“A prison is a place of punishment, deterrence and reformation.”– Jeremy Bentham

Prisons are often imagined as neutral spaces, maybe sites of punishment, rehabilitation, and legal accountability. However, in reality, they are deeply engraved with the unequal social fabric of the society that defines who is policed, prosecuted, and imprisoned. Women who belong particularly to the Dalit, Adivasi, Muslim, transgender or any disabled communities, for them, incarceration is not merely deprivation of liberty, but it becomes a site of compounded marginalisation.

The concept of intersectionality, as developed by Kimberle Crenshaw, urges us to look upon how different systems of oppression, such as caste, gender, class and religion interlock and this interlocking system could be observed in the Indian prison system. Women from marginalised communities face extreme discrimination at every stage of the trial, i.e. arrest, legal representation, imprisonment, and reintegration. Yet, legal frameworks, judicial reasoning, and prison manuals continue to treat all women as a homogeneous category, thereby blatantly ignoring the layered injustices they face.

The Invisibility Of Women In Prisons

Women form a small but deeply vulnerable section of society, and specifically in the Indian carceral system. According to the NCRB’s prison statistics India 2021, women made up 4.2% of the total prison population, with more than 77% being undertrial prisoners, a category that largely consists of those who are unable to secure bail or access timely legal aid. Reports by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and National Law University Delhi revealed that women prisoners are overwhelmingly poor, Dalit, Adivasi, or from minority communities, often with limited education, income and no legal representation. Most prisons are built for and around male prisoners, with women often logged in annexed enclosures or maybe under-resourced female wings of male jails. These wings suffer from poor sanitation facilities, medical neglect, understaffing, and security concerns, disproportionately affecting women prisoners. Much to the dismay is a poor allocation of resources to transgender or gender non-conforming prisoners, who are routinely placed in male wards, making them vulnerable to sexual violence and mental trauma.

Caste And Class: Deepening The Marginalisation

Dalit and Adivasi Women as Overrepresented Victims: A 2016 PUCL reprint on women prisoners in Chhattisgarh found that most tribal women have been arrested without any proper legal counsel and were unaware of the charges against them. A similar scenario is with other Dalit and Adivasi women who have been overrepresented in prison populations. This is not because of higher criminal conduct but due to structural demerits such as poverty, lack of access to education and legal representation, and systemic caste bias in policing. For example, in rural areas, Dalit women are accused of “theft” or “witchcraft” and thus are incarcerated without any investigation. Even inside the prison, this stigma of caste based discrimination continues, i.e. from being assigned menial cleaning tasks to verbal abuse and social isolation. This very intersection of caste and gender thus makes the carceral space a continuation of the violence these women face outside it.

Muslim Women and the Security State: The carceral experience of Muslim Women cannot be understood without examining the role of anti-terror laws such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA)[i] or the National Security Act (NSA).[ii] Muslims, although not directly accused, are often arrested or surveilled due to familial or some associative ties with the accused and their experience is marked by Islamophobia, state suspicion, and a denial of religious accommodations like halal food or the right to wear a hijab. A similar case was observed in 2021, when a 24-year-old Muslim woman in Uttar Pradesh was detained under the NSA allegedly for “anti-national speech” on WhatsApp. Though later released, she spent months in prison without any trial, showcasing the improper use of preventive detention laws to curtail dissent and marginal voices, especially among Muslim Women. Of course, this stigmatisation is just not limited to the prison term, but extends beyond the prison term to surveillance, passport denials, and social ostracisation, making reintegration nearly impossible.

Women As Mothers And Caregivers: Criminalising Care

A rarely acknowledged dimension of women’s incarceration is their role as mothers and primary caregivers. As per the NCRB report, more than 1500 children lived with their mothers as prisoners in the year 2021. The Supreme Court in R.D. Upadhyay v. The State of Andhra Pradesh[iii] has mandated creches, nutritious food, and education for children, citing the absence of adequate prison facilities for women and her children. 

