Central Prison at Dagshai (Himachal Pradesh, India)

While searching for a suitable accommodation to spend the night during our drive to Chandigarh-Shimla highway in India, we chanced upon a small hilltop town, known as Dagshai. The town, which comes on the right side of the highway while driving towards Shimla, is located at a height of 6,078 feet from sea level in northern state of Himachal Pradesh of India. The chance visit to Dagshai brought us to ‘Dagshai Prison’, which turned out to be a prominent historical place connected with the small town.



Inner view of Dagshai Prison

The prison has been converted into a museum on 13^th  October, 2011 and is a wonderful piece of English history in India. I had never heard the existence of this prison earlier, so was surprised to see such a building.

Entrance of Dagshai Museum

Dagshai Prison or Jail is a unique T-shaped jail which was constructed with part stone masonary at a cost of Rs. 72,875 in the year 1849 which was a princely sum at that time. The 20 feet high prison has 54 cellers each measuring 8 feet by 12 feet. The entire flooring of the prison is made up from high quallity seasoned teak wood which appeared intact even after more than 163 years of existance. This type of construction enabled easy hearing of the movements of the prisoners by guards on duty. Each celler has a teak wood gate on the inner side and an iron gate on the outer side. Cross iron alloy  bars are fitted inside these wooden doors due to which they became impregnable and the entire jail complex resembled a fortress. The iron gates of each celler were made of specially casted iron alloy to make it impossible for the prisoners to cut these gates for escape.

Solid Teak wood entrance of Dagshai Prison

Out of 54 cellers, 11 were converted to accommodate staff, 27 were made as common cells and 16 cellers were converted to solitary confinement cellers. The common cells have been provided with heavily barricated 1 feet by 2 feet size ventilators on top of the wall of the celler and underground vents which draw air from a pipeline with an opening into the outer wall. 

The solitary confinement cells were specially created  to provide harsh punishments to the highly indisciplined prisoners. These cellers are dark and suffocating as there is no access to natural light and the cellers have no ventilation. 

Novel techniques were used to punish the prisoners in the jail. Apart from the physical strains to the prisoners, sometimes inhuman punishments were also awarded to the prisoners for perceived indiscipline. In such a case, a prisoner was made to stand between two very closely located doors of the celler. both the doors were locked to ensure that the prisoner kept standing between two doors for long durations depriving him of rest.

Visiting Dagshai prison is a unique experience. A book is kept inside the entrance of  the prison alongwith a fountain pen to facilitate the visitors to pen down their experience of visting the jail. A young girl who visited the jail wrote "A very nice experience. Seen history with my own eyes. Really astonishing, raised goosebumps". 

The display board at the prison states that the jail acquired notoriety and an indelible place in history because of various significant prisoners sent to this jail over a period of time. The jail is known for Irish soldiers mutiny way back in year 1920.