Welcome to Tihar Jail, Asia’s largest penetenciary, and a prison infamous for its terrible conditions.

This is where the inadequacies in India’s legal and political systems are startlingly apparent. 9,000 prisoners are crammed into a jail designed to take a fraction of that number.

Thanks to the determination and energy of one woman, prison chief Keran Bedi, Tihar is undergoing a massive transformation.

In a jail where time is plentiful, Keran Bedi’s first step was to introduce yoga. Now prisoners meditate to deal with tension and overcrowding.

In just a year and a half the reforms have followed thick and fast. Literacy classes have been introduced, with fellow
Prison Workshop prisoners as the teachers, whilst in prison workshops the inmates can earn some money.

Keran Bedi: They are just cleaning it up because it is all wet.

And Keran Bedi is not afraid to mix it with the prisoners

In Tihar even innocent children pay the price of crime.

Interviewer: We go out into the jail and we see yoga, meditation, we see education classes. Do you ultimately though think that jail is for punishment?

Bedi: Coming to jail per se is a punishment. Just the very fact that you have come into the prison itself is a punishment. It is a punishment complete in itself, because you are taking away a person’s freedom. It’s a punishment itself.

Female Prisoner Prisoner: I was very bitter about my coming to jail before. I have learned now to accept it as an experience. And I think I will go out a much stronger person than I came in.

Male Prisoner: In this time we are feeling very excellent to living in the jail, you know, I am not feeling we are in the jail. I feel we are in Ashram.

Bedi has always been larger than life ... winner of
the Asian Women’s tennis championship, and the first woman officer in India’s police force, she is perhaps India’s best known cop ... famous for towing away former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s illegally parked limousine, and single handedly fighting off sword waving demonstrators, whilst her male colleagues retreated.

Bedi: I’m a strong believer in the rule of law ... very strong believer, and no amount of position or status deters me from carrying out my job. So many people who are not used to rule of law, they thought they were above it, they got hurt.

While the lawless watch out, the Lawmakers pay homage. Today, Delhi’s politicians come to open keran Bedi’s latest reform - a university within the prison.

Enormously popular and powerful, increasingly the politicians are climbing aboard her bandwagon.

But Keran Bedi has her critics too. Whilst most acknowledge her achievements in the jail, she’s seen as an attention seeker, and a window dresser, covering up serious deficiencies in the Indian legal and prison systems.

Bedi: Politicians have never used me, and I’ve never allowed anybody to use me. Nor are the issues being diverted, on the contrary with media coming into the prison, prison problems remain on the agenda.

However, the system, and the sheer number of prisoners even defeat the best intentions and energy of a reformer like Keran Bedi.

What she’s doing is simply an exception to the rule.

This Canadian woman wants to remain anonymous. Like her, most of the jail inmates await trial ... for anything upto seven years.

Canadian: The system is corrupt because there are a lot of cases of beating, and what do they call it, torture, to get people to sign false statements, and then there;s the glaringly obvious point that if you don’t have any money, you won’t get out of jail. Two months in this jail and you’re just like oh god have mercy, let me out of here.

While Keran Bedi is powerless to do anything about many of these problems, she is at least trying. now at least there is hope.

Bedi: But after taking away a person’s freedom you don’t have to hurt him more, that he wants to take away himself, or come back with an anger of revenge. So, we must stop there. From after he is imprisoned we must help him open up his mind.