Lalu Yadav's sentencing: For service with a smile behind bars

Indian jails are not known for their creature comforts, but stories abound about how rich and influential inmates manage to make their incarceration more comfortable. Cellmates can be “hired” to cook and clean, home-made food can be “arranged”, not to mention western-style commodes, TVs and mobile phones. But many well-heeled and politically prominent convicts will vouch that there is nothing quite like trusted retainers for truly personalised care. No wonder two “aides” of the now-jailed Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Lalu Prasad reportedly took the precaution of getting themselves accused of a crime and surrendering in court so that they could be lodged in the same Ranchi jail as their neta to make his possibly prolonged sojourn there more bearable.

Indeed, since one of them had also done the same thing the previous time the RJD supremo was jailed, he obviously knew exactly how to go about it. Inevitable lack of evidence will probably allow the aides — one apparently a cook — to eventually walk free around the same time as their leader; if he has to stay on, they will find more ways to extend the duration of their jail-cation too. It is certainly a cleverer, cheaper and less conspicuous way to ensure congenial conditions inside a jail than the sort of measures allegedly resorted to by Sasikala in Bangalore Central Jail.