Webinar Series: Rethinking Crime and Punishment in India
Towards an Anti-carceral Politics
Webinar Series: Rethinking Crime and Punishment in India
The webinar series aimed to deliberate on anti-carceral politics in India by centering the voices and perspectives of persons coming from several marginalised backgrounds who are most affected by carceral system, including persons from adivasi, nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, Vimukta communities (De-Notified Tribes -DNTs), Dalits, transgender persons, muslims.
Over the course of four webinars, the issues of crime and punishment in India, particularly in relation to caste, gender, and securitisation were interrogated by a range of speakers, including those affected by carceral politics, lawyers, scholars, and activists, who envisioned to frame what anti-carceral politics in India can look like.
Keynote Address
The webinar series began with a conversation between two leading figures - Darshana Mitra & Dr. Jinee Lokaneeta, who expanded our conceptions of crime, punishment, and carcerality in India.
To Listen on Spotify
Watch the Keynote Address on YouTube
Panel 1: Caste as Criminality
The first of of the four part webinar series was organised by the Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project, to center the interactions of historically oppressed communities with systems of surveillance and policing. The object was to arrive at an understanding of how the institution of policing is central to the creation of casteist criminality, and to demonstrate that the dismantling of the carceral state is an integral part of anti-caste vision(s). The panellists Sai Bourothu, M. Subba Rao, and Shweta Goswami engaged in conversations and questions around caste and criminality in India, including historical criminalisation of transgender persons, Dalits and, Denotified Tribes, and other marginalised communities. Learn more about the Webinar Series here
To Listen on Spotify
Watch this Panel on YouTube
Panel 2: Gender Justice & Anti-Carceral Politics
The second panel was organised by the Centre for Justice, Law and Society (CJLS), to engage with the feminist movement in India and its reliance on the carceral state in its attempt to frame a critique of carceral politics from a feminist lens. It explored the relationship that the feminist movement in India has forged with the criminal justice system and the debates that have emerged in the interrogation of this relationship owing to the resultant costs on women and gender diverse persons so continue to face the disparate impact of such carceral practices.
The panellists Vqueeram, Ratna Appnender, and Safoora Zargar brought in different perspectives of carcerality and gender in India including, sexual offences, using criminality to address sexual violence, caste, criminality, and gendered violence, women prisoners and political prisoners.
To Listen on Spotify
Watch this Panel on YouTube
Panel 2: The Carceral Security State
The third and final panel of the four part webinar series was organised by the Detention Solidarity (DetSol), that examined the political and social history which has justified the state repression through draconian laws and the range of punitive practices deployed by the state to uphold the notion of “national security”. A key objective of the panel was to offer insights into the practices and logics of carcerality in the face of the national security discourse and help us identify the key principles that must be at the heart of developing abolitionist strategies. Through the axis of and lived experiences contained by some of these “habitually performed words” (Coyle and Scott, 2020) like “anti-national”, “urban Naxal”, “jihadi”, the panel considered their application, and the discourses created around these terms.
The panellists Jenny Rowena, Mirza Saaib Bég, Abdul Wahid Sheikh put forth the current pressing issues of carcerality and security state including, arrests of academics, never-ending arrests, detentions, and killings in Kashmir in the name of national security, and illegal arrests and criminalisation of Muslim community.
Performance by Samata Kala Manch
Following this intense and riveting panel, Samata Kala Manch performed to conclude the webinar series.