<p>The article examines changes in ordinary criminal law in postcolonial India, focusing on three forms of punishment—life imprisonment, death penalty and minimum mandatory sentencing. The methodology includes a survey of changes in the legislative text, Constitutional provisions of due process, judgments of the Supreme Court of India and the reports and recommendations of the Law Commission of India. The analysis reveals that despite due process rights and amendments to the criminal regime claiming decolonization, punishment in postcolonial India has increasingly become hyper-punitive, revealing residues of colonialism as well as its nexus with the global rise of new technologies of crime and social control.</p>