Colonial Prison 19th century INDIA

Introduction

• 1757 – Public torture and execution- burning in France

• 1830- theatrical representation and torture was avoided

• Prison – Aim not to torment flesh but- to correct reclaim andcure the soul of prisoner

• Foucault – strike the soul rather than the body

Jeremy Bentham 1791 Panopticon

• Warders located in a central tower.

• To induce in each prisoner a state of conscious andpermanent visibility

• Prison-more than a penal institution.

• Had analogues in the school, hospital, mental asylum, theparade ground and factory.

Headings

• Cultural

• Architectural

• Finance

• Administrative • Reforms

• Administrative rules

• Contemporary world influence

•Medical/ health

Indian Jails

• Indian Jails in 18th- 19th century grew out of Britishpreoccupation for extracting revenue and maintain law andorder.

• Use of local bad practices- a way to condemn India, its socialset up and religion

• Importance given to Indians cruelty to their fellow menexpressed a growing contempt for Indian religion socialpractices and governance. Contrast to advances the claim ofEuropean humanity in speaking for body of colonized.

Indian jails

• Prior to British rule Islamic rule prevailed where mutilation, stripping,branding and penal deductions were common punishments howeverjails existed even before Muslim era.

• East India company officials considered the local customs like satti,self- amolition and female infanticide as inhuman and talked aboutpunishments which were more proportionate how ever they resortedto mostly death punishment and transportation.

• The jails took a sign of colonial rule once the punishments labeled ascruel were abolished and resorted to putting the people in jails aspunishment to various crimes.

Indian Jail Cont’d

• Even when political will was present penal practice was slow to followhumanitarian theory.

• Public gallows stood outside madras penitentiary till 1880.

• Display of bodies of executed criminals continued till 1836.

• The practice of branding the convicts ceased in 1849.

• Despite repeated condemnation bar fetters continued to be use topunish.

• In 1889 government committee looked to the day when theseappliances would be abolished.

Cultural• 1834- British magistrate (Thomas Richarson) brained by a brass lota. Subsequent

reaction on order of removal.

• 1840- Prisoners in Bihar Jail allowed to purchase and cook individual food(requirement of cast). Disarrayed, clay prepared numerous fire places.

• Order to receive food cooked by prison official cooks sparked protest and hungerstrikes.

• 1842- 45 Opposition to common messing in Bihar jail- Govt uses coercive power

• 1854 not implemented in 8 of 40 prisons.

• Other occasions when prisoners took over and temporarily dictated their terms.

• 1855- Bengal Inspector jails ordered confiscation of brass- force conversion toChristianity- determined resistance broke.

• 1877- president of Indian Jail Conference- great practical fault, orders not rigidlycarried out.

Cultural/Administrative• Difficulty to control specially first 60 years of 19th century

• Connection between prison protest and popular revolt 1840s-50sliberation of prisoners in Meerth, Kanpur and Allahbad Jails.

• The practice-1880- some warders received pays and specialuniform/ permitted to eat and sleep apart, wear hair and beard.

• 1877- Jail conference – employment of convict officers “aninversion of order of things”.

• They organized smuggling, violence, harassment, extortion andtorture in jails.

Culture Administration cont’d

• J Rohde- Madras inspector – we have no means of enforcing hard labor.

• Prisoners are too often employed with very little regard to the object oftheir being in prison.

• 1877- President of Indian jails- orders are not rigidly carried out.

• Indian prisons ‘enter without dread and inhibited with out discomfort’.

• Day to day running of prison was entirely in the hands of convicts.

• Untrained supervisory staff.

• Practice of using prisons to run the jail started in Malaya early in thecentury and spread in Bengal and rest of India.

Culture cont’d

•Physical and sexual intimidation of new inmates inorder to extort or make them to submit to theauthority of convict warders.

•Most inmates were illiterate but occasionalcommunication intercepted gave insight. (Ganjaopium….).

•Movements of revolt and resent in Indian jails-particularly 1920 onward.

Reform Committees

• Lord McCauley Commission Report, 1835

• The Prison Discipline Committee, 1836

• Commission of Jail Management and Discipline, 1864

• The Calcutta Conference of 1877

• The Fourth Jail Commission, 1888

• The Prisons Act, 1894

• The Indian Jail Committee 1919-20

Reform Committee

• 1835 Macaulay appointment of a committee to investigateprison discipline in India- influence of utilitarian thought ongovernment in India at that time.

