A Prisoner´s lot – How to improve it (Part 5)

A Shocking News

One fine morning I had the shock of my life. As we seated around the samovar (traditional Kashmiri kettle) to our much-relished morning tea and were sipping from our steaming cups, young convict who was working as a clerk at the jail hospital paid us his customary visit. “What news?”, we asked him as he squatted on the matting and we could hardly believe our ears when he told us what had happened the night before only some fifty yards from us.

Post-Mortem doze of Medicine

A prisoner, he told us in confidence, of course – had died at the hospital the previous night unattended and when the poor man was as dead as door nail, he was stripped of his convict’s rags and invested with the less shabby costume of the hospital. The doctor in charge was a through-going man and did not believe in half-measures. So, the deceased was duly admitted as an indoor patient, under the previous day’s date. His history ticket – though it was a short history – was also made out, filled in and suspended by his bed. Prescriptions were also entered against his name and regular dozes of medicine shown as administered. As though to complete the farce, his body was thoroughly massaged.

The Almighty Rupee

This is how it came about. The poor prisoner vas suffering from some chest trouble and was feeling weak and feverish for good many days. Nobody cared about him. Care in the jail can only be purchased and he had not the means to do so. Without the mediation of the Almighty rupee, it was impossible to get admittance into hospital or to propitiate the labour-god, the jailor, who allots labour to prisoners. So, he was put to a very hard work in the hospital. It was thus as a labourer, not as a patient, that he happened to be at the hospital when the angel of death visited him. At night he collapsed all of a sudden and when the convict watchman came to know about it, he informed the doctor. To the doctor there was nothing unusual in the affair. What did the death of a poor convict matter to a man too well fed and fattened for any ray of tender sentiments to find its way into his thick skin? He came after a couple of hours, only a little before the Superintendent was due on his morning tour and subjected the deceased to the process above mentioned.

An Inhuman Joke

Surely this was brutal, an outrage on humanity. We all felt greatly upset about this barbarity committed only at a stone’s throw from us and we wanted to protest against it. We were, however advised that under jail rules, we must not do anything in the way of meddling with jail discipline. We were supposed to mind our own business and keep strictly aloof from other`s affairs. Nevertheless, wo could not suppress our feelings and the next day when the doctor visited our quarter, we made him the target of an indignant volley of protests. But he was too old a bird to mind such a soft operation. He treated it in a light humour, saying “Well, I massaged him after death which shows the amount of care I bestow on the patients. I follow them even up to the grave.” This was adding insult to injury. “For goodness’ sake, doctor,” we remonstrated, take care of them while they are yet alive!”

A Pathan boy

We had hardly got over this shock when we were informed of another equally sad death at the same hospital. A Pathan boy who was found travelling without a ticket had been sentenced to about a month’s imprisonment. We had seen this boy. As he was first brought in, we had a chat with him. There had even been a talk amongst us, the editors, to arrange for payment of his fare, in which case he could be set free. On second thought however we considered it better to let him spend these few days in jail, so that on his release he might get a ticket for his destination and proceed thither without Police molestation. We had seen too many cases of youngmen and others challaned (officially notified of an offence) by Police under section 109 for aimless wandering and convicted by courts to one year’s imprisonment. This might be the fate of this boy as well, we thought, if restored to liberty through charity. As soon as he should come out, the Police would pounce upon him under 109 and run him in for a full year. It was thus in his interest to let him spend a month instead in jail. In this case he would at least be assured of a safe conduct to his native place, under the jail ticket which is issued to outgoing convict.

Life for Railway Fare                                                        

This was, however, never to be. He was not destined to set his foot outside those walls again. We were astounded to hear that the boy too had fallen a victim and instead of going out himself, his corpse was carried to the Jail burial ground. This,

mind you, in the brief space of a few weeks! It was sad to think of the old widow mother in the far-off land of the Pathans awaiting the return home of her only darling son. Instead, she would get an intimation that her only son, the prop of her old age paid with his life for his passage. Too costly a bargain! Yet such are the iniquities of Jail life! In such close neighbourhood of the civilized human life of ”outside world” what barbarities are perpetrated within those walls without awakening the least pang of conscience in that world! Shall we quietly look on while such inhumanity of man to man is the order of the day only next door to us, in His Majesty’s prisons?

The New Governor

The Govt., I must repeat, has done much to reform things and things have actually reformed too. Much more is yet to be done. The personel staff must be overhauled and men of the right stamp substituted for these corrupt specimens of humanity. I do not name the Jail where these things happened, as it is not my intention injure the reputation of any individual or individuals. I am only pleading for reform. Will not Sir Geoffrey De Montmorency, the new Governor begin his regime with the most humanitarian work of introducing some measure of improvement in the lot of the prisoner?

As Finance member, he has had the opportunity to know things within prison walls for himself and now that God has called him to the high office, what an opportunity to turn that knowledge to the good of fellowmen, forsaken both by man and God!

                                                                                       M.Y. KHAN                         

                                                                    (THE LIGHT        AUGUST 9, 1928)