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RITA DIXIT-KUBIAK

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PRISON MATRIARCH
- Rajasthan's Correctional Crusader, Preeta Bhargav

by Rita Dixit-Kubiak
Kyoto Journal, #53, Spring, 2003

Preeta Bhargav, a fortyish single mother and published poet, is not only Rajasthan 's first female jail officer, she is superintendent of the Udaipur Central Jail, five district jails and eleven sub jails. More remarkably, she is eulogized in poems by prison inmates as their harbinger of hope and light. Colleagues and Udaipur citizens she has skillfully enlisted into her prison reform programs call her a visionary who has single-handedly raised their consciousness about the dignity and potential of each and every human life. The following is Preeta's story of her leap from naive village maiden and novice jailer to the crusading custodial matriarch she has become in India's prison system today.


I was born into a large farming family in a small Rajasthani village called Dholpur. I was the sixth child, and my parents could barely afford to give me any education. My only formal schooling was from the fifth to tenth grade. I got my college education through correspondence courses and much against my parents' will. They feared too much education would ruin my chances for marriage. I finally had to threaten suicide to get my way. I had to manage my studies along with household chores and the usual farm labor of fieldwork, grazing cattle and keeping the wild peacocks away from the crops. I barely had time for my lessons except late at night in dim lantern light.

I was a willful child and determined to shape my own life. My stubborn nature was perhaps due to my reliance on a strong inner voice. It was my trust in this voice, plus my early life experiences that seem to have guided me to my present profession.

I was a little girl when the Indian government began negotiating a truce plan with the dacoit gangs in Rajasthan. Our officials promised them lenient jail terms, instead of the death sentence or being hunted down and shot, if they laid down their arms and turned themselves in. The dacoits were bandits who worshipped the goddess Kali. Although they admittedly robbed and murdered, they followed their own code of ethics that forbade robbing the poor and harming women and children. My father was a mediator between these dacoit gangs and the police. Many of the dacoits would surrender themselves at our farm, and we even had prison laborers work there. The dacoits and other convicts provoked my curiosity. I would always volunteer to take them water and tea and then hide out and listen to them talk to each other. They often sang together as they worked. I would listen to the dacoits sing devotional songs all night long and tell their life stories as they camped at our farm waiting for daybreak and their surrender to the police.

My experience of the jail inmates and surrendering dacoits never left me with the sense that they were intrinsically bad. On the contrary, they seemed affectionate and often quite decent. I felt their condemnation and ostracism by society was cruel. I had heard stories that inmates in the jail were poorly treated and even tortured. So my desire to do something to re-establish the humanity of these people came very early on in life. Looking back there were also a few important synchronicities that led me to this work.

After completing my bachelors degree and then my masters in history, I decided to move to Udaipur and take a bachelors in education. In the resource library where I studied, I came upon a notice for the Rajasthan Administrative Services competitive exam. If I passed this exam I could become a senior officer in the Rajasthan civil service, which includes jail administration. I sat for the exam and put custodial services as my first choice. I felt the best public service I could perform was inside the prisons. I did well in my exams, was awarded my first option, and was sent to Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh for nine months of training with thirty other aspirants from across the nation. I was the only female, and I am proud to say that I got the best cadet award for that program. I returned as the first woman prison officer in Rajasthan's history.

Instead of being delighted my parents were appalled. "How can a village girl who's barely left home dare to manage a jail?" My husband, who I married shortly after returning from Lucknow, and his family were equally opposed to my choice. They wanted me to stay at home and do their bidding like a traditional middle-class Indian daughter-in-law. Their psychological pressure was so intense it made life impossible. In the end I had to separate from my husband and his family to maintain my sanity. I am not divorced yet, but I live separately with my daughters, Sumaya and Ananaya.

My male colleagues and the jail inmates did not make my entry into this profession easy either. In spite of my being a top cadet my colleagues relentlessly challenged my abilities. They would advise me to resign, and use the most abusive language to test my reactions. The prison inmates would also misbehave with me. No one understood why a young woman would want to work in a place where most ordinary people would shudder to go. They eyed me as though I was a loose woman. I clearly had to prove myself.

I turned inwards for inspiration, and the answer I got was to act as their mother figure. However much women in general are reduced to chattel or objects in India, the mother is still accorded the highest place of respect. A mother symbolizes unconditional love, justice and deep care. She can do no wrong to her children and always thinks about their welfare. I decided I would not allow men to look upon me as just another young woman. I would become the jail matriarch, and the inmates and officers would be my family. I would build a community that would support all of its members and encourage the most positive and creative behavior from each.

