2026 Theses Doctoral

Unmaking the Carceral: Reimagining the Criminal Justice System in India through Subaltern Feminist Praxis

Shah, Stuti

The carceral system in India operates not within a constitutional framework, but as part of an enduring colonial criminal legal apparatus, that systematically fails both those who have caused harm and those who have experienced it, while reproducing entrenched identity-based hegemonies. Bringing together three law review–length articles, the dissertation examines these dynamics and advances theoretical, interdisciplinary, methodological, and normative contributions to criminal law, carceral studies, critical feminist theory, and southern criminology. Across the three articles, it foregrounds subaltern epistemologies that are frequently erased in doctrinal and jurisprudential analyses of the criminal legal system which remain largely shaped by Global North scholarship.

Methodologically, the dissertation draws on qualitative data, doctrinal legal analysis, and interdisciplinary engagement with socio-legal scholarship, prison memoirs, and anti-caste and anti-carceral organizing. It incorporates interviews with restorative justice practitioners and non-governmental organizations working in the prison nursery space in both India and the United States. While grounded in the Indian context, the dissertation develops analytical frameworks that travel across jurisdictions. It particularly engages with United States (U.S.)-based scholarship, legal doctrine, and grassroots movements, recognizing the U.S. as the world’s leading incarcerator, a key influence on Indian jurisprudence around carcerality, and a site of prominent prison abolitionist praxis.

The first article examines the systemic barriers faced by Dalit survivors of caste-based sexual violence in accessing the criminal legal system. By placing Critical Dalit feminism in dialogue with restorative approaches to justice gaining traction in India and the U.S., it reimagines pathways to justice beyond carceral punishment, including in cases of crimes considered “heinous,” such as sexual violence. The second article conceptualizes incarceration as a form of reproductive injustice, particularly for Dalit women, arguing that it violates their constitutional rights by constraining their autonomy over if, when, and how to mother. It contends that meaningful reproductive justice requires decarceral interventions, including alternative sentencing frameworks, expansive bail practices, and a broader de-gendering of care work. The third article focuses on the quotidian realities of carceral labor in Indian prisons, highlighting the informal, unpaid or underpaid, and invisibilized labor performed by women and Dalits. It argues that punishment is shaped less by legal offense than by social location, and advocates for “transformative incremental” reforms that center the agency of incarcerated persons in choosing and accessing labor.

The dissertation concludes that meaningful justice cannot be achieved within the existing carceral paradigm. Instead, it calls for a reorientation toward transformative frameworks that center marginalized voices, challenge inherited colonial logics, and expand the possibilities of justice beyond punishment. Simultaneously, it underscores the necessity of systemic change to address the entrenched hierarchies that structure Indian society.