By Ramphal Kataria
The 2023 Prison Statistics India report reveals how India’s jails mirror its caste and class hierarchies. Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Muslims together form over half of the country’s prisoners despite being less than two-fifths of the population. In Haryana, Dalits make up 28% of inmates against a 20% population share. The essay argues that poverty and social marginality, not criminality, largely determine who ends up behind bars. Drawing on Ambedkar’s critique in Annihilation of Caste and sociologist Surinder Jodhka’s studies of Haryana’s caste power structure, it shows how bias seeps from street policing to sentencing. Undertrials — mostly poor and unrepresented — form two-thirds of prisoners. Political indifference, the piece concludes, allows a feudal sense of justice to persist: in India, jails remain the mirror of an unequal society where caste still decides who is punished and who walks free.
The Unequal Face of Justice
A key reason why Scheduled Castes (SCs) and minorities find themselves in the crosshairs of the law is the paucity of gainful employment opportunities. The recently released Prison Statistics India Report 2023 by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) exposes a disturbing truth — Indian prisons are mirrors of India’s caste hierarchy.
In Haryana, of over 25,000 jail inmates, nearly 28% are SCs and 13% are Muslims — far higher than their population shares of 20.2% and 7%, respectively (The Tribune, 2025). Nationally too, SCs, STs, and Muslims together constitute over 55% of India’s total prisoners, despite being less than 40% of the population. Haryana’s share of SC and Muslim prisoners ranks among the highest in northern India, rising steadily over the last decade.
This is not about “criminality.” It is about criminalisation — a system where caste hierarchy, economic deprivation, and institutional prejudice conspire to incarcerate the weakest, while shielding the powerful.
The Caste Pyramid in Chains
Caste in Haryana is not a relic — it is a living architecture of social control. As sociologist Surinder S. Jodhka observed in Caste and Power in Haryana’s Rural Landscape (EPW), the state’s agrarian structure is rooted in Jat dominance, with Dalits confined to kamins — low-wage, dependent labour roles.
Despite constitutional guarantees, village life still obeys khaps and panchayats more than the Constitution. When Dalits resist, violence enforces “order.” The 2010 Mirchpur massacre is a brutal reminder — a Jat mob burned alive a 70-year-old Dalit man and his disabled daughter, torching 18 Dalit homes. Over 250 families fled (PUDR Report: Mirchpur – Justice Denied).
In Bhagana (Hisar, 2014), Dalits protesting land encroachment were expelled from the village; later, four Dalit girls were gang-raped (Indian Express, 2014). In Pabnava (Kaithal, 2013), 200 Dalit homes were razed after an inter-caste marriage. In Jandwala Sotar (Fatehabad, 2023), a khap panchayat ordered Dalits to vacate their homes (The Wire, 2023).
These are not isolated incidents — they are the grammar of caste discipline. The same social order that denies Dalits land and dignity ensures they remain overrepresented behind bars.
A Justice System that Mirrors Caste
Haryana’s law enforcement apparatus is deeply biased. The Status of Policing in India Report (2022) by Common Cause and Lokniti-CSDS found that one in three police personnel believes complaints by Dalits or Muslims are “often false.” This bias begins at the police station and seeps through every stage of justice — from FIR registration to sentencing.
According to NCRB data (2022), 27.8% of undertrials in Haryana are SCs and 9% Muslims — again, far above their demographic proportion. Ambala MP Varun Chaudhary told The Indian Express that “these figures are not just data points; they reflect institutional prejudice. The state must ensure proper legal aid for the poor.”
Yet, Haryana’s legal aid budget remains symbolic. Public defenders are few, underpaid, and often unavailable to those most in need. According to an IndiaSpend analysis (2023), even inside prisons, caste-based segregation persists — separate barracks, unequal work assignments, and differential treatment. The bars do not erase caste; they reinforce it.
