NEW DELHI: Sukanya Shantha has covered caste as a journalist for nearly 15 years. She has closely observed the existence of caste in Indian society: in people's behaviour, their politics and their livelihoods. 

When Sukanya, who trained as a lawyer and worked for over a year with Amnesty International, began reporting on Indian prisons—it wasn’t difficult for her to see how caste operated in prison. "However, what shocked her was that most prison manuals in state prisons promoted casteist practices, written into prison manuals during the British era."

It was as if this was hiding in plain sight. 

When a Dalit, Adivasi or other backward caste (OBC) enters the prison system, they are automatically assigned to cleaning duties—specifically, toilets, septic tanks, and prison grounds, regardless of their previous occupation or skills. 

Prisoners from upper-caste backgrounds are given roles regarded as more prestigious roles, such as kitchen duty, administrative work or supervisory positions. These practices mirror the caste system that has structured Indian society for thousands of years—a system officially abolished when India gained independence in 1947.

India’s prison system sort of existed in a time capsule, untouched by India's constitutional abolition of caste discrimination or the decades of social progress that followed. Sukanya researched these practices during reporting for one of her stories for a five-part series for The Wire (supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting). 

The first impact of the series came within days of publication. On 17 December 2020, a Rajasthan court took suo motu action to eliminate caste practices in prisons, marking the first changes to the prison manual in 75 years. “That was the first time I realised the actual potential of the story,” Sukanya said. 

For the next three years, she continued reporting on different aspects of casteism in Indian society. In 2023, on the advice of some lawyers and friends, Sukanya did something unusual for a journalist: she became part of the story. “I totally believe that journalists should not become a story and that is perhaps the last thing that I’d have wanted to become,” she said. 

Working with lawyers and activists, in December 2023 she filed a petition with India's Supreme Court, challenging the constitutionality of these prison policies. On 3 October 2024, in a landmark decision, Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra ruled in her favour. 

“Thank you for writing that well written piece, it highlights the power of citizens, they write well researched articles and lead the matters to this Court,” said Justice Chandrachud.

The verdict could potentially transform how India's prisons operate.

Through her reporting on caste and filing a petition in the court, Sukanya, a journalist for nearly 15 years, successfully started a discourse on the role of caste in Indian prisons. 

In this interview with Article 14, Sukanya talks of casteist practices in prisons, her reporting experiences, the lives of Indian prisoners, her plans to ensure the court order is implemented, the relevance of the free press in new India, how to speak truth to power and the power the obsession.   

What motivated you to pursue the story on the prevalence of caste practices in Indian prisons? 

I've been a journalist for a decade and a half, writing from an anti-caste and Amberkarite perspective. I try to bring in the caste component as much as I can when writing on social justice. I have also studied law and have worked in prisons for a couple of years—first as a young law student doing her field work in different prisons of Mumbai, and then as an Amnesty International India researcher working on a prisons project in Karnataka.

When I started working with The Wire, I wanted to continue writing about prisons. I had ambitious plans of doing a bunch of stories which any independent news agency wouldn't have had the resources to commission. 

So, when my colleague Jahnavi Sen and I pitched it to the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, we were looking at aspects that impact the prison space, one of which was caste. As I have had very good access to prisons in the past, I knew that caste has a very direct and obvious role to play in the life experiences of those incarcerated, especially the ones from marginalised identities. When I was doing my research (in 2020), I found out about the mention of caste in the prison manuals and hence the story was told from that angle.

Do you think our prison system mimics the Indian social structures? In what ways are they different from the outside world?

Prisons are just a reflection of what you see in the outside world. Actually it gets much harsher inside prisons because in the outside world, when caste violations play out, there is still a chance to know about it…  a chance of bringing that story out in public, because you have a community for it.

