'Black Warrant' Shines a Light on Indian Prisons, But Also Reasserts Status Quo

India has seen a steady rise in ‘true crime’ content. However, one of the more obvious spaces that we are led to believe addresses crime – the prison – makes little appearance. Vikramaditya Motwane and Satyanshu Singh’s Netflix series Black Warrant fills this gap. Based on a book co-authored by former Tihar Jail superintendent Sunil Kumar and veteran journalist Sunetra Choudhury, Black Warrant focuses on Kumar’s life in the infamous prison complex. But in the traditional vein of ‘man vs system’ narratives, it ends by reasserting the status quo where incarcerated people are framed simultaneously as passive recipients of an unjust system and a violent force that needs to be suppressed within prison walls.

The show charts Tihar’s journey as a prison and portrays an India gripped with injustice and discontent. It is important to understand that prisons are not just a reflection of society but a microcosm of it. ‘India’ exists outside prison, and also inside it. From the continuation of caste hierarchies to the wealthy siphoning off food meant for all, prisons are representative and repetitive of the world that builds them.

The first episode crafts a broad narrative from the dramatic killing of a snake to a home minister and his entourage arriving late in the night for a surprise inspection. The protagonist Sunil Kumar delicately balances his commitment to justice with the performance of toeing the line. Much like potholes fixed a day before a ministerial visit, Tihar is beautified for the government representatives. A drunk prisoner shatters the facade. Kumar faces bureaucratic retribution. Between all this, we are introduced to informal organisations of incarcerated men who, in collusion with police authorities, ‘run’ the prison.

The following episodes mirror this pattern. They speak of the rampant inequities that Tihar thrives on, including by throwing light on the dark, grimy cells of those on death row. Tackling the hard questions of what ‘punishment’ means may be difficult for a web series. Black Warrant comes close in confronting these questions when it deals with the death penalty. The show is unafraid to ask, who are the people we sentence to death? And why do we believe they must die?

In these moments, Black Warrant shines. The show’s beating heart that best engages the audience is its honest portrayal of the criminal justice system and its many shortcomings. Like when the audience sees the revenge Indians call for when we demand hangings. A botched execution where a lower ranking policeman is forced to pull the limbs of a condemned man takes the audience into the real consequences of such demands. The show blurs notions of innocence and guilt with the disturbing dual narrative of Billa-Ranga and hones in on the disparities in punishment for the rich and poor with the story of Kartar-Ujagar Singh. For both pairs, it leaves the audience with a simple question: Do you think this is right?

It made me think of freedom fighter and writer Vaikom Muhammad Basheer’s 1965 novel, Mathilukal (The Walls). In the moving novel, Basheer prods at the prison, and how readily society seems to accept it. He documents walls that separate him from his lover, “stone walls that seemed to touch the sky.” A long feeling of isolation experienced by many even in overcrowded cells. He says he “had been made into a number before.” He treats his (caged) infatuation with the same cheekiness he sees his own cage (as he refers to his cell). He laughs, he laments, he thinks, he questions. He falls in love only to be released from the prison a day before he is finally able to meet his lover. He paints a terrible reality and a beautiful fantasy. Basheer writes: “This chained being, the possessor of those sparkling eyes, was a martyr of that living jail.” When we imprison, it is the jail that lives and the person who dies.

Incarceration imposes many deaths. The show exposes, for example, the severe lack of basic necessities in Indian prisons. One scene highlights frustrations bubbling up between cellmates over missing blankets. Parallelly, Kumar discovers the reselling of jail blankets on the black market by a group of policemen headed by the senior superintendent (DSP). But the climax distracts from the hard-hitting indignities the show had focused on. The wardens, led by Kumar, seized the responsibility of overhauling Tihar. They make a litany of questionable decisions which are presented in a positive contrast to the DSP’s more overtly violent strategy. The trio seek to dismantle the informal organisations by resegregating prisoners.

A character questions whether separating men who’ve built relationships with or are related to each other is justified. Kumar, the eyes of the audience, says yes. For the greater good.  The same characters who stole prisoners’ blankets are shown shoving ‘gang members’ into a police van to a triumphant background score. The same DSP who has been a complex force of opposition till the last episode comically beats a prisoner for burying weapons in his garden. Even Kumar, who throughout the series has been mocked by other officers for his inability to raise a hand against incarcerated men, finally takes the leap.

The show, despite all its successes, fails to ask what leads to the creation of internal systems through which prisoners negotiate what is done against them. In a manufactured scarcity of resources, is it not obvious that some would join groups that support their own interests? Are the ‘gangs’ not then a product of the system rather than evidence of ‘bad people’? Is it not the structure of policing and prisons that must then be questioned instead of solely the actions of prisoners? Wouldn’t new informal alliances replace the old ones? This is not to make a case for the ‘innocence’ of every individual person, or to suggest that informal associations within prisons don’t, at times, harm prisoners themselves. Rather, it is to question whether even a ‘guilty’ person deserves a state that enacts violence against them, and whether the frustrations of prison officials who have a belt ready in their hands can be at par with the miseries imposed on incarcerated people.

Incarcerated people subsidise the operations of Indian prisons through their under-waged labour like cooking, cleaning, security or caregiving. The state that has displaced its own responsibility onto prisoners is somehow justified in punishing them for finding their own ways of navigating, managing and operating the prison system. And why shouldn’t incarcerated people build solidarity with each other? The social contract that prisoners enter post-release is a highly restricted one. Meaningful employment, quality housing and intimate relationships are difficult to rebuild. Society shuns formerly incarcerated people and then chastises them for creating a community of their own.

What Black Warrant tells us is that we must seriously wrestle with the consequences of the death penalty. But by becoming precisely what it begins to denounce, it also tells us there are parts of the criminal justice system that we are unable to critically analyse. While it stands up for the condemned, it dithers in its ability to do the same for the rest of the prison population. And it is in this contradiction that our real understanding of prisons, and by extension prisoners, is revealed. We see what Indians believe is permissible and even necessary against prisoners. We see how readily we accept people becoming numbers. What does it mean to have spaces in society – prisons – set up precisely to make people into numbers? Are we ready to answer that?

Nihira is a Communications Associate with The Square Circle Clinic, a criminal justice initiative at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad. Views expressed are personal.

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