Each year, as India celebrates Constitution Day on 26 November, we reaffirm our collective commitment to liberty, dignity, and justice. The day is meant to remind us of the living spirit of our Constitution, a document that enshrines the rights of citizens and the responsibilities of the State. Yet Rousseau’s timeless observation ~ “Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains” ~ continues to resonate with painful relevance. While the Constitution guarantees freedom, equality, and protection of rights, the lived reality for thousands of citizens reveals a paradox: liberty celebrated in principle, but denied in practice. Nowhere is this contradiction more glaring than in the plight of undertrial prisoners. India’s prisons today house over 4.3 lakh prisoners, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB 2023).

Of these, nearly 70 per cent are undertrials ~ individuals not yet convicted of any crime, but confined while awaiting trial. This means that more than three out of every four prisoners are not proven guilty but are trapped in the limbo of delayed justice. In states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh, the proportion of undertrials exceeds 75 per cent of total inmates, reflecting systemic delays and inefficiencies. Many spend years behind bars without their cases being heard, some even longer than the maximum sentence prescribed for the alleged offence. The marginalized ~ daily wage earners, migrants, Dalits, and minorities ~ form the bulk of this population, their voices silenced by poverty and lack of access to legal aid. Behind these statistics lie human stories that rarely reach the public eye. One young man accused of petty theft spent nearly seven years in prison before being acquitted for lack of evidence, far longer than the maximum sentence for the alleged crime.

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A woman charged with abetment remained confined for five years before bail was granted, her children left without care and her dignity shattered. These brief glimpses remind us that the issue is not abstract – it is lived reality, where liberty is eroded not by conviction but by delay. Each case is a reminder that the justice system is not dealing with numbers but with lives, and that every day of confinement........

© The Statesman