Not Proven Guilty for 13 years: What role does the State plays? Do we need Prison reforms?

 Imagine you are with no fault put behind the bars for breaking the law.The bases of allegations are based on mere suspicion. And, you spend 13 years of your life in the jail to prove that you are not guilty. This is not a Bollywood film story; this is a true story. It fits into Aparajita Bose’s lifewho got freedom from the charge of killing her husband after spending 13 years in jail. In this article, I am going to share the story of a truly ‘Iron lady’ who demonstrated the courage and strength through the days of pain, humiliation and injustice. In Prison diaries of Vaman Matters, I covered Aparajita Bose’s interview for understanding the landscape of prison management and the State’s role in maintaining the law and order on lines of Human Rights.

Let us start by exploring a question --- On which principle of judiciary Aparajita came out? Why the sensible lawyers and the understanding Judges took around 13 years to implement the underlying principle?How about to imagine India fighting the Kargil war continuously for 13 years?How does that sounds to implement the principle of ‘Satyameva Jayate’? YES, the truth always wins but truth can lose its existence. You may be wondering, how? I shall take you to a small adventure which I understood after interviewing Aparajita Bose.

Every Prisoner, be it heinous or mild or a death convict --- Ever wondered what happened with family member of those rapist of Nirbhaya case? How are the mothers of those boys and closed ones of those death row convicts surviving? What humiliation they went from Media, Movies, and Social Media when all were calling their son a rapist, again and again!Does that mean the “Truth always wins”? The maximum number of prisoners from the OBC, SC, and ‘Others’ categories were in Uttar Pradesh jails, and ST community’s in Madhya Pradesh jail, according to the data presented by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB, 2019). Does the State (govt.) gives a damn concern, especially about those families sharing similar types of cases?

What happens with family life after they lose their loved ones in jail or by death sentence?What guilt families live by in their hearts to havegiven the birth to criminals? Just because their child has done heinous crime, why does that limit them from setting up themselves as an example of goodness in social spaces? We need to rethink and evaluate our attitudes around how we think about prisoners and their families? Do they fall outside of the ‘goodness’ periphery of society?

Justice must be served by balancing justice without creating multiple victims in society, be it of the victims’ familyor specially the criminals’ family. The State must intervene with the families of victims and criminals to help them live a life of dignity when they get justice or are put behind the bars --- Interventions like monetary benefits schemes for financially empowerment, providing counselling to families and sensitizing the community for building a healthy healing system for these families.

‘Ohh look!That terrorist’s dad is walking who recently got hanged!’ 

‘Ohh look!That rapist’s mom is walking who got hanged few days back!’

Aparajita Bose’s children went through similar humiliation.How those families feel when their loved ones get proven guilty without sufficient bases?What welfare policies do the law and the State provides to the families of proven criminals so that they don’t repeat such crimes which their closed ones did. Don’t we all feel counsel must be given to the criminals’ families to overcome the emotional and the financial turmoil they go? Especially, the poor ones,if not the rich!

Have you ever heard what the community (in which the criminal families live) members do to keep themselves pure? Why don’t we as a community make sure that we allow the criminals family to live in dignity? This is a gap where the State needs to intervene with policies.

In Movies, Literature, or even by the government, thejails are portrayed as a butcher center, never a rehabilitation center. We need to rename Jail by attaching some positive and friendly attribute to it --- I look at it as ‘Fairness centers’. Let the policies be made sure that inmates be treated in fair ways along with their families. India hates nudity but we are proud to show jail as a place filled with inhuman traits.  

The principle on which the State functions with regards to hard core criminals is that this menace is segregated from society to keep society healthy, and this menace is kept in a separate society where all menace creators live together to create more breeding ground for such acts. Let me give a small analogy ---let’s says you came late to school. As a punishment, you are not allowed to attend your PT period by disallowing you to play on the ground with other classmates.

 My point is by taking things away from a violator by deputing them in the jail --- Can we expect them to choose between revenge, grudge and reformation? Or do we give them an open choice to keepup with the revenge and grudges? Don’t we do the latter as a system and as a society?After interviewing Aparajita Bose, who spent 13 years in jail without her fault, I could explore questions around so many possibilities and loopholes within! How can we rehabilitate hard core criminals in their native communities? Probably, by making the community involved for the rehabilitation of the hard core criminals with help by experts, and the State’s willingness.

You can hear more from Aparajita Bose about her 13 years of struggle to win justice, and what she has to say about the Jail reforms. The Full link of the interviewis accessed on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP-DXO5_qTw

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