Policing as Caste Discipline
The Indian Police Foundation’s 2023 Diversity Dashboard shows that over 75% of Haryana’s police officers belong to upper castes, while Dalits are grossly underrepresented in leadership roles. This imbalance translates directly into biased policing.
As the Centre for Dalit Studies (2020) found, dominant-caste offenders are routinely shielded, while Dalit and Muslim youth are targeted under vague charges like “rioting,” “cow smuggling,” or “theft.” Reports by Sabrang India and Human Rights Watch document dozens of such cases.
This is how “law and order” becomes a euphemism for preserving social hierarchy. Police stations manned by upper-caste officers seldom register FIRs filed by SCs, while the same machinery bends under political pressure when upper-caste offenders are involved.
The Social Economy of Exclusion
At the heart of this caste crisis lies land and livelihood. Land in Haryana remains concentrated among upper castes. As Blocked by Caste (Thorat & Newman, OUP 2012) demonstrates, land ownership determines both economic and social power. Dalits, largely landless, remain trapped in insecure, low-paid, and caste-dependent labour.
The UN Human Rights Council (2019) classified caste as a “form of discrimination based on work and descent” — a violation of fundamental human rights (OHCHR Report, 2019). Yet Haryana’s governance continues to treat caste injustice as a law-and-order issue, not a structural one.
Schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), and Stand-Up India exist in policy, but their reach among Dalit and Muslim communities remains fragmented and cosmetic. These are symbolic gestures — free ration here, a loan there — that maintain dependency without altering structural inequality.
The Political Arithmetic of Caste and Crime
Caste in Haryana is not only a social order; it is a political currency. Since 2014, the BJP’s “non-Jat” consolidation sought to draw SCs, OBCs, and minorities against the Jat elite. But as EPW’s Pritam Singh notes in his essay Caste and Political Realignment in Haryana, this merely rearranged hierarchy without dismantling it.
Cow protection laws have been used as tools of criminalisation against Muslims (The Caravan, “Politics of Caste and Cow in Haryana”). Meanwhile, cases of caste-based violence against Dalits rarely see convictions — reflecting both police bias and political convenience.
Elections are fought not on governance but on caste equations: Jat vs Non-Jat, Hindu vs Muslim, SC vs OBC. The Scheduled Castes remain politically useful but structurally powerless — visible in rallies, invisible in policy.
Ambedkar’s Apprehensions: Still Relevant
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, in his seminal 1936 essay Annihilation of Caste, foresaw this tragedy. His apprehensions were clear:
1. Caste kills public conscience — it divides society into watertight compartments.
2. Social reform must precede political reform — freedom without equality is illusion.
3. Caste survives by controlling the mind — education without annihilation of caste only reproduces servitude.
4. Untouchability is not a symptom but the soul of caste.
Ambedkar was denied the opportunity to deliver this speech in Lahore; his text remains one of the most radical indictments of Hindu social order. Nearly a century later, his fears have materialised in Haryana’s prisons and police stations, where caste continues to script the lives — and deaths — of the marginalised.
Economic Disempowerment and Social Stigma
The problem of SCs and minorities is two-pronged — economic and social. Even after independence, despite reservations and constitutional guarantees, economic mobility remains stunted. According to NSSO and NITI Aayog data (2023), Dalits still occupy the lowest quintile in household income, literacy, and landholding.
Their dwellings — small, often kutcha houses devoid of sanitation or water — remain physical symbols of their social rank. Schemes like Swachh Bharat Mission and PMAY have helped minimally; bureaucratic corruption and social gatekeeping often prevent Dalits from accessing entitlements.
Meanwhile, they continue to be used as a captive vote bank — lured by token benefits, cash handouts, or communal polarisation. As social historian Anand Teltumbde wrote in Republic of Caste (Navayana, 2018), “The State co-opts Dalits into the promise of democracy while excluding them from its substance.”
