In two short years, 1993-1995, Indian police officer Kiran Bedi radically transformed Tihar Jail in Delhi, India, Asia’s biggest prison, with a population of over 9,000 inmates: men, women and children. “I had heard about the gang wars, prisoners running extortion centers from within the prisons, and tales of rampant corruption, violence and heart-rending tragedies. But I was a soldier, duty-bound to take charge of this hellhole,” she says in her account of the miraculous changes she brought about, published recently in New Delhi as a book, It’s Always Possible (excerpted below).

His Holiness the Dalai Lama writes in the foreword: “Serving humanity even beyond the responsibilities of one’s duties calls for special human beings. Kiran Bedi is one of them. As a woman and as an officer, her compassion, concern and total commitment towards social issues, whether in the fields of drug control or prison administration at Tihar Jail, have earned her unusual distinction.”

“Religious by nature,” she said that her post as head of Tihar Jail “was an opportunity for me to focus on the kind of work closest to my heart – reaching out to people in dire need, understanding their needs, addressing them; providing an environment which initiates introspection, where they choose to look within without being told to do so.” She succeeded beyond anyone’s imagination. Combining her extraordinary power to make things happen with her fearlessness and love of human beings – “I feel like a mother to them,” she said – Kiran Bedi cut through the lethargy of an inhumane and corrupt bureaucracy to bring in meditation (1,000 inmates practiced vipassana together), yoga, music, education at all levels, arts and crafts, holistic medicine, care for children; she rid the place of corrupt warders, broke up the power of the gangs, stopped drug trafficking and cured drug addiction. She transformed Tihar Jail into Tihar Ashram.

The placed “looked more like an Indian village than a jail,” said American nun Ven. Max Mathews, a student of Lama Yeshe, who set up programs for women at Tihar. “It was beautiful, with lots of bushes and trees – there was nothing that would indicate at a glance that it was a prison. There was no feeling of threat or fear.” (See page 68). Now, as Joint Commissioner for the Delhi Police, Kiran Bedi is attempting to use her unorthodox methods, including meditation, to reform the 60,000-strong police force.

It’s Always Possible: Transforming One of the Largest Prisons in the World, published in New Delhi by Sterling Publishers; reproduced with permission.

Serving humanity even beyond the responsibilities of one’s duty calls for special human beings. Kiran Bedi is one of them.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Praying and working together for the benefit of all

It was like entering an organized township … I saw only men here. I wondered when a senior woman officer had been here last. Wearing a uniform was not mandatory. I, therefore, deliberately wore a full-sleeved pastel pathan suit topped by a waist-length Nehru jacket. This gave me full cover, with a sense of grace. I wore flat walking shoes, not to reveal even my toes. This was done to ensure a non-distracting presence, in an overwhelming male township.

The Superintendent of the jail, K. R. Kishore, soon followed me. I had no armed guard by my side. I was accompanied by a warder, in uniform, as personal staff. I held a notepad in my hand to record on the spot observations.

As I filed past the waiting prisoners, the warders, perhaps from force of habit, started to physically contain the prisoners, without the slightest provocation from them. Some even waved their sticks menacingly at the on-looking prisoners, in a gesture to show their concern for my security. The vocal sounds they made were distinctly distasteful. I signaled to the warders to stop doing this.

After about a 70-yard walk, I entered one of the largest wards of the prison, which housed about 600 inmates. This prison was one of the four jails under my charge. It had twelve wards. The wards varied in size and were further subdivided into barracks, or dormitories. As I entered the ward, a large expanse of an area came into view, which had a sprawling mud compound, and a few tall trees ….

The men, who were out in the courtyard, began to walk slowly towards me, but the staff abruptly signaled them with their sticks to sit down at a distance. The word had apparently gone around that there was a new visitor to the prison and it was none other than the Inspector General herself.

I was taken aback by the blank stares all around me. I stood facing them, not knowing what expression would be most suitable for the moment. The prisoners seemed to be wondering what had made me come right into their den. Not being in uniform for me represented a desire for informal communication, not authoritative distance. I had already begun to empathize with them, wondering if our criminal justice systems were at all fashioned to help change offenders and forgive those who were willing to mend. Perhaps in continuation of that thought I seemed to have suddenly broken the silence by asking them: “Do you pray?” Maybe I was seeking forgiveness for them. No one answered. I repeated: “I am asking you, do you pray? Please tell me.” I spoke in Hindi.

