Indiascope
Made in Jail
Prisoners are using their time behind bars admirably-picking up professional skills to manufacture high quality products that have even found buyers abroad
LEKHA RATTANANI
ISSUE DATE: July 15, 1994
HISTORIC, impenetrable and formidable, Yerawada Jail in Pune once housed prisoners such as Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak and serial killer Raman Raghav behind its Alcatraz-like walls. But that is not its only claim to fame. Today, Asia's largest jail is better known for being the biggest contributor to Maharashtra's estimated Rs 8 crore prison industry. This thriving industry is run entirely by the prison inmates who churn out products ranging from furniture to confectionery and cloth.
Indeed, in the past three or four years, prison industries have picked up not only in Maharashtra but also in Punjab, Karnataka and Gujarat, thanks to the enthusiastic efforts being made by the jail authorities to train and rehabilitate prisoners. What used to be an ad hoc affair has become a systematic, well-organised concern. In Punjab, for instance, production of prison goods has gone up from Rs 2.56 crore in 1989 to Rs4.61 crore last year and the state now plans to go hi-tech and introduce computers in some of its prisons. In Karnataka, there is a proposal to set up training facilities for prisoners in collaboration with the Small Industries Service Institute. So positive has been the response that 'Made in jail' products are now being exported to the US and Europe.
To a visitor, it may seem strange that industries can thrive in the backyard of a jail. But for D.M. Jadhav, superintendent of Yerawada Jail, there is nothing unusual about proffering a plate of biscuits and announcing with pride that they are "made in jail" one moment, and in the next breath, pointing to the spot where executions take place. (The last hanging here took place in April last year.)
Yerawada Jail does come somewhat as a surprise. The heavily-guarded gates unlock to a series of mini industrial units with production figures averaging an impressive Rs 50 lakh a month, chalked on boards outside. Inside, there is a hum of activity, with the convicts busy giving finishing stitches to shirts bound for the US or tailoring uniforms for the state police. For the jail's carpentry section, the 1994 National Games were almost as demanding as they were for the organisers. They worked overtime to finish 300 tables, chairs and beds for the sports village.
The work also thrives at other j ails in Maharashtra, which has a total prisoner ? population of about 2 5,000. Nashik jail specialises in soaps, Kolhapur contributes riot shields for the police and jails in the Marathwada and Vidarbha regions have motivated undertrials to make at least one thousand durries a month.
"Reform and resettlement, that is our motto," says Maharashtra's igp (Prisons) M.G. Naravane, pointing out that things have changed from the exploitative British days when prisoners were treated as cheap labour. "We teach them a trade and pay. Prisoners should pass out of this college with a skill."
And there are a variety of skills to pick up. Take, for instance, Lai Singh Surajmal Solanki, 36. His future seemed bleak when he was sent to Ahmedabad jail for killing a political rival in a gram panchayat election. Then he discovered the art of baking. The former farmer hopes to get a loan to set up a bakery on his release. He has completed half of his 14-year sentence and spends most of his time in the jail's bakery division which he developed and which made Rs 17 lakh this year.
Ahmedabad jail has another inspiring story to boast of. Kartik Jugal Hathi, 48, a fake jewellery trader, has been serving a sentence here since 1983 for killing his wife in a fit of rage. Since jewellery didn't quite gel with jail, he took to carpentry. Hathi now heads the carpentry design department which produces items that could rival the famous carved furniture of Badmer in Rajasthan. "I plan to return to my old profession which offers more room for profit. But if I don't succeed, I can always make a living out of carpentry," says Hathi, pondering on life after jail two years hence.
In Punjab, convicts are trying their hand at weaving and tailoring. Behind the high-walled industrial shed in Patiala's Central Jail, the prisoners work away at power looms. Here the prison industry has boomed in direct proportion to the expansion of the police force which grew to counter terrorism in the state. The demand for tents gave a fillip to the walled-in cottage industry. And today, tent-making units in Punjab's jails have replaced private supplies to the police. Such is the enterprise of the prisoners that despite Nabha and Sangrur jails being closed for security reasons in 1991, production wemc up to Rs 4.30 crore in the next financial year. Impressed, the chief minister recently announced an increase in their daily wages. And as an incentive, the jail authorities have reframed parole and remission rules for working prisoners. Says Punjab ig (Prisons) B.S. Sandhu: "Linking remission and parole with output has ushered in a new work culture in j ails." In many states this has prompted even undertrials, who are not bound to work by the jail manuals, to volunteer their efforts. Not only are they able to earn Rs 6.25 to Rs 8 a day, but as Dinesh Srivastava, who teaches criminal and correctional psychology in Bombay, says: "Any effort to develop productive energies helps modify prisoners' behaviour." Nov Punjab jails are competing for higher industrial and agricultural production and jail officers are recommended honoraria on the basis of turnover.
