Shyamhari Chakra
Four years after Telangana experimented with the unique concept of prison tourism, Maharashtra state has come forward to launch it soon.
The Government has mooted to start jail tourism in five prisons across the state – Nashik, Thane, Dhule, Yerawada and Ratnagiri – which have history and heritage to attract visitors and researchers.
The Department of Prisons had submitted a proposal to the Home Department to launch jail tourism in Maharashtra. After careful deliberations, the Government has picked up five such historic jails for the programme, sources informed.
Maharashtra has 43 prisons across the state.
Initially, historians, researchers, school students and teachers will be allowed to visit the jails. While the visits would be offered free of cost, the visits would be permitted between 12 noon to 3 pm when the barracks are locked.
If the scheme gets a smooth success, the Government would allow visitors of all categories to explore the heritage of these prisons, the sources added.
A number of legendary leaders were imprisoned in these jails during India’s freedom struggle. They include Mahatma Gandhi, Babasaheb Ambedkar and Jawaharlal Nehru.
Pune’s Yerwada Jail, known to be one of the largest prisons in South Asia., had housed Lokmanya Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Veer Savarkar and Sarojini Naidu among the scores of luminaries.
The Thane Jail, that was a fort built by the Portuguese in 1730, was converted to the prison by the British after they captured it. Veer Savarkar, Vasudev Balwant Phadke and Anant Kanhere were kept in this jail.
Similarly, Vinoba Bhave was imprisoned in Dhule Jail while Savarkar and Senapati Bapat were kept in Ratnagiri Jail. Nashik Jail, built in 1927, had detained a number of freedom fighters like Sane Guruji and Senapati Bapat.
These prisons have been the mute witness to the lives and times of several such legends of India who are literally worshipped by the people. The prison tourism would, therefore, generate much excitement among the public and the historians alike, the officials designing the programme feel.
Earlier in 2016, Telangana had shown the way by converting its 220-year-old District Central Jail at Sangareddy into a heritage museum that offered a 24-hour confinement-experience under an innovative initiative namely “Feel the Jail”. Under the scheme, visitors were to pay Rs.500 per person to spend time behind the bars and experience the feeling of being under detention.