Even pregnant women face negligent prenatal care, the absence of trained gynaecologists, and are often shackled during childbirth. The Supreme Court emphasised in Sheela Barse v. State of Maharashtra[iv] the need for human treatment of women prisoners, particularly mothers, yet judicial vigilance has not translated into systemic reform. Even necessities like iron supplements or clean bedding are inconsistently provided. The right to parenthood, protected under Article 21, is thus severely undermined for incarcerated mothers from lower socio-economic backgrounds. 

Mental Health, Menstrual Dignity, and Disability: The intersection of gender, mental health, and incarceration is particularly troubling. Women prisoners exhibit high rates of depression, PTSD, and anxiety, especially those incarcerated for retaliatory crimes after years of domestic abuse. Yet, there is no uniform mental health policy across Indian prisons. Few have full-time psychologists, and even fewer provide trauma-informed care. For menstruating women, access to sanitary products and menstrual hygiene is rare and a privilege they can afford in the rarest of rare times. Yet, there is no uniform mental health policy across Indian prisons. Only a few of them have full-time psychologists, and even fewer provide trauma-informed care.

Disabled women fare even worse. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, and various judicial dicta, such as In Re: Mental Health and Mental Healthcare,[v] 2021, stress accessibility and reasonable accommodation, but few prisons are compliant. Various wheelchair users, deaf women, or those with visual impairments are often kept in isolation under the garb of “safety.” India lacks a consolidated national audit on the condition of disabled prisoners, unlike countries like the UK or Canada, where prison reforms have focused on universal design.   

Legal Aid And Judicial Influence

Despite constitutional mandates (Article 39A) and the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, women prisoners, especially those coming from poor and marginalised backgrounds, receive almost little or no legal aid services and thus are quite distant from seeking justice. In a survey conducted by CHRI, over 60% of undertrial women had never met a legal aid lawyer. Bail hearings are often perfunctory, with judges mechanically denying bail, especially in those cases that involve political prisoners or those charged under special statutes. In the Bhima Koregaon cases, women activists like Sudha Bharadwaj, despite serious health concerns and no proven charges, were imprisoned under the UAPA for years. The judiciary’s reluctance to apply constitutional principles of liberty and presumption of innocence in such cases reveals the existing bias in judicial reasoning against marginalised, dissenting women. The judicial approach to interpreting cases plays a significant role in carceral narratives. In multiple bail orders, women have been described as “over emotional”, “vengeful”, or “unfit for society”, which reinforces the idea of stereotypes rather than ensuring justice.

Towards A Framework Of Intersectional Justice

To address the multiple layers of discrimination, a structural overhaul is essential. Firstly, gender and caste-sensitive prison audits need to be conducted at regular intervals to evaluate conditions for women prisoners through an intersectional lens, including caste, religion, disability, and age. Secondly, independent oversight committees need to be formed, which include representations from Dalit, tribal, and women’s rights organisations; these bodies can ensure accountability in prisons. Community participation with legal aid cells to train and appoint paralegals from affected communities is essential to bridge the justice gap. Also, training prison officials, which includes mandatory modules on caste bias, gender sensitivity, minority rights, and disability access. The post-prison stigma is devastating, and the special programs for livelihood, housing, and social integration must be rolled out especially for Adivasi and Dalit women. The NCRB must release disaggregated data based on gender, caste, religion, and disability to enable evidence-based policymaking.

Conclusion

Prisons in India are not just physical resources, but they are considered social spaces where inequities of caste, class, religion, gender, and disability converge. Women prisoners are not simply inmates; they are mothers, daughters, workers, survivors of crimes, and citizens and in short, “humans.” A carceral system that dehumanises them violates not just individual rights but the very constitutional ethos of dignity, equality, and justice. Intersectionality must no longer remain a buzzword in academic or legal theory. It must inform policy, prison design, judicial reasoning, and legislative reforms. Only then can we begin to imagine a justice system that is truly inclusive and transformative. If the prison is a site of pain, then it must also become a site of possibility. Only then will justice in India be not merely punitive, but restorative and dignified.

Endnotes

[i] The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967

[ii] The National Security Act (NSA), 1980.

[iii] R.D. Upadhyay v. The State of Andhra Pradesh (2007) 15 SCC 337

[iv] Sheela Barse v. State of Maharashtra AIR 1983 SC 378

[v] In Re: Mental Health and Mental Healthcare WPA 8533 of 2021