The men looked towards the warders as if to ask them if they were permitted to speak. The warders seemed confused, and I could sense their nervousness. I had obviously confronted them with a bewildering situation – perhaps unheard of before. For them, a similar situation in the past meant a headcount of all inmates by loud roll calls and being locked back into their barracks well before the IG’s expected arrival to ensure that the visit went without any prisoner coming in the way … A former IG’s finger had been bitten off by a prisoner during a round many years ago. And here I was asking them: “Do you pray?”

I moved closer to them and directed the question to one inmate chosen at random. He answered, “Yes, sometimes,” nodding his head. “Very good. Who else does? You?” I pointed towards another prisoner at random, getting even closer to the crouching men. And then, one after another voice joined in saying: “Yes, I also do. I recite the Path (the holy prayers). Most of us pray at our own timings” … Perhaps the first human contact was made, I wondered with some relief. I probed on: “Would it be better if we say a prayer together? Would you like to?” I realized for myself that I was becoming a part of that “we.”

They fell silent again, and I wondered if they had a collective voice. They had never prayed together. Then one of them, with one eye on the staff and the other on me, said hesitantly: “Yes.” Others nodded their heads in agreement, wanting to be part of the prayer.

I said, “All right, which prayer should we sing together? Can you suggest one?” Silence. I volunteered one from a popular film I knew they would all know. “Do you know ‘O Lord we are your creation/May our actions be worthy’?” I asked.

This time there was an enthusiastic and instant response. “Yes!” approved the chorus. I said, “Get up to sing together.”

They began to rise to their feet but the omnipresent sticks had them confined in different stages of getting up. Raising my voice, I asserted: “I told you to stand up to sing.”

The staff got the message and withdrew their batons. I told the inmates: “Close your eyes and sing with me.” And we sang. When our eyes opened, theirs and mine – I don’t know about the staff – I found my fingers intact. I felt that we had together succeeded in giving out the first signal of mutual trust, which would set the pace of our work relationship from now on. The prayer we sang echoed this. The message that came through very naturally when our eyes were closed was that “I am willing to trust you, you may try trusting me, and we could work together for the benefit of all.”

I then moved to the women’s ward as if by instinct. I knew that the women would be waiting for me. As I entered, all the women present in the courtyard rushed towards me, uninhibited and happy, cheering my visit. Was this a homecoming? The ward was a total contrast to that of the men. The women promptly sat around me, wanting to interact and hear what I had to say. They had taken it for granted that I would visit them. Looking at their faces, I felt they were my children and I had indeed come home for them. Each one I sensed needed a hand on her shoulder to help her cry out her grief and relieve herself of the agony within. Yet, all of them were putting up a cheerful appearance for my sake.

I asked him: “Do you read and write here?”

They said: “No.”

I said: “Would you like to?”

They said: “Yes.”

Very good, we will study here, and before you leave you shall be literate.” They applauded in excitement.

My prayer with the men gave me the joy of seeing hope and acceptance; with the women, something pulled me from within. I had been “imprisoned” – Tihar was going to be my destiny.

From agony to anger

I scrutinized Tihar Jail over the next few weeks. The experience agonized me. This agony was soon replaced by anger. I could now see for myself [those] who were responsible for this horrendous state of affairs. I could not have been more frustrated, for I could not take certain individuals to task, or make them see the enormous folly of their ways. The overwhelming hypocrisy that marked their functioning was revealed by this institution. The system that I had inherited was totally derailed and the sordid reality was conveniently hidden behind the huge iron gates.

The individuals responsible for the institution were preoccupied with numerous other pressing matters and they rarely visited Tihar. Even those rare visits had to be preceded by a guard of honor with full ceremonial uniform and a lot of fanfare, including buglers. Such occasions were reminiscent of the Raj, when subservience was the order of the day. When they arrived to pay a visit, the system spurred itself into action merely to receive them and show them only what was meant to be shown. The appalling muck and filth in the subhuman conditions inside the cells were camouflaged convincingly behind a make-believe façade of neatness restricted to certain areas where the VIPs were taken around. The prison barracks, stuffed beyond capacity, were kept out of bounds because human beings were herded there like animals in a cage … the VIPs were invariably accompanied by a media team that faithfully reproduced the lofty statements made by them on prison reforms and rehabilitation of prisoners. I had come across many such statements during my career as a police officer. But after coming face-to-face with the overpowering and nauseating reality of Tihar, I felt nothing but contempt for such inflated claims.

