Abstract
This chapter will analyse the position, potentialities and politics of mass prison escapes in the context of violent, anti-state political movements in India. Indian security services identify contemporary anti-national insurgents as the most prominent danger to local government machineries. One such alleged menace is the banned Naxalite movement, composed of Communist Party of India (CPI) Maoist guerrilla groups that emerged as rebel factions within the history of Indian communism. Prominent state actors are involved in brutal counter-insurgency operations in Naxal-dominated areas, and the army, police and paramilitary commandos have played a significant role in the capture, torture and illegal deaths of Naxalites, their supporters, sympathizers and affiliates. This chapter offers a sociographic overview of recent and past jailbreaks by members of the Naxal movement and illustrates how the language of autonomy, human dignity and self-determination remains deeply embedded in the plotting, execution and aftermath of mass prison escapes. I show how the staging of organized, daring and well-planned prison attacks, revolts and escapes mocks and exposes the prison system as administrative and organizational disasters. I eventually argue that escaping the grip of the state through jailbreaks led by anti-state, pro-poor political prisoners becomes a subaltern moral triumph, which may not institute deep-seated social change, but allows both the postcolonial state and the citizens to reflect on the discriminatory misuse of state-sanctioned power on the ground.
The initial research for this chapter was funded by the British Academy Small Research Grant.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
- 12.
- 13.
- 14.
- 15.
Ibid.
- 16.
- 17.
- 18.
- 19.
What Really Happened: The Untold Story of the Jehanabad Jailbreak, now removed from the internet.
- 20.
Ibid.
- 21.
- 22.
What Really Happened: The Untold Story of the Jehanabad Jailbreak, now removed from the internet.
- 23.
- 24.
Ibid.
- 25.
- 26.
- 27.
- 28.
What Really Happened: The Untold Story of the Jehanabad Jailbreak, now removed from the internet.
- 29.
Ibid.
- 30.
- 31.
- 32.
- 33.
- 34.
- 35.
- 36.
Ibid.
- 37.
Ibid.
- 38.
- 39.
- 40.
Ibid.
- 41.
- 42.
‘Encounter killing’ is considered to be a common police tactic in India, when the police shoot dead apprehended convicts, or criminals who have the potential to be arrested easily, and claim that the felons died in a shootout with the police or were shot while fleeing.
References
Amnesty International. (1974, September 21). Detention Conditions in West Bengal. Economic and Political Weekly, 9(38), 1611–1618.
Anderson, C. (2007). The Indian Uprising of 1857–58: Prisons, Prisoners and Rebellion. London: Anthem Press.
Aretxaga, B. (1995, June). Dirty Protest: Symbolic Overdetermination and Gender in Northern Ireland Ethnic Violence. Ethos, 23(2), 123–148.
Arnold, D. (1994). The Colonial Prison: Power, Knowledge and Penology in Nineteenth-Century India. In D. Arnold & D. Hardiman (Eds.), Subaltern Studies VIII (pp. 148–187). New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Arreguín-Toft, I. (2012). Contemporary Asymmetric Conflict Theory in Historical Perspective. Terrorism and Political Violence, 24(4), 635–665.
Balagopal, K. (2006, July). Maoist Movement in Andhra Pradesh. Economic and Political Weekly, 41(29), 3183–3187.
Banerjee, S. (2009). In the Wake of Naxalbari – Four Decades of a Simmering Revolution. Kolkata: Sahitya Samsad.
Basu, P. (2000). Towards Naxalbari (1953–1967): An Account of Inner-Party Ideological Struggle. Kolkata: Progressive Publishers.
Bhatia, B. (2005a). Jailbreak and the Maoist Movement. Economic and Political Weekly, 40(51), 5369–5371.
Bhatia, B. (2005b). The Naxalite Movement in Central Bihar. Economic and Political Weekly, 40(15), 1536–1549.
Feldman, A. (1991). Formations of Violence: The Narrative of the Body and Political Terror in Northern Ireland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Goldstein, D. M. (2003). Laughter Out of Place: Race, Class, Violence, and Sexuality in a Rio Shantytown. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Gupta, C. (2001). The Icon of Mother in Late Colonial North India: ‘Bharat Mata’, ‘Matri Bhasha’ and ‘Gau Mata’. Economic and Political Weekly, 36(45), 4291–4299.
Hart, M. ‘T. (2007). Humour and Social Protest: An Introduction. IRSH, 52, 1–20.