Prisons, on the other hand,  is such an opaque space that most likely it will stay in prison unless something as extreme as death occurs. We don’t hear about caste practices, the ugliness of it, everyday survival, and how people navigate that space, unless it is brought out by somebody. And that ‘bringing out’ is pretty difficult. So, yes, caste gets mimicked inside the prison but that mimicking is much harsher than the world outside.

As a reporter who extensively reported on caste discrimination for many years, what are some of the fallacies that privileged people have about how caste operates on ground?

When Savarnas (upper castes) discuss caste, they often portray it as a relic of the past. Their only obsession is over the question of reservation.  This perspective is frequently mirrored in newsrooms, where discussions about caste are often reduced to sensational stories. The everyday realities of caste, beyond just atrocities or reservation debates, receive insufficient attention.

When I began writing about caste in prisons, I came across a report from the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights that thoroughly examined caste experiences. However, many organisations working for prisoners rights fail to engage meaningfully with caste. In prisons, where over 70-80% are Dalits, Adivasis, and OBCs, it’s perplexing that caste isn't treated as a central issue. My goal is to discuss carcerality and caste together. 

There are organisations collaborating with the home department to develop prison manuals, yet they have not prioritised addressing caste-related issues. Given that they work on policies and read these prison manuals on a regular basis, one would expect them to recognize and flag casteist elements from the prison rule. Both human rights groups and government bodies seem to overlook caste in their work, which I have consistently observed in my reporting and interactions.

How much did being involved in the story made a difference to your case? What are some of the possibilities this opens up for reporters in a nation increasingly hostile to good journalism?

I have been covering human rights issues for over a decade now. Covering human rights issues is not just about reporting; these stories are often desperate calls for intervention. Once you immerse yourself in this space, it's hard not to become invested in the work. 

Although prisons aren’t a standalone beat per se in India, I have somehow managed to report on the issue consistently. This obsession has helped me gain valuable insight and after having reported on the issue for so long, people are more willing to share their stories. Staying committed to the issue for long has certainly helped. 

Bringing stories from inside prisons is challenging. Such narratives need to be presented with ample context and backed by evidence; otherwise, they can easily be dismissed. Most of the prison stories I've reported on have taken months of painstaking work. However, when these stories finally emerge, they are difficult to ignore. I suppose such an outcome is possible only if one stays involved or committed to the issue. 

What were your reasons to file a petition in court?

The story was first published in December 2020 and the petition was filed three years later, in December 2023. It took three years for the case to be finally filed in the court. 

When my story came out, it was received pretty well. A lot of conversation happened on social media, it led to some meaningful discussions too.  The first impact of the story came in when the Rajasthan court picked it up suo- motu and then decided to do away with the caste practices in Rajasthan prisons. It was the first time in 75 years that the Rajasthan prison manual had undergone changes. That was the first time I realised the actual potential of the story. I had since been finding ways to get organizations working for prisoners’ rights to intervene. They have both the expertise and the resources I thought and felt they were better equipped to take this to court and get the required changes made. That somehow didn’t happen. These organisations have for long shied away from engaging with the question of caste.

Disha Wadekar (also my lawyer) and I would discuss how we could stay engaged with the subject. Disha’s interest too lies in the question of caste, so she wanted to help in taking the story ahead. We had initially considered writing letters to all the high courts. But gave up the idea very soon since the whole process would have been very cumbersome and not necessarily courts would respond to our letters. Also, the amount of work put in would be just as much as it is needed for a petition. 

So, finally, we decided we should file a PIL. Disha wanted this to be a strategic litigation. She weighed all options and then finally got advocate S Prasanna and senior adv S Muralidharan sir on board. I was initially reluctant to have this petition on my name. As a journalist who has all along maintained a low profile, this was just too uncomfortable for me. I tried hard to get an incarcerated person to file this petition but most of them refused. Their condition continues to be vulnerable and they didn’t want to come under the state’s radar. I had to finally give in. 

