Geeta Kesar, 43, stands surrounded by a lush green garden, with thermocol panels fashioned into planters and abandoned old utensils repurposed into pots. The flowers in her garden, the space of a cramped office cabin, grow out of seeds collected from city roads. There are roses and bougainvillea, petunia and bird of paradise. Adjacent to her garden stands a one-room tin-roofed house that had been her home for the past six years. As she waters her plants and checks for pests, an indie dog peeks through the half-open door, emitting growls loud enough to catch Kesar’s attention, but soft enough to not wake her five-year-old son who is fast asleep inside the house.

For Kesar and all her neighbours, to stand beneath the open sky, live with their families, and interact with the outside world, was a privilege that they earned after toiling hard for at least seven years. She and 374 others, many women, live in the Shri Sampurnanand Khula Bandi Shivir, an open jail in Sanganer, Rajasthan. This is a gated community-living facility with space for meeting and playing, located about 15 kilometres from Jaipur, and named after a past Governor of the State.

“Most of us were first overwhelmed when we got here,” she says, remembering the first time she looked at the open sky from her room in Sanganer: “I cried uncontrollably, but I had all kinds of thoughts rushing through my mind. This is a second chance for me, yes, but how will I survive here, how will I make a living, how will I do this all alone,” Kesar asked herself.

In Rajasthan, a State with the highest number of open jails in India, a convict who has served at least 6 years and 8 months and has recorded “good behaviour” within the closed jail complexes is given the opportunity to move to an open-air jail, provided they are not rape convicts. People need to put in a petition, which is then reviewed.

“When I first came here, I was intimidated by the idea that I would have to make my own living and pay my own rent. There were no family members, friends, or known people to extend a helping hand,” recalls Kesar. Gradually, she stepped out of the walls of the complex, first with her housemate and later on her own, in search of work. “I wondered who would give me a job, and why would they trust me,” she says. With no training in any skill, Kesar managed to land a stitching gig for ₹6,000 a month.

Also read: For prisoners in Rajasthan, open jails provide liberation

“When I first stepped out to look for jobs, I did not know where to apply. People in offices and factories around were rejecting me when they saw the address of Sanganer open prison on my Aadhaar card,” says Kesar. Integration with the outside world continues to be a challenge.

Switzerland pioneered the idea in the late 19th century. The International Journal of Law Management & Humanities, in a 2023 article, recorded the first open jail in India in 1905, in the Bombay Presidency. Later, a fully functional one started in Lucknow in 1949. Britain got its first in the 1930s.

The United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders held in Geneva in 1955, defined open institutions as those without “physical precautions against escape” (walls, locks, bars, armed guards) and run “by a system based on self-discipline and the inmate’s sense of responsibility towards the group in which he lives”.

The journey to change

“When I was convicted 12 years ago, all my family members broke off their ties with me. My aging mother was the only one who would visit me once in six months,” Kesar says. With her family abandoning her, the jail warden from whom Kesar had learnt to read and write, was her only hope in raising her plea to get transferred to the open establishment.

Geeta Kesar at the open jail in Sanganer.
| Photo Credit:
SHASHI SHEKHAR KASHYAP

Over a decade ago, Kesar was convicted of killing her husband. The police complaint was made by her brother, who later convinced her older daughter to testify against her in court, she recounts. “I had told my parents multiple times that my husband used to tie me up and beat me, that he would rape me every night, but they refused to take me back citing societal backlash,” she says, looking away, fidgeting with her bangles on her arms. After a long pause, still avoiding eye contact, Kesar says, “But one day I could no longer take it.”

For most women in Sanganer, the road to the open jail has been a bumpy ride. Sarita Devi (name changed), 35, was convicted nine years ago of poisoning her minor son and newborn daughter. There were no family members or friends to file a petition for her. “When I fed poison to my children, I drank it alongside them, but by some cruel trick the gods played, they died, and I continued to live,” says Devi.

Originally from Bhopal, Devi says her husband abused her for years. After the incident, her husband and parents abandoned her. “In the seven years behind bars, no one ever came to meet me, and I could not read or write,” she says, adding that she was informed about the open jails by the prison authorities who later helped her file her petition.

In the criminal justice system women struggle the most, says criminologist Smita Chakraburtty. “Most women are abandoned by their families at the onset of the trials. Many are unlettered and have no one to interpret laws and help them understand their rights. Many also struggle to have good lawyers to represent them,” said Chakraburtty, who runs Paar – Prison Aid + Action Research, a non-profit which advocates for open prisons.

