Inside Cellular Jail
The cells, surviving wings, central tower and museum displays
What Is Inside Cellular Jail Today?
The surviving National Memorial contains three of the original seven prison wings, the central watchtower, rows of solitary cells and museum displays about prisoners and India’s freedom struggle. Andaman Tourism also lists an execution room, galleries, prison-related objects and an audio-visual room among the site’s features.
The evening Light and Sound Show takes place within the historic complex, but it uses a separate ticket from daytime museum entry. The current timings and entry-fee page explains the difference.
The Original Seven-Wing Layout
Cellular Jail was a three-storey structure with seven wings of unequal length radiating from a central watchtower. India’s UNESCO submission compares the arrangement to the spokes of a wheel. The design allowed a small number of guards to supervise many prisoners while preventing the prisoners from seeing the observer in the tower.
The Ministry of Culture identifies Wings 1, 6 and 7 as the preserved wings. The diagram intentionally does not assign those numbers to specific compass positions because the reviewed sources do not provide a visitor-ready orientation plan.
How the Architecture Enforced Isolation
The jail used ideas from the Separate System, which confined each prisoner alone. Its wings were positioned so that the front of one row of cells faced the back of another wing. This restricted communication between prisoners in the same wing and across the complex.
The watchtower was the controlling centre. A guard could look along the radiating corridors, while a prisoner inside a cell could not know whether the corridor was being watched. India’s UNESCO submission describes this as an influence of the Panopticon theory of surveillance.
What a Cellular Jail Cell Was Like
India’s UNESCO submission records each cell as approximately 13.5 feet by 7 feet. The cells stood in one row beside a four-foot-wide verandah and were secured by a heavy iron grille door with a latch positioned outside the prisoner’s reach. The cells had no toilet facilities.
Different institutional records give different totals for the number of cells. India’s UNESCO submission records 698. Ministry of Culture records describe 663 cells by 1905–06 and 30 more added in 1909, while PMML research records 689. The difference is stated rather than replacing it with one convenient number. It is safest to describe the completed jail as having about 700 solitary cells.
What Happened to the Other Four Wings?
Official accounts agree that only three wings and the central tower survive, but they do not describe the loss of the other four in exactly the same way. India’s UNESCO submission connects their demolition with damage from the 1941 earthquake and later events. The Ministry of Culture account says two wings were taken down during the Japanese occupation for building material and two later made way for the Govind Ballabh Pant Hospital.
Because the official descriptions differ in emphasis and chronology, the diagram shows only the present result: three surviving wings and four that no longer stand. It does not claim a precise demolition sequence.
Museum Displays Listed by Andaman Tourism
The official Andaman Tourism museum page currently lists:
- A Freedom Fighters’ Gallery with photographs, belongings and records
- Prison cells illustrating the solitary-confinement system
- Artifacts and replicas associated with punishment
- Paintings and sculptures about the freedom struggle
- An audio-visual room
- The evening Light and Sound Show
Individual rooms, displays and visitor access can change. Treat this as the official published overview, not a guarantee that every display will be open during a particular visit.
Plan the Daytime Visit and Evening Show
The museum is currently open from Tuesday to Sunday in two sessions, with a midday closure. It is closed on Mondays and national holidays. The official show schedule is separate and currently includes Monday evening performances.
Check the latest museum hours and entry fees, then use the Light and Sound Show ticket guide for current languages, prices and official booking steps.
CellularJail.com is not the official website of Cellular Jail or the Andaman and Nicobar Administration. The diagram is an explanatory original based on the cited records, not an official floor plan.