Half the prison was addicted to tranquilizers.

Tihar jail had built up for itself an unenviable notoriety for corruption, inefficiency, indifference and incompetence. The medical staff further ensured that they did nothing to deny or undo this image. In fact, they sought new ways and means of strengthening it. The shocking health situation of the inmates made me feel, perhaps for the first time in my career, helpless. I had gained sufficient experience to effectively deal with the hardened criminals and other assorted varieties of law-breakers. I could also effectively handle recalcitrant or obdurate staff members. But how should I have coped with this suffering township of men, women and children under my charge?

A majority of prisoners came from underprivileged backgrounds and the brought with them a plethora of medical problems. Apart from common ailments resulting from obvious causes, such as malnutrition, unhealthy lifestyles and cramped living conditions, avoidable maladies caused by alcoholism, heavy smoking and drug abuse flourished… The single doctor on duty could not possibly cope with the hundreds of calls he received each night from all the four jails. All that he did was to send one common medicine to all the patients: Parmol, a cheaper form of paracetamol. It was Tihar’s panacea for all ills – from fever to an upset stomach to something less recognizable … When I took charge, literally half the prison population was addicted to tranquilizers ….

[Drug addicts] would reach the prison in the evenings, after court hearings. After completion of the formalities, they would be lodged for the night in a ward meant for new entrants called the inspection ward. The purpose behind herding these newcomers together was that the jail doctor could inspect them the following morning. However, due to the skeletal medical services existing in Tihar, even the routine formality of inspection sometimes took more than forty-eight long hours. For the dependent drug victims this protracted period was nothing short of a horrendous nightmare, for they were deprived of their regular fix. They exhibited acute withdrawal symptoms, writhed in pain and yelled for help.

Generally the other inmates had inured themselves to such pathetic expressions of agony and anguish. They knew that such intense and excruciating pain was caused by drug starvation. The warders, who had to somehow put their charges to sleep, invariably doped them with Diazepam and Parmol, the two standard pills freely available with the prison doctor. What was happening was that the drug addicts were merely transferring their dependence from the renowned varieties such as opium, heroin or marijuana to the so-called sleep-inducing drugs like Diazepam.

The inspection wards never slept. Moreover, those drug addict inmates who were allotted different wards ensured that their fellow residents also remained awake. The sounds emitted by the drug users were eerie and, sometimes, macabre. I just could not shut my ears to these sounds during my initial night rounds of the jail.

Within the prisons, the chaotic mix-up of drug peddlers and drug users was evident. Both categories tended to huddle together as if they sustained each other. The prison environment, which was supposed to reduce drug addiction and the resultant crimes, was in fact stimulating it.

Such was the situation when we launched our crusade against drugs. Our prime objective was to initially curtail and then eliminate the influx of drugs into the jail. For this crusade, I had to personally bring to bear all the knowledge, skills and experience that I had gained over the years while running Navjyoti centers – Delhi Police Foundation for Correction, De-addiction and Rehabilitation. These were institutions I had set up in the community as nonprofit organizations for the holistic treatment of substance abusers. In this field, I was confident of achieving reasonable success on the basis of the strategies and tactics I planned to devise in a steady, methodical and comprehensive manner.

Eventually, I needed dedicated and motivated support not only from my colleagues but also from the inmates themselves, who would be the ultimate beneficiaries. Such support did manifest itself, grudgingly at first, but later on, enthusiastically and wholeheartedly.

The first measure we adopted was to segregate the substance abusers, those who were known as well as those who were suspected, from the rest of the inmates. These abusers were clustered together in a ward within each prison. Next, we brought in a homeopathic doctor, on a daily basis, to provide exclusive attention to the substance-afflicted inmates in each prison. These doctors performed their duties exemplarily, much to the satisfaction of their patients. The medicinal doses dispensed by them seemed to work wonders for those under their care. These medicines proved effective in controlling, to a large extent, the painful symptoms caused by withdrawal, such as runny noses, trembling or quivering of the body, watering of the eyes, sleeplessness and other related manifestations.

Apart from the inmates, some of the prison staff members were also entrapped in the quagmire of drug addiction. I, along with my colleagues, drew up a plan to identify and isolate such individuals. Once we managed to do that, they were summoned to my office and were asked to proceed on with medical leave and get themselves treated. We were very clear in our minds that all staff members had to come clean before they could be entrusted with any responsibility.

