Conceptualizing the carceral state in contemporary India

Abstract

In this article, I explore the extraordinary measures within prison environments in contemporary India that intensify the carceral experience. I use these elements to develop a culturally distinctive theory of the carceral state in India. To analyse questions of community resilience and people’s voices in the face of extensive carceralization, I draw on the work of People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR), a Delhi-based democratic rights organization, and analyse publicly available data on its activities and interventions over the past two decades.

Introduction

Conceptions of the carceral state revolve around practices of policing, surveillance, mass incarceration, detention, and deportation involving different arms of the criminal justice system (Alexander, 2010; Escobar, 2015; Dolovich, 2011). Carcerality can also extend beyond the evident institutional borders of prisons, detention centres, and other state-run sites of confinement (Jefferson et al., 2018). This article explores the extraordinary measures within carceral spaces in contemporary India that point to a heightening of the carceral experience. I analyse these instances of pervasive carcerality to argue that the tangible and symbolic backing of the carceral state in India is derived from the implementation of brutal authority within prisons and other state-operated confinement facilities. This differs from approaches that find carcerality outside in the ‘free world’ and that focus on forms of mobility control, discipline, surveillance, punishment, and violent and torturous practices outside of prison walls. I recognize the value of focusing on pervasive, embodied carcerality while turning the analysis back onto the prison. Although the state may give the impression that it no longer needs the prison to control an ‘errant’, dissident, or resistant population, I demonstrate that the state enables pervasive carcerality to spread its tentacles in society through prison practices and the deliberate dissemination of selective information regarding these practices.

I begin by presenting the contours of the ‘carceral state’, drawing on my fieldwork and the literature on carcerality in prison studies, urban geography, and criminology (Dirsuweit, 1999; Moran, 2012; Moran et al., 2013). Establishing connections between brutal prison regimes and pervasive carcerality based on contemporary experiences of confinement, torture, and violence, I then consider how individuals and communities react to such carceralization. Asking ‘do resistant groups flourish?’, I focus on the People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR), a Delhi-based independent, civil-rights organization that has been consistently working since it was founded in 1977. I use PUDR reports and press releases from 2004 to 2024 to highlight how it responds to the dynamics of a carceral state. I argue that PUDR represents an anti-carceral community of activists who document, lay bare, and fight against carceral pervasiveness, even as PUDR encounters the possibility of the state’s carceralizing consequences.

The discussion is centred on my fieldwork in prisons and state-run institutions, homes for children and young adults in India, and an analysis of carceral continuities beyond these sites of confinement (Bandyopadhyay, 2020). This fieldwork experience, spread over a twenty-year period, is bookended by my doctoral fieldwork in the late nineties and more recent work, between 2021 and 2024, for a research project exploring whether an architecture of hope is possible in sites of confinement, such as prisons and safety homes for children in conflict with the law. I draw on this diverse fieldwork experience to present a synoptic understanding of the carceral state in contemporary India.

Characteristics of the carceral state

Multiple interpretations of the term ‘carceral’ are retrieved through an elaboration of the severity, depth, and heightened emotional intensity of the carceral experience. Scholarship on the carceral state draws on ‘carceral archipelago’ (Foucault, 1995) or the diverse locations and behaviours outside of prison walls that indicate pervasive, embodied concepts of carcerality. Scholars have investigated carcerality providing evidence of its use outside of prisons, using terms like shadow carceral state, prison regime, embodied carcerality, hyper-incarceration, carceral habitus, mass incarceration, and carceral humanism (Cohen, 1979; Allspach, 2010; Moran and Jewkes, 2015; Schept, 2013; Simon, 2007). Carceral expansion and exaggeration of the state’s carceral power is possible through institutional annexation and legal hybridity, implying practices through which criminal law is incorporated into administrative processes and civil and administrative pathways to incarceration are increased (Beckett and Murakawa, 2012). In a similar vein, Wacquant (2009, 2010) emphasized mass incarceration as a form of racialized punishment.

Such notions of the pervasiveness of carcerality are foundational for my arguments regarding the carceral strategies of the modern Indian state. Pervasive carcerality implies the presence of punitive and carceral measures in dimensions of life other than those found in prison. In modifying this argument for the Indian context, I argue that pervasive carcerality is dependent on practices within the prison that signal the reach and scope of carceral power. Therefore, this article details new techniques deployed by the state to create and sustain prisons as sites of total control, as well as the domino effects of such practices in spreading carcerality outside its recognized areas. Consequently, I emphasize carcerality as manifest in everyday activities and governance mechanisms embodied by the incarcerated in institutions of confinement. To understanding pervasive carcerality we must acknowledge the visible characteristics of control, violence, and brutalities within carceral institutions. These characteristics relate to several interconnected state practices and operations, including the possibility and regularity of incarceration in citizens’ lives; carceral expansion driven by the incarceration of marginalized identities; the restriction of information and knowledge regarding the prison system; and the institutionalization of violence.

