Topic 1 : Life of a prisoner
Introduction: Once again, the life of a prisoner is in the public eye. This time the imprisoning of Delhi’s CM to Tihar Jail and asking for special privileges to him raised a similar case of other prisoners lodged in various Indian jails.
The case of special and basic privileges
- This is not the moment to ask why certain facilities are being made available to the CM but to question why all prisoners aren’t provided these facilities as a norm.
- Access to medication for diabetes, a pen, paper, a television, medical staff, books — they are at best classified as “basic”, not “special”.
- Then why are other prisoners denied such basic amenities when it is a long-established principle of penology that prisons are places where people are sent “as” punishment and not “for” punishment?
Does punishment mean denying basic facilities to prisoners?
- In simple terms, this means that when persons are imprisoned, the curtailment of liberty is the punishment.
- Nowhere is it prescribed that prisoners should be made to sleep on concrete floors, live in unhygienic conditions or eat food with worms.
- Yet, that seems to be an expectation.
- A life of hardship, days of misery, nights of despair — this is how a common person imagines the life of a prisoner to be.
- Sadly, this narrative is rarely challenged, bringing us to the present situation, where access to the most basic amenities appears like a privilege.
Status of Prisons in Delhi
- Delhi Prisons has three prison complexes, Tihar is the largest in the world, comprising nine central prisons; the second is in Rohini and the third in Mandoli with six central prisons.
- At the end of 2022, Delhi Prisons had a prisoner population of 18,497 persons with an occupancy of 185 per cent.
- One concerning fact is the high incarceration rate in Delhi (110 per cent) vis-à-vis the national average (52 per cent).
- Incarceration rates refer to the number of prisoners per lakh population, and Delhi is placed fourth in the country.
- Central Jail No. 2 where Kejriwal is lodged, has the lowest prison occupancy of 118 per cent among the other prisons, with Central Jail No. 4 at 466 per cent occupancy (3,453 prisoners in capacity of 740 prisoners) and Central Jail No. 1 at 411 per cent occupancy (2,323 prisoners in the capacity of 565 prisoners).
Implication of overcrowding of prisons
- Acute overcrowding can have disastrous implications for a prisoner — imagine the queues for accessing toilets for morning routines, sleeping on a rotation basis, struggling for space, not to mention the undue stress on prison administration and resources.
- The Supreme Court has time and again upheld the right to life in the context of prisoners.
- The right to life includes the right to live with dignity, and this should include the right not to be detained in overcrowded prisons.
Existing prison reform laws
- The Model Prisons and Correctional Services Act, 2023, prepared by the Government of India, states in Section 3 that one of the functions of prisons is to provide prisoners with food, clothing, accommodation, other necessities and medical treatment.
- Yet, one finds, be it Maharashtra, Karnataka, West Bengal or Delhi — unless the prisoner is able to secure permissions from the court, they are denied access to even the most basic necessities.
- These court permissions too are only accessible to those who can afford to hire good lawyers.
- For the vast majority of prisoners, who hail from weak socio-economic backgrounds, asking for a thing as simple as a book or toothbrush or a sanitary pad, is a herculean task.
- As a result, either prisoners never demand their basic rights or are found doing daily chores such as washing clothes, dishes, sweeping, etc., for other influential prisoners, as barter for accessing these facilities.
Way forward for prison reforms
- It is time that we view prisons and prisoners from a lens of reformation and rehabilitation.
- Prisons are not the “end” but the beginning for those who find themselves entangled with the criminal justice system, and seek to set a path on the road to reform.
- It is the function of prisons to provide correctional services to prisoners with the objective of rehabilitating them in society as law-abiding citizens.
Conclusion: The next time one considers access to books, medicines, and pens as a special privilege for high-profile prisoners, we must challenge our collective conscience that continues to normalise the inhuman, degrading, undignified treatment of human beings in prisons.
Topic 2 : The demographic window
Introduction: The projection by the UN Population Division is that India will have a population of close to 1.7 billion by 2065 before it starts declining. Another report from Lancet pointed out the drop-in total fertility rate to 1.29 by 2051. All these facts brought the demographics talks at the forefront in India.
How TFR is estimated in the UN’s and Lancet’s study?