Along with the medical attention, we suitably augmented the medical diet of the substance-abuse patients so that faster recovery could be attained. We sanctioned more milk for them. We added some variety to their otherwise monotonous menu by providing curd, jaggery and dry black grams. All these measures generated a sense of optimism among the addict patients, who now felt properly cared for.

Responsibilities prevailing over rights: a beautiful feeling

As I entered the prison every day, I would meet groups of prisoners waiting in the deodhi to board the jail van to go to the courts. I got an opportunity to greet them and they greeted me. We could interact spontaneously. I could do a spot check on whether food had reached them on time in the morning? Whether they got water to bathe? Whether they were unlocked on time? Whether the food served the previous evening was all right? Whether the bread given in the morning was fresh? Whether the tea served was hot and not black and bitter? Whether the milk distributed was boiled? And was the doctor easily accessible in case of an emergency? I could assess the strength of the answers from the intensity of the response – from a feeble whimper to a boisterous collective chorus. Many times, I had to resort to a bit of goading and cross-examination to elicit the truth.

On the basis of my morning rounds I could ascertain the evolving and changing ground realities. The groups present at the deodhi were a perfect representative sample, because inmates from different wards came together, and, therefore, it was a random representation of the entire prison. The details of the interactions went back to all the wards on their return from courts.

From the deodhi to the inside of the prison, “on-the-round” meant going from barrack to barrack and cell to cell. As I walked the prison, I was observing, interacting, questioning, learning, solving, evolving and ensuring the implementation of earlier decisions. This direct questioning had a straight impact on the staff present. They were compelled to improve matters and solve problems. Each one now was getting identified by face and name ….

For me, every round was precious. It made each day more meaningful. My round revealed the realities behind the façade and made me fully aware of the challenges that I would have to face in the coming days. I could get to see and understand various problems with instant solutions to many of them. The heartening fact was that the mass of prisoners, whom we encouraged to interact, themselves started to provide the possible answers to their own problems.

Running a prison proved to be a massive exercise in housekeeping. The method of taking rounds of the prison helped to identify recurring problems, which were then solved. The staff members were on their toes because they would not know when the seniors would turn up for a visit! Also, their earlier camouflaging tactics had been exposed. We wanted to make the entire system transparent so that no wrongdoing could be hidden or glossed over ….

I recorded by day-to-day observations, both good and bad, meticulously on the notepad which I carried with me. After my rounds were over, these observations were typed and photocopied for circulation among all the officials. One copy was displayed on the prison’s notice-board at the deodhi. Thus, anyone coming in or going out of the prison could read the observations of the day. The notes truthfully reflected the realities of the prison and were a kind of catalogue of events as they actually were, be it complimentary or embarrassing. Everything was on record and spoke for itself. This proved to be a powerful means of communication, making the desired difference ….

The prison began to operate on the principle of “responsibilities prevailing over rights.” It was a beautiful feeling. The superintendents were advised to maintain a cooperative attitude to the workplace and treat other individuals and groups as members of the same organization who also had similar needs and expectations.

The staff started coming up with innovative ideas based on human warmth … Innumerable activities kept all of us busy and instilled a profound sense of achievement … Our goal was to send back individuals who were willing to realize their responsibilities and obligations towards the community at large.

The presence of Saraswati, the goddess of learning

When I took charge at Tihar, I felt personally responsible for being a timekeeper of all the inmates. When I could not afford to waste even a minute of my own time, how could I possibly preside over the squandering of the time of thousands of men, women and children confined within the prison walls? I felt that most of these individuals had wound up in prison precisely because they could not manage their time properly. Had they realized how precious every fleeting moment was, they would have invested their energy in useful and constructive work which would have paid them beneficial dividends, instead of leading them in to prison.

How could this awareness be kindled now – right inside the jail? How could the inmates be taught the value of time? How could the prisoners be provided with an environment in which they would willingly exercise a choice of learning something new, irrespective of their literacy level? Could we not initiate them into respecting or sustaining the urge to seek knowledge before they left the prison? We could still try, despite the odds. And we did.

This was reported in The Patriot on June 14, 1994.

