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Reform & Compassion, not Penalty
Australia
deserves kudos for pioneering a human rights-friendly prison
Jagmohan Singh
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Expressing deep satisfaction at the opening of the first of its
kind prison with internationally acceptable human rights
standards in Australia, this open letter to the longest serving
prisoner of India -who was not even convicted for the crime
alleged against him, the writer of Open Letters, Jagmohan Singh
hopes that the world community would take a cue from this
development. He also appeals to the Punjab government to study
the Canberra prison and build one of its three new jails on that
pattern. |
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 Dear Ajay
Ghosh:
As a co-traveller
on planet earth, I owe you an apology. Gross injustice of the kind
meted out to you is a matter of shame not only to the Indian
judicial system, the various human rights commissions, the many
activists, Indians in general but everyone, including the United
Nations and other juristic paraphernalia that the world has put in
place. Every world citizen is in a way responsible for showing
immunity to the kind of abuse you have suffered.
I still do not
know whether you in prison or have been released. While the New
York Times columnist Barry Bearak in his excellently written graphic
detail of the Indian judicial system, entitled, In India, the
Wheels of Justice Hardly Move, in the year 2000 has said that
you were released from prison that year from a West Bengal prison
after being goaled in 1962 and then forgotten, Justice A. S. Anand
in a first person piece published in the Tribune in 2003 says that
you are still in prison.
 My enquiries to
find out more about you have not elicited any concrete detail,
though I would continue my search to express my empathies to you
lest you lose faith in humanity forever. Provided you are alive and
provided that the jail and judicial authorities grossly guilty for
misconduct have not nearly killed you by dubbing you a lunatic again
as they did in 1964 when they locked you up and forgot you. Sadly
for you, there was no Ansar Burney who could trace Kashmir Singh
suffering similar ignominy in a
Pakistan prison,
though some efforts were made by a West Bengal lawyer.
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While writing to you, I am scared to use the phrase –rights of
prisoners –it sounds so shallow, so trite, so matter of fact
that it’s very usage seems like an abuse. |
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I write to you
with hope for I believe that while in prison, it is hope that keeps
one alive. I write to you to tell you that the government of the
Australian Capital Territory
region, called ACT has set up in Canberra, the first prison called
the Alexander Macomiche Centre, which encompasses human rights
standards.
It is a tribute
to the person in whose name the prison has been set up, that had his
proposals, or most of it had been accepted by the British penal
system and then subsequently adapted by
India, there
would not have been the likes of you and Kashmir Singh.
I write to you
to share my thoughts about this new prison that has come up in
Canberra,
Australia.
This prison is called Alexander Maconochie Correctional Centre.
Having lived in prison, Alexander Maconochie had clearly understood
the need for reform and his entire emphasis was on transforming a
criminal into a normal person who could be part of society. He
believed and rightly so that the penal system of jails and
particularly long term prison totally cut-off from society had the
effect of brutalizing and criminalizing the individual into more
crime rather than abstaining from it.
 The 131 million
Australian dollar Alexander Maconochie Centre (AMC) will be a
prisoner’s delight, and would be the first step in his correction
process. State of the art Swipe cards to leave rooms, cottage-style
housing, no women in the cell blocks will certainly register the
need for rehabilitation and to move out of the boundary and enjoy
the same facilities in a freer world.
There can be no
better words than that of the ACT attorney general, Simon Corbell to
describe both an ideal prison and the facility at
Canberra. He
has said, "A healthy prison is one in which, everyone is and feels
safe (prisoners, staff and visitors alike); everyone is treated with
respect and as a fellow human being; everyone is encouraged to
improve him/herself and is given every opportunity to do so through
the provision of purposeful activity; and everyone is enabled to
maintain contact with their families and is prepared for release.”
You never got
any such facility. Far from it. You were even deprived of normal
human existence. BUT. This discrimination against you and the
likes of you has to end. No civilized society can wait for
centuries to correct its wrongs. More judges, more benches, better
systems, use of latest technology, revamping prison penal system,
putting in prisons like the one in Canberra need to be taken on a
war footing.
