by Rahul Chimanbhai Mehta Rrg at December 09, 2014 at 09:32AM

The reason Jail Bharo andolan does work is because India has capacity to hold only 3.5 lakh prisoners , and prisons are already overcrowded by 15% (google India prisons wiki) . And it is very expensive to build more prisons and get prison guards, And as prisoner to guard ratio worsens, the courage of prisoners grows and courage of guards decreases. And so as number of prisoners rise , the PM , CM get worried about "massive" prison collapse.. And when prisons break , the policemen have no place to keep prisoners. And once prison breaks, the regime is left with only once choice --- shoot all "law-breakers" at sight and that is very very expensive choice. . The French Revolution's turning point of collapse of prison (google Fall of Bastille French revolution). Bastille was a high security prison, which had 5 times more prisoners than its normal capicity. So prisoners got emboldened, guards git threatened and the prison exploded in open. After that, one after another prison in France started breaking. So the then French regime resorted to mass executions and mass firings. In the process, they ended up legitimizing use to open raw indiscriminate violence. This enabled rebels to use more violence without losing legitimacy. The rebels managed to make better guns and so they prevailed. . The rulers across world learned that the time when prisons become house full, thats the time to say bye. . eg Devi Indira Amma made worst mistake of her life --- declare emergency instead of using JurySys and RTR to deal with CIA agents in India. So the staff below Devi Indira Amma became reckless , corrupt and atrocious. And so rebellions started to increase. The number of prisoners crossed thrice the prison capacity. Punjab alone had over 1 lakh prisoners, 5 times its capacity back then. The IPS across India told Devi Indira Amma that prisons can break anyday. Devi Indira Amma had read fall of bastile chapter in French History, and saw that fall of prisons would lead to a bloody uprising. So she declared election and accepted defeat. She could see that defeat was lesser defeat than uprising she would have faced otherwise. . So convincing 200,000 men to participate in jailbharo is sufficient to bring any regime in India down to its knees. But that isnt easy. It isnt easy to convince even 20 people to get arrested. The prison sentence can stay as life time blot and would kill many career options. Also, if 20000 people join jailbharo and the number doesnt cross 2 lakh, then lives of those 20000 will be ruined for ever . So while jailbharo looks easy ----- like all options, it is easy said than done. .

by Rahul Chimanbhai Mehta Rrg



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