The story behind Paar - Prison Aid + Action Research.

I was commissioned to inspect the prisons of Bihar by Bihar State Legal Services Authority. I visited 58 prisons and met 30070 prisoners. BSLSA published my report (http://bslsa.bih.nic.in/prision-report.html).
The Supreme Court took cognisance of the report and made it mandatory for all High Courts to conduct Bihar like prison inspections. The National Human Rights Commission, Parliamentary Standing Committee Department of Law and Justice and State Human Rights Commission of Bihar also took cognisance of the report.

Soon after I was invited by Rajasthan State Legal Services Authority Executive Chairman Justice K.S. Jhaveri. I was appointed Honorary Commissioner for prisons of Rajasthan.
Rajasthan DG Prisons, Mr. Ajit Singh, tole me that he is about to evict prisoners, since they do not want vacate prison premises. I was surprised- "prisoner eviction"! It's unheard of. Out of sheer curiosity I offered to go meet the inmates who weren't willing to leave prison. When I stepped into Sanganer open prison. I couldn't believe what I saw.

Sanganer was nothing like any prison I had visited before. It was a large open campus which appeared like a village. Prisoners live with their family inside the small hutments. A prison without bars. The open prisons is infact managed by a prisoner governing body or "bandi panchayat".

I decided to study the open prisons of Rajasthan. For 7 months I travelled across the state of Rajasthan and visited 29 open prisons, interviews over 580 prisoners. The report was published by RSLSA. The Supreme Court took cognisance of the report and made it mandatory for all states to set up as many open prisons as possible.

I founded Paar, to advocate for Rajasthan open prisons to become a norm in the country. We are based out of Jaipur.