Dissertations by Saumya Dadoo
This paper uses the prison as a point of entry to understand the relationship between the British... more This paper uses the prison as a point of entry to understand the relationship between the British East India Company administrators during colonial rule in India, and its citizen-subjects in the mid-late nineteenth century. The question I seek to answer is: How was the rise of imprisonment as the primary means of punishment in the early years of Company rule related to the development of native subjectivities in colonial India? I argue that central to the rise of the colonial prison regime was the enforcement of classificatory logics, i.e.: defining, ordering, and dividing the prison population. Anxieties around “moral contamination”, enmeshed with Victorian-era evangelical Christian ideals of morality, and discourses around health and hygiene, made the classification of prisoners an essential feature of prison discipline. Classificatory logics were not only a means of managing deviancy and crime but also an end in themselves, used to control and discipline the native population as a whole. Furthermore, the emphasis on classification contributed to the production and sustenance of specific categories of gender, race, class, caste and tribe. I demonstrate that gendered meanings of the colonial encounter were co-constituted in the prison regime, which (re)produced a male/female gender binary, the sexual division of labour, and norms of compulsory heterosexuality.
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Journal Articles by Saumya Dadoo
NUJS Law Review, 2020
Transgender persons in India have historically been subject to violence and erasure through laws ... more Transgender persons in India have historically been subject to violence and erasure through laws that have criminalised their lives and livelihoods. Despite recent legal and judicial developments that have purported to correct these historical wrongs, transgender persons' relationship with the penal state continues to be fraught, evident in laws and practices that either target them, or address them as a distinct category, or neglect them entirely. One such site of legal and policy exclusion is a space that is itself relegated to the peripheries of public thought-the prison. Transgender persons in prison are likely to face particular harms on the basis of their gender identity that are compounded by harms that characterise the conditions of confinement. This paper is a preliminary inquiry into the status of transgender persons in Indian prisons. It demonstrates that while transgender persons are policed, criminalised, and made 'hyper-visible' in public spaces, they are 'invisible' in laws, rules, and practices that are framed for prison management. Further, it argues that centring the self-narratives of transgender prisoners is a necessary first step in understanding their experiences of prison and developing legal and policy responses.
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Papers by Saumya Dadoo
As part of its work on equality and non-discrimination, CLPR conducted a study on experiences of ... more As part of its work on equality and non-discrimination, CLPR conducted a study on experiences of intersectional discrimination in South India between May – November 2018. The objective of the study was to understand the relationship between different intersecting identities and various sites of discrimination such as educational institutions, workplaces, police stations, and public transport.
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Dissertations by Saumya Dadoo
Journal Articles by Saumya Dadoo
Papers by Saumya Dadoo