The possibility and ordinariness of incarceration in the citizen’s life

The ordinariness of the prison in India’s modern postcolonial era is revealed in three ways. First, imprisonment is a possibility in every life. This possibility manifests when dissent is criminalized, and diverse political views or ideas about society are targeted. There are several instances of this in contemporary India, and I cite some of the following examples as evidence of the increasing ordinariness of the prison experience in citizens’ lives. These data are drawn from public news reports and analyses of these incidents (Bhatnagar, 2021; Columbia University, 2021; Ferreira, 2021; Paniyath, 2021; PTI and Indian Express, 2021; Biswas, 2022).

The imprisonment of student activists protesting a new Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (henceforth, CAA) made it possible to think of the prison experience as a possibility in the lives of ordinary citizens, who perceived themselves as law-abiding. Student activists were arrested under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967 (henceforth UAPA), among other legal provisions that were applied in their cases. The students interpreted the amendments to the citizenship act as discriminatory towards migrants and refugees from Muslim communities, due to classifying them as illegal migrants and placing the burden of proving their citizenship on them. The protests erupted in Delhi and other cities in 2020. In February 2020, rioting began at Jaffrabad, North-East Delhi, when women protested India’s CAA on a blocked section of the Seelampur–Jaffrabad–Maujpur route. A leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party demanded that Delhi Police clear the roadways, threatening to ‘hit the streets’ if they did not (Ajmal, 2020; Statesman News Service, 2020). Following this ultimatum, violence ensued. Several student activists, involved in mobilizing the sit-in protests, were accused of inciting violence, charged under the UAPA and imprisoned. The use of the draconian UAPA against student protesters, repeated denials of bail (mainly during the Covid_19 Pandemic), and the difficulties of prison life the accused experienced, placed them at increased risk of illness and death ( Scroll Staff 2020a; Bhatnagar, 2021; Paniyath, 2021)¹. The state’s actions indicate widespread carcerality and expose its reluctance to engage in meaningful conversations with the protesting youth.

Another instance of pervasive carcerality is the imprisonment of activists in the Bhima-Koregoan case. Sudha Bhardwaj, a lawyer who fought for Adivasi rights in Chhattisgarh, is one of the sixteen accused in this case. They were accused of making incendiary remarks at a conference around a public event² in Bhima-Koregaon, a village in Maharashtra (Bandyopadhyay, 2023; Shah, 2024). The Elgar Parishad conference took place on 31 December 2017, a day before Dalits³ gathered to commemorate the 200th anniversary of a battle in which a Dalit contingent of the British army defeated the region’s Peshwa Brahmins. The event is symbolic of Dalit pride and a critique of modern forms of caste oppression. At this event, there were violent clashes between Dalit and Maratha⁴ groups, resulting in the death of at least one person and injuries to others. Sudha Bharadwaj’s arrest, jail, and home-based confinement from October 2018 to December 2022 (when she received bail) is an example of the state’s response to dissenting citizens (Bharadwaj, 2023). The state’s insecurity is similarly demonstrated by the arrest of teenage climate activist Disha Ravi, detained in February 2021 on charges of criminal conspiracy and sedition, for disseminating a protest toolkit to garner support for farmers’ protests in the nation’s capital (AlJazeera, 2021; Trivedi, 2021; The Wire Staff, 2023). These arrests exemplify the utilization of the legal system to manage and penalize activists, serving as a warning of the probable consequences that await citizens who express dissent.

A troubling sign of pervasive carcerality is that the state perceives ordinary, dissenting citizens as threats, and as compromising its security and integrity. The state can maintain balance through an expression of its power and control over the governed. An increasing visibility of dissenting citizens brings about the perception of the state’s vulnerability in the exercise of its power to control and manage its citizens. Divisive hard lines tend to be drawn around the dissenters and supporters of state policy, legislation, and action and this can further contribute to divisive conflicts within society. Public street protests, in places of national and political significance, become sites for expressing dissent but also for clashes between opposing groups of citizens and between citizens and the police. For example, 2020 saw clashes between groups protesting the CAA and pro-CAA groups (Trivedi, 2020; Scroll Staff, 2020a, 2020b). Such disagreements are often allowed to fester and escalate without intervention. The rule of law may be suspended, granting street violence an air of legitimacy and credibility. Gradually, they are allowed to descend into violence, which then permits the state to intervene in brutal, repressive ways.