From Village Hierarchies to Bureaucratic Castes
A subtler but dangerous evolution is visible in urban and bureaucratic casteism. In Haryana’s government offices, employees flock in caste clusters — “biradari networking” influences transfers, promotions, and disciplinary actions. SC employees face both social isolation and procedural discrimination.
Political manifestos mirror this segregation — “Jat–Non-Jat equations” dominate policy discourse, not governance or equality. In this framework, SCs are part of government formation but excluded from power-sharing. The persistence of caste even in bureaucratic modernity shows that India’s modernity is skin-deep; its feudalism runs deep.
Legal Aid: A Promise Betrayed
For marginalised prisoners, legal aid exists only on paper. The National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) mandates free counsel for underprivileged accused, yet the implementation is abysmal. In Haryana, thousands of undertrials languish for years without representation.
As The Hindu editorialised (2024), “Legal aid in India is a right in theory, charity in practice.” For Dalit and Muslim inmates, it is often neither — merely an illusion. Without access to quality defence, poverty translates into conviction, and conviction into lifelong stigma.
The cycle is vicious: caste determines poverty, poverty determines vulnerability to prosecution, and prosecution perpetuates caste.
The Historical Roots of Exclusion
The genesis of caste lies in the ancient varna system that codified labour and property rights through ritual hierarchy. The upper castes monopolised land — bestowed historically by monarchs and colonial administrators through zamindari grants and jagirs. Dalits were kept landless to ensure perpetual servitude.
Post-independence land reform acts promised redistribution but were undermined by bureaucratic manipulation and caste capture. Scholars like B. S. Baviskar and Gail Omvedt have shown that “beneficiaries of reform were the intermediate castes, not the landless Dalits.” Thus, while the Constitution outlawed untouchability, the economy preserved it through land ownership.
Today, this legacy manifests in mass incarceration and rural bondage. In a society where property, policing, and politics remain caste-coded, justice becomes an accident of birth.
The Silence of Political Will
Why has no government — Congress or BJP — dismantled caste? Because caste delivers votes. SCs and Muslims are treated as electoral pawns, courted through schemes and slogans, but denied structural reform.
As political theorist Christophe Jaffrelot writes in India’s Silent Revolution (Columbia University Press, 2003), “Democracy has not annihilated caste; it has democratised it.” Caste now determines who governs, not who suffers.
In Haryana, upper-caste dominance in police, bureaucracy, and politics ensures impunity for the powerful and imprisonment for the powerless. When justice is captured by caste, the Constitution becomes a ceremonial book.
Conclusion: The Bars Within
The overrepresentation of Dalits and Muslims in Haryana’s prisons is not a statistical aberration — it is the sociological face of India’s unfinished revolution. It reveals who gets arrested, who is convicted, and who escapes justice.
As long as caste dictates opportunity and punishment, prisons will remain the mirror of the village — hierarchically arranged, morally blind, and politically convenient.
Ambedkar’s warning still echoes: “If caste is not annihilated, democracy will be a top-dressing on an Indian soil that is essentially undemocratic.”
Until India confronts this moral crisis — through land redistribution, police diversity, robust legal aid, and true social reform — the walls of its prisons will continue to echo the same old story: that some are born to be punished, and others born to rule.
References:
1. NCRB, Prison Statistics India Report 2023
2. Surinder S. Jodhka, Caste and Power in Haryana’s Rural Landscape, EPW
3. PUDR, Mirchpur – Justice Denied (2011)
4. The Indian Express, Bhagana Dalit Girls Rape Case, 2014
5. The Wire, Dalits Ordered to Vacate Homes in Fatehabad, 2023
6. Common Cause–Lokniti, Status of Policing in India Report 2022
7. Thorat & Newman, Blocked by Caste, OUP, 2012
8. Christophe Jaffrelot, India’s Silent Revolution, CUP, 2003
9. Anand Teltumbde, Republic of Caste, Navayana, 2018
10. OHCHR, Caste-based Discrimination Report, 2019
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