The female jails of colonial India

Indian Economic and Social History Review

Volumn 39, Issue 4, 2002, Pages 417-438

  Sen, Satadru ^a  

^a WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 2442435868     PISSN: 00194646     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/001946460203900405     Document Type: Review

References (119)

1. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, New York, 1979, pp. 73-131; Michael Ignatieff, 'State, Civil Society and Total Institutions', in Cohen and Scull, ed., Social Control and the State, Oxford, 1983, p. 98; Satadru Sen, Disciplining Punishment: Colonialism and Convict Society in the Andaman Islands, Delhi, Oxford, 2000, pp. 248-63.
2. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, New York, 1979, pp. 73-131; Michael Ignatieff, 'State, Civil Society and Total Institutions', in Cohen and Scull, ed., Social Control and the State, Oxford, 1983, p. 98; Satadru Sen, Disciplining Punishment: Colonialism and Convict Society in the Andaman Islands, Delhi, Oxford, 2000, pp. 248-63.
3. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, New York, 1979, pp. 73-131; Michael Ignatieff, 'State, Civil Society and Total Institutions', in Cohen and Scull, ed., Social Control and the State, Oxford, 1983, p. 98; Satadru Sen, Disciplining Punishment: Colonialism and Convict Society in the Andaman Islands, Delhi, Oxford, 2000, pp. 248-63.
4. Satadru Sen, 'Rationing Sex: Female Convicts in the Andamans', South Asia, Vol. 30(1), December 1999, pp. 29-59.
5. Philippa Levine, 'Rereading the 1890's: Venereal Disease as "Constitutional Crisis" in Britain and British India', Journal of Asian Studies, 55(3), August 1996.
6. David Arnold, 'The Colonial Prison: Power, Knowledge and Penology in Nineteenth-Century India', in David Arnold and David Hardiman, eds, Selected Subaltern Studies VIII, Delhi, Oxford, 1994, pp. 148-87; Edward Said, Orientalism, New York, 1978; James Mills, Madness, Cannabis and Colonialism: The 'Native-Only' Lunatic Asylums of British India, 1857-1900, London, 2000, pp. 14-42.
7. David Arnold, 'The Colonial Prison: Power, Knowledge and Penology in Nineteenth-Century India', in David Arnold and David Hardiman, eds, Selected Subaltern Studies VIII, Delhi, Oxford, 1994, pp. 148-87; Edward Said, Orientalism, New York, 1978; James Mills, Madness, Cannabis and Colonialism: The 'Native-Only' Lunatic Asylums of British India, 1857-1900, London, 2000, pp. 14-42.
8. David Arnold, 'The Colonial Prison: Power, Knowledge and Penology in Nineteenth-Century India', in David Arnold and David Hardiman, eds, Selected Subaltern Studies VIII, Delhi, Oxford, 1994, pp. 148-87; Edward Said, Orientalism, New York, 1978; James Mills, Madness, Cannabis and Colonialism: The 'Native-Only' Lunatic Asylums of British India, 1857-1900, London, 2000, pp. 14-42.
9. Thomas Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj, Cambridge, 1995, pp. 94-108.
10. This was especially evident in the Andaman Islands, where British jailors were wracked by anxiety about the promiscuity of female convicts. It is worth noting that some male prisoners from the elite ranks of Indian society shared this attitude: one man, Jafar Thanesari, complained about the 'loose character' of the local women. Maulana Jafar Thanesari, Kalapani, Delhi, 1964, pp. 4-54. The original published work is in Urdu; the page number cited here is from an unpublished English translation in my possession.
11. In Punjab at the end of the 1860s, the ratio of male to female convicts was 33: 1, and there were fewer than 500 women in jail at any given time (Report of the Inspector General of Prisons, Punjab, 1869, NAI.) In the Andaman Islands, which contained the largest concentration of women of any British-Indian prison in the last decades of the century, female convicts made up roughly 10 per cent of an incarcerated population of 12,000. Satadru Sen, 'Rationing Sex: Female Convicts in the Andamans', South Asia, December 1998, pp. 29-59.
12. Lata Mani, 'Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India', in K. Sangari and S. Vaid, eds, Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History, New Brunswick, 1990, pp. 88-126; Partha Chatterjee, 'The Nationalist Resolution of the Women Question', in K. Sangari and Vaid, eds, pp. 253-83.
13. Lata Mani, 'Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India', in K. Sangari and S. Vaid, eds, Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History, New Brunswick, 1990, pp. 88-126; Partha Chatterjee, 'The Nationalist Resolution of the Women Question', in K. Sangari and Vaid, eds, pp. 253-83.