Additionally, there is a pervasive culture of fear within and outside prison walls that is engulfed by arbitrariness. When people protest in public spaces, they encounter the arbitrariness of arrest and imprisonment. The incarcerated experience the arbitrariness of surveillance, force, punishments, torture, and the granting of privileges. While the governance of ‘deviance’ warrants distinguishing between categories such as ‘criminal’/‘non-criminal’, political prisoner/ordinary prisoner, the state’s treatment of prisoners signals the erasure of purported differences between the ordinary ‘criminal’/prisoner and the political prisoner.

Limiting knowledge about the prison

One of the distinguishing features of the carceral state is its intent, capacity, and sustained efforts to control access to the prison. Securing permissions to enter the prison, study it, learn about its inner workings, assess the state’s performance in prison governance or offer opportunities for civil society engagement with the imprisoned, are challenging, given the strict gatekeeping implemented to keep civil society out of prison. Several of my applications for prison visits for research purposes were denied. Even if permission is granted, any long-term research engagement is regarded with suspicion and subject to strict surveillance and monitoring. Moreover, as per notifications from the Ministry of Home Affairs of the Government of India, any visitor must deposit a refundable amount of INR 1 lakh to get permission to visit the prison (Ministry of Home Affairs 2015). Such regulations make the prison inaccessible for researchers and social workers, enabling the state to control the narratives and perceptions of the prison.

Paradoxically, over the years, there has been a proliferation of prison writings by both political and ‘ordinary’ prisoners (for instance, Bharadwaj, 2023; Vora, 2019; Ghandy, 2021; Gilani, 2005; Shaikh, 2021; Rao, 2010). There is also growing interest in the study of prisons, not just in criminology but also in sociology, social anthropology, history, and political science (Bandyopadhyay, 2010; Bandyopadhyay and Mehta, 2022; Mehta, 2018; Singh, 2018; Cherukuri 2008; Purkayastha 2023; Shankardass, 2016). Memoirs and emerging academic and research-based literature about the institution have made it more knowable and accessible, only to reveal the horrors of everyday prison life, the excesses of torture implicit in everyday denials, and the explicit violence on the bodies of individual prisoners (Gilani, 2005; Vora, 2019; Bharadwaj, 2023). The following section focuses on some of these aspects of violence and what they demonstrate about India’s carceral state.

Hardwiring violence

Control over violence strengthens the carceral state and is inherent in prisons, carceralized spaces such as safety homes for the protection of children in conflict with the law, and other control, containment, and detention spaces (Bowker, 1983; Weegels, 2020; Ekland-Olson, 1986; Bottoms, 1999; Kumari, 1999). Different kinds of violence define everyday life in these spaces. Formally, institutions support rights, reform, treatment, and dignity. However, they are routinely undermined by everyday denials of fundamental rights, and by expressive, exemplary forms of violence, torture, severe penalties, and even death. Violence is deeply ingrained in the prison system through practices such as denying bail and depriving inmates of necessities. As explained below, a regime of heightened surveillance, aided by a network of informers, maintains control. Once a person has been released or completed their sentence, they may be recruited as informers in their community. Outside prisons, ex-prisoners and those connected to them are often coerced or incentivized to work as police informants. Within prisons, many experienced and convicted prisoners or prisoners who can work the system are able to get work as helpers of the staff members. Both these practices indicate a fusion of functions, whereby staff and prisoners are in collusion with each other, and this fusion of functions supports a culture of hyper-surveillance and identity-based negotiations. Such a culture leads to hyper-inequalities in the prison system, perpetuating violence, and uncertainty.

Everyday deprivations

Everyday deprivations include lack of space, food, and nutritional quality; isolation from family, friends, and the outside world; and rigorous scheduling of required tasks that deprive prisoners of rest and enforce harsh work discipline. Overcrowding further degrades Indian prison conditions, heightening social tensions and inequalities like caste and gender, and increasing violence. The rate of prison overcrowding in India is at a peak of 130 percent for about twenty-six states and up to 180 percent in some states (Radhakrishnan and Varghese, 2022) The prison population rate (the number of prisoners per 100,000 people) has gone up from 26 per 100,000 people in 2000 to 35 per 100,000 people in 2022. Though this appears as a gradual increase, the high proportion of under-trial prisoners (about 75 percent of total number of prisoners) is alarming (ICPR, 2022). Prison administration and prisoners’ lives are severely impacted by overcrowding. It forces prisoners to take turns to sleep (Chakraburtty, 2017). Rain leakages during the monsoon, high temperatures during summers, and high humidity worsen the effects of overcrowding. Prisoners fight with one another to make the most of their available space. Although the effects of overcrowding on prison administration have been acknowledged, the state’s view of overcrowding as a problem with infrastructure related to resource allocation and shortages, and its relative indifference to the needs of prisoners in comparison to security, have prevented overcrowding from receiving adequate attention. Both these reasons also justify carceral expansion.

