It is remarkably easy to turn a blind eye to what goes on in the dark corners of society, places like police stations, jails and detention centres, where the nation's quest for justice and punishment presumably finds expression. But ever so often the ugliness and abuse that characterise these institutions spill out before the nation's horrified gaze. Wednesday morning's riot, which saw 2,000-odd prisoners in Chennai's Central Jail go on a rampage represented such a moment. Both the incarcerated and their custodians displayed unprecedented levels of brutality in the three hours that the riot lasted a police warden was tragically torched to death and at least 10 prisoners lost their lives in police firing.Ironically, the Tamil Nadu government has had a fairly good record in terms of custodial violence. When a state like Maharashtra recorded 180 cases of custodial deaths in 1996-97 and Uttar Pradesh was not too far behind with 139 instances, Tamil Nadu had 18 against its name. But perhaps this is not a good enough index to measure the state's human rights record, and the two major jail riots that have broken out in the state's central jails over the last few months belie such an easy claim. In fact, Wednesday's riot at the Chennai Central Jail indicates that something is rotten in the custodial system of the state. The riot certainly could not have spread as fast as it did, there was not already a high degree of dissatisfaction among the inmates. The prisoners reportedly have on many earlier occasions expressed their anger over the arbitrary and callous ways of the prison staff. The death in suspicious circumstances of `Boxer' Vadivelu, an inmate, seems to have acted as a catalyst to the simmeringdiscontent. These factors, as well as the fact that numerous gangs were operating with impunity within the jail, brought about the complete breakdown of law and order. Not only were the authorities ignorant about the potential tinder box that was developing under their very noses, they seemed to be equally clueless about how the ensuing anarchy was to be dealt with. The fire that claimed prison warden Jayakumar could have been doused much earlier and his life possibly saved if the situation had been brought under control faster. But what was perhaps the most important cause for the riot was the overcrowded conditions that prevailed in the jail. Equipped to house 1,400 prisoners, it had at least 2,000 people within its walls when the riot broke out.All this constitutes a recipe for disaster - overcrowding, lack of privacy and sanitation, mistreatment, mismanagement and callous authorities. Of course, the Chennai Central Jail is no different, and may in fact be somewhat better, than the hundreds of prisons all over the country. The National Human Rights Commission had long been advocating a Model Prison Bill and had urged state governments, under whose jurisdiction the administration of jails fall, to work towards just such legislation. The commission had also pointed out that the overcrowding of Indian jails seemed to indicate a sluggishness in the criminal justice system in the country. The unconscionably high number of undertrials had only gone to inflate the numbers inside jails. Unless the country's guardians of law and order react urgently to the lessons of Wednesday's riot, it could well be only a foretaste of things to come.
