Penal Colony as Literature
Sachidananda Mohanty
THE MIRACULOUS TRUE HISTORY OF NOMI ALI by Uzma Aslam Khan Context, an imprint of Westland Publications, 2019, 372 pp., 699
August 2019, volume 43, No 8

‘The amenities and conditions of life and health of the terrorist prisoners in the Andamans are superior to those obtaining in the Indian jails… the punishment is not imprisonment but only banishment from home. It is a prisoner paradise.’– Sir Henry Craik,
Home Secretary, Government of India

Why do postcolonial states turn penal colonies into tourist destinations? Devil’s Island in French Guiana, Robben Island in Cape Town, South Africa, Penang in Malaysia or Port Blair in the Andamans seem to compete for a place under the sun; their contemporary fame ill accords with their past notoriety.

The spectacle of the prisons, of ubiquitous surveillance and incarcerations must invite guilt and penitence among elites of erstwhile colonial powers just as they remind the natives of their trials and tribulations, their tormented histories.

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