H.

P NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY,

SHIMLA

Assignment
SOCIOLOGY

Submitted To
MR AMIT CHATURVEDI

Submitted By
KUNAL MEHTO

Roll no. – 16
BA.LLB.(HONS.) –III SEMESTER
ACKNOWLEDGMENT

"It is not possible to prepare a project report without the assistance &encouragement of other

people. This one is certainly no exception. "

I would like to express my thanks to the people who have helped me most throughout my project.
I am grateful to my professor AMIT CHATURVEDI for nonstop support for the project.

A special thank of mine goes to Dr.S.C RAINA SIR(VC NLU,SHIMLA) who helped me out in
completing the project.I wish to thank my parents for their personal support or attention who
inspired me to go my own way.

At last but not the least I want to thank my friends who treasured me for my hard work and
encouraged me and finally to God who made all the things possible for me till the end.

KUNAL MEHTO
SOCIOOGICAL INTERVIEW OF EX- JAILOR OF
HOSHANGABAD JAIL - Mr. SUDHAN
CHAUDHARY
 Preface
The best way to learn is through asking questions. In this assignment, I was directed to interview
a person from legal or penological profession so I choose to interview a jailor. This assignment is
a biological sketch of a jailor named sudhan chaudhary. In this assignment we will study every
aspect of his life and his experience as a jailor and try to relate his views on different aspects
with sociology.

Early life
Mr. sudhan chaudhary was born on December 15, 1960 in a middle class family in sihora district
of Jabalpur, India . Mr sudhan was the youngest of four brothers and one sister in his family. His
mother was a house wife and father was a constable in Madhya Pradesh police department. He
completed his primary and secondary education from government boy’s school sihora and higher
education from Jamunaprasad higher secondary school. . In his school years, Mr sudhan had
average grades but was described as a bright and hardworking student who had a strong desire to
learn. He spent hours on his studies, especially social science. Then he opted for bachelors of
Arts degree from St. Aloysius College Jabalpur affiliated with the Rani Durgavati Vishwavidyalaya
Jabalpur.

He consider mahatma Gandhi his spiritual guru and according to him Gandhiji had never
claimed to be a God or a super human. He admitted his mistakes and never blamed anyone. He
was just another simple Indian, and his methods could be easily understood by both the educated
and the poor. Gandhiji has shown us how to live by setting an example. He was an ordinary man
with an extraordinary will to live his life according to the principles of truth and nonviolence.
What he preached he first practiced. His humility and depth of understanding in the simplest of
actions has made him the “Mahatma”.

Following the footsteps of his father Mr sudhan soon after completing his graduation has decided
to give MPPSC exam and cracked it in second attempt. He served 10 years in Bina district, in
this 10 years he faced many ups and down in his career but he stood straight and observing his
dedication towards his duty Madhya Pradesh government decided to awarded him with the post
of jailor in India’s first open jail i.e hoshangabad jail. He was called Gandhi of hoshangabad. He
served 3 year in hoshangabad jail and in 2011 due to some personal reason’s he decided to quit
his job. And settled in his hometown.

A brief Discussion
Our discussion started with the essential element required for his job and I asked him - Sir
Knowledge is the basic element of every profession and each professional must have pre-
requisite knowledge of his profession, what are the knowledge elements you obtained from
your education, training and work experience would support your jailer career? He replied
that -

I had more than 10 years of experience as a jailor and 30 years of experience as police officer. In
these years I had some good as well as bad experiences. Only knowledge about your profession
alone is not sufficient to tackle any situation because law in reality is totally different from what
we read it in books. In our society law is not same for every person it differs from person to
person. Like you might have read about shashikala case where she was treated as guest of 5 star
hotel and provided perks which are not available to common prisoners. And there are numerous
case like salman khan case, sanjay dutt case, subrata rai sahara where you can find that they got
special treatment from the jail authority just because of their social status. As Foucault described
in his book Discipline and punish: The birth of prison. He has talked about the reason why
punishment in 21st century take place further from public eyes and further from government
control .

According to Marxist view the law is part of the superstructure that is used to socialise people,
which benefits capitalists. he argue that the law is only enforced on the working class and that
the middle class are exempt from it as agents of social control are biased against the working
class. he believe that official statistics are invalid and say that capitalists are the real criminals
but explain working class crime as being due to capitalist culture being criminogenic and I
totally agree with this view that jail and execution further from public eyes must be idea of
some bourgeois because in ancient times Corporal punishment used to be carried out in a
businesslike fashion. Execution was very public and gruesome Bodies were branded, amputated,
wrenched apart. From the stake to the scaffold, from the pillory to the gibbet, physical suffering
was produced with elaborate theatricality as an example to all. Care was taken that no one should
be unaware of it. And thus left no scope for bourgeois to enjoy perks and benefits thus to cope up
with this problem they introduced the concept to jails. Now they can easily enjoy the benefit of
being popular and having a status in society.

But apart from this my training and education provided me the knowledge of relevant
equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national
security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions, laws, legal
codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and
the democratic political process, human behavior and performance; individual differences in
ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and
the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders, the structure and content of
the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and
grammar, circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and
software, including applications and programming.

