accused of brutal murder and a famous gangster. “When I asked him, how could you sleep like this, he said, ‘We are forced and thrown together. So I’m not going to say I can’t sleep next to this one or that one. You don’t have that choice’,” she says.Jail also helped Navlakha, and through him Husain, learn that a human being can be more than the offence he is accused of. “Much more than that, he also maybe has a family and people waiting outside,” Husain says.She shares that for many of his co-prisoners, Navlakha transformed into a friend, an uncle, a tau, and it warms her heart that they still ring him up to say hello if they are released from jail.Caste and class in prisonBut the couple stress on the fact that they were “luckier” than many others, for they had an “excellent legal team,” and caste and class privileges.“There were other inmates, some (even) over 80 years old, who had a tough time because they were either Dalits or Muslims or came from Bahujan background,” Navlakha says.In October 2024, the Supreme Court delivered a judgment directing the Union government and states to revise their prison manuals and address caste-based discrimination in prisons. The order came after an investigative report on The Wire exposed the prevalence of such discrimination in Indian prisons. The court noted, in its order, that the designation of “menial” jobs to oppressed castes was rooted in the “history of systemic discrimination” and violated the constitutional framework.“Jail is not just a microcosm of society, but it also mimics the social hierarchy and divisions outside,” Navlakha says. “Caste and class do matter. Who cleans the bathrooms and the toilets or the staircase and the barracks and the passage? It’s invariably some young inmate from Dalit, Bahujan or Muslim communities. So you may be sharing the same space, but there are certain benefits and privileges that only people from a certain background enjoy.”These privileges, he shares, include being able to receive home food, and being able to move the court.He also points out that often the jail authorities are so difficult that the inmates are compelled to go to court with several ordinary requests. But, inadequate access to legal support hinders many less-privileged inmates from doing so.Emphasising on the inordinate financial burden on the families of many under-privileged inmates, Husain shares that she has “met women who sold whatever little they had – land, jewellery, whatever they could – just to visit their loved ones in jail.”Heads held high At the same time, Navlakha recalls that two of his fellow inmates were incarcerated for 14 years before they were finally granted bail. Their cases still remain under trial, he says. “There are hundreds of others who we do not know about, who have been inside for 10 years, 14 years.” For him, it is equally important that we talk about them.Ultimately, Navlakha and Husain laud the spirit of those who emerge from imprisonment with their resilience intact. “Jail has a high cost, no doubt. But the fact that they come out with their heads held high, is tremendous and the most courageous thing,” Navlakha says.This reminds me of what Husain had told me in 2024, about Navlakha’s first words on exiting prison and entering house-arrest: “There were many officers all around, and Gautam, in his booming voice, said hello to all of them. And then he said, ‘Sir, whatever you may say about me, whatever you write about me, one day I’m going to be free and you will see that I clear my name in the case’.”I wonder if he remembers that, but I do not ask him because Navlakha’s primary focus is the plight and the resilience of others.At one point he turns to tell Husain, “I feel at times that my story is not as important as the story of others who have been inside longer than me.” She disagrees, and so do I. Over 74% of the Indian prison population is under-trial. Many of them will inevitably remain nameless and faceless. Navlakha’s captivity provides a framework to study their plight. His recollections diminish their obscurity. His partner’s struggles, meanwhile, offer a visual language for the countless battles that the families of other under-trials wage with an unrelenting state.On my way out of their house, I stop momentarily to take another peek at the bird in the painting by the entrance. It appears to be in flight across a deep teal sky. Two years after bail, Navlakha’s passport remains in the custody of an NIA court. He is also not allowed to set foot outside Delhi.Mekhala Saran is pursuing a PhD in Communications and New Media at the National University of Singapore. She was formerly a legal journalist.