During a riot in a women’s prison in Mumbai in 2017, a prisoner complained about rotten eggs and sour bread, and an altercation with staff ensued (Sharma, 2018). The prisoner was brutally beaten and died in custody. In 2024, in a Delhi prison, a prisoner was reportedly fatally attacked by another prisoner because of a conflict over food (Express News Service, 2024). Even though the quality of prison food has improved, lack of nutritious food, limited protein content, denial of special diets, and other deprivations around food remain a concern. A canteen system exists, whereby prisoners who have money can buy raw and cooked food from the canteen: this leads to inequalities based on social and prison capital. Practices such as procuring food, storing food to be eaten later, or cooking food are fraught, or present opportunities for conflict and violence.

The carceral logic of prison life and administration denies prisoners social contact, prohibits relationships with others within and beyond the confinement zone, and stifles solidarity. Red tape, capricious denials, and hyper-surveillance hinder mulaqats (visits by family and friends). During my recent fieldwork in one of the safety homes for boys in conflict with the law, a young boy told us that his mother had followed all the procedures, made an application, and waited for a good portion of the morning only to be told that she could not meet him. When we inquired about the basis for this, the boy and his mother said she was bringing him a pair of white sports shoes that he had requested. Officials further stated that, as guardians of these boys, they were responsible for reforming the youths and teaching their parents when they were wrong. The denial of the mulaqat was a form of disciplining and punishment for the boy and his parents. This instance reveals how trust can be broken between an imprisoned person and the authorities. It also highlights some of the arbitrary ways by which the administration treats prisoners and carceralizes them beyond mere imprisonment.

Media reports illustrate the violence effected through routinized everyday deprivations in prison (Vincent, 2020). Tribal activist, Stan Swamy, an octogenarian with Parkinson’s disease and other health issues, was imprisoned in the Bhima-Koregaon case. Despite his medical grounds, he was denied bail, and applications for additional woollens, a straw, and a sipper were only granted after several pleas and after significant time elapsed (Vincent, 2020). Another campaigner, Gautam Navlakha, was denied spectacles, leaving him practically blind. He was also refused literature, which was only provided after the Court intervened to remind jail officials of their responsibility to care for and protect detainees (Vincent, 2020). Safoora Zargar, a pregnant student activist, was denied bail several times, rendering her particularly vulnerable amidst the Pandemic (Vincent, 2020). The precarity of health care and denial of quality mental health care are integral to the pains of imprisonment. Ben-Moshe (2017, p. 282) argues that prisons cannot be seen as places of treatment but rather as ‘spaces of disablement which create and exacerbate mental ill health’. Withholding goods and modest comforts to prisoners is ostensibly about asserting power and control; it extends the scope of punishment beyond liberty deprivation. Significantly, the selective denial of certain goods/objects reflects how certain prisoners are perceived and labelled ‘dangerous’, or how making certain goods accessible has the potential to make them even more dangerous. To give pen and paper to the prisoner who writes, books to the prisoner who wants to read and think, art supplies to someone who wants to paint, could potentially create, and sustain dissension rather than discipline, chaos rather than order, irrationalities of engaging rather than the rational, bureaucratic modes of functioning. Together these create a crisis of discipline and order in prison. Such bodies are treated with additional caution within carceral spaces, and from the state’s perspective, they justifiably become objects of hyper-surveillance.

Hyper-surveillance, the fusion of functions, and networks of informers

Foucault (1995, p.301) argued that disciplinary authority punishes the ‘delinquents’, alienates them, and creates a docile population to serve the purposes of the carceral archipelago. Practices to create docility are embedded in everyday deprivations, and hyper-surveillance. However, there are also several resistant subjectivities of prisoners. These resistive practices are selectively legitimized or overlooked by the staff, sustaining the regularity of infractions and deviance from prison rules (Goffman, 1961).

Outside the prison hyper-surveillance is enabled through the enlisting of ex-prisoners and their contacts as informants for the authorities. This informer system resonates with the panopticon principle, creating the pervasive perception of being constantly tracked by the authorities. The practice of ‘fusion of functions’, implying the categorization of certain inmates as controllers, also allows some convicts to exercise authority over other prisoners in a specific living area (Bandyopadhyay, 2010). This practice is designed to establish hierarchies, intensify preexisting ones, and hinder the cultivation of trust and solidarity among prisoners. The official employment of prisoners as ‘convict warders’ or convict overseers, allows prison officials to unofficially enlist prisoners as informants, to act as the eyes and ears of the warders by relaying information to them. Prisoners are uncertain about who is observing them and who might function as an informant or disclose information about them. The reliability of fellow inmates is a perpetual worry, fostering an uneasy atmosphere, where discerning who is trustworthy or disloyal is tricky. Prisoners who are informants and co-controllers are granted privileges in exchange for their surveillance and reporting duties.

