The postcolonial state of Assam, India, has been floating around the debates on saranarthis (asylum seekers), anupraveshkaris (infiltrators), and detention centres. The concept of immigration and detention is not new, especially in borderland states. However, scholarly attention and vigilant journalism suggest that the treatment of individuals in immigration detention has been anything but dignified. The enclosed spaces and high walls of detention centres in Assam have many secrets that are less known to us. Especially, the lived experiences of women detainees remain opaque as they have had few opportunities to record their stories and this calls for urgent academic attention. As a part of my fieldwork while studying at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, I have had the opportunity to be an audience to many detention stories and I intend to highlight some of their lived experiences and everyday lives through this piece.
Rashida, Jelekha and Zarina
Rashida (43), a former detainee and a mother, recalls her experiences at a detention centre in Assam. ‘I used almost open toilets attached to the dormitories inside the camp. I feel like I lived in hell,’ says Rashida. She reveals how ‘shame’ and ‘dignity of life’ have been forever erased from her life. This reminds me of the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s concept of ‘nude vita’ (bare life), where human rights are reduced to a mere mass of living bodies by all-sovereign powerful polity. On a conditional release from the camp, she continues to struggle to search for her lost identity, lost family, and her home. There are hundreds of mothers such as Rashida who have been separated from their families and thrown behind the undignified conditions of detention camps.
On another note, Jelekha (28) recalls her experiences in detention camp while she was pregnant. ‘I ate food that had dead mosquitoes and other insects, and when I complained about this, I was abused by the authorities. I cannot describe in words how I felt all the time. I waited for death.’, says Jelekha. She further mentions that she lost her child after being unable to take care of herself as a child while in detention. After a couple of months, she was found to be an Indian citizen and later released from the camp.
"I was unconscious for a whole day and the male jail staff laughed at my condition. My health deteriorated and I could not eat for many days," says Zarina (30). She broke down while recounting the horrors inside the detention camp. Eighteen months of detention have made her extremely weak both physically and mentally.
Women in detention also suffer humiliating and degrading treatment, sometimes amounting to physical violence at the hands of on-site male officials, including the invasive body searches they are subjected to. When asked about reporting of such instances, Zarina says ‘no one is ready to speak out about these things as one would be punished further and sometimes not provided food for days. The is no hope of justice.’
Justice, Dignity And Detention
In all three cases of Rashida, Jelekha, and Zarina, the larger question that arises is of uncertainty, criminalisation, and justice. These come with a sense of powerlessness among them which have only increased over time. Post-detention and release, they are subjugated and compelled to mark weekly attendance at their local police station. There is a constant fear which has been forcefully imbibed in them: the fear of being detained again and languishing in jail for years. The industrial-style detention system functions so arbitrarily in the state that suspects are randomly sent legal notifications and can be detained unexpectedly. Afterwards, the detention continues till the detained person’s family exhausts every paisa to fight for the individual’s release. Only a handful are successful, and the rest remain in the indefinite zone of precariousness.
The state owes a responsibility to its citizens to bring an end to such mass repression and systematic violations against the right to a dignified life. Such detention experiences serve no administrative or rehabilitative purpose but rather lead to unfair incarceration and criminalising lives. There is no difference between a proven criminal and a non-criminal detainee. Detention centres, although not intended, in any legal sense, to be punishment centres, but lived experiences of people suggest that detention is excessively punitive and is carceral in nature. Moreover, poor mental health is a predominant theme in detention centres. A study at the University of Oxford suggests that the most common mental health problems among detainees include depression, stress, anxiety, insomnia, self-harm, suicide attempts and hallucinations such as hearing voices. During my fieldwork, insomnia, self-harm and suicide attempts were reported in high proportion even though the research was not focused on health. A report by the National Human Rights Commission (2018) reveals that there is no scope of parole even in cases of sickness and death of family members of the detainees as based on the judgement of the jail authorities, parole is only a right given to convicted Indian prisoners and not to ‘illegal immigrants.’
A Road To Nowhere
There are many such Rashida, Jelekha, and Zarina in the state. The trajectories after detention appear challenging and confusing, whether they will be released or sent to another country which they do not consider home. The pains of detention are severe. It is not just to suggest that justice, criminalisation and detention are casually related to poor experience of incarceration, but these stories indicate that detention is just not physical detention; in fact, arbitrary and indefinite detention is about preserving the ‘physical body’ while killing the ‘inner being’, leaving behind a nude vita. Life fails to achieve humanity, i.e., it fails to become moral, just, and political. I encourage that the larger political structure should recognise the vulnerabilities of the detainees and take immediate humanitarian steps to end the practice of detaining individuals wrongfully.
Note: The names of the detainees have been changed to ensure anonymity.
(The author is a research scholar at Brunel University, London. All views and opinions expressed in the article are the author’s own)