Given the positive results, jails are coming up with innovative training programmes. On the cards is a beautician's course for women prisoners as well as accountancy, stenography and computer courses. And Andhra Pradesh plans to tie up with Apple Computers to train educated prisoners. "Some of them can be profitably employed in keying in data or can, with some financial help, run a computer centre after being released," says a senior jail official. The repair of electronic goods and automobiles are among the other prison skills that are to be developed here.
HOWEVER, one problem area remains-the prisoners' daily wages. The wages vary from state to state and depend on whether the convict is skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled. They can range from Re 1 a day in Madhya Pradesh to Rs 6.2 5 in Maharashtra. But despite the recommendations of the Indian Prisons Congress of 1990 to start new jail industries, some state governments such as Andhra Pradesh's are still hesitating over a Kerala High Court verdict granting workers in prisons the same wages as those outside. Andhra Pradesh officials have interpreted it as granting the wages after deleting the daily expenses incurred on a prisoner and, therefore, pay a paltry Rs 3.
Even if the money isn't that much, there are other compensations. Deepak Punjabrao Wankhede, 29, makes only Rs 6.25 a day, but he gets to do what he really wants to-paint. Deepak, serving a life sentence in Yerawada Jail since 1984 for killing his art school principal, dreams of opening an art gallery and helping poor children learn painting. He still has four years to serve and currently teaches interested convicts basic painting techniques so that they can at least paint name plates. Deepak, who works out of a cramped makeshift 'studio' in the jail, has done one exhibition on prison life already and plans several more.
All this makes V. Kanu Pillai, additional dgp (Prisons) of Gujarat optimistic. The state's two central jails and five district jails, with a prisoner population of 7,000, contribute to a Rs 2.50-crore turnover. "If quality is the yardstick and not fanciful packaging, then our products compete with the best in the market," says Pillai. A new store he opened for jail products records daily sales of up to Rs 10,000 on normal days and touches Rs 35,000 during festivals, despite a state government rule that doesn't allow jails to charge more than 10 per cent profit on their products.
Booming business has made some jailers sound like entrepreneurs. Standing in front of the half-a-dozen work sheds in the sprawling Bhopal Central Jail, its Superintendent, Umesh Kumar Gandhi, picks up a cake of washing soap produced by his prisoners and quotes statistics like the md of a company: - "Last year our turnover was more than Rs 20 lakh. We earned a profit of Rs 2.35 lakh as against Rs80,000 in the previous year.'' He then displays a range of their products: uniforms, towels, footwear, detergent, furniture and carpets. There's even a music band that can be hired for marriages.
CLEARLY, the conventional image of jail labour has changed. In the past, stories of exploited prison labour caused many western countries to shy away from importing jail goods. Yet, China, dubbed by human rights organisations as "the last gulag", manages a parallel economy powered by its prisons called laodonggaizaos. And these low-priced cars, clothes and other lao gai goods do filter into foreign markets.
Likewise, the Maharashtra Small-Scale Industries Development Corporation (mssidc), which exports about three lakh prison-made shirts and trousers, sees this as a service rather than as exploiting labour. "Our objective is to give them some work so that when they leave prison they -have money and work skills," says R.K. Satla, manager, exports, at mssidc. Adds Narendra Prasad, additional director-general of prisons, Madhya Pradesh: "Profit is not our motive. The industries are meant to help the rehabilitation of prisoners after their release." It also helps them use their time effectively. Says bandmaster Deviprasad Tikaria, a lifer who has spent seven years in Bhopal jail: "Playing the band outside the jail gives us an opportunity to feelnormal." It doesn't matter that they are surrounded by jail guards when they play. As Dr K. Srinivasan, inspector general of prisons in Karnataka, says: "The old concept of making prisoners break stone is gone. The jail is run like an ashram and every inmate is productive so that there are less problems when he goes back to the mainstream."
The other positive aspect is that this makes prisons self-sufficient and society is penalised to a minimum, Karnataka's seven jails with 8,000 inmates are a case in point. No soap, phenyl, cloth or furniture is ever bought. The state's jails have wide-ranging industrial units such as weaving, carpentry, tailoring, carpet-making, printing, laundry, dyeing, bleaching, smithy, cane, coir, soap-making, leather works and tent making. The soap-making section makes an average of 30 tonnes of soap a week to meet their own needs. All the stationery used in the prisons' offices is printed in the jails. About 20,000 metres of cloth is woven by the prisoners every year for their uniforms. And hundreds of pieces of government office furniture are repaired here every year, Even the Raj Bhavan's furniture is sent to the Bangalore Central Jail for repairs. The gloom, in fact, sets in when the prisoners are not doing much, as in West Bengal. Says Biswanath Chowdhury, the minister in-charge of jails: "No matter how desperately we would like to inject an element of professionalism into such units, financially our hands are tied." There is a carpentry unit and a printing press in Alipore jail, but it is of pre-Independence vintage and badly needs to be repaired.
For a start, West Bengal could take a leaf out of the other prisons' manuals. As they have shown, life behind bars need not be a prison of the mind. It could also be a learning experience. with bureau reports
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