COMMENT ON PRISON CONDITIONS

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09415777229, 094055338

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COMMENT ON PRISON CONDITIONS

 

 

  For reason I do not wish to enter into at this stage, I am unable to publish further correspondence in this matter. But I may state that I was permitted to see two of the leading hunger-strikers in the presence of the Superintendent of the Jail and the Inspector-General of Prisons. The result was that Messrs Dastane and Dev, the two prisoners, appreciated the moral argument I advanced, and at once broke their long fast. The Government, after investigating the cause of flogging and surrounding circumstances, issued instructions that no flogging was to be administered by the Jail Superintendent without previous sanction from the Government except in the case of assault by prisoners upon Jail officials, or like conduct. I have observed that exaggerated reports were published about the conduct of Major Whitworth Jones, then Superintendent, and that he was described as an inhumane Superintendent, and his conduct as inhuman. Whilst, in my opinion, the flogging in question was a grave error of judgment on the part of the Superintendent, it was nothing more. Major Jones was often hasty but so far as I am aware never heartless. On the contrary, in all I saw of him and heard about him from those prisoners with whom I came in contact, he was a most sympathetic Superintendent, ever willing to listen to the prisoners and to take severe notice of the subordinates who in any way ill-treated them. He was ever willing to admit his mistakes rare quality in an official. At the same time he was a disciplinarian, and a hasty disciplinarian is often likely to make mistakes. The two floggings of satyagrahis were such mistakes. They were of the head, not of the heart. The fact is that the powers of indiscriminate flogging should never have been vested in the hands of Superintendents of Jails. They were taken away none too soon. A detailed examination of the prison administration and of these floggings must be reserved for a further occasion.