After having a brief chat on basic elements required for his job I was keen to know his views on
increasing crime rates in our state as we have topped the list of cognizable crimes in the country,
after having such a trained professionals heavily equipped with arms, our government is
investing such a humongous amount on our security still we have such a high crime rate so I
asked him that-As we are living in age of robots we have security cameras in each corner of
city, modern weapons, specialized armed forces, police stations at every km then also we
have such a high crime rate. Why? In this regard he replied that -

According to Durkheim Crime serves as a social function and that social function is to support the social
norms of the society. crime is found in all societies, it must be performing necessary functions otherwise
it would disappear in an advanced society and one of these necessary functions is social change. Crime
is one of the most effective sources of social change in any society. When crime goes against social
norms, eventually a society’s collective belief will transform thus bringing about social change. A prime
example of this is Nirbhaya case. This case unite the whole society a bring a change in society in form of
amendment in the constitution of india. I would agree to some extent, with Durkheim’s theory and say
that he is correct in saying that crime is inevitable. Moreover, it is largely inevitable in societies with
higher inequality such as socio-economic statuses which Durkheim mentions as being a factor of crime.
However, crime will always occur in every society regardless of its socio-economic state because most
social norms are based on a moral code. That moral code can only be defined by previous criminal
behaviour for that specific society. Therefore, crime has to be present for social norms and laws to be
created.

And the other factor is that society is characterized by the predominance of secondary rather than
primary relationships, the sociopath functions is a popular culture at least as a prime index of
contemporary social unease. As Emilie Durkheim stated in his reading anomic suicide that the causes of
suicide were to be found in social factors, not individual personalities. Rate of suicide in a society varied
with time and place, Durkheim looked for causes linked to time and place rather than only to emotional
stress. Durkheim argued that suicide rates are affected by the different social contexts in which they
emerge. He looked at the degree to which people feel integrated into the structure of society and their
social surroundings as social factors producing suicide. Likewise crime rate is not lenient in the state.
Like in Bhopal crime rate is not so high as compare to district like Bhind and Murrena. And crime rate is
negligible in hoshangabad as compare to these districts. Crime rate in M.P differ from place – place and
might be because of literacy rate and unemployment. In big cities generally unemployment rate is not
that much high as compare to small cities. That’s why people find another way of earning and hence
crime rate became high.

Our discussion was stretched further as I put forward another question which was related to the
need of mobilizing such a heavy police force in society as we all know that inspite of feeling safe
people feared with the presence of police so I asked him that Now days we are observing such a
heavy policing in society. What are the reasons behind it and who will be benefitted with such heavy
policing?

This is capitalist society. All laws and rules made in society are to secure the rights of rich people.
Bourgeois want that the society should regulate in particular order so that they can exercise their power
on them. And such a heavy policing is done to protect the interest of these upper class people and to
regulate the behavior of working class. There are many cases where police officer refuses to register FIR
against any high class person and if he insist then he will interrogated like he has done some crime. The
poor find it difficult to resort to legal mechanism enshrined in various statutes where as the rich is
extended a helpful hand by the entire legal institute. This difference is not only seen in police stations
but also in temples. Now there are VIP lines in temple also where you can meet with deity without
standing in queue. This shows the dominance of upper class.

Like Foucault has said in his reading that penal system is isn’t suppose to prevent crime or reform
criminal it exist to define the power of ruling party. Likewise such a heavy policing is done to protect the
interest of ruling class not the interest of common people.

Daily in newspaper we read about corruption in police department and this has damaged the
reputation of police department badly so I asked him that-It is common sensical notion prevailing in
society that police is generally involved in malpractice like bribery and corruption, whereas the army
has kept their image of being savior of nation intact.

Police department is run by the state government and all the police officers are of same state and it is
human tendency that he uses all possible ways to protect his loved ones. And in India we generally
believe in “jugaad” system thus any case filed against any person he uses all his friends and relatives
connections with police person to get some relief. For example if there are two parties A and B. A is
resident of Madhya Pradesh and B is resident of Bihar doing job in Madhya Pradesh and some dispute
arise between them and the matter reaches to police station then in most of the cases it is found that
there is some soft corner in the heart of police man for his state resident. There is some sense of
brotherhood between them and this give rise to corruption.

Whereas army person does not have any state affair they do not represent any state they represent the
nation thus this closes all the doors of corruption.

What is your opinion regarding Indian penal system and its loop holes.

For a while imagine that someone locked you in a room, then what kind of mental status you will carry ?
You will get disturb, you will try to come out, you will find a reason for locking you, you may harm
yourself due to unanswered questions or loneliness. This kind of feeling may carry by you for while till
you locked behind the doors. But this kind of feeling carries by prisoners for years and years during their
imprisonment. The same condition took in Noida double murder case ,2008 popularly known as aarushi
murder case. In this case the court has convicted the parents of girl who was murdered by some
anonymous person and after 4 years the court discharges because of lack of evidence against them.
These 4 years are like hell for the accused because despite of being innocent they were convicted. There
are numerous cases such as salman khan rash driving case, vyapam scam where court fails to deliver
justice to the victim. The reason behind this may be Indian penal system is quite lenient as compare to
penal system of other countries. It is quite biased towards the elite class. Like in salman khan rash and
driving case salman khan hired one of best lawyer of india and victim was poor street vendors so he
can’t afford such lawyer and has to satisfy with the lawyer provided by the government. Salman khan’s
lawyer molded the fact and circumstances such that the court has to belive his proposed theory and
hence remove all the charges and held not liable.

And the biggest loop hole I found I our penal system is 10 men may commit ten similar thefts, but the
motives or the circumstances in each case may be quite different. Why should all the ten expiate the
crime in the same way ? Why should not each of them be given a chance to turn over a new leaf, and
those of them who prove themselves fit be allowed once again to become useful members of society ?
An honest man with a family to support, unemployed through no fault of his own and driven by hunger
to steal a hundred rupees, and a petty gambler resorting to the theft of a like amount, have only
technically committed the same offence. But the State treats them exactly alike in dealing with them as
offenders. Two men suffering different ailments are dosed with the same medicine.

Being the jailor of the jail I can understand their feeling and gandhiji has truly said that “a jailor is as
much prisoner as his prisoner”. So I truly support the concept of open jail and hope that there should be
more open jail in our country because prisons are also human being and they have all right to be treated
like a human being .