Imprisoned in India: Corruption and Wrongful Imprisonment in the World’s Largest Democracy

James Tooley has been described as a 21st - century Indiana Jones, who travelled to remote villages and slums in developing countries to track something that many regarded as mythical - private schools serving the poor.

Now Tooley was back in India, in the city of Hyderabad, because it was here where he first discovered these schools and wrote about them in an award-winning book, The Beautiful Tree , which also documented state corruption and the attempt to eliminate these schools. But the state was to exact revenge, it was time for payback; he was arrested and thrown in prison. Conditions in Indian prison were dire. His first cell was tiny, devoid of any furniture and completely empty, apart from piles of excrement. But the other prisoners were extraordinarily kind. Chillingly, many had been in prison for years, never charged with anything, innocent of any crime, often victims of police corruption, too poor to afford to go to court to get bail. Unlike the prisoners, the jailers were typically brutal.

Throughout the experience, James Tooley realised how the rule of law is fundamental to the workings of a good society. It’s a comfort blanket we take for granted, but without which all human flourishing is threatened, especially for the poor. He witnessed how the human spirit, amongst even those wrongfully imprisoned, can soar above the brutality and tyranny of those in power.