14. Eric Stokes, The English Utilitarians and India, Oxford, 1959, pp. 287-322.
15. Inderpal Grewal, Home and Harem: Nation, Gender, Empire, and the Cultures of Travel, Duke University Press, 1996, pp. 23-56.
16. Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments, Princeton, 1993, pp. 3-13, 116-34.
17. The major discrepancies in penal practice in India in this period were not so much between provinces as within provinces. Whereas small rural jails inhabited by short-term convicts were quiet similar regardless of whether they were located in Punjab, Bengal or Bombay, there were significant differences between small prisons and large central jails in any province.
18. Most prison superintendents in India in the late nineteenth century were either IMS members themselves, or supported (and balanced) by influential medical officers on their staff. Sen, 2000, Disciplining Punishment, pp. 131-65.
19. Gauri Viswanathan, Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India, New York, 1987, pp. 1-22.
20. Foucault, 1979, pp. 135-69.
21. Report of the Inspector-General of Prisons, Punjab, 1872, 1873 (NAI).
22. See Sumanta Banerjee, Dangerous Outcast: The Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century Bengal, Calcutta, 1998, pp. 18-36.
23. GOI Home Dept., Judicial Branch, 10 September 1870, pp. 50-51 A (NAI).
24. James Mills, Madness, Cannabis and Colonialism: The 'Native-Only' Lunatic Asylums of British India, 1857-1900, London, 2000, pp. 97-100; Also Sen, 1998, 'Rationing Sex', pp. 29-59.
25. James Mills, Madness, Cannabis and Colonialism: The 'Native-Only' Lunatic Asylums of British India, 1857-1900, London, 2000, pp. 97-100; Also Sen, 1998, 'Rationing Sex', pp. 29-59.
26. Mary Carpenter, Six Months in India Vol. 1, London, 1868, pp. 202-3, Sen, 2000, Disciplining Punishment, pp. 54-58.
27. Mary Carpenter, Six Months in India Vol. 1, London, 1868, pp. 202-3, Sen, 2000, Disciplining Punishment, pp. 54-58.
28. Rachel Tolen, 'Colonizing and Transforming the Criminal Tribesman: The Salvation Army in British India', American Ethnologist, 18(1) (Februrary 1991); Sandria Freitag, 'Collective Crime and Authority in North India', in Anand Yang, ed., Crime and Criminality in British India, Tucson, 1985, pp. 140-63.
29. Rachel Tolen, 'Colonizing and Transforming the Criminal Tribesman: The Salvation Army in British India', American Ethnologist, 18(1) (Februrary 1991); Sandria Freitag, 'Collective Crime and Authority in North India', in Anand Yang, ed., Crime and Criminality in British India, Tucson, 1985, pp. 140-63.
30. Satadru Sen, 'The Savage Family: Colonialism and Female Infanticide in 19th Century India', Journal of Women's History, 14(3) (Autumn 2002), pp. 53-79.
31. GOI Home Dept., Judicial Branch, 19 May 1860, pp. 41-48 A (NAI).
32. Juvenile females were a small but persistent presence in women's jails. In Punjab in the 1870s, the population of incarcerated girls under the age of 16 varied between 1 per cent and 10 per cent. Females under the age of 16 were not subjected to the formal mechanisms for dealing with juvenile delinquency in nineteenth century India, mainly because their numbers were not sufficient to warrant the expense (fiscal and political) of a separate infrastructure. This meant that when young females did encounter the criminal justice system, they usually entered prisons that were intended for adult convicts. Gautam Chatterjee, Child Criminals and the Raj, Delhi, 1995, pp. 46-54; also Report on the Jails of Punjab, 1872, 1874, 1875 (NAI).
33. Juvenile females were a small but persistent presence in women's jails. In Punjab in the 1870s, the population of incarcerated girls under the age of 16 varied between 1 per cent and 10 per cent. Females under the age of 16 were not subjected to the formal mechanisms for dealing with juvenile delinquency in nineteenth century India, mainly because their numbers were not sufficient to warrant the expense (fiscal and political) of a separate infrastructure. This meant that when young females did encounter the criminal justice system, they usually entered prisons that were intended for adult convicts. Gautam Chatterjee, Child Criminals and the Raj, Delhi, 1995, pp. 46-54; also Report on the Jails of Punjab, 1872, 1874, 1875 (NAI).
