'Jail was like a pathashala'

'It taught me how to be resilient, how to be strong and how to be courageous.'

"Only when you lose your freedom would you realise the value of freedom. This is one of the biggest lessons I learnt in these last two years and four months," Journalist Sidhique Kappan tells Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com in the concluding part of a two-part MUST-READ interview.

• Part I of the Interview: 'I Couldn't Believe I Was A Free Man'

Your wife Raihana is a symbol of exemplary courage and strength. Were you surprised to see the transformation in her, and the way she fought to get you out of jail?

Certainly. The person I saw after my release was not the wife who lived with me till then.

Yes, my wife's transformation surprised me immensely. In fact, I asked her after I came out of jail, where did you hide all these abilities till now?

I see this as a miracle. The life partner who waited for me when I came out of jail a few days ago is not the person I left behind on the 5th of October 2020.

She was 100% successful in educating and making our children aware of the case.

Even my youngest 9-year-old daughter knows the minute details of my case. She has learnt everything about UAPA in the last two years and four months.

Yes, when I was in jail, I was concerned about how my children would look at me, their father who was in jail. After all, jail is meant for people who commit crimes.

I was also concerned about whether their friends and society would look at them as children of a terrorist. That was why I used to send them letters from the Mathura jail through my advocate regularly.

But it was my wife, my life partner, who saw to it that they got the true picture.

She used to tell me that she didn't know from where she got the strength to fight...

See, when she herself doesn't know, you can imagine how surprised I am. I look at this as a miracle!

It must have been an emotional experience for you to have food with your wife and children after two long years....

Of course, it was an emotional experience.

They are here to be with me by taking leave from school for 15 days. But these are some of the golden moments in my life which I did not expect to get in the near future...

After so many days, you are getting an opportunity to eat with those who are dear to you. talk to those who are very dear to you...

Only when you lose these things, only when you lose your freedom would you realise the value of freedom.

This is one of the biggest lessons I learnt in these last two years and four months.

Though you have to fight the case, I assume the major hurdle is over now that you have got bail...

Yes, the Supreme Court verdict in the UAPA case and the Lucknow bench verdict in the ED case have given me a lot of hope.

My belief in the judiciary has strengthened.

It is true it got delayed a lot, but then it is understandable in a country that has 1.4 billion people.

Did what you had to go through in the last two years change your mind about journalism?

Absolutely not.

When I came out of jail after two years and 5 days short of four months, it was like coming out of a university after taking a post graduate degree in journalism.

I would say, jail was like a pathashala for me.

It taught me how to be resilient, how to be strong and how to be courageous.

These two years and four months in jail gave me, if I were to use their language, himmat (courage).

The first court where you have to prove whether you are guilty or not is your mind.

In my mind's court, I am not guilty. So, I know history will never portray me as a cheat or a terrorist.

I am confident that I will be remembered as a person who stood for truth and injustice in society.

I will be remembered as a journalist who had to spend two years and four months in jail because I went to write about the injustices meted out to a Dalit girl.

If I were to borrow the words of Professor Roop Rekha Verma Madam, 'In these dark times, I showed a little courage to say the emperor had no clothes'!

But compared with journalists like Gauri Lankesh who had to pay the price with her life for telling the truth, I didn't do anything. I just gave two years and four months of my life.

The days in jail made me realise that I had to be a journalist all my life. It cannot be otherwise.