Kennedy, J. (2014). Gangsters or Gandhians? The Political Sociology of the Maoist Insurgency in India. India Review, 13(3), 212–234.
Kishwar, M. (1988, December 24–31). Nature of Women’s Mobilisation in Rural India: An Exploratory Essay. Economic and Political Weekly, 23(52/53), 2754–2763.
Kumar, A. (2008). Community Warriors: State, Peasants and Caste Armies in Bihar. New Delhi: Anthem Press.
Kunnath, G. (2006, August). Becoming a Naxalite in Rural Bihar: Class Struggle and Its Contradictions. Journal of Peasant Studies, 33(1), 89–123.
Mbembe, A. (1992). Provisional Notes on the Postcolony. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 62(1), 3–37.
Mbembe, A. (2003). Necropolitics. Public Culture, 15(1), 11–40.
Mbembe, A., & Roitman, J. (1995). Figures of the Subject in Times of Crisis. Public Culture, 7(2), 323–352.
Mukhopadhyay, A. (2006). The Naxalites Through the Eyes of the Police: Select Notifications from the Calcutta Police Gazette (1967–1975). Kolkata: Dey’s Publishing.
Naimiśarāya, M. (2010). Dalit Freedom Fighters. New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House.
Navlakha, G. (2010, April). Days and Nights in the Maoist Heartland. Economic and Political Weekly, 45(16), 38–47.
Obadare, E. (2009). The Uses of Ridicule: Humour, Infrapolitics and Civil Society in Nigeria. African Affairs, 108(431), 241–261.
Obadare, E. (2010). State of Travesty: Jokes and the Logic of Sociocultural Improvisation in Africa. Critical African Studies, 2(4), 92–112.
Oetken, J. (2009). Counterinsurgency Against Naxalites in India. In S. Ganguly & D. P. Fidler (Eds.), India and Counterinsurgency: Lessons Learned. New York: Routledge.
Ramana, P. V. (2011). India’s Maoist Insurgency: Evolution, Current Trends, and Responses. In M. Kugelman (Ed.), India’s Contemporary Security Challenges. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Scott, J. C. (1987). Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven/London: Yale University Press.
Scott, J. C. (1990). Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven/London: Yale University Press.
Scott, J. C. (2012). Infrapolitics and Mobilizations: A Response by James C. Scott. Revue française d’études américaines, 1(131), 112–117.
Sen, S. (2002). The Female Jails of Colonial India. The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 39(4), 417–438.
Sen, A. (2015). Slaps, Adda, Beatings and Laughter: The Performance of Joy and Political Aesthetics in a Women’s Correctional Facility in Urban India. In R. Kaur & P. D. Mukherjee (Eds.), Arts and Aesthetics in a Globalising World (pp. 119–134). Oxford: Berg Publications.
Shah, A. (2006). Markets of Protection: The ‘Terrorist’ Maoist Movement and the State in Jharkhand, India. Critique of Anthropology, 26(3), 297–314.
Shah, A. (2013). The Intimacy of Insurgency: Beyond Coercion, Greed or Grievance in Maoist India. Economy and Society, 42(3), 480–506.
Sundar, N. (2006, July). Bastar, Maoism and Salwa Judum. Economic and Political Weekly, 41(29), 3187–3192.
Sundar, N. (2013). Insurgency, Counter-Insurgency, and Democracy in Central India. In R. Jeffrey, R. Sen, & P. Sen (Eds.), More Than Maoism: Politics and Policies of Insurgency in South Asia (pp. 149–168). Manohar: New Delhi.
Useem, B., & Kimball, P. (1991). States of Siege: US Prison Riots 1971–1986. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Vinson, T., & Rea, P. (1982). Wilful Obstruction: The Frustration of Prison Reform. North Ryde: Methuen Australia.
Wilf, S. (2010). Law’s Imagined Republic: Popular Politics and Criminal Justices in Revolutionary America. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.
Wolfers, A. (2016). Born Like Krishna in the Prison-House: Revolutionary Asceticism in the Political Ashram of Aurobindo Ghose. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 39(3), 525–545.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sen, A. (2018). Chapter 4 Mocking the State: Heroism, Humanity and Humiliation in the Context of Naxal Jailbreaks in India. In: Martin, T., Chantraine, G. (eds) Prison Breaks. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64358-8_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64358-8_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-64357-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-64358-8
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)