You must be
rightly thinking, when will this happen? I hope and pray that
India
will not have to wait for some 500 years to evolve a delivering
system of justice. Barry Baerak of NYT has quoted in 2000 an expert
to say that even if no case is filed, India needs 324 years to clear
the backlog built up due to the inherent delay in the judicial
system of ineffective lawyers, judges with lazy work habits and a
plethora of recommendations which gather dust with either the
bureaucracy or the executive branch of the Indian government.
 The Indian story
of prisons is one of poverty, exploitation, corruption, complicity
and criminality of the state and the administration, more than a
century old jail manual, beatings of prisoners, sub human and
degrading conditions, zero medical facilities, solitude, depression,
dehumanizing of all prisoners -particularly children and women, food
unfit for human consumption, pimping and prostitution –not just of
the ones who commit a crime and land up in prison but those who do
not commit, but the systems set up by the jail authorities and the
constabulary adequately supported by the lackadaisical attitude of
magistrates, takes them there for abuse.
I understand
that that it is a Herculean task to end this sad saga. With acts of
violence a daily occurrence now, the already immune society is
further distancing itself from the travails of people in prison. As
one activist mentioned, the general refrain is "Why should you worry
about these people? They are dangerous criminals, murderers and
rapists, (and now terrorists too), why complain if they are ill
treated? They deserve it."
Nobody asks, who
are these people in jails and why? This question bothered Alexander
and those who put together the Rajasthan open jail –the Sampuranand
Open Camp, in Sanganer, Rajasthan, where prisoners –only some 50-60
convicts, live with their families, and the camp has no boundary
walls, no fences with only four policemen as guards with a choice to
pursue any vocation they choose.
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A healthy prison is one in which, everyone is and feels safe
(prisoners, staff and visitors alike); everyone is treated with
respect and as a fellow human being; everyone is encouraged to
improve him/herself and is given every opportunity to do so
through the provision of purposeful activity; and everyone is
enabled to maintain contact with their families and is prepared
for release. |
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This gives me
hope. While there is talk to set up new prisons to reduce
overcrowding, may be the political leadership will someday wake up.
The government of
Punjab
has allocated Rs. 170 crores for new prsions. They would do well to
study the AMC and set up one such prison in the state. Punjab
prisons are comparatively better than other Indian prisons, but
there is a need to take another bold step.
While writing to
you, I am scared to use the phrase –rights of prisoners –it sounds
so shallow, so trite, so matter of fact that it’s very usage seems
like an abuse.
The other side
of the wall –the prison has always fascinated religious and
political leaders, social and human rights activists. From
mythology to legalese, there have been many attempts worldwide,
including in
India to change
the conditions of inmates and emphasize the need that the four walls
of jails are reform centres and not punishment dens.
In
India, Justice
Anand Narien Mulla advocated sweeping reforms and change of the more
than a century-old British drafted Punjab Jail Manual which was the
basis of many jail manuals in the country, but successive
governments have not had time to read and apply the provisions.
India, they say, is a huge country and has many more matters of
governance than to grieve over some two hundred thousand inmates
living in jails. Justice A. S. Anand, while talking about an ideal
prison system discussed your case and said, “An ideal prison system
should perform the same role as a hospital and the health services:
they need to take care of all those inside regardless of who they
are or where they come from and what they have done.”
The Indian
sub-continent has many like you waiting to be discovered. Your
plight and the new prison should bestir the conscience of jurists
worldwide to focus on reform, not punishment.
I have written
this letter with the hope that you would be in your sixties and
though a broken man, you would still be alive. You could still pray
that what you have undergone, no one else does, and you could
endorse the words of Rev. Robert Withycombe, who while blessing the
new prison emphasized the need for “justice blended with mercy and
compassion.”
With prayers for
your well-being,
Jagmohan Singh
Jagmohan Singh
is a human rights activist and commentator based in Ludhiana. He may
be contacted on jsbigideas@gmail.com
Photos courtesy:
Alexander Maconochie Centre website
24 September 2008
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