Parole, Furlough, and a Full Page ‘Ad’ as Icing on the Cake: So How Sacha Is This Sauda?
That is, what if the same prison gate opens again and again, for the same man! At what point does one prisoner’s temporary but repeated freedom from prison become a question about the freedom of others inside prison?
By Suresh Nautiyal Greenananda
A convicted rapist with an unsavoury reputation walks out of jail. The law permits it. Authorities say that rules have been followed.
This is like a scripted chapter of a street theatre repeated again and again. It’s done openly, for all to see. Nothing is behind the curtains. It has become a repetitive public spectacle.
That is, what if the same prison gate opens again and again! And at what point does one prisoner’s temporary but repeated freedom from prison become a question about the freedom of others inside prison?
The question becomes particularly sharp in the case of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, head of Dera Sacha Sauda, a convicted rapist and religious leader with a substantial following in Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan.
He has reportedly been released 17 times since 2020. His latest release, in August 2026, is a 21-day furlough; earlier he has been out of prison for roughly 435 days, and that is a long time, indeed.
Is it legal? Perhaps. But is legality the end of the question—or only the beginning?
Parole and furlough are different forms of temporary release, governed by prison rules that vary between states. Individual cases may therefore be legally defensible. However, their frequency and timing can become a legitimate subject of democratic scrutiny.
(Parole suspends the sentence, and the time spent outside is not counted toward the total sentence served. Furlough runs concurrently with the sentence, meaning the time spent outside is counted as served.)
Significantly, several of Ram Rahim’s ‘outings’ have occurred around politically sensitive periods, including elections in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi.
Does this prove a political bargain? Well, no. There is no direct evidence.
Is there sufficient evidence to establish this as fact? No.
Is political perception irrelevant? Certainly not.
Politics does not always operate through explicit instructions. It can operate through perceptions, expectations, or an understanding of what may be useful to the current power establishment. Ram Rahim commands a large religious following; during earlier releases he conducted online discourses and released music videos. In the age of social media, political influence does not require a public rally.
If the State knows that releasing an influential figure may have political consequences, should its decisions not be transparent?
These are not accusations. These are questions.
Two Experiences of Liberty
Then there is brilliant scholar and youth icon, Umar Khalid, who has done his PhD from JNU. He has been incarcerated since September 2020, without a trial since six years, despite a campaign across India against the sheer injustice faced by him. He is known across the world. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and to US politicians have supported him in solidarity.
“Why must we wait as Umar Khalid enters his sixth year of captivity in Delhi—a political prisoner jailed under the same manufactured charges of terrorism levelled against Madiba (Nelson Mandela),” asked the NYC mayor, in the recent inauguration of the Nelson Mandela Global Leadership Forum. Eight lawmakers from the United States have earlier written a letter to the Indian Ambassador in the US, urging India to grant bail and a free trial “in accordance to international law” to Umar Khalid. In a justice system which claims that bail is a right if you are not convicted, he has been regularly denied bail.
In May 2026, a trial court rejected his request for 15 days’ interim bail to attend the 40th-day remembrance ceremony following his uncle's death, and assist his mother around her surgery. The Delhi High Court subsequently granted him only three days’ interim bail for his mother’s surgery, with stringent restrictions.
Should his case be directly compared with Ram Rahim’s?
Legally? No.
In public and political perception? Morally and ethically? Yes.
Ram Rahim is a convicted prisoner seeking parole or furlough; Khalid is an undertrial seeking interim bail. Their legal contexts are fundamentally different.
Perhaps the comparison is not between two prisoners. It is between two experiences of liberty. Especially in the current atmosphere prevailing in the country, where the idea of a secular democracy itself is at stake.
One man has repeatedly walked through the prison gate. Another has spent years behind it while awaiting the his trial.
Does it justify asking whether India has a consistent philosophy of liberty? Absolutely.
When the Prisoner Is a Peaceful Dissenter
A democratic State has the right to prosecute those accused of serious offences, protect public order and punish crimes established through due process. But what happens when the accused is also a political dissenter, a modern, progressive, enlightened Muslim scholar, a believer in the Indian Constitution and non-violence, widely loved and respected among large sections of the population?
Does dissent make a person more suspicious in the eyes of the State?
It fits into the current, rather negative lexicon floated by the PM from the ramparts of the Red Fort, and that too on Independence Day: ‘Dimagi Naxal’. Clearly, for all concerned the loose term or metaphor is part of the obnoxious narrative of branding and condemning all forms of dissenters, or those who don’t agree with the government on certain issues: Khan Market Gang, Tukre Tukre Gang, Andolanjeevi, anti-Aational, Pakistani, Chinese agent etc.