• The best criminal code can be of very little use to acommunity unless there be a good machinery for theinfliction of punishment.

• 1860 Marry Carpenter , 1870 John Howard British reformersshowed interest in Indian prisons.

Reforms

• 1835 –36 Macualy committee to investigate prison disciplinein India- recommendation echoed Benthem and prisonreforms in USA 1860- 70 Mary Carpenter British Reformist(anti- slavery, ragged schools, social reformer, womensuffrage).

• John Howard- Elizabeth Fry. (in Europe)

Committees Recommendations

• A penitentiary for all prisoners sentenced to more than one years'imprisonment shall be established in the centre of every 6 or 8districts, and that a better system of classification of prisoners shall beadopted;

• That each prisoner shall have a separate sleeping place ;

• That solitary confinement shall be much resorted to;

• That monotonous, uninteresting labor with in doors shall be enforcedupon all prisoners sentenced to labor;

• The prisoners shall be deprived every indulgence not absolutelynecessary to health , and that the management of each penitentiaryshall be committed to an able trustworthy superintendent , eitherEuropean or native.

• The language of report and its recommendation echoed Bentham and thespirit of prison reforms in North America and Europe

• Committee and its critics departed from western precedence stressingimpracticality of importing British model into India .

• Between 1830-1920 proposals for reforms were rejected as impractical orinexpedient .

• 1838- Lord Auckland ,the governor general skeptic about committee’sproposal on grounds of cost. Every reform of prison discipline is almost ofnecessity attended at the outset with extra ordinary expense. He argued thatthere were intrinsic differences between England and India.

• He concurred with the committee in seeing an insuperable problem ofagency.

• He sees India as a land where local constraints not just of cast and religionbut also of climate, health, funding and agency power fully representedthemselves.

Reforms• Prohibitions of prejudice and climate had to be respected.

• Each province should have a senior officer solely responsible for jailsnot done till 1844.

• 1844- appointment of W H Woodcock as IG jail in the interest ofeconomy rather of reforms. Subsequent appointments of IGs 1852 inPunjab and 1854 Bengal.

• Middle of 19th century prison were uncertain places requiring securityand clear institutional identity.

• In late 1840 start was made on the construction of prisons on the lineof Panopitcon.

Committee of Jail Administration 1889

• Situation did not change significantly. 1889 committee reaffirmed theview that for habitual offenders , silence and rigid discipline andsegregation from other prisoners were the only means of renderingimprisonment distasteful.

• The practicality of single cell system in India on both sanitary andfinancial grounds was doubted.

• Sufficient numbers of reliable warders could not be found for thewages available , hence strict system of discipline and surveillancewas simply unattainable

Abolition of Torturous Punishments

• 1790 – Abolition of mutilation 7 years for 1 limb and 14 for 2 later onbranding encouraged imprisonment.

• 1835 – T B Macauly imprisonment terror to wrong doers instead ofdeath as main punishment.

• Best criminal code be of not much use till there is a good machineryfor inflicting punishment.

• 1836 – Public display of bodies.

• 1880 – Public gallows.

Inmates Population• No great confinement as no great upheaval or revolt as compared to industrial

revolution in Europe.

• 1938- jail population 55,632 of total 91.5 million Indians- 0.06%

• Women 8% in 1877 and 5% in 1891 of total jail population.

• Mortality 25%. Mainly due cholera, malaria, dysentery and diarrhoea

• 1861 Mirat 62% died

• The rate fell after 1860s due construction of healthy jails, sanitation and medicalattention. Imprisonment for minor offence could tantamount to death.

• Dr. G S Sutherland a participant in Indian Jail conference of 1877 found a directcorrelation between wheat price and 15-30% increase in jail population in Awadh jail.

• Colonial officials- poor deliberately courted imprisonment during period of extremehardship. For them prison was ‘father in laws house’.

• 1838 Prison Discipline Committee- convict really and apparently in better condition asfor lodging food and clothing was concerned.

• Inmates not treated alike but according to their status.• Locals of high status

• English and Eurasians (separate prison wards)

•Early 19th century removal of immunity of death penalty from Brahmin.

•Court in England warned against advantages to be gained through commonmessing could ignite and excite the locals.

• Luckhnow Jail- Allowed ‘bodi’ to Hindu one inch beard to Muslim and all hair toSikh also to wear metal kara (bracelet).