- The total fertility rate used for projecting the population by the government’s technical group (1.94 for the period 2021-2025 and declining to only 1.73 during 2031-2035) and that used by the UN are higher than those thrown up by the study in The Lancet.
- The latter is even higher than what one would estimate using NFHS 5 data.
- All these imply that our population may stabilise below the 1.7 billion mark much before 2065.
Factors that have triggered a demographic transition in India
- Several factors have jointly triggered a demographic transition in India, the rapid pace of economic development, particularly since the early years of the present century, being the key one.
- Lower infant and child mortality rates reducing the need to have a large family for old-age support, would be the other factor, backed by the rise in women’s education and work participation rates.
- Improvement in housing conditions and the old-age security system are the other contributing factors.
The negative impact of the rapid decline of TFR in India
- The first impact of the rapid decline in TFR is a fall in the dependency rate and a larger share of working adults in the population, leading to an overall surplus income which can accelerate economic growth and lead to positive intergenerational transfers.
- However, this will subsequently result in a larger share of the elderly dependent population, as is noted in China, Japan and several European countries.
- The dependency ratio, taking the young and the old as a fraction of the percentage of the working-age population, is projected to go up from 13.8 in 2011 to 23 in 2036 for India.
The decline in TFR has a regional variation in India
- The decline is uneven across states and it will take a decade before all states, especially large ones like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand, achieve the replacement level fertility, which, in the long run, would ensure stabilisation of population.
- Furthermore, the inter-district variations are even higher.
- Odisha, the state experiencing the fastest transition among the poor states, will achieve TFR as low as 1.51 by 2036 and yet districts like Kandhamal, Nabarangpur and Rayagada will have it much above the replacement level, modelled on the data from NFHS 5.
- It will, therefore, be premature to take an alarmist view of the transition, even if it is somewhat faster than what was projected earlier.
The positive impacts of the decline in TFR
1. Increase in labour productivity
- The demographic transition will have a positive impact on several states in the coming years through an increase in labour productivity. It would do so via three channels.
- First, the decline in population growth would increase the amount of capital resources and infrastructure available in per capita terms.
- Second, the reduction in fertility would permit the relocation of resources for the education and skill development of children rather than expanding the coverage for achieving universalisation.
- Third, it would affect the age distribution of the population, increasing the fraction of the labour force in the population, although for a limited period, which would accelerate the growth of the overall economy.
2. Improvement in educational outcome
- A declining TFR will lead to a situation where the number of children enrolling in schools is lower, as is already happening in states like Kerala.
- This could improve educational outcomes without additional resources being spent by the state.
- Attention must, however, shift to middle and higher education where the drop-out rates are very high.
- Substantial resources must be allocated to technical and professional education before the window of demographic opportunity closes.
3. A rise in female labour force participation
- A major factor responsible for the low participation of women in the workforce is their engagement in childcare at an age when they should be in the labour force.
- With less time needed for childcare, one would expect more women to join the labour force in the coming decades.
- The larger share of women in MNREGA employment in the southern states is a pointer.
4. Shift in workforce from agriculture to other sectors
- The shifting of the workforce from agriculture to industries and services would balance the sectoral distribution.
- Skill development among SCs/STs and religious minorities can ensure there is no dearth of labour in the modern growing sectors.
- Much of the incremental workforce will come from the gradual process of the withering away of traditional activities.
5. A growth in healthy inter-state migration
- The north-south movement of labour has already emerged as a major factor, creating spatial balance in the labour market.
- This would get an impetus with the modern sectors in the southern states, and Gujarat and Maharashtra, soliciting cheaper labour from the northern states.
- This, over the years, must result in improved working conditions, elimination of wage discrimination for migrant workers and the mitigation of security concerns in the receiving states through institutional safeguards.
The way forward
- The Asia 2050 report, prepared by the Asian Development Bank, predicts that the 21st century belongs to Asia, with India being a major actor.
- This is very much possible, but not inevitable, warns the report.
- It emphasises sectoral and spatial redistribution of the workforce, skill development and increase in the work participation rate of women, all compensating for the declining share of the working age group in the population.
Conclusion: Understandably, improvement in life expectancy would be associated with problems of the aged and increased burden of disease, resulting in high demand for health care facilities. India must accept these challenges to make the most of the opportunity if it comes a bit ahead of the predicted time.