I expressed this with total candor and sincerity to my colleagues and the prisoners. I told them that we needed to work together, and absolutely respect each other. I told them I was not merely a correctional officer, but saw myself as a mother concerned about each of them, about their progress, protection and welfare. My intuition proved absolutely right. It transformed my workplace. I had leaped from an apparent dead end to a space of creative possibility, and I was determined to take everyone with me. Jailers and inmates alike soon began to respect and trust me. In turn I have had to keep the highest personal standards of efficiency, honesty, fairness, and positivism. Indian jail services have four explicit goals: Safety/security both for society and within the prison system, custodial surveillance, punishment, and reform/rehabilitation. The last obliges us to prepare inmates for respectable lives when they re-enter society, and this of course has always taken a back seat. Our jail manuals are still based on Britain's Indian Prison Act of 1894 and are not too expressive on the subject of reform. We have finally just submitted a new prison act to the Rajasthan State Government which features a comprehensive reform package. We are awaiting its approval.

Our jails are full of the poor, and occasionally the middle class, but never the rich, who seem to be above the law. Our inmates' crimes include murder, theft, drug trafficking, and violence against women such as rape and dowry burning (immolating a young bride because her family could not meet the excessive dowry demands of the in-laws). These types of crimes are increasing across the nation. Three years ago the population in the Central Jail was between 600 to 650 prisoners; today it is between 800 to 850. The increase has everything to do with the rise of a pernicious consumer culture that is eroding and displacing our sense of community and spreading a virulent form of individualism which values material objects over all human relationships. The burning of women for some extra material comfort or the selling of drugs for quick money hardly horrifies anymore. What we truly face - and have to reverse - amongst our inmates is a systematic suppression of conscience, empathy, and care for life within the society as a whole.

My staff is instructed to give positive reinforcement for efforts made by prisoners, to discourage negative behavior, and to preempt the formation of bully gangs so common in jails. I cannot permit negative forces to run the jail. In the jails I supervise we rethink all the social issues - both modern and traditional - that plague our society. For example we discourage class and caste associations, and regard all religious-cultural observances equally. Everyone is responsible for the cleanliness of the premises, and we use eco-friendly biogas technology that uses our raw sewage to provide non-polluting energy for lighting and cooking.

In general, jails and prisons are dismal places, dateless zones where only prison gongs and the inmates' breathing mark off their debt to time. As a person committed to reform rather than retribution my ultimate hope is to transform jails. After thirteen years in this profession, I am convinced that every convict regardless of their crime sooner or later feels remorse and repents. It is therefore primitive and inhuman to commit prisoners to negative and hopeless places. Rather they should get the opportunity for catharsis, so they can transcend their misdeeds and move toward positive futures.

My main aim is to keep the prisoners positively channeled and inspired and to maintain an environment conducive to this process. Reform and rehabilitation are difficult tasks since our budget is low, but we do our best to provide work, vocational training, literacy and ethics programs and to organize plays, music recitals, yoga and meditation classes, and sports events.

I want to rebuild a sense of community, and the feelings of trust, love and cooperation which that implies. To do this I need the combined assistance of the jail administration, the prisoners, and the larger community outside the jail. I invite non-governmental organizations, school teachers, students, artists and musicians to join us in the prison's extracurricular activities, and I insist that they treat the prisoners with respect and dignity. I ask them not to come out of morbid curiosity about people society has caged, but with a desire to support people who are sincerely trying to change. I encourage the prisoners to look upon their visitors as brothers and sisters, to forget their past and to believe in their own capacity for friendship and decency. Retaining prisoners' links to society is an essential aspect of rehabilitation. Our efforts to preserve these connections have paid off with the Udaipur community coming forward to raise 800,000 rupees ($16,000) for an open jail in this city. This space will allow jail inmates who have almost completed their prison terms to once again live with their families and go out into the world to work.

The work of reform is diverse and perpetual, and since I am not God I constantly pray that I do not make a careless mistake and jeopardize the confidence of the community around me. However, up to this point my intuition and actions have been well rewarded. I am grateful to my staff and to the Udaipur community for their tireless support. I am thankful to the jail inmates I have known for confirming my deepest beliefs in humanity. I know I am on the right track because in the three years I have been in charge here, recidivism rates have dropped to nearly 5 percent. We have very few returnees.

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Kennebunkport resident, Ms. Dixit-Kubiak is an independent health/environment researcher, yoga teacher, shiatsu therapist, and program coordinator for Big Medicine's Eco-Holistic Health Exchanges. Her email is metamed@nancho.net.