Second chances

For Rekha Yadav (name changed), 30, who was convicted along with her lover, for killing her husband, the first day at Sanganer was a rush of emotions. “I had not seen my partner for seven years, so the first time I saw him we both cried,” she says. That very day, Rekha and her partner went to several forts in Jaipur. Close to 6 p.m. when they were expected to be back in the Sanganer prison they tried hailing a cab, but were caught off guard by the questions of the cab drivers. “First many refused us a ride. When one finally agreed he started asking us questions about what we had done to land us in a prison,” she says.

“Even though the past continues to follow us, it is a new chapter for us,” she says, adding that her partner has now been earning by driving an e-rickshaw, and she has been working in a cloth factory.

For Saheeda Banu, 55, Sanganer open prison brought the joy of reuniting with her family after seven long years, but it wasn’t without its shortcomings. Banu, who hails from Kota in Rajasthan, has been serving a sentence after she was named as an instigator for her daughter-in-law’s death.

“Whether I really played a part in her death is between me and my god, but even if we go by the law, one is supposed to be punished for the crime only once, but seldom is that the case,” says Banu, explaining that society has punished her many times over. She has been trying to get her daughter married, but the families of prospective grooms get to know about where the family of five lives, and they retreat.

Hemraj Vaishnav is the jailer of Sanganer. He says women convicts are transferred to an open prison only as a team of two. They are allotted a room to share, but if one of the women has a family, the family is allowed a separate room.

Vaishnav, who was previously in Jaipur’s Central Jail, says his approach to justice has changed. “After being here, I have realised it is not about punishment, but about a correction of life’s course,” he says, adding that the focus here helps people look ahead rather than back.

Finding kin

When Devi’s application for transfer to an open prison was accepted, she was allotted a room with Saros, who was slightly older than her. “First the idea of an open jail was liberating but when they informed us that we will have to make a living and pay rent, I was worried about how I would manage it all,” says Devi. Saros would reassure her.

“She accompanied me to apply for a job at a factory, walked down almost 2 kilometres to meet me outside work on my first day, and would come and feed me on my low days,” she recalls.

Devi, who was abandoned by her family, found love with Saros, just like most women in Sanganer do. “I had never enjoyed so much love from a woman before this, so when Saros left the prison earlier this year, I was truly happy for her, but sad too that I had lost my true companion,” adds Devi, showing a picture of the two women standing outside Hawa Mahal.

Many women also meet their partners on the jail premises. Priyanka Seth (name changed), 34, and her partner were incriminated for duping people on dating apps and murdering a man in Jaipur. Once out in the open jail, they tried to be with each other, but couldn’t. Now, she is married to another man.

Seth says that many women inside Sanganer also marry for survival. “The world outside and inside the jail both belong to men, so to ensure that you lead a peaceful life, women here tend to get married,” says Seth.

The land and future plans

While women made strategic choices to survive and embrace life inside Sanganer, a legal battle unfolded outside the five-foot-tall walls of the open jail. On July 30, 2024, the Deputy Commissioner of Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) issued an allotment letter for the expansion of a satellite hospital. The allocation was for unused land of 21,948 square metres from the total 30,400 square metres allocated to the open jail.

Subsequently, activists filed a contempt petition in the Supreme Court. A Bench comprising Chief Justice of India Bhushan R. Gavai and Justice K.V. Vishwanathan directed that some part of the grounds be used to construct new jail structures, and reduced the portion allocated to the proposed hospital.

Kesar, who is also the elected head of the panchayat inside the jail, was relieved. “The Sanganer prison is in a strategic place that is surrounded by cloth factories, construction sites, designer hubs, and residential complexes, where people with a variety of skills can find work. If we were relocated to the outskirts of the city, people would struggle to find jobs within our timings (6 a.m. to 6 p.m.),” she says.

Women and men have jobs at cloth factories and construction sites; some work as drivers in schools or drive an e-rickshaw, allowing them gradual integration into society. “Here I have met so many people who bring with them a promise of a better tomorrow, and treat us as humans and not criminals,” says Kesar.

She is in touch with non-profit organisations working with women in abusive marriages and has a plan for life after jail. “I want to tell them that they can find a way out without resorting to doing anything extreme. This is what I look forward to working on when I finish serving my sentence by mid-2026,” she says, smiling.

alisha.d@thehindu.co.in

Edited by Sunalini Mathew