ABSTRACT
After being treated rather indifferently for decades, issues of crime and punishment have aroused the interest of historians of South Asia during the last twenty years to an astonishing degree. Instead it would be expected to demonstrate such features as the possession of a penal system that was overseen by an enlightened bureaucratic rationalism and precluding punishments to the human body. A completely separate punishment for Europeans would allow for a harsh handling of the 'white criminal classes' while removing them from the 'native gaze' and thus help maintain 'racial prestige.' It was at this juncture that the idea of the European Penitentiary was thrown into the discussion. In the Andaman settlements, but also in 'mixed' jails with a significant minority of European prisoners, like the presidency jail in Calcutta or the Madras penitentiary, the demonstratively different clothing of Europeans and Indians moreover acquired the function of a marker of penal hierarchies.
