MY JAIL EXPERIENCES – IV

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09415777229, 094055338

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MY JAIL EXPERIENCES – IV

 

 

We do not make any distinction between political and other prisoners. Surely you do not want any such distinction to be made in your favour? Thus said Sir George Lloyd when he visited the Yeravda Jail about the end of the last year. He said that in reply to an inadvertent use made by me of the adjective ‘political’. I ought to have known better for I was fully aware of the Governor’s distaste for that word. And yet, strange to say, the history tickets of most of us were marked ‘political’. When I remarked upon the anomaly, I was told by the then Superintendent that the distinction was private and was intended only for the guidance of the authorities. We, the prisoners, were to ignore it, for we could not base any claim upon it. I have reproduced Sir George Lloyd’s language word for word so far as I can remember. There is a sting about what Sir George Lloyd said. And it was so gratuitous for he knew that I was asking for no favours and no distinction. Circumstances had brought about a general discussion.

But the idea was to tell me, “You are no better than the rest in the eye of the law and the administration.” And yet the painful inconsistency was that the very time that the distinction was, without any occasion for it, combated in theory, it was made in practice. Only, in the majority of Gases, it was made against the political prisoners. As a matter of fact, it is impossible to avoid making distinctions. If the human factor were not ignored, it would be necessary to understand a prisoner’s habits of life, and model his life accordingly in the prisons. It is not a question of distinguishing between rich men and poor men or educated and uneducated, but between modes of life these antecedents have developed in them. As against the inevitable recognition of the existing fact, it has been urged that the men who commit crimes should know that the law is no respecter of persons, and that it is the same to the law whether a rich man or a graduate or a labourer commits theft. This is a perversion of a sound law. If it is really the same to the law as it should be, each will get the treatment according to his capacity for suffering. To give thirty stripes to a delicately-built thief and as many to an able-bodied one would be not impartiality but vindictiveness towards the delicate one and probably indulgence to the able-bodied. Similarly to expect, say, Pandit Motilalji to sleep on a rough coir mat spread on hard floor is additional punishment, not equality of treatment. If the human factor was introduced into the administration of the jails, the ceremony on admission would be different from what it is today. Finger-impressions would undoubtedly be taken; a record of past offences would find its place in the register. But there will be, in addition, particulars about the prisoner’s habits and mode of life. Not distinction but classification is perhaps the word that better describes the necessary method which the authorities, if they would treat prisoners as human beings, must recognize. Some kind of classification there already is. For instance, there are circles wherein prisoners are housed in batches in long cells. Then there are the separate single cells intended for dangerous criminals. There are solitary cells where prisoners undergoing solitary confinement are locked. There are, again, the condemned cells in which are locked prisoners awaiting the gallows.

Lastly, there are cells for under-trial prisoners. The reader will be surprised to find that political prisoners were mostly confined in the separate division or the solitary. In some cases, they were confined in condemned cells. Let me not do an injustice to the authorities. Those who do not know these divisions and cells may form the impression that the condemned cells, for instance, must be especially bad. Such, however, is not the case. The cells are all well-constructed and airy so far as Yeravda Jail is concerned. What is, however, open to strong objection is the association about these cells. The classification being, as I have shown, inevitable and in existence, there is no reason why it should not be scientific and human. I know that revision of classification according to my suggestion means a revolution in the whole system. It undoubtedly means more expense and a different type of men to work the new system. But additional expense will mean economy in the long run. The greatest advantage of the proposed revolution would no doubt be a reduction in the crimes and reformation of the prisoners. The jails would then be reformatories representing to society sinners as its reformed and respectable members. This may be a far-off event. If we were not under the spell of a long-lived custom, we should not find it a difficult task to turn our prisons into reformatories. Let me quote here a pregnant remark made by one of the jailors. He once said: When I admit search or report prisoners, I often ask myself whether I am a better man than most of them. God knows I have been guilty of worse crimes than what some have come here for. The difference is that these poor men have been detected whereas I am not. Is not what the good jailor confessed true of many of us? Is it not true that there are more undetected than detected crimes? Society does not point the finger of scorn at them. But habit has made us look askance at those who are not smart enough to escape detection. Imprisonment often makes them hardened criminals.

The animal treatment commences on arrest. The accused are in theory assumed to be innocent unless they are found guilty. In practice the demeanour of those in charge of them is one of haughtiness and contempt. A convicted man is lost to society. The atmosphere in the prison inures him to the position of inferiority. The political prisoners do not as a rule succumbs to this debilitating atmosphere, because they, instead of responding to the depressing atmosphere, act against it and, therefore, even refine it to a certain extent. Society, too, refuses to regard them as criminals. On the contrary, they become heroes and martyrs. Their sufferings in the jail are exaggerated by the public. And such indulgence in many cases even demoralizes the political prisoners. But unfortunately, exactly in proportion to the indulgence of the public, is the strictness, mostly unwarranted, of the officials. The Government regards the political prisoners as more dangerous to society than the ordinary prisoner. An official seriously contended that a political prisoner’s crime placed the whole society in danger whereas an ordinary crime harmed only the criminal. Another official told me that the reason why the political prisoners were isolated and denied newspapers, magazines, etc., was to bring the guilt home to them. Political prisoners, he said, seemed to glory in ‘imprisonment’. The deprivation of the liberty, while it afflicted the ordinary criminal, left the political prisoner unmoved. It was, therefore, he added, but natural that the Government should devise some other method of punishment. Hence, he said, the denial of facilities which otherwise such prisoners should undoubtedly have. The remarks were made in connection with my request for The Times of India weekly, or the Indian Social Reformer, or the Servant India or Modern Review or Indian Review. Let the reader not regard this deprivation as a light penalty for those who regard the newspaper as a necessity in no way inferior to breakfast.

I dare say that Mr. Majli would not have suffered mental derangement If he had been allowed the use of newspapers It is equally depressing for one who is not, like me, a reformer for all occasions, to be put up together with dangerous criminals as almost all the political prisoners were put in Yeravda. It is no light thing to be in the company of those who never speak but to utter foul language or whose conversation is as a rule indecent. I could understand political prisoners being put in such surroundings, if the Government sanely took them in their confidence and used them to exercise a wholesome influence on the ordinary criminal. This however is, I admit, not a practical proposition. My contention is that placing of political prisoners in unwholesome surroundings is an additional and an unwarranted punishment. They ought to be put in a separate division and given a treatment in keeping with their antecedents. I hope civil resisters will not misunderstand this or any other chapter in which I have advocated reforms of prisons. It would ill become a civil resister to resent whatever inconvenience he may be subjected to. He is out to put up with the roughest treatment. If the treatment is humane, it is well; but it is also well if it be otherwise.