The petition had everything that I had reported in 2020 and a lot more. The whole mention of the denotified tribe or the Vimukta community that had been missing from the initial story, was now a part of the new research. Here Disha’s expertise on the topic came handy. The denotified community is a historically criminalised community. There are over 200 castes and tribes that are criminalised, and continue to be targeted in many parts of India. Most states believe these communities have a “tendency” of committing crime and have indiscriminately targeted the Vimukta communities. 

There is an unsaid rule in journalism that says journalists should never become the story. But you have become the story, a positive example of how journalism can change the structures. What were some other ways in which you think journalism should evolve?

I totally believe that journalists should not become a story and that is perhaps the last thing that I’d have wanted to become. Most of us who are doing serious journalism would want the focus away from us, and that's how I have actually practised my work over the past many years. If given a choice, I would have wanted some organisation or an incarcerated person to have filed this petition. These are the people who are the main stakeholders and they should be the one in focus. 

We are also constantly told that journalists should not be activists. I am not very sure about that. Because if you are dealing with human rights or social justice issues, we want changes to be brought. And maybe this ‘judicial activism’ could be a strategic way to do this. How else does one think of bringing in change when your state administration or local bodies are not doing anything? If that is the way to do it, then so be it.

We need to find out different ways of strategizing and bringing these impacts, the one for which we stay in this profession for and derive meaning. Solutions can be brought in only if you engage with different arms of the judiciary or the state administration. Holding the state accountable or going to the court should be looked at a little more positively.

Your report cites the experiences of Ajay, Pintu, Lalita and Noorjahan, prisoners who were on the receiving end of caste discrimination in Indian prisons. How did this discrimination affect their psyche and self-worth?

All of these prisoners come from very different backgrounds. Ajay is a young man from Bihar whose parents moved to Delhi and managed to educate him. Noorjahan is a woman accused of being a Bangladeshi. Lalita, who spent a great deal of time in Byculla jail, was arrested for her political ideology. 

The way they processed caste was very different. I met Ajay a couple of years after he was acquitted. He was willing to speak but the whole experience was still raw for him. He hadn't actually dealt with his trauma. He didn't have that privilege of seeing a therapist. Getting a job at a workshop in Rajasthan as an electrician meant a great deal to him. Then suddenly, he lost his job and was accused of theft, an incident he had no role to play in. Then he was sent to jail, where he was asked to do things because of his caste identity. 

A lot of times he kept saying that they used to make him do ‘dirty work’. Then he explained to me how the septic tank was like and what his job was, about his relationship with the jail authorities and other prisoners. 

In the case of Lalita, she was jailed for her politics and spent time in different prisons of Maharashtra. Because of her political awareness and understanding, she was looking at prison as a space to register her protest and was well equipped to face the challenges there. Although she faced violence and threats in prison, she was able to deal with it because she understood caste. She knew the struggle outside was going to be as bad. She has written about her prison experience. She has such clear sociological understanding that it can be a very good book, almost like a thesis.

Noorjahan is different. In Maharashtra, if you look at NCRB data, you have a large number of people accused of being Bangladeshi immigrants and booked under the Foreigners Act. Noorjahan is one such person. She was arrested under the Foreigners Act. A Dalit Muslim, she originally comes from one of the border districts of West Bengal. She insists that she is from India and not from across the border. Her displacement was due to the floods, drought and poverty. When a person is arrested for being Bangladeshi, their condition is a lot worse than anybody in prison because your family doesn't own you. They are forced to cut ties with you because the moment they try getting in touch with you, they also end up in prison. So her children will also be looked at as Bangladeshi immigrants.

If one person gets arrested, the entire family vanishes and just waits for the person to come out. When you don't have anybody from outside giving you support, that also means that you won’t have a lawyer, or a money order coming in to help you buy dry ration from the canteen. So you start doing menial jobs for other people and build transactional relationships out of desperation.

I have stayed in touch with all of them. Their understanding and experience of caste have also changed with time.

