Live from the Jail: Welcome to Radio YCP

In a first, Yerwada Central Prison in Maharashtra starts a community radio for and by prisoners

Twelve noon to 1 pm is lunch break for the 3,500-odd inmates of Yerawada Central Prison in Pune, but something is occupying their attention in that hour these days. When a baritone voice rings out “Welcome to Radio YCP” over the public address system, the prisoners gravitate to various points in groups to listen to a community radiocast.

Radio YCP (an abbreviation for Yerwada Central Prison) is a unique community radio venture in the country, an initiative of the jail’s superintendent Yogesh Desai. Two RJs, both convicts, anchor the show in Hindi and Marathi. A mini studio has been constructed within the prison premises. “The prisoners themselves write the script. The programme has a different theme everyday,” says Desai. Radio YCP is interactive and includes songs on demand, devotional songs, studio interviews of invited personalities and other informative programmes. A show to solve the varied problems of prisoners will have the inmates writing in their queries and issues, which will be aired and discussed by counsellors without naming the inmates. Another programme will focus on legal issues. The prison’s officers and legal experts will be educating prisoners about their rights, laws and amendments. The live programme is expected to turn into a forum for prisoners to air their creative talents, says Meeran Borwankar, additional DGP, Prisons. If the idea clicks, other jails may take it up as well.

The RJs had a two-stage selection process. “The notice for auditions had excited the prisoners and informal trials for voice modulation could be seen at all the barracks,” says Desai. Fifteen convicts were shortlisted in the first round and two were selected. Actor Sanjay Dutt, in jail for five years in connection with the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case, is also in Yerwada; he’d played a Radio co-host in Lage Raho Munna bhai, but he reportedly declined to play RJ here.

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