New Delhi, July 11: A young
foreigner helping an illiterate middle aged lady fill in a legal document and explaining to her
the clauses in broken Hindi may appear as strange as an African girl teaching some local women to
knit export quality stockings with four needles.
Not so in the women's ward of Tihar jail, home to 300 women aged between 18 to 65, who were found
on the wrong side of the law at some point of their lives and put behind bars until the courts
decide their fate.
And as they await their release, these women, including 28 convicts, are trying to make the most
of their time learning and earning through skills that bring them money and will hopefully lead to
their rehabilitation in future.
Crammed into six barracks, which on an average house between 40 and 50 inmates, the women have
forged strong relationship a result of common experience, particularly one as severe as Tihar.
Their foreign counterparts, mostly students detained under the Narcotics, Drugs and Psychotropic
Substances Act, live in a separate barrack with small cells for each one. They are provided with a
kitchen where they sometimes 'refry, the food served to them to suit, their palate' says Glory, a
Nigerian student of Jesus and Mary College, jailed under the NDPS four years ago. There is a
kitchen for the Indians where milk for infants is 'boiled and food for some sick inmates cooked.
But for 'these minor categorisations, the inmates present a picture of one large family.
Special courses for the inmates, including literacy classes were started by the authorities two
years ago, when Ms Kiran Bedi took over as inspector general of prisons, says Shakira, who has
spent five and a half years behind bars.
Sister Max, a Black American, teaches the inmates embroidery, tailoring, stitching,
knitting, as also cooking and catering' says Mr Tarsem Kumar, the jail superintendent. Mahila
Pratiraksha Mandal, a voluntary organization, runs a creche inside the premises with the help of
the inmates, who are trained for nine months. They get a stipend during the training after which
they are enrolled as creche workers and even issued certificates to that effect, Says Shakira, who
is now the supervisor of the creche. |
Funds
for the creche come from the Danish embassy. The inmates can either deposit their payments in a
bank or take coupons to buy goods from the canteen inside. But they are not given coupons
exceeding 50 per cent of their monthly earnings. Ms Max, whom Mr. Tarsem Kumar describes as a
social worker - cum - business woman, procures the raw materials as well as orders from outside
and pays the inmates according to the work. "She first taught us knitting, stitching and
cutting, then brought orders," says Glory, who, supervises
and teaches others how to knit the
stockings as per export order specifications. Glory says some of the women manage to earn up to Rs
1,000 a month. A pair of multi-colored stockings gets them Rs 70 while each tingle glove knitted
in jute fetches them Rs 40.
Glory now only makes sample pieces which are sent abroad by Ms Max for obtaining orders. Last year
they made 3,000 pairs of stockings between April to December to meet an export order, she says.
This year they are making gloves and samples for Christmas stockings as well. Glory gets a fixed
salary of Rs 1,000 as supervisor. She does not know how much Ms Max gets at the other end. 'She
never tells us'. Glory said Learners are paid a stipend of Rs 250 per month for three months.
Glory, who completed the last two years of graduation from Tihar, is also the proud English tutor
Of over 20 women whom she teaches for two hours in the morning. She is happy that her time Tihar
was not wasted, at least academically, and is buoyant with the news that she is on the verge being
released as charges against her are being dropped. But she feels that she must get some
compensation.
A staunch supporter of programmes by voluntary bodies inside Tihar, Shakira credits it to "a
couple of officers, such acting-inspector general of prisons Jaidev Sarangi and Mr Tarsem Kumar,
who she says have the sensitivity and understand the significance of reforms.'
(PTI) |