•1838- Prison discipline committee commends Transportation: a dreadfulpunishment for Hindus ‘incredible horror’.

•Violent and unruly women- cutting of their hair- institutional widowhood.

Reforms Concept

• Until late in 19th century little emphasis on reforms.

• 1838- prison reform committee gives less weightage to reform thandeterrence.

• 1877- jail conference- idea of reforming prisoners, what ever its validityin the west, has but little significance in India. Majority of Indianprisoners were not below the level of outside population.

• As aliens British Raj felt it was little they could ask or convince locals.

• Found it difficult to recruit suitable warders to induce reforms.

Agency for Colonial Control over Productive Labor• Extensive use of convict labor on public works in late 18th century.

• 1830- 13,000 prisoners employed in road gangs in Bengal alone. Thetask of cleaning river beds and digging canals and building their ownprisons.

• In Singapore Indian prisoners constructed two lighthouses, acathedral and government house. This transportation provided cheapand disciplined labor.

• Development for penal settlement in Andeman for which local laborwas not available.

• By late 1830s extramural(outside) labor was being viewed with disfavor.Communication with public, escaping tended to relaxing the disciplineinside jail also.

• 1850s switch made to inside jail labor (jail industry). Here too reformstook second precedence to remuneration.

• F J Mouat- a leading proponent of jail workshops justified on premiseof discipline and reforms.

• Bentham and Beccaria had taught him ‘ idleness is the chief cause byfar the greater part of the constant war waged by the habitual criminalclasses.

• Prisoner contributed substantially towards the cost of the their ownincarceration and often produce high quality goods and services for thestate itself

• Alipur and Hugly jails produced income of 210,000 in 1861 from high classprinting work and brought in further 60,000 by manufacturing gunny bagsa total profit of 270,000.

• 1881- jails of madras presidency produced goods worth 331832 most ofwhich supplied to other government departments including uniformsboots sandals and blanket for the police.

• Discipline was being sacrificed to profit.

• 1880-military department unilaterally reversed the government decision tofavour jail manufacturers over private contractors.

• Lord Ripon the liberal viceroy took the view that jail manufacturers shouldbe regarded not as source of revenue but a branch of prison discipline.

Health• Jail inmates provided significant role in western medical knowledge and

advance in India.

• 1838 no medical men included in committee

• By 1860s prisons were being actively incorporated- prison InspectorGenerals were usually drawn from Indian Medical Services. Medical mensat in inquiry committee set up for jail discipline.

• Importance of colonial connection between medicine and penology wasreflected in voluminous medical literature.

• Medical officer could advice the reduction of hard punishment.

• By handing over Administration to medical persons state drew a veil onproblems like neglect and suffering.

• Prison more a site of medical observation

• Jail based medical investigation included cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis, kala-azar, meningitis, malaria and hookworms infestation

• Prisoner could easily be post- mortemed as compared to normal citizen by1860 it was a standard practice for every prisoner who died in the prisons.

• Quinine widely experimented in jails-1907 - Punjab I G Jails GFW Braideinstructed jail supientendents to give regular weekly dose

• 1908- 90% of Punjab population fell to malaria 50% seriously sick, over 400,000deaths but only 10% in jail fell sick.

• 1846- Dr. A H Leith conducted inquiry into cause of ill health in Bombay jail• In 1861 after his report Government of India asked each province to report on

jail diet• 1912 Prof. D McCay of Calcutta Medical College compared jail diet in Bengal

with UP and drew that physical fragility of Bengalis was due to rice eating habitas compared to wheat eater UPians

Architecture

• Building adopted for other purposes (old Delhi jail, converted Sarai)

• Some purpose built prisons in 1790s onward but became dilapidatedby 1850

• 1855- J Rohde inspector Prison Madras submitted design for severalnew jails (like Panopticon)

• Aftermath of 1857-58 and reform in IPC number of central anddistrict jails were built –

• 1849 Woodcock -Mixed design combine the economy of barracks

• 1860-70s jails of pentonville design

Pantone Ville Jail Design

RECAP

Any ?

Questions

• Indo-Pak Jails 18th, 19th and early 20th century

• Jail Culture in Indo- Pak pre partition

• Jail Reforms in Indo-Pak

• The effect of putting convicts as warders in Indo-Pak jails

• The evolution of punishment in Indo-Pak

• Architectural history of Indo-Pak prisons

• The health issues in Indian pre partition prisons