Abstract
This article discusses the institution of prisons and analyzes the role of convict labour in the colonial Punjab with
the concepts of profit-oriented, reformation, and making inmates skillful. The colonial prison system represented
was a nexus between the capitalist economic conception and the British bureaucratic system to utilize the free
labour force from India. Furthermore, it served the broader purpose of limiting India's freedom by constructing a
prison system identical to that of Britain in theory but not in fact. Prisons in colonial India were tasked with diverse
responsibilities, such as social reform and rehabilitation. The jail system provided the labour for industries and was
a source of manufactured goods, although the living conditions in colonial Punjab prisons were deplorable. This is
not to say that the concept of imprisonment and the colonial jail system were ineffective, but the form that was used
in the Indian subcontinent was never beneficial in terms of reformation and rehabilitation. Similarly, while other
institutions built by British rulers in the West were quite effective in reforming and progressing society, the structure
of the institutions failed to achieve the desired goals in the Indian Subcontinent. Because the modern jail system was
adopted globally by both the West and the Far East, it had to be understood as a global phenomenon. Convicts
sentenced to labour were the primary objective of prison administration for productivity and for the advantage of
the British government. Convict labour in the colonial Punjab has historically been understudied, which can provide
us an understanding of the British colonial system and its history. There is a plethora of information available on
the convicts of various provinces of colonial India but Punjab is not generally focused upon.
Jalal Bohier. (2022) Colonial system of control: convict labour in the prisons of the colonial Punjab , Journal of the Research Society of Pakistan, volume 59, issue 3.
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