“In the mornings, the capital’s Central Tihar Jail turns into a school … The entire jail population is split into more than 300 classrooms with educated prison inmates as teachers. Moral education, social studies, basic functional literacy, and languages like Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Persian and Swahili are taught in these classes. Education programs in Tihar Jail are being supported by more than eighty local schools, institutions and individuals.”

During my rounds, I observed classes being conducted in full swing, with the teachers and pupils totally absorbed in their respective activities. Such inspiring and heartening sights were a source of delight and joy to me. They were so engrossed in their studies that the inmates often did not notice me as I stood quietly at the back of the classroom.

The mornings were as a rule allotted for literary activities followed by vocational training and the evenings were meant for sports and also for sarva dharma sabhas, that is, ethical therapy congregations. These sabhas were held in the open air auditorium of the jail for an hour from 5 p.m. onwards. The timing varied with the seasons … On several occasions, eminent visitors who either volunteered or consented to address the inmates on a variety of topics came to Tihar.

They listened with rapt attention to the discourses and tried to absorb as much as possible … They started showing a sense of gratitude to the community at large, and the administration in particular, for having made this possible for them. Perhaps never before in their life did they receive such sustained value-based education. These discourses led them to question who they were, why they were, what they were and what in fact they could be ….

A poignantly moving experience relates to a visually impaired music teacher, S. K. Bhalla, who volunteered to teach the inmates, as he held a firm conviction that soul-stirring music could achieve near-miraculous results. He recounts his experience:

“I knew the power of music. It softens hard hearts. I wanted to test this for myself in my first meeting with the convicts. I started my singing with a prayer of Saraswati vandana (Saraswati is the goddess of learning, and vandana means invocation): Mother of learning, deliver us from ignorance.

“I felt some inmates were crying. They told me that they were missing their mothers. Their suppressed feelings had surfaced with singing of this prayer. I felt I needed to pursue my music classes with them and if possible to teach them to become teachers of music one day.”

One of the most satisfying experiences for the inmates was their ability to sign their name when they departed from the prison, as opposed to merely affixing their thumb impression on entry. Such inmates also wanted to carry home their notebooks and other study material on release to prove to their families that they had actually learnt how to read and write. For them, such study material proved to be invaluable as certificates of time well invested.

I felt within me that Devi Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of learning, had started to reside inside Tihar ….

One outstanding individual, Saroj Vashisht’s untiring and versatile endeavors were a constant source of inspiration to all of us … Her zest for life was incredible. She proved to be extremely dynamic in all spheres of community work, especially in those aspects related to adolescents and juveniles. She started off by volunteering to tell stories to the youngsters. She instantly won the hearts of her young audience who began calling her Mother. All of them insisted that she visit the jail daily to narrate new stories ….

For Saroj, the literacy movement within Tihar was nothing short of a crusade. She suggested that we request various publishers to donate books generously to the prison libraries. She was confident of getting a positive response. In fact, the response was overwhelming. Stacks of books arrived, which offered a vast range of subjects such as science, computers, basic medicine, literature, history, religion and management. General books and children’s books were also part of the package. In addition to publishers, other bodies supportive of the cause came forward. They supplied other education-related material such as slates, blackboards, chalk pieces, notebooks, pencils and school bags ….

We invoked among school children the spirit of community service and suggested that each of them donate a notebook, a pencil or an eraser, which they could buy from their pocket money specially for the purpose … The response was phenomenal. A virtual deluge resulted. Scores of schools volunteered and thousands of school children sent in their contributions. We set up outlets for books and stationery at suitable points within the prison.

Goenka-ji Leads 1,000 Inmates in a Ten-day Meditation Course

While I was on-the-rounds one day, Rajinder Kumar, a thin, lean young Assistant Superintendent, was accompanying me. He overheard me saying that I wished I possessed the magical therapy to get the inmates to rid themselves of corrosive emotions. He promptly came to me and said that he knew of such a therapy, and that it was known as vipassana. I was obviously curious to know more about it. He added that if I wanted additional information about the magic of vipassana and to be convinced about its beneficial effects, I should talk to his family members. I did. His wife revealed that Rajinder used to be an ill-tempered man who got provoked very easily. But after he went through the vipassana meditation course, he emerged a much better human being with greater control over his once-volatile emotions.

