When I walked into Freedom Park of Bangalore today, I gave a small thanks to the god above. If I had turned up few years ago- say sometime in the 90’s, I would not have had the freedom to get out, assuming that I had been brought in as a suspect! After all, I was visiting Freedom Park a.k.a the Bangalore Central Jail of yesteryears. With cells, barracks, high walls and even a watch tower, it is an old jail converted to a park for the public. Here are more details.

This is a watch tower inside the park. The watch tower is cylindrical with two tiered viewing gallery. It also, has Mangalore tiled roofs showing regional influences. The design is Panoptican; in other words, guards in the tower can watch every cell room, barrack and the entire area.

There are eyes everywhere must have been a quote inspired by this design. The lower gallery has a 360 degree view while the upper gallery looks like a miniature tower by itself.

The panoptican design was proposed by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century as an ideal design for prisons where you could be watched but you would not know it.

This is the old cell yard in the Freedom Park. As the door creaked open, I peeped inside and nearly jumped — a few figures in prison clothes stared back at me. Only after a moment did I realise, with great relief, that they were statues. The quick look confirmed that the yard had dozens of cells inside and it has a sleeping room and an open toilet.

There are gallows too in the Freedom Park; incidentally the last hanging was in 1968. Thankfully I did’t know about its existence when I wandered into the already spooky cell.

The prison came into existence in 1867. And it was named the Bangalore Central Jail. Apart from inmates many freedom fighters,political leaders were also imprisoned here. They were kept separate though. Women prisoners too were housed separately. Some of the prominent men who were brought here were Gandhi, L. K. Advani, Michael Fernandes, H. S. Doreswamy, K. Hanumanthayya etc. The prison saw freedom fighters during the Quit India movement and the Emergency too.

Other remains of the old Bangalore Jail are the high walls and the barracks. This image shows both. The barrack on the right was also used as prisoners space. The board above the barrack mentions ‘ barrack for 100 prisoners’ . An open cell adjacent perhaps indicates that here prisoners were not so much supervised. As this article in Economic Times puts forward the concept of ‘Trust begets Trust’ for reform and justice for inmates.

There is a revamped hospital block and parallel walls- elements from yesteryears. The central jail was shutdown in 2000 and then reopened as a public park in 2008. The chief architects of this new space were Bangalore-based architects, Mathew and Ghosh. The park is 16 acres and apart from the jail, has open spaces, walking tracks and play areas as well.

The venue is now a picnic place. It is also a place for concerts and festivals. The 2025 literary festival took place at Freedom Park.

The present jail is housed in outskirts of the city.

The park is open in the mornings 5-8:30 am and in the evenings 4-8 pm. And is located in Sheshadri Road, just 2 kms from Majestic.