Business has been booming for Karulal Nagar. A manufacturer of drawstrings used in kurtis (short shirts that women wear in India), he's been earning a profit of 3,000 rupees (US$40) a day, far more than the 6,000 rupees a month that he earned in the not-so-distant past.
"I was inspired to get into business when I heard a buyer was looking for someone to sell drawstrings for one rupee apiece," Mr Nagar wrote in an Instagram post on July 4. "We assumed that he would be selling them for twice that price, so I went around 20 factories in the neighbourhood asking if they needed the product.
"Eventually, one manager told us that we needed to create a company before anyone could consider us. He was kind enough to give us work," he wrote. "I showed that work to another factory and got work from there as well.
"Today, I buy polyester thread and turn it into around 7,000 metres of twine that is eventually used in string. I fabricated my own machine for just 8,000 rupees ($107); a new one costs 400,000 rupees.
"I run my machine for around 10 hours a day. I fitted my twisting machine with a cycle axle to create an embroidery machine pulley. I sell my output to 25 kurti manufacturing companies.
An inmate at Sanganer speaks with a representative of Prison Aid+Action Research (PAAR). SUPPLIED
"I have bought a 90-square-metre home that has been financed by a bank, my Alto car is parked outside, I have 2 million rupees of receivables and my son is studying for a B.Sc. The one sitting in Heaven is wielding his magic," Mr Nagar concluded.
It's an inspirational business success story by any standard, but all the more so because Mr Nagar is a convict. He's serving a life sentence in an open prison in Sanganer district of Jaipur, a city 280 kilometres south of New Delhi.
A native of Jhalawar, about 340km from Jaipur, Mr Nagar has completed 14 years of his term and is now being considered for permanent parole. His factory is located on the grounds of the prison, where he lives with his family. The factory employs 20 women on the premises and 60 others outside.
Access to social media is another one of the perks of India's growing network of ultra-minimum-security prisons, and a way to spread the word about the benefits of the system. The inmates' stories can be found on @openprisonvoices on Instagram and Facebook.
An inmate seeking to be transferred to an open prison needs an exemplary behaviour record, it goes without saying. He or she must also have spent a least five years in a closed jail. Preference is given to pregnant women, people with disabilities, women with small children, one-time offenders, "accidental" offenders, petty offenders and low-risk prisoners.
Kanha Ram Prajapat is another prisoner who has relished the opportunity to become useful to his family since he was transferred to Sanganer.
Smita Chakraburtty (centre) founded Prison Aid+Action Research to advocate for better ways of treating prisoners. SUPPLIED
Mr Prajapat now earns 15,000 rupees a month and remits some that money to his family. "When I was in the closed prison, my family would tell others. 'We lost our son.' Since I moved to the open prison, I have heard them say, 'It is like our son has returned'," he wrote in a post recently.
Pooja Chhabra, another inmate of the open prison, says she has rediscovered colour.
"The one thing that we missed inside a conventional prison is colour," she wrote on @openprisonvoices, which was launched in April. "This colourless existence starts from one's clothes -- one has to wear white, the walls are near-white, the grilled doors are grey, brown or black."
The open prison in Sanganer has a total of 350 inmates who hold regular jobs and live with their families. Run by the Rajasthan state government, the facility allows inmates to work, live and commute within city limits for up to 12 hours a day, as long as they are back on the grounds for evening roll call at 6pm.
Many of the prisoners also share their daily stories on the social media platforms created by Prison Aid+Action Research (PAAR), an advocacy organisation founded by Smita Chakraburtty. She has worked on prisoners' rights for over a decade and wants to see a future when closed prisons are deemed the alternative and open prisons become the norm.
The Sanganer open prison, covering four acres of land, is one of 42 open prisons in Rajasthan that are home to 2,000 prisoners in total. Nationwide, there are 65 open prisons in 17 Indian states.
But Sanganer is the only prison in India where inmates are allowed to work outside, keep their families and share their stories on social media. "We have a school teacher, an accountant, security guards, vegetable vendors, and people who drive SUVs. There are others who have beautiful entrepreneurial skills," Ms Chakraburtty said in an interview with Asia Focus.
Around 90% of the prisoners at Sanganer are lifers. Rajasthan transfers those who qualify to open prisons after they have completed one-third of their sentences.
Ms Chakraburtty has written a report on the Rajasthan open prisons, which recommends that the state's successful system be emulated across the country and also expanded to house people who have been locked up while awaiting trial. She says open prisons are the best platform for reform.
"In most cases, there was no criminal intent. Ninety percent of cases are accidental offences. Their convictions were due to bad lawyering," she argues. PAAR avoids using terms such as "lifer", "convict", "criminal", "murderer" and "rapist" for the open prison inmates.
"Crime is an incident. It cannot define an individual," said Ms Chakraburtty. "Most people cannot afford a quality legal defence and save themselves through the complex and expensive maze of the criminal justice system. The prison finds its prey among the weakest of the weak. Prisoners are the most marginalised people."
Roll call at the Sanganer open prison in Jaipur. SUPPLIED
Ms Chakraburtty said her reform campaign began five years as an "act of faith" after she completed an inspection of prisons in Bihar state.
"I inspected all 58 prisons in the state and submitted a report to the then acting chief justice of the Patna High Court," she said. It was a ground-breaking report that also attracted the attention of the Supreme Court of India, a parliamentary standing committee on law and justice and the National Human Rights Commission. The Bihar state government is still working on her recommendations.
Ms Chakraburtty subsequently received an invitation from Rajasthan to work on open prisons there, and she was appointed honorary commissioner of prisons in the state. She visited all 30 open prisons in the state (12 more have opened since then) and submitted a report in November 2017. Subsequently, the Supreme Court made it mandatory for all states to have open prisons.
Ms Chakraburtty discounts the fear of recidivism. She looks at the open prison system as a form of social reintegration, a mature way of dealing with crime and rehabilitation. She wants the entire country to adopt the example of Sanganer.
Sanganer is so popular among its inmates that some are reluctant to leave even after the completion of their sentence.
As well, it is 78 times cheaper to run than a conventional prison in Jaipur, according to Ms Chakraburtty, as it requires only skeletal security staff to take attendance of the inmates in the morning and evening.
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