I verified the authenticity of Rajinder’s wife’s claim from other sources as well. I asked for more details. Rajinder told me that if we wanted to come to Tihar, he would need to go to Jaipur where the Vipassana Meditation Center was located and needed to meet Ram Singh who was the person in charge. Rajinder informed me that Ram Singh was the former Home Secretary of the Rajasthan State Government, and a very good human being. He had been solely responsible for taking vipassana meditation programs in Jaipur and Baroda prisons. He would more than welcome our invitation…

I got a prompt response to my letter from Ram Singh. He clarified succinctly that vipassana was a very ancient meditation technique of India. Purification of the mind was its basic objective ….

This is exactly what we needed here … We decided to conduct the first course on November 22, 1993, in Prison No. 2, which housed the long-term convicted inmates. Ram Singh and Professor P. D. Dhar of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, who was well-versed in the vipassana technique, were entrusted with the privilege of conducting the first lesions. As teachers, both of them were expected to stay inside the prison, along with the life-termers, so that they could reach out to the convicts and make them understand the sincerity of their intentions.

Their professional intentions, however, were initially viewed with suspicion by the hardened convicts, for whom affection, sensitivity and care were totally alien feelings. The two teachers were subjected to some nightmarish experiences during the first few days of their tenure in jail. They were exposed to a barrage of intimdating threats by the professional criminals who felt that they would lose their grip over their companions and some staff members.

The tough guys deliberately flouted the rules; they began to smoke and broke the vow of silence and proceeded to mouth some of the choicest of abuses at all those around them. They hoped that Ram Singh and Professor Dahr would succumb to their verbal onslaught and physical threats and quit.

But they were proved wrong. They continued to perform their activities for conducting the course as usual, ignoring the jibes and taunts. Their determination and perseverance, imbued with compassion, eventually prevailed, and after five days, the small gang of convicts realized their folly and begged forgiveness from their two teachers ….

We decided to celebrate New Year’s day in 1994 as a vipassana course day in all the four prisons. The objective was to enable all the inmates to begin the year in right earnest, inspired by noble ideas and thoughts. Before the actual commencement of the course, Guru Satya-Narayana Goenka, who had brought back vipassana to its land of birth from Myanmar, and who readily agreed to come to Tihar, addressed the huge assembly of inmates and staff.

“Friends, you have all assembled here to liberate yourselves, liberate yourselves from all bondages, all miseries. To be imprisoned in a prison like this is a great agony. And to be liberated from prison is very fortunate. But besides the confinement within these four walls, there is a greater prison in which all of us suffer so much. This is the prison of our negativities, our own mental defilements, which keep overpowering us. We have become the slaves of our anger, hatred, ill-will, animosity, slaves of our defilement of craving, clinging, greed, passion, attachment and ego. Any defilement that arises in our minds overpowers us – makes us its prisoner so quickly … If we are relieved of these negativities, we start enjoying the true happiness of liberation” …

[There was] keenness among other inmates to learn vipassana. This became increasingly obvious with each passing day. We also wanted the maximum number of inmates to benefit, the sooner the better. We were aware that the captivity period provided the best time when we could help them focus on reconstruction.

Hesitatingly, I asked Ram Singh whether it would be possible to conduct the vipassana course for a large number of inmates, say, around 1,000 in one go? He said, “Why not?”

Eventually, on April 4, 1994, when we felt that all was ready, we summoned 1,003 male inmates who had volunteered to assemble to receive the initial instruction from Goenka-ji. After that, 13 male assistant teachers, assigned 75 to 80 students each, helped in conducting the course. The first vipassana course for female prisoners was initiated simultaneously in Prison No. 1, which was conducted by two female assistant teachers and attended by 49 inmates.

Most of the 1,000 inmates were undertrials (in fact, around 90 percent of Tihar’s inmates [were awaiting trials]), whose crimes ranged from robbery, murder, rape, and terrorist acts to drug trafficking … Twenty foreign inmates and eight female inmates also participated in the vipassana program. They hailed from Afghanistan, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and the UK ….

As each day of the ten-day course passed by, the vibrations of the transformation process were all-pervading. Within these high walls, there was a sense of liberation. There was discipline without fear; there was devotion without coercion. On the last day, it became evident to one and all that something unbelievable had been accomplished. Over 1,000 inmates had successfully completed a vipassana course. Goenka-ji declared that this was the largest course he had ever conducted in almost 25 years of teaching vipassana.

“After you meet Kiran Bedi, you can’t say ‘No’.”