Furthermore, what qualifies prisoners to take on such roles depends on factors such as their seniority or number of years they have been in prison, the gravity of the offences for which they were accused and sentenced; their social standing outside the prison; their ability to translate their social position into financial and other advantages within prison; their relations with warders and prison staff; and the fear or respect they can generate within the prison (Bandyopadhyay, 2010). These factors are intersectional, sometimes amplifying the effect of privilege or its relative absence or making privilege contingent on specific circumstances (Shantha, 2020). A position of privilege, thus, does not always guarantee advantageous negotiations with the system. The prison administration facilitates negotiations for advantages within the system based on identity and social capital, and they might be further leveraged to develop prison capital. This contributes to an environment where hyper-inequalities can endure: the privileged (in terms of caste and class) may organize advantages and order prison life according to their preferences, while others who lack prison capital face various forms of marginalization and exclusion inside the system. Prisoners, who can utilize prison capital and prison officials together, contribute to these extreme inequalities. These inequalities are heightened as inmates who lack prison capital are more likely to be punished with beatings and solitary confinement for transgressions that disturb prison order.

Strategic use of unpredictability

One way of creating a system of enduring hyper-inequalities is the strategic use of unpredictability. The use of force or violence is unpredictable and selective: it is not applied to all transgressive acts, nor is it applied absolutely to all prisoners who violate rules. For instance, most Indian prisons operate a system of surprise checks for contraband articles possessed by prisoners (Bandyopadhyay, 2010). Contraband found during routine searches is seized and the prisoner possessing it is punished with solitary confinement, denial of mulaqats, or withdrawal of other rights and privileges. Punishment is the rule, however, the decision to confiscate and punish is based on factors, such as the prisoner’s position in the hierarchy, connections and rapport with warders and prison officials, and individuals’ creative uses of their bodies to hide objects (Goffman, 1961).

Thus, a prisoner’s place in the prison order is shaped by everyday contingencies. Prison administration and discipline systems include elements of apparent ‘randomness’ in their application of regulations and outcomes. Unpredictability is woven into the fabric of governance practices, eliciting feelings of apprehension and unease. A prisoner may get close to warders, share resources with them, wield considerable influence within the system and expect to be allowed certain transgressions, only to be suddenly reminded of prison rules (Bandyopadhyay, 2010). Uncertainty and unpredictability in prisoners’ everyday lives disrupt prison discipline and order.

Collectivizing around democratic and civil rights—the case of PUDR

Amidst this bleak atmosphere of authoritarianism and stifling of citizen voices, where are the collective responses of citizens to such brutalization? According to Chase (2015), it is imperative to uncover histories of resistance to carcerality to address how carceral regimes have become so deeply ingrained. PUDR engages in fact-finding, advocacy and communication with the government, judiciary, and other agencies to assert fundamental rights and ideas of justice enshrined in constitutional law. A collective of activists, PUDR raises awareness about violations of citizens’ rights and articulates public calls to defend communities and citizens whose rights are threatened by the state, including those who bear the brunt of repressive state policies owing to their marginalized locations and/or relative lack of social and cultural capital.

PUDR came into existence in 1977 as part of a national forum, PUCLDR (People’s Union for Civil Liberties and Democratic Rights). In February 1981, it became known as PUDR. Despite being Delhi-based, its national presence is reflected by its engagement with issues in different parts of the country. Occasionally, it holds public meetings and press conferences to coincide with the release of its reports, and this enables it to connect with civil society and share its work publicly. Additionally, it maintains a website (www.pudr.org) where all its publications, press releases, and reports are available. PUDR generates funds through the sale of publications and accepts only independent donations capped at 3000 INR. It does not accept any state or corporate funding or grants from international funding agencies. This ensures that its work and focus are not influenced by any external entity, thus enabling its autonomy and survival in a carceralized environment. Membership is voluntary, and activists meet regularly to organize activities. Activists are not paid for giving their time or for undertaking activities. Despite its reliance on a small group of committed activists, PUDR’s active presence and independence are evidenced through its foregrounding of human rights over a large canvas. This includes investigating human rights violations; addressing issues of custodial rapes, deaths, and torture; highlighting the rights of marginalized peasants, agricultural workers, and working-class rights across various sectors; campaigning for gender equality in domestic and public spheres; and expressing sustained opposition to caste oppression and communal violence.

