(Un)truth Technologies to Subvert Justice

The Hathras rape case (Jha 2020), where the accused were made to undergo polygraph tests and brain electrical oscillation signature, the custodial killings of P Jeyaraj and his son J Bennicks (Gorringe and Damod­aran 2020), and the Ritesh Sinha v State of UP judgment (Narang nd) wherein the Supreme Court directed the accused to furnish voice samples for the purposes of investigation, squarely bring forth the significance of Jinee Lokaneeta’s book, The Truth Machines: Policing, Violence, and Scientific Interrogations in India.

The book has six chapters besides the introduction. Each chapter discusses the complexities of addressing torture embed­­ded at all levels of the criminal justice systems. The book draws on the in-de­pth analysis of cases, reports, and documents related to narcoanalysis, brain scanning, and lie detectors. The stakeholder interviews with the police, lawyers, forensic psychologists, and activists across the five cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru bring out the complicit role of the state in practising, whilst it views itself as a liberal democracy.