THERE was an ominous similarity between the incarceration of Antonio Gramsci and Prof. GN Saibaba. Both were inconvenient disabled intellectuals for the regimes of their times. Mussolini called Gramsci ‘Sardinian hunchback and professor of economics and philosophy’ for whom the Italian fascist prosecutor asked for twenty years of prison sentence, by suggesting, “For twenty years we must stop this brain from functioning.” The spectre of such brutality came to India during the usual Saturday hearing of the Indian Supreme Court to suspend the Bombay High Court’s order to release 90 per cent disabled Prof. GN Saibaba on bail after a long incarceration. The Supreme Court bench of Justices MR Shah and Bela Trivedi remarked, “As far as terrorist activities are concerned, the brain plays a very important role…A brain for such activities is very dangerous.”  

The incarceration of Gramsci and Prof. GN Saibaba that resulted in their deteriorating health condition and eventual deaths are reminders that liberal accommodationist solutions should be seen from the gaze of incredulity, as it often fails to protect dissenting disabled bodies. Within this context, I would like to discuss the judicial interventions to ensure reasonable accommodation in prison and their inherent limitations.

Recent judicial interventions on disability rights in prisons, most notably the Supreme Court’s order in Sathyan Naravoor v Union of India (2025), have been presented as steps towards a more humane criminal justice system. Extending the framework laid down earlier in L Muruganantham v. State of Tamil Nadu (2025), the Court directed all States and Union Territories to provide “reasonable accommodation” to prisoners with disabilities, including accessible infrastructure, medical care, assistive devices and grievance redress mechanisms. While these directions acknowledge that constitutional rights under Articles 14 and 21 do not cease upon incarceration, they also demand a deeper political interrogation.

The fundamental question is not whether prisons can be rendered marginally more accessible, but whether incarceration itself, particularly in a period marked by the criminalisation of dissent, can ever be reconciled with justice, dignity, and equality. This concern finds sharp articulation in the work of Simone Rowe and Leanne Dowse, who argue that penal abolitionism and critical disability studies remain insufficiently connected, despite sharing core concerns about social injustice, institutional violence and systemic exclusion. Their argument is especially relevant in contexts such as India, where people with physical, cognitive and psychosocial disabilities are disproportionately represented in prisons, often as undertrials detained for prolonged periods without conviction.

PARALLEL CRITIQUES, REFORMIST OUTCOMES

Rowe and Dowse note that while both traditions critique carceral institutions, they often operate in parallel rather than in collaboration. Penal abolitionism offers a structural critique of prisons, questioning their legitimacy and exposing their role in reproducing inequality and violence. It advocates transformative, non-punitive responses to social harm. Critical disability studies, in contrast, rejects medicalised and individualised understandings of disability, foregrounding how institutions such as prisons actively produce disablement through exclusion, surveillance, and neglect.

Despite these shared orientations, disability discourse in law and policy frequently narrows its focus to accommodation within existing institutions. Abolitionist politics, meanwhile, does not always foreground ableism as a constitutive feature of incarceration. This separation allows reformist approaches to dominate, seeking to improve conditions while leaving the structure of punishment intact.

ACCOMMODATION AS LEGITIMATION

The emphasis on reasonable accommodation within prisons, as reflected in Sathyan Naravoor and Muruganantham, illustrates this reformist impulse. While such measures may alleviate immediate suffering, they also risk legitimising incarceration by presenting it as compatible with dignity. Ramps, wheelchairs, and medical protocols do not alter the fact that prisons are institutions designed for coercion and control.

In India, this critique acquires particular urgency given the routine use of preventive detention and anti-terror laws such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). Prolonged undertrial incarceration has become normalised, transforming the legal process itself into a form of punishment. Within this framework, accommodation is not a right secured by law but a discretionary concession, dependent on administrative will and security assessments.

DISABILITY, POLITICAL DISSENT, AND CARCERAL DISCOURSE

Accommodation in prisons is never politically neutral. It is mediated by jail authorities, intelligence agencies, and broader state priorities, producing a hierarchy of deservingness. Disabled prisoners perceived as politically non-threatening may receive limited concessions. Those associated with dissent are often denied even the most basic care.

The case of Father Stan Swamy exemplifies this dynamic. An 84-year-old Adivasi rights activist suffering from Parkinson’s disease, Swamy was arrested under the UAPA in the Bhima Koregaon case. Despite repeated applications highlighting his medical condition and seeking bail or basic accommodations, he was denied effective relief. Requests for appropriate medical care and assistive aids were met with bureaucratic delay. He died in judicial custody in 2021 without ever being convicted.

Swamy’s death cannot be dismissed as an aberration. It revealed how disability rights collapse when they confront the imperatives of national security and political repression. In such cases, disability does not mitigate punishment; it intensifies vulnerability. The process itself becomes punitive.

PROCESS AS PUNISHMENT

For disabled prisoners, punishment is embedded not merely in sentencing but in the entire legal process that includes arrest, denial of bail, prolonged undertrial detention, delayed hearings and systematic neglect. Access to medical care is restricted, assistive devices are treated as security risks, and family contact is curtailed. Each procedural delay compounds suffering.

This phenomenon, which is often described as “process as punishment,” is a defining feature of the contemporary carceral regime. The denial or withdrawal of accommodation functions as a technique of governance, enabling the state to inflict suffering while maintaining a veneer of legality. Disability becomes a site of intensified discipline rather than protection.

Rowe and Dowse caution that a narrow focus on individual impairments obscures the broader structural forces such as poverty, caste oppression, racism, and ableism that produce both criminalisation and disability. Prisons do not merely contain disabled people; they actively generate disablement through isolation, neglect, and institutional violence.

WHY REFORM IS NOT ENOUGH

The repeated response to such injustices has been reform in the form of revised prison manuals, sensitisation programmes, and accessibility audits. While these may offer limited relief, they do not confront the prison as a structure of domination. Historically, reforms have stabilised oppressive institutions rather than dismantled them, rendering incarceration more efficient and more palatable. Disability justice must be central to penal abolitionism. Abolitionist politics that ignores ableism risks reproducing exclusionary norms, while disability politics confined to accommodation risks legitimising carceral power.

TOWARDS A DEMOCRATIC ALTERNATIVE

A democratic society committed to equality cannot accept imprisonment as the default response to social conflict, mental distress or political opposition. It must invest in public healthcare, community-based mental health support, social security and non-carceral forms of accountability. For disabled people, especially those with psychosocial and cognitive disabilities, justice lies not in better prisons but in alternatives to confinement.

The cases of Professor G.N. Saibaba and Father Stan Swamy stand as a reminder of what is at stake. Their incarcerations and deaths expose the hollowness of rights discourse when it is severed from a political critique of punishment. Justice cannot be realised within institutions that systematically deny dignity to those who challenge power.

The liberal accommodationist solutions within prisons are insufficient. The disability justice movement of India should be acutely aware of the limits of reformist approaches and underscore the need for structural change.

Cases such as Sathyan Naravoor, Muruganantham and the incarceration of Father Stan Swamy, Prof. GN Saibaba reveal the contradictions of a system that speaks the language of dignity while practising exclusion. The fight for reasonable accommodation in prisons is great, but we need to understand its limitations too. The task before democratic forces is not to make prisons more accessible, but to question their legitimacy and work towards their abolition. Only then can the struggle for disability rights move beyond accommodation and towards genuine social transformation.