PUDR adopts a micro and macro analytical approach, and its reports are based on rigorous fact-finding missions. A team of activists visit a site where human rights violations have occurred and speak to affected people and other parties to recover multiple voices that may be submerged and then present a detailed description and analysis of the events. Beteille (1999) argued that the biggest threat to civil society in India came from the intrusion of collective identities into domains that ought to be governed by the rights and obligations of individuals. The work of PUDR addresses these fractures in India’s civil society, as it engages with community rights, citizen rights and individual and collective experiences of violations. PUDR invokes community connections in two ways: first by reaching out to communities that experience violations of civil and democratic rights; and second, by presenting itself as a collective of activists positioned as a critical voice against state excesses. This, it seems, fosters understanding and sensitivity within communities that may otherwise perceive themselves as disconnected from issues related to carceral politics.

Here I refer to PUDR reports and press statements from 2004 to 2024 that focus on living conditions in prisons; the concerns of political prisoners; the use of the law to limit dissent; and the use of extra-judicial measures to imprison, violate and take punitive action against dissenting bodies. Collectively, these issues reveal how different state institutions adopt and extend the authoritarian, violent and violative stance of the contemporary Indian state. Specifically, my analysis draws on the following reports: Jishan Case (PUDR, 2020); Soni Sori case (PUDR, 2011a, 2011b, 2012a); Report on conditions in prisons (PUDR, 2008, 2011c, 2020), and critiques of UAPA (PUDR, 2005, 2009, 2012b, 2021 ). In the following sections, this evidence is subsumed under two broad themes: (i) police brutality, custodial deaths and carceral linkages, and (ii) critiques of the draconian law, UAPA. They intersect with others, such as caste-based violence and deprivations, gender violence, and sexual assault. PUDR deals with other issues that, while beyond the scope of this article, constitute a substantive and critical part of its civil liberties work, such as Dalit rights, the case against manual scavenging, and the documentation of worker’s struggles.

Police brutality, custodial deaths, and carceral linkages

Complicity between different state institutions, a culture of impunity, lack of accountability, and the legitimization of alternative narratives of justice frame the issue of custodial violence and death in India. PUDR has chosen a path of sustained engagement with these issues, regularly and publicly reporting on custodial deaths, sexual violence, and police brutality. But activists’ engagement transcends simple reporting in two crucial ways. First, the discussion of any case or issue is presented to the public as a report, where connections between events and institutions are critically examined. Second, even though reports concern specific incidents, PUDR uses these micro-worlds of specific violations to reflect on the endemic brutalities inflicted by state institutions and forces (PUDR, 2011a, 2011b, 2020 ). This approach facilitates reflections on the collusion of the judiciary, law enforcement, and prisons in implementing penalties that extend beyond deprivations of mobility, as exemplified in the Jishan case. PUDR’s analysis emphasizes how lack of accountability for such brutalization in custodial and other settings contributes to a larger culture of impunity. In prisons, such impunity is reinforced by the spatial organization and structure of the building and by communication channels, media coverage, and official narratives that rationalize the brutality inflicted on prisoners’ bodies. I highlight two cases—from Delhi and Chhattisgarh— to illuminate state agencies’ involvement in disciplining, punishing, and using violence in concrete and symbolic ways to control those deemed errant or dissident. Even when its reports and issues are drawn from particular localities, PUDR’s analysis highlights their national relevance, positioning PUDR as a community-based organization that transcends boundaries of locality.

PUDR’s investigations reveal the case of Jishan, a nineteen-year-old Muslim boy from a poor neighbourhood, who was imprisoned for petty theft in 2022 (PUDR, 2022). A few months into his imprisonment, Jishan’s family received a call to go to the hospital, only to discover that he had died. Prison officials declared it a ‘natural’ death, citing his previous heroin addiction as an underlying cause of low platelet count and intra-cerebral haemorrhage, as noted in the postmortem report (Lokaneeta, 2022; PUDR, 2022). The postmortem report neglected to disclose that his body bore traces of multiple injuries and bruises, which were documented through photographs taken by the family. Those photographs provided evidence of the brutality he experienced in prison. Prior to his death, Jishan had vacillated between stating that his injuries were caused by a fall and stating that they were caused by a beating. His accounts were viewed as inconsistent, lacking clarity, and, therefore, untrustworthy. Even though we may never know for sure what happened to Jishan, PUDR’s Report (2022) indicates the state’s culpability in his death. The Report is based on PUDR’s investigations and interviews with Jishan’s family members, neighbours, lawyer, police and prison officials and a review of documents and reports accessed by the family and lawyer. The labelling of Jishan’s earlier statement regarding his injuries as inconsistent, the postmortem report’s failure to mention injuries, such as those on his ribs and legs, and the building of a narrative around his addiction to heroin being responsible for his death were ways by which prison authorities and, by extension, the state, sought to abdicate any responsibility for Jishan’s death. Through the PUDR’s report, we know about Jishan’s other injuries, his repeated complaints about pain, and his two diverging statements about the cause of his injuries. These aspects disrupt the state’s narrative of a natural death. PUDR’s report presents alternative voices that militate against the dominant, complicit, and cohesive narrative built by the hospital, prison, police, and forensic examination of the body. Against an official narrative exonerating the state, PUDR activists collaborated to present a persuasive account that illustrates the nature of the state’s involvement in this and similar fatalities.