Under this regime, dissent is condemned, and often punished. For instance, the repeated deletion of social media accounts is rampant. Only fanatic and highly offensive Hindtva trolls, often trading threats and insults, including rape and bulldozers etc, especially against women, seem to be having a gala time.
In one recent BJP IT cell video, in what seemed like a mix of crude Hollywood and Bollywood clips, the so-called ‘Dimagi Naxals’ are being openly machine-gunned. The video invited the criticism that is the Hindutva regime now openly endorsing organised violence against peaceful dissenters?
In this context, the tens of thousands of youngsters, Gen Z, who made the ruling regime bend, seems to be included within the term – Dimagi Naxal. Ironically, like many other things coined by the ruling regime, Gen Z has gladly owned up the term; even a Dimagi Naxal Party has been formed with thousands of followers on social media, following on the footsteps of the 25 million plus followers of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP).
Every authoritarian system in history has had laws. The deeper question is: What does the State do with the power that the law gives it?
The case of former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt adds another dimension. He is serving a life sentence in a custodial-death case while his appeal is pending. Surely, his conviction must be judged according to law, not political sympathy. However, it has been also been widely interpreted as punishment for “speaking the truth”. His imprisonment exists within the history of his conflict with the Gujarat establishment and his allegations concerning the Modi government’s well-documented role during the 2002 Gujarat killings.
Does this prove political revenge? No. Does that history make questioning State neutrality illegitimate? Again, no.
When Discretion Becomes Privilege
State revenge need not come through an explicit command. It can emerge through accumulated discretionary decisions: investigations that take too long, bail repeatedly opposed and denied, hearings postponed, temporary release denied, or family emergencies treated differently for different prisoners.
As it has been the case of Ram Rahim, and Umar Khalid, in comparison, and nothing is anymore hidden about it.
It seems to fall in a repetitive pattern.
At what point does discretion become discrimination?
The Constitution promises equality before law. Citizens must encounter equality not only constitutionally, but at the police station, in the courtroom and at the prison gate.
A poor citizen may never read Article 14, but knows when another person receives something he could not, or was deliberately denied. A political dissenter knows what it feels like when criticism of authority carries a heavy personal cost.
The real test of equality is whether similarly situated human beings experience the law as reasonably equal.
Democracy is not merely majority rule. Its deeper test is how safely minorities and dissenters can disagree. Can we defend the rights of someone whose politics we despise? Can we insist upon due process for someone whose views frighten us? Can we demand humane treatment for a prisoner without declaring him innocent? If we cannot, perhaps we do not defend liberty.
Liberty is Not a Favour
The State does not give us liberty. Citizens possess liberty, a priori; the State may restrict it using law. If freedom becomes something an administration bestows, the citizen can also become a helpless petitioner, and liberty can turn into a favour, granted, or crushed.
Parole and furlough must therefore never become instruments of patronage. Rules must be clear, discretion transparent, reasons accountable and unusual patterns open to public scrutiny.
As in the case of Ram Rahim.
The citizen may not understand parole law, the UAPA or bail jurisprudence. But he understands one simple question:
Who gets to go home? Who gets even temporary freedom, and repeatedly?
When the answer appears to depend upon influence, wealth, political clout, social status, religious alignment or proximity to power, something larger than one prisoner’s fate is at stake.
The credibility of the State is itself at stake.
The Final Question
Ram Rahim’s frequent departure from prison may be defensible under applicable rules. Umar Khalid’s continued detention may be legally justified. Sanjiv Bhatt’s incarceration may rest upon a conviction, unless overturned.
All three propositions can coexist.
But democracy must still ask: Are we applying the spirit of justice as carefully as its procedures?
Can peaceful dissent exist without terror of State retaliation?
Indeed, if dissent is not allowed in a democracy, can it be really called a democracy?
(Meanwhile, two big newspapers, English and Hindi, issued a full page ‘advertorial’ glorifying Ram Rahim. Predictably, they received unprecedented flak from readers, especially the national English daily published from Chennai, with editions in North India. The flak became so severe and sustained, especially by youngsters, who expressed their utter disappointment at this brazen departure from ‘media ethics’, and that too from a ‘respected’ English daily, that it promptly issued a front page apology the next day – also on social media. The backlash continued: in a contemporary scenario where the credibility of the mainstream media is so abjectly low, how much more low can it get, asked a young reader. Some readers also pointed out that a brazenly offensive full page, front page ad, certainly deserves much more than a tiny column one, page one apology, which the untrained eye can clearly miss.)
-- Inputs by Amit Sengupta
Suresh Nautiyal is Senior Editor, indpendentink.in
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