In your story, you write that Madhya Pradesh Jail Manual has a chapter titled Mal Vahan, which states that a ‘Mehtar (a Dalit caste) prisoner would be responsible for handling human excreta in the toilets’. What are some of the states whose prisons are most casteist? Which ones are comparatively better off?

My story actually deals with a whole bunch of problematic clauses and prison rules. Just looking at what is written in the prison manuals, you realise that most of them are segregating work on similar lines as caste. The division of work is based on this horrible understanding of pure and impure where food and kitchen-related work has to be handled by Brahmins or other upper castes. In some cases, the manuals also talk of other castes. For example, some states have mentioned the barber or naayi community for shaving or cutting hair. The barber community is classified as OBC in many states. They also mention Dalit caste, specific to their state like Mehtar Samaj in MP or Chandal in the case of West Bengal, being asked to carry out menial jobs of cleaning and manual scavenging in prisons. 

The same applies to even those states which don't really mention caste in their manuals. For example, the prison manual of Maharashtra or Tamil Nadu, wouldn’t have these mentions, but that hasn't made these prisons any better. So it doesn't really matter what the wordings are. The practices are what I would actually see as the problem here. 

During the petition, I was talking to formerly incarcerated people from Gujarat, Orissa, Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, West Bengal. We sent a huge bunch of affidavits of presently incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people to the Supreme court. We have redacted the names and identities in the prisons where they are lodged in or they were lodged in. We have submitted those first person narratives in the form of archival documents from individuals to the court. So beyond a point, it doesn't actually matter what the prison manual says.

Regarding terror-accused Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur’s time in a “VIP cell” in Byculla prison, you wrote that “three other undertrial prisoners, appointed as her sevikas or attenders, would be placed to exclusively attend to Thakur’s command”.  In that context, how does political influence, caste and class privilege trump serious charges such as murder and terrorism? 

Pragya Singh Thakur’s case is very peculiar. It's not that Mumbai prisons have not had VIP prisoners in the past, but Thakur's expectations from the prison's were strange. As an undertrial you can wear what you like, but ‘modest dressing’ is expected. But apart from wearing whatever she liked, she wanted to establish a small cult in prison. So how does she do that? By ensuring that the caste structure is not just practised, but it's also on display. 

Some Brahmin woman was assigned to cook and give food to Thakur. Another woman from the Thakur community was her guard. A Dalit was assigned the job of cleaning. It was something that was seen by other prisoners. The prison officers knew it. She was kept in a separate barrack, which meant that she shouldn’t have people around her. But she had people by her side, by her feet, always taking care of her. The prison officers didn’t really see any problem in this practice. It continued for as long as she was in prison.

So, I think everything depends on what caste or class you belong to and what kind of political clout you have.

Two out of three prisoners are SC, ST or OBCs. A very high percentage of undertrials is Muslim men. What are some measures law enforcement can take to end this discrepancy?

The NCRB data is collected unscientifically. So for example, if I enter the jail, I would be asked my name and my caste. The prison officials may or may not have an understanding of your case. They mindlessly fill in details. Sometimes it is not even the specific caste but how that prisoner identifies his or her caste. There could be a person from an OBC caste, who simply says “Choti Jaati” and the prison official, without any further inquiry, enters the prisoner’s case as SC. There is no scientific basis for the data gathered.

When I was in Parbhani to report a story, I realized that all the Muslim prisoners, five or six of them arrested in one case, were from Beldaar community and Julaha community, which comes under OBC. But their caste identity was ignored and they are just seen as Muslims. Even among Muslims, it’s mostly the Pasmanda community which gets targeted a lot more than others. So this 70 percent figure underplays the prevalence of caste in the prison, and it might be much higher. 

This over-representation is not because these communities have a tendency to commit more crime. They end up in prison because they become easy targets, and stay there due to lack of resources and support. The police system is very overwhelming and it's difficult to navigate that whole process. It's not that the state is not aware of this disease. In some cases, they want these criminalizations to happen, like in the case of Muslims. There's a pattern of targeting a community playing out there.