Another report documented the brutalities committed on the body of Soni Sori, a tribal woman and activist for the rights of the tribal people, and who was also a teacher in a government school in Chhattisgarh (PUDR, 2012). This report along with others on custodial torture and death shows how PUDR is documenting and building an alternate archive of state brutalities and torture. Soni Sori was labelled ‘dissident’ and targeted by state authorities as a Naxal supporter. She narrated her experience of torture in custody through letters to the court, her former teacher, and her lawyer. In one letter to the judge, Soni Sori asks—‘Why this injustice to me? Giving electric shocks, stripping me naked, shoving stones inside me – is this going to solve the Naxal problem?’⁵ (PUDR, 2012, p. 11). Her testimony reveals how the police and prison treat bodies labelled dissident and dispensable, as bereft of dignity and unworthy of compassion. This is how dehumanization and a culture of fear are accomplished (PUDR, 2011). In one of my field visits in a district jail in North India, a senior official said, ‘jail mein thoda bahut khauf banaye rakhna zaroori hai’, meaning ‘it is necessary to instill and maintain a sense of dread of the police and the prison’ in the minds of those who break the law. This khauf is nurtured and sustained through the unpredictable use of force and exemplary violence that is marked on the body but made invisible by attributing injury and death to natural causes. These are not exceptional practices. They are routine and central to the process and practice of democratic governance in contemporary states (Lokaneeta, 2014).

PUDR has written letters and made repeated requests to prison administrators to discuss prison living conditions and advocate for ways to improve them. But these requests have been turned down. Subsequently, PUDR (2011) published a report on living conditions in Delhi’s central prison, highlighting, overcrowding, inadequate diet, and forced vegetarianism; a system whereby poor/underprivileged prisoners work for warders, staff, and influential prisoners; and the granting of privileges based on prisoners’ class backgrounds. The intersections of caste and class are significant as those from marginal caste and class backgrounds are unable to manipulate or subvert prison regimes to secure basic comforts. Such comforts are routinely granted to prisoners from privileged caste and class backgrounds, often justified by the legal classification of prisoners (GOI, Minsitry of Home Affairs, 2016a, 2016b, 2023)⁶.

Furthermore, when prisoners fulfil everyday tasks of prison administration or work for other prisoners or staff members, their work depends on caste and class identities (Shantha, 2020; Kalita, 2023). Work could include cooking meals, cleaning the living area or toilets, fetching water, and washing clothes. The pains of imprisonment thus have a severe compounding effect on the bodies of marginal caste and class prisoners (Sykes, 1958; Walker and Worrall, 2000; Hancock and Jewkes, 2011). Drawing on complaints received by the National Human Rights Commission,⁷ the testimonies of released prisoners, and reports of violence among prisoners in wards, in prison vans and because of gang wars, PUDR (2017) also asserted that the use of deadly weapons by prisoners is made possible by the prison administration’s culpability, whether through reckless inattention, contempt, or biases against some prisoners. If control over knowledge regarding prison life is a characteristic of the carceral state, PUDR pierces through the state’s opacity and exposes the realities of prison life.

Critiques of UAPA

PUDR’s activism also focuses on the Unlawful (Activities) Prevention Act of 1967 (UAPA), which, uses national security to function as a tool to curtail citizens’ autonomy and democratic rights. According to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), a central governmental agency responsible for data collection on crime and incarceration, there has been an increase in arrests under the UAPA in recent years: for instance, NCRB’s crime report for 2022 highlights a 17.9 percent increase in the number of complaints filed under the UAPA. A total of 1005 incidents were reported nationwide in 2022, compared with 814 cases documented in 2021 and 796 cases in 2020 (NCRB, 2022; Sinha and Manral 2023). Moreover, according to data presented by the Union Home Ministry in the Upper House of Parliament, only 2.2 percent of those accused under UAPA were convicted by the Court in the period from 2016 to 2019 (The Hindu Special Correspondent, 2021). The state’s use of UAPA to manage, discipline, and quell dissent is not new. However, data highlighting growing evidence of its application when compared with the notably low rate of convictions under UAPA, raises concerns about the discretionary and arbitrary use of this act.

