(i) History of “Caste” in Prison Manuals
According to the Committee on Prison Discipline 1836-38, to force a man of ‘higher caste’ to work at any trade would ‘disgrace him’ and his family, and would be viewed as cruelty.234 Convicts from communities lower in the caste hierarchy were expected to continue with their customary occupations in jail. The caste hierarchy outside the prison was replicated within the prison.[1]
The Committee’s recommendations for including a common mess instead of food allowances for prisoners to cook their own meals, which was greater accommodation of caste, were shelved. In the 1840s, prisoners were granted food allowances and they could prepare their own meals, duly observing their caste practices.
To replace this, a stricter mess system was introduced in some prisons. However, prisoners were divided along caste lines and each group was assigned a different prisoner cook. Among Europeans outside the prison system, “there was bewilderment, even rage, at the extent to which caste had been ‘basely and indecently succumbed to in our Indian jails’”.[2]
Preservation of Caste System inside Prison by British
But the British prison administration broadly agreed that caste must be respected even inside prisons. An 1862 Report of the Inspector of Prisons in Oudh showed that in Lucknow Central Jail, these prejudices were entertained to the extent that Brahmin inmates would be allowed to bathe before they ate and to mark out a designated area where they would receive their food and where no one would be allowed to enter.[3]
David Arnold wrote about the complexity of managing caste in Indian prisons and the administration’s fears:
“With regard to caste and community, the issue was more complex. Physical labour was the mark of the lowest Hindu castes (and their Muslim counter parts), while such ritually polluting tasks as shoemaking, which involved handling leather, or the removal of human urine and excrement, were regarded as the stigmatising occupations of the very lowest castes, the untouchables.
Was it, therefore, legitimate penal practice to force high-caste Hindus, or well-born (ashraf) Muslims, to toil as if they were from labouring or untouchable castes? Was denial of caste status a morally justified attribute of prison life, even a fitting deterrent against further criminal acts? The British were particularly wary on this score because of the intense resistance to common messing in north Indian jails in the 1840s and 1850s, which, by denying high caste prisoners the right to cook their own food, provoked fierce prison demonstrations and contributed to the rash of jailbreaks during the opening phase of the 1857–58 uprising.
Colonial authorities also recognized the strength of Indian feeling against any measures (whether in the jails, the army, or the courts) that appeared to attack caste or favour the imposition of Christianity.”[4]
In line with their overall approach, the colonial administrators linked caste with prison administration of labour, food, and treatment of prisoners. They emboldened the occupational hierarchy with legal policy and imported the vice of caste-based allocation of labour into the prison, due to pressure from the oppressor castes. Responding to the doubts raised by Inspector General of Madras in 1871, the Government of India responded that prisoners shall not be put into labour that “really causes the loss of caste” and that the management should not give an impression that the government wished to destroy caste of the native inmates.[5]
Similarly, the Madras Jail Manual, 1899 stated that “In allotting labour to convicts reasonable allowance shall be made for caste prejudice, e.g., no Brahmin or caste Hindu shall be employed in chucklers’ [cobblers’] work. Care shall, however, be taken that caste prejudice is not made an excuse for avoiding heavy forms of labour”.[6]
Thus, the supposedly polluting occupations were allocated to the communities placed lower in the caste hierarchy. Not only were certain communities expected to carry out their “hereditary trades” within prisons, the supposed higher caste prisoners’ caste privileges were preserved.
The 1919-1920 Indian Jail Committee Report suggested classification in prisons should ensure that the young and inexperienced offenders were not contaminated by the influence of the more experienced, habitual offenders. This classification and resultant segregation were deemed essential primarily as a means of achieving sound prison administration.[7]
Caste was used as a ground for differentiating prisoners. The nature of the Manuals could be seen from Rule 825 of the Uttar Pradesh Jail Manual, 1941 which provided:
“The Superintendent shall not inflict the punishment of whipping on a superior class convict except with previous permission of the State Government.” Rule 719 provided, “Reasonable respect shall be paid to religious scruples and caste prejudices of the prisoners in all matters as far as it is compatible with discipline.”