34. GOI Home Dept., Judicial Branch, 19 May 1860, pp. 41-48 A (NAI).
35. Carpenter, 1868, Vol. 1, pp. 202-3.
36. GOI Home Dept., Judicial Branch, 16 July 1862, pp. 17-18 A (NAI).
37. Less than 4 per cent were listed as unmarried; the remainder, interestingly enough, were recorded as 'prostitutes', who were clearly seen as falling outside the conventional categories of marital status. Report of the Inspector General of Prisons, Punjab, 1873 (NAI).
38. The imprisonment of women on the mainland was linked to overseas penal transportation in other ways: when transportation to the Andamans declined, as it did temporarily in 1864 because of logistical problems in Karachi, the number of long-term women prisoners in Punjab jails shot up. Report of the Inspector General of Prisons, Punjab, 1864 (NAI).
39. Report of the Inspector General of Prisons, Punjab, 1863, 1865 (NAI).
40. Ibid., 1867 (NAI).
41. Ibid., 1864 (NAI).
42. GOI, Home Dept. (Port Blair Branch), June 1890, pp. 74-78 (NAI).
43. Clare Anderson, Convicts in the Indian Ocean, London, 2000, pp. 34-58; Sen, Disciplining Punishment, 2000, pp. 86-130.
44. Clare Anderson, Convicts in the Indian Ocean, London, 2000, pp. 34-58; Sen, Disciplining Punishment, 2000, pp. 86-130.
45. Proceedings of the Lt. Governor of Punjab, Home Dept., 18 September 1872, p. 3102 (NAI).
46. Report of the Inspector General of Prisons, Punjab, 1869 (NAI).
47. Report on the Jails of Punjab, 1872 (NAI).
48. Arnold, in Arnold and Hardiman, eds, 1994, pp. 148-87.
49. Special Report on the Jails of Punjab, 1869 (NAI).
50. Report of the Inspector General of Prisons, Punjab, 1863 (NAI).
51. Ibid., 1868, 1873 (NAI).
52. Ibid., 1868.
53. Report on the Jails of Punjab, 1870 (NAI).
54. Ibid., 1875 (NAI).
55. Ibid., 1871 (NAI).
56. Special Report on the Jails of Punjab, 1869 (NAI).
57. Sen, Disciplining Punishment, 2000, pp. 51-61.
58. Ibid., p. 122; also Sen, 'Rationing Sex', 1998, pp. 29-59.
59. Ibid., p. 122; also Sen, 'Rationing Sex', 1998, pp. 29-59.
60. I b i d.
61. Carpenter., 1998, Vol. 1, p. 105.
62. Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, London, 1995, pp. 1-86; Foucault, 1979, pp. 3-31.
63. Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, London, 1995, pp. 1-86; Foucault, 1979, pp. 3-31.
64. Norman Sargant, Mary Carpenter in India, Bristol, 1987, pp. 43-71.
65. Carpenter, 1868, Vol. 1, p. 297.
66. Ibid., p. 104.
67. George Behlmer, 'Summary Justice and Working-Class Marriage in England: 1870-1940', Law and History Review, 1974, 12: 229-77.
68. Carpenter, 1868, Vol. 1, p. 202.
69. Ibid., p. 115.
70. It is worth noting that her visit to India was five years before the passage of the first Criminal Tribes Act.
71. Satadru Sen, 'The Student Body in Colonial India', in Sen and Mills, eds, Confronting the Body, London, 2002, forthcoming. See also Anand Yang, 'The Voice of Colonial Discipline and Punishment: Knowledge, Power and the Penological Discourse in early Nineteenth Century India', Indo-British Review, 21(2), pp. 62-71.
72. Satadru Sen, 'The Student Body in Colonial India', in Sen and Mills, eds, Confronting the Body, London, 2002, forthcoming. See also Anand Yang, 'The Voice of Colonial Discipline and Punishment: Knowledge, Power and the Penological Discourse in early Nineteenth Century India', Indo-British Review, 21(2), pp. 62-71.
