Challenging caste discrimination in the prison system
By Arvind Narrain
Sukanya Shantha, a journalist with The Wire, wrote an article “From Segregation to Labour, Manu’s Caste Law Governs the Indian Prison System”, which very poignantly highlighted caste-based discrimination in the prisons in the country.
One story which Shantha narrates is of a young man who is an electrician by training who is barely 21 and gets accused of theft and finds himself in prison. To his utter surprise, he is asked his caste and based on his ‘lower caste’, he is assigned menial labour in prison. Shockingly one day he is made to go into a manhole to clean it, based solely on the stereotypes associated with caste.
Shanta in the course of this story exposes the fact that discriminatory caste practices are at the heart of prison administration and shockingly neither the state or civil society has worked to effectively redress this glaring injustice.
Shanta’s story resulted in a few changes with Rajasthan and Goa bringing about changes in their jail manuals, but there was no change in any of the other states. This impelled Shanta to file a petition in the Supreme Court challenging caste based segregation and discrimination in jails across the country. Shanta pointed out provisions in the jail manuals of Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Orissa, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu which authorised caste based segregation and indeed discrimination on grounds of caste.
Some of the egregious prison rules which were challenged in the petition included the following:
The West Bengal rules which provided that, ‘Sweepers should be chosen from the Mether or Hari caste, also from the Chandal or other castes.. and that ‘any prisoner in a jail who is of so high a caste that he cannot eat food cooked by the existing cooks shall be appointed a cook and be made to cook for the full complement of men.’
The Andhra Pradesh rules provide that, ‘the prison tasks including conservancy work shall be allotted at the discretion of the Superintendent with due regard to capacity of the prisoner, his education, intelligence and attitude and so far as may be practicable with due regard to his previous habits.’
The Madhya Pradesh rules provide that, ‘while the latrine parade is being carried out, the mehtars attached to such latrine shall be present, and shall call the attention of the convict overseer to any prisoner who does not cover up his dejecta with dry earth.’
There were also rules in many of the impugned manuals which discriminated against prisoners belonging to Denotified tribes who were the grouping who were de facto targetted as ‘habitual offenders’.
In short prison administration is not based on the principle of equality and reasonable classification but rather an arbitrary classification of persons based on caste. The classification is not innocent of power, but rather based on what Ambedkar called ‘a graded hierarchy’ with ‘an ascending scale of reverence and descending scale of contempt.’
The judgment delivered in October 2024 by a three judge bench comprising the then Chief Justice Chandrachud and Justices Pardiwala and Manoj Misra analysed the impugned prison rules within the framework of the Indian Constitution and the principles of equality (Article 14), non discrimination (Article 15), prohibition of the practice of untouchability (Article 17) prohibition of forced labour (Article 23) and the right to dignity (Article 21).
In the Court’s opinion, ‘such provisions often lead to an unfair distribution of labour within the prison system, with persons from specific communities performing honourable tasks, while those from marginalized communities are forced into undesirable work. It perpetuates the idea that some individuals are inherently suited to low-status labour based solely on their birth, reinforcing deep-rooted caste inequalities.’
The Supreme Court came to the finding that this classification of persons based on caste was manifestly arbitrary. The Court also concluded that that such classification was based on stereotypical opinions about a social group and violative of the guarantee of non discrimination. It was also violative of the state’s obligation not to practice ‘untouchability’ or ‘forced labour’. The affected prisoners’ right to dignity and humanity was also violated. Since such classification of prisoners on grounds of caste or other vague categories like ‘habitual offender’ or them being members of a ‘criminal tribe’, violated the constitutional protections in Articles 14,15, 17,21 and 23, the impugned provisions of the various prison manuals were struck down.
The Union of India in its submission referenced the Model Prison Manual, 2016 ‘as a modern manual addressing all concerns.’ However the Supreme Court observes that ‘the Manual does not explicitly prohibit physical caste-based segregation of prisoners, except in prisons for women’ and recommends that, ‘the Manual of 2016 therefore should have adopted a specific provision prohibiting the classification of prisoners on the basis of caste for all prisoners, as it does in the case of women prisoners.’ The Court also observes that ‘the Manual does not prohibit division of work on the basis of caste, except in cooking.’ The Court also strongly observes that, the ‘Manual does not refer to the provisions of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, which prohibit manual scavenging, and clarifies that ‘the Act has a binding effect even on prisons’ and that ‘manual scavenging, or hazardous cleaning of a sewer or a septic tank inside a prison shall not be permitted.’
The Supreme Court is even more scathing in its observations on the ‘Model Prisons and Correctional Services Act, 2023’ prepared by the Ministry of Home Affairs. The Court holds that, ‘the Model Act does not contain a reference to the prohibition of caste-based discrimination.’ It finds that, ‘while the Model Prison Manual 2016 refers to the prohibition of caste discrimination in prisons in several provisions, the Model Act of 2023 has completely avoided any such mention. A provision to that effect should be inserted in the Model Act. It should ban segregation or division of work based on caste.’
It bears noting, that a 2016 manual which comes out in the early years of the Modi government references some forms of caste discrimination in prison which should be outlawed. However a 2023 manual prepared by the Modi government after seven years in power, blatantly excises any reference to caste discrimination in prison administration. One is very well entitled to ask whether it is the official policy of the Modi government that caste based practices in prisons do not need to be combatted ?
We don’t have to wait long to know the answer to this question as the judges direct the Union government to make ‘necessary changes, as highlighted in this judgment, to address caste-based discrimination in the Model Prison Manual 2016 and the Model Prisons and Correctional Services Act 2023 within a period of three months’.
The judges also directed that, ‘the “caste” column and any references to caste in undertrial and/or convicts’ prisoners’ registers inside the prisons shall be deleted and that the police follow the guidelines issued in Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar and Amanatullah Khan v. The Commissioner of Police, Delhi to ensure that members of Denotified Tribes are not subjected to arbitrary arrest.
Most importantly, this judgment is not about the past but rather about the future of human rights in prisons. This is because the Court took ‘suo motu cognizance of the discrimination inside prisons on any ground such as caste, gender, disability’, and ordered that the case shall be listed as ‘In Re: Discrimination Inside Prisons in India’ before the appropriate Bench in three months.
Civil society groups have an important opportunity now to continue the important work began in Sukanya Shanta v Union of India and systematically address the human rights of prisoners.