Skip the Step in Between
The worst things we see in India almost always happened in the West too. The difference, of course, is that those things have stopped happening in the West by now. Take the VIP treatment of rich or political prisoners, for example. We know the lavishness that the Jayalalithaa’s and Laloo’s have enjoyed during their imprisonment. But guess what? Spanish prisons in the 1580’s were pretty much the same. As Robert Goodwin wrote in Spain: The Centre of the World 1519-1682 , Seville’s Royal Prison had a gate called the Golden Gate: “It was called the Golden Gate because at this stage those who could afford the fees could pay 'no mean quantity of Gold' to 'stay in the sheriff's accommodation'…The accommodation was relatively comfortable, with its own roof terrace, and such inmates were largely free to come and go and many were given leave to sleep at home.” For those couldn’t pay in gold, there was: “The Silver Gate, where for a ducat or two a prisoner could h...