The state uses national security as justification to silence any reasoned opposition to this draconian law, which criminalizes dissent and marks it as anti-state and, therefore, unlawful. In building an analysis of UAPA and its use, PUDR argued that the Act’s conception of terror does not include any consideration of crimes against humanity perpetrated by the authorities, including members of the armed forces (PUDR, 2012). On the contrary, the term terror is reserved for the actions of those who oppose the establishment. This definition of what is deemed unlawful enables the government to prohibit specific political organizations, criminalizing the fundamental right to associate and assemble in a democratic society. PUDR’s (2012, p. 6) report argues that laws such as the UAPA skew the balance of power, favouring the executive over the judiciary (PUDR, 2012, p. 6), giving the former authority to curtail citizens’ democratic rights to agitate and organize. With this critique as a backdrop, PUDR has articulated the rights of political prisoners imprisoned under the UAPA, revealing the criminalization of dissent and the unlawful detention of activists, scholars, and human rights workers (PUDR, 2012, 2017, 2021). PUDR’s reports represent calls for action in relation to the imprisonment of citizens under UAPA and the state’s portrayal of certain individuals/groups as dissidents, anti-state, and easily dispensable. As more and more ordinary people, activists, and teachers are detained, the state creates and sustains a culture of fear.

Conclusion

This culture of fear is at the heart of an all-encompassing carcerality (and its ruptures and resistances) that is manifest in contemporary India. This article centred the state’s treatment, classification, and management of dissident citizens, shedding light on key elements of the carceral state. PUDR’s activism and interventions on matters pertaining to incarceration and beyond incarceration—e.g. the rights of workers, discrimination and violence brought about by caste inequalities, and gendered denials of rights and citizenship—highlight the state’s multiple methods for constituting, grouping, and classifying what it regards as disposable citizens. Crucially, the work of PUDR also shows how civil society can respond to these practices, providing a glimpse into how India’s carceral state is being resisted.

This evidence of advocacy and resistance reveals that neither the carceral state nor its brutal regimes of surveillance, incarceration, and control over citizens’ lives are necessarily total. PUDR represents civil society in multiple senses. It is an independent civil society organization: a collective of interested, aware and committed citizens who volunteer to evaluate and create awareness about human rights violations across the country. Additionally, it campaigns against violations and repression by the state, capital, and other supporting institutions. Therefore, PUDR adheres to a view of civil society as standing in opposition to the state; one where citizens directly participate in seeking to curtail the state’s power and authoritarianism (Mahajan, 1999). It does so by revealing multiple perspectives on incidents and through sustained critiques and campaigns against the state’s excesses. PUDR studies and records cases where citizens’ and community rights are compromised, thus creating resistant narratives that oppose the state’s narratives of discipline, control, and security.

This account of some aspects of PUDR’s work shows that it is an anti-carceral community of activists who document, lay bare, and fight against carceral pervasiveness. PUDR mediates state-citizen relationships, helping citizens to question and reimagine their relationships with the state. It calls the state to account for brutalizing prisoners or for constraining and marginalizing specific groups or communities. PUDR’s work is grounded in ideas of equal citizenship, displaying a keen analytical sensitivity to the ways ‘disposable citizens’ are created: the reports referenced here are signposts of that sensitivity. The cases of Jishan and Soni Sori, critiques of the continuance of manual scavenging or struggles for workers’ rights, are ostensibly different issues but they are united by the figure of the disposable citizen. This figure cements the characteristics of the carceral state in contemporary India, which produces a framework for disposability and erasure. This framework of carcerality is symbolic and actual, determining what actions, behaviours, and practices designate a person as expendable. It legitimizes pervasive carcerality and reflects continuities between carceral sites and spaces outside, where certain bodies are always at risk of being labelled disposable.

Data availability

The author confirms that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article [and/or] its supplementary materials. In addition data used may also be accessed from the site www.pudr.org.

Footnotes

Mahuya Bandyopadhyay is Professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. Her research focuses on the varied manifestations of the carceral mesh in contemporary urban society, encompassing themes in the sociology of organizations, prison ethnography, law, crime, punishment, and gender and masculinities. She has authored Everyday Life in Prison: Confinement, Surveillance, Resistance, and is co-editor of Towards a New Sociology in India; Women, Incarcerated: Narratives from India, and a forthcoming volume, Geographies of Gendered Punishment: Women’s Imprisonment in a Global Context.

References