Moreover, it takes almost a year and a half before the prison data is put out in public. The most recent data that we have is from 2022, which says that around 4.5-5 lakh people end up in jail every year. But my understanding is that more than 15 lakh (1.5 million) people get processed by the criminal justice system every year. 

The Supreme Court, High Court, even the home department, from time to time, has looked at bail as right but it doesn't happen in practice. During my work at Amnesty, I've seen that individuals booked for theft are in jail for years, because they simply couldn't get good lawyers.

What was your reaction after the court ruled in favour of your petition? 

When we went to the Supreme Court, we already had the Rajasthan High Court order as our starting point. We knew that if we take it to the court, no court is going to say that let the caste practice continue. To that extent, it was like a low-hanging fruit. 

In the story, we had highlighted that it is not just the prisoners who are segregated, but also the prison officials who are segregated on the basis of caste. Much before I reported the story, it was already brought before the Madurai bench of the Madras high court by one C. Arul. The state had justified the whole act of segregation inside Tamil Nadu prisons and shockingly, the court had accepted the state’s defense. We decided to take this up in the supreme court. 

Alongside the division of labour and segregation of prisoners, the most important part of the judgement is the way it looks at the issue of the Vimukta community. The judgement doesn't stop just at the state prisons’ attitude but it also speaks about the police which was not something that we anticipated. Disha, in one of the conversations, shared that this is the first time that the apex court has spent time in understanding the issues of the denotified communities. The court has opened up so many possibilities to bring these issues to the forefront now, particularly about the Vimukta community.

So my initial response was of being happy but later there was like there was one small problem with the judgement so we are now figuring out if we can bring it to the notice of the court. The court ordered the removal of the caste row from the prison register. I am not very sure of the rationale behind this as the judges have not explained as to why they feel the caste column needs to be removed. But the removal of the caste column will have serious implications. The removal definitely doesn’t mean that caste practices will cease to exist. 

This mention of caste in the register is important because that is the only available data on caste and religion in prisons. Social scientists have talked about how this data is very crucial. There have already been attempts to remove the data on caste and religion in the past. And the understanding is both the NCRB and home department want to do away with this data. In fact, when the judgement came out, Kerala and Tamil Nadu were the first two states which have now decided to not to collect this data. So, we are now in the stage of having that conversation with our lawyers and finding a solution to this.  

If we don’t have this data handy, there will be no way to find out which communities overrepresent the prison space. 

Having said, I surely feel that with this judgement we have compelled the state, academics and human rights organisations to address caste in prisons. We wanted to bring caste into the prison discourse and I feel we have managed that successfully. 

Many states might be slow in changing their manuals after this decision. What are your plans to monitor that the judgement is implemented as widely as possible?

It's not going to be easy to monitor these things. But one good thing that the court has done is that it has converted it into a suo-motu petition, which means that it's going to be an open petition. As an original petitioner, I have the option of intervening as many times as I need. 

I will keep following it and see how these states are responding. Over the past 10-15 days since the judgement has come, I have received many letters from prisons through lawyers and activists. These are prisoners who are writing to me and talking of different prison practices. We will also like to speak to prison officials in different states and get a sense of what they are trying to do. So, we will have to find different mechanisms to monitor how things are changing on the ground, and that it doesn’t change only on policy level, but on prison level too. 

Correction: This article earlier stated that casteist practices in state prison manuals were written into law after Indian Independence. It has been corrected to state they were present during the colonial era. We regret the error.

(Zeyad Masroor Khan is a freelance journalist and author of City on Fire: A Boyhood in Aligarh.)

Get exclusive access to new databases, expert analyses, weekly newsletters, book excerpts and new ideas on democracy, law and society in India. Subscribe to Article 14.