Even after independence, Rule 37 of the Rajasthan Prison Rules 1951, until recently, provided as follows:
“Separate receptacles shall be provided in all latrines for solid and liquid excreta, and the use of them shall be fully explained to all prisoners by the members. The Mehtars shall put a layer of dry earth at least 1 inch thick Into each receptacle for solid excreta before it is used, and every prisoner after he uses a receptacle shall cover his dejecta with a scoopful of dry earth. Vessels for urine shall be one-third filled with water.”
Rule 67 provided, “The cooks shall be of the non-habitual class. Any Brahmin or sufficiently high caste Hindu prisoner from this class is eligible for appointment as cook. All prisoners who object on account of high caste to eat food prepared by the existing cooks shall be appointed a cook and be made to cook for the full complement of men. Individually criminal prisoners shall, under no circumstances, be allowed to cook for themselves”.
RK Kapoor Committee, 1987
In 1987, the RK Kapoor Committee made observations about the inadequacy of classification and segregation in prisons. It noted that while women, young offenders, criminal lunatics, and prisoners suffering from infectious diseases and even prisoners with ‘better socio-economic background’ were duly segregated, the rest of the prisoners were huddled together. The report noted that the classification into smaller groups was not along systematic lines.[8]
It underlined the objective of classification as follows:
“11.4 … The objective of classification should be not only to prescribe and pursue individualised treatment programmes for reformation and rehabilitation of inmates, but also to ensure effective management from the angle of security and discipline.
11.5 A prisoner should not be classified merely by his physical appearance or by the nature of the crime committed by him or the information/data, if any, furnished by the police about his activities. It is necessary to know and understand, as thoroughly as possible, each prisoner as an individual, soon after his admission. An in-depth study of his total personality is required. Personality means the whole background of the prisoner, i.e. his entire life history, and what he thinks, feels and acts by natural instinct and by habit of social conditioning.
Hence, it is essential that each prisoner should be studied separately by a team consisting of experienced hail officials and of experts like psychiatrists, psychologists, trained social workers and medical officers. The officer-in-charge of industries, education and vocational training should also join this team which should be called the Classification Committee.
11.7 The recommendations of the classification committee should broadly fall under two heads: (a) classification in respect of security and control, and (b) classification from the point of view of correction, reformation and rehabilitation.
After studying a prisoner, in detail, and making its assessment the classification committee should make recommendations on the following points in regard to his needs.”
The Report thus suggested that first, the purpose of classification in prisons must be two-fold:
Prison security/discipline as well as reformation of the prisoner; second, classification should be based on the individual needs of the prisoner based on a studied assessment of their personality.
It is clear from the above discussion that caste was used as a factor of classification in prisons. However, this does not have any effect on examining the validity of the impugned provisions. In fact, it suggests that the colonial administrators were open to even adopting discriminatory social practices to not upset the oppressor castes. The upholding of caste differences by the British inside the prisons reflected their overall support to legitimizing the law of caste.
Reference
Sukanya Shantha v. Union of India (2024)
[1] Committee on Prison Discipline to the Governor General of India in Council, 1838, page 106
[2] David Arnold and David Hardiman (eds.), Subaltern Studies VIII: Essays in Honour of Ranajit
Guha, Oxford University Press (1994), pp. 148-187, at p. 172
[3] Report of the Inspector of Prisons, Oudh, 1826, p. 33 as cited in David Arnold (1994), p. 172.
[4] David Arnold, “Labouring for the Raj: Convict Work Regimes in Colonial India, 1836–1939”, in Christian G Vito
and Alex Lichtenstein (eds), Global Convict Labour, Brill (2015), pp. 199-221, at p. 209.
[5] Secretary, India, Home (Judicial), to Chief Secretary, Madras, 8 July 1871, Madras Judicial Proceedings, no.
98, 24 October 1871] – as cited in David Arnold (2015), p. 210.
[6] As cited in David Arnold (2015), p. 210
[7] Report of The Indian Jails Committee, 1919-1920, at p. 34: “We are satisfied as to the evil influence which can
be exercised in a prison by the habitual or professional criminal, and we regard the adoption of proper methods of
classification and the provision of adequate means of separation as the third essential factor in sound prison
administration.” See https://jail.mp.gov.in/sites/default/files/Report%20of%20the%20%20Indian%20Jail%20Committee,%201919
1920.pdf
[8] Report of The Group of Officers on Prison Administration, 1987, p. 156 (“RK Kapoor Committee”).