73. GOI Home Dept., Judicial Branch, 9 January 1869, pp. 55-72 A (NAI).
74. Report of the Inspector General of Prisons, Punjab, 1862 (NAI).
75. Special Report on the Jails of Punjab, 1869 (NAI).
76. GOI Home Dept., Judicial Branch, 9 January 1869, pp. 55-72 A (NAI).
77. Ibid., 10 September 1870, pp. 50-51 A (NAI).
78. I b i d.
79. I b i d.
80. I b i d.
81. I b i d.
82. T.B. Macaulay, Works, Vol. XI, London, 1833, pp. 67-68.
83. Carpenter, 1868, Vol. I, pp. 180, 215-17, 279-80.
84. The most explicit of these critiques was written by Pandit Motilal, an Extra Assistant Commissioner in Punjab in 1867. Motilal's remarks became a major influence on the Female Infanticide Act of 1870. Satadru Sen, 'The Savage Family: Colonialism and Female Infanticide in 19th-Century India', Journal of Women's History, 14(3) (Autumn 2002), pp. 53-97.
85. More rarely, that criticism could come from within the prison population. Jafar Thanesari, a prisoner in the Andamans in the 1860s and 1870s, wrote about the 'shameless' behaviour of female convicts in terms that were not dissimilar from those employed by Carpenter, Motilal and others. Thanesari was a member of the middling ashraf of northern India, and his memoirs reflected this elite perspective. Maulana Jafar Thanesari, Kalapani, Delhi, 1964, p. 75.
86. Michael Ignatieff, A Just Measure of Pain: The Penitentiary in the Industrial Revolution, 1750-1850, New York, 1980, pp. 29-43, 161.
87. Carpenter, Six Months in India, Vol. 2, pp. 205-9.
88. Pall Mall Gazette, 17 December 1867.
89. Proceedings of the Lt. Governor of Punjab, Home Dept., 18 September 1872, 3102 (NAI).
90. Report of the Inspector General of Prisons, Punjab, 1863 (NAI).
91. Ibid., 1864 (NAI).
92. Ignatieff, 1980, pp. 3-14.
93. Mills, 2000, pp. 29-31.
94. Mark Harrison, Climates and Constitutions, Oxford, 1999, pp. 1-24; Peter Redfield, Space in the Tropics: From Convicts to Rockets in French Guiana, Berkeley, 2000, pp. 49-108.
95. Mark Harrison, Climates and Constitutions, Oxford, 1999, pp. 1-24; Peter Redfield, Space in the Tropics: From Convicts to Rockets in French Guiana, Berkeley, 2000, pp. 49-108.
96. Report on the Jails of Punjab, 1874 (NAI).
97. Report of the Inspector General of Prisons, Punjab, 1867, 1868 (NAI).
98. Report on the Jails of Punjab, 1872 (NAI).
99. Special Report on the Jails of Punjab, 1870; ibid., 1871 (NAI).
100. Special Report on the Jails of Punjab, 1870; ibid., 1871 (NAI).
101. Metcalf, 1995, pp. 94-108.
102. Janet Semple, Bentham's Prison, Oxford, 1993, pp. 71-72.
103. Report on the Jails of Punjab, 1870 (NAI).
104. I b i d.
105. Report of the Inspector General of Prisons, Punjab, 1865 (NAI).
106. Report on the Jails of Punjab, 1870 (NAI).
107. Special Report on the Jails of Punjab, 1869 (NAI).
108. Ignatieff, 1980, p. 203.
109. The Indian cases bear a closer resemblance to acts of 'everyday' resistance among women convicts in Australia in the 1840s, reflecting, once again, the relevance of the penal colony in shaping the experiences and responses of long-term convicts in the empire. Lucy Frost, 'Eliza Churchill Tells', in Lucy Frost and Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, eds, Chain Letters, Melbourne, 2001, p. 80.
110. Report on the Jails of Punjab, 1870, 1871 (NAI).
111. Report of the Inspector General of Prisons, Punjab, 1873 (NAI).
112. I b i d.
113. While the death penalty was not commonly applied to women even in the gallows-happy penal culture of British India, it was not unknown, especially for women convicted of the murder of adults. This may seem paradoxical, given the British reluctance to flog female offenders. However, unlike the prolonged public spectacle of physical torture that flogging entailed, hanging was a brief, almost private ceremony, and as such, far less inflammatory to Indian opinion or British sensibilities. Six women were executed in Punjab in 1873. The corresponding number for men was 106. Report of the Inspector General of Prisons, Punjab, 1873 (NAI).
114. Arnold, in Arnold and Hardiman, eds, 1994, pp. 148-87.
115. Report of the Inspector General of Prisons, Punjab, 1873 (NAI).
116. Special Report on the Jails of Punjab, 1869, 1870 (NAI).
117. Report on the Jails of Punjab, 1870 (NAI).
118. Sen, 2000, Disciplining Punishment, pp. 235-37.
119. Report on the Jails of Punjab, 1870 (NAI).