One day in November 1993, a 63-year-old black American Buddhist nun, a saintly woman called Sister Max Mathews, came to visit the women inmates of Tihar and became an initiator and propeller of economic empowerment of women inmates.

A former teacher, fashion designer and art collector who has lived in Europe, Nepal and India, she has devoted a part of her life to helping Tibetan refugees earn a living by marketing their handicraft and soliciting advice on designing.

At Tihar, Sister Max used her creative energy, marketing acumen and unwavering determination to launch self-financing programs that enabled many women inmates to become economically independent for the very first time. Since her arrival, almost half of the jail’s 300-odd women prisoners were trained in knitting, painting, embroidery and other artistic projects which were marketed outside Tihar. At least 90 of these women were able to hold bank accounts.

Through Sister Max we attracted the Danish Embassy for support for a crèche for about 60 young children who lived with their mothers inside the jail, creating a stimulating and happy environment compared to their miserable conditions in the past.

Her innovative work, literacy, education and other rehabilitation programs gave them additional tools to readjust to society when released, and hold their own ground, to some extent.

Sister Max’s narration:

“When I first saw the prison that day, I thought, ‘What is this place?’ It looked more like an Indian village than a jail. It was beautiful, with lots of bushes and trees. Its buildings were all neatly painted white, and there were barracks arranged in U-shape around a big open courtyard. There were bars on the windows, but I didn’t see any locks – nothing that would indicate at a glance that it was a prison. There was no feeling of threat or fear. The atmosphere was not charged. I was surprised.

“Once inside the prison gates we walked through a large, grassy open quadrangle. As we entered a second courtyard, which I learned later was the women’s prison, I heard women laughing. There was a woman standing on a raised platform entertaining a group of women and children who were all sitting on the ground in rows. She was wearing a salwar-kameez with a vest, and sneakers. It was Kiran Bedi. She was talking to them as a mother, as she always did. No one wore uniforms, not even the warders. The women wore ordinary sarees and salwar-kameez ….

“When I first spoke to Kiran Bedi, she was very open to my ideas. She didn’t give any specific charge. Her desire was to rehabilitate the women economically, socially, emotionally and in every other way, to show them that they have a resource in themselves, and they must use it.

“That first day, some of the women were apprehensive about the programs I was to start. The foreign women positively descended on me and some even embraced me. They almost never had visitors and for someone to express an interesting them was very exciting. They were so eager. Some had tried projects before, giving money to warders to get them supplies, but nothing had come of them … I might have hesitated if it wasn’t for the response of the foreign women, because I wasn’t initially sure how I could make a success of the project.

“But after you meet Kiran Bedi, you can’t say, ‘no.’ I immediately committed myself to the project and was ready to begin. Several women whom I had helped to get started at Tihar joined me and we worked under the auspices of Kiran Bedi’s non-governmental organization, Navjyoti – Delhi Police Foundation for Correction, De-addiction and Rehabilitation. It works in Delhi slums to detoxify and rehabilitate drug addicts from Delhi and its neighboring states, and runs programs to help street, slum and working children.

“I hired four foreign inmates as supervisors of production units and paid them Rs1,000 a month each. Maria, a Spanish woman, organized women to hand-paint cloth, stationery, greeting cards and print gift wrapping paper. A large-hearted Nigerian, Gloria, headed the knitting section, and got work out of women like no one I’ve ever seen do before. The hand-stitching unit was run by Margo, a Dutch national from Surinam, and women here hand-rolled and finished silk scarves from Tibet, and crafted on table-runners and linens ….

“By Christmas I started marketing the products to the foreign and diplomatic community in New Delhi at fairs and special sales. The proceeds were used to pay the women for each piece, pay salaries and finance our supplies ….

“We fought to get bank accounts for the earning women. We had to put up quite a fight. We were told by the Indian banks that convicts have no rights and could not have bank accounts. Finally, we got them to cooperate, on the plea that 90 percent of the women were undertrials, not convicts ….

“The women crocheted sweaters, glass covers and plate covers. They embroidered cushion covers and table-runners, dresses, nightgowns, skirts and quilts. Using sewing machines they produced bathrobes, kimonos, aprons, children’s clothes, vests and salwar suits.

“Of all the projects, our knitting project became our biggest earner. I got an order from J. Peterman, a US mail order catalogue, for 5,000 pairs of long socks. These were hand-knitted with four needles using up to seventeen colors of Tibetan wool in each pair.”