Criminal Tribes Research Articles

Magahiya Doms and untouchability

Magahiya Doms have historically suffered from the double stigma of criminality and untouchability. They were notified as a Criminal Tribe in 1913 but also came to be recognised as useful for the colonial state due to their role as sweepers and scavengers. The missionaries and colonial officials attempted to order and fix the identities of communities such as these. In this paper, I discuss the concept of touch and untouchability in relation to the caste system in India. I juxtapose the idea of the body proposed by Ambedkar in Annihilation of Caste against the caste body and colonised body. Against the static and closed identity which the state attempted to bestow on the Doms, I seek to understand the body itself as processual, moving and relational. Magahiya Doms resisted colonial moves to stabilise social identities every step of the way. I also discuss the role of the colonial apparatus as a mediator that sought to impose a new order of hygiene. The colonial mechanisms of governance cut off the older ties and relational tendencies and placed themselves and their logistics as chains through which frozen identities could communicate. In this way, they partitioned off bodies and settled themselves as chains connecting the partitioned bodies. After being de-notified as a Criminal Tribe, the Magahiya Doms were categorised as a Scheduled Caste in 1952.

Sexual Politics in Select DNT Autobiographies: A Study

The implementation of the Criminal Tribes Act by the British Government in 1871 branded certain nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes in India as born criminals who lived by thieving. Despite the official denotification of such tribes in 1952, the stigma associated with their names still remains and they still continue to face various discriminations and violations of human rights in the society. The sufferings of these communities remain mostly ignored by the government. They also hardly find any place in the books of historical, sociological and literary studies. However, the autobiographical narratives produced by writers themselves belonging to such tribes act as authentic documentation of the historical injustices and various casteist segregations faced by their people. But there is hardly any female writer from the nomadic tribes. As a result, the specific concerns of the women of such marginalized communities are even less known than those of their male counterparts. The predicament of the denotified and nomadic tribes (DNT) women is known only so far as it is represented by the male DNT writers. The present study is an attempt to understand the sexual politics and vulnerabilities of the DNT women as represented in the autobiographies of Laxman Gaikwad and Laxman Mane.

Nomadic Roots and Contemporary Realities: An Exploration of the Waghri Community in Punjab

Nomadism persists as a relevant phenomenon in contemporary society. This study delves into the Waghri community, a nomadic community that originally hails from Gujarat but settled in Punjab for the past three or four generations. Having encountered stigmatisation during the British rule, the community was labelled a criminal tribe in the Bombay Presidency. This study aimed to understand the culture, belief and practice dynamics of the Waghri community, shaped by their nomadic history and current circumstances. Furthermore, it seeks to delve into their experiences with historical stigmatisation, contemporary adaptation strategies and the cultural forces moulding their identity and means of sustenance. This study was carried out in the urban areas of Punjab under the national project of the Anthropological Survey of India entitled Ethnographic Study of 226 De-Notified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Communities. The data were collected using snowball and random sampling methods. The tools used for data collection included a structured schedule, focus group discussions and individual interviews. The findings of the study reveal that the migration of the Waghri community, driven by the pursuit of enhanced livelihoods, has resulted in a widespread presence across India, featuring various sub-castes distinguished by traditional occupations and territorial affiliations. Remarkably, these sub-castes lack social hierarchies, uniting around their common clan deity rather than fostering internal divisions. Devotees of the goddess Durga, the community now identifies as Devipujak. Engaged in the trade of recycling second-hand clothes, they have established harmonious ties with the neighbouring communities, predominantly residing in urban areas, as their livelihood depends on middle and upper-middle-class families. Despite facing stigma in their native Gujarat, the Waghri community finds acceptance in Punjab, where they are recognised more as Gujarati than Waghri. Economically disadvantaged and educationally marginalised, the community leads a precarious existence unaccounted for by the government. This study illuminates their resilience in preserving cultural traditions amidst uncertainties about their future. Their adaptation strategies, including social cohesion and niche economic activity, offer insights into social mobility, identity negotiation, and the complex realities of marginalised communities in India.

‘Not regular thieves’: shades of Bhil engagement with company criminal justice (c. 1818–1825)

Considerable scholarship exists about the British colonial ideas of the murderous highway-robbing cult of ‘thuggee’, and the legislation passed in 1871 to curb the activities of ‘criminal tribes’ in colonial India. However, limiting research to these two themes of thuggee and criminal tribes alone occludes the informed, savvy and diverse ways that Indigenous communities like Bhils engaged with British justice prior to this time, under the East India Company. Using the under-researched unpublished archives of the Company’s Bombay Judicial Consultations between 1818 and 1825 as a sample, this article provides a survey of the dynamic, engaged and sometimes calculated ways that Bhils interacted with the Company’s system of justice. It contends that when it came to law, crime and culture, there were not black or white responses, but rather ‘shades’ of Bhil’s engagement with Company justice. This engagement was not simply a reactive measure for Bhils to adapt to Company rule. Bhils drew on longer lineages of political and legal practices which predated the Company in how they engaged with the British.

Critical Review of National Education Policy 2020 Concerning Nomadic Tribes and De-notified Tribes

Education is a primary tool for any community to uplift itself from the vicious cycle of poverty, illiteracy and unemployment. Nomadic tribes and de-notified tribes (NT–DNT) groups have been victims of the draconian colonial Criminal Tribes Act (CTA) of 1871, which was repealed in 1952, replacing another version of the CTA with the Habitual Offenders Act (HOA). Several commissions and committees attempted to address the issue of NT–DNT over the decades. Most of their recommendations have yet to be implemented, including a proper census to track their socio-economic profile. With this background, National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 plays a vital role in deciding the future of the education of marginalised students in India. This article examines the possible outcome of NEP 2020 on the educational status of NT–DNT groups and if specific attention has been provided to address the question of NT–DNT education. This study plans to understand the issues NT–DNT communities face regarding their fundamental education rights. Despite policies and legislatures focused on compulsory education, NT–DNT students find it challenging to achieve even a basic level of educational attainment. A review of previous studies reflects that NT–DNT students face several barriers like discrimination, lack of care and protection, language barriers and so on. They experience the stigma of criminality, difficulty in representation, accessibility to education and availing of fundamental rights assured to them by the Indian Constitution. NEP 2020 has clubbed all the marginalised population groups into a single category. It will make it even more difficult for students of NT–DNT groups to represent themselves.

The Criminalisation of the Indian-Irani Community by British Colonial Administration in India During Years 1842 to 1940 and Onwards

Indian Iranis are denotified/nomadic tribes living in India since the sixteenth century. A large migrating group of them was declared criminals under British law. Post-independence too this label continued. Even today, police, media and society treat them as criminals. This article argues that though the British-targeted group of the Indian-Irani community was not involved in crime considerably (28 convictions of petty thefts in 98 years), it was noted as criminal tribes in police reports in and around the Bombay presidency from the year 1842 to 1940. A Police Report on Vagrant Bands of Foreigners of 1879 and notes and books by the then British police officers reflect the same. A then foreign-originated, nontribal, isolated community of Indian Iranis was labelled as criminals by the British colonial administration step-wise. The article briefs that the undue criminalisation of one group from this community further led to the criminalisation of the larger group from this community in independent India. Primary data witnessing the impact of such constant criminalisation on the current generation of the community in Ambivli, Thane district, Maharashtra is also briefly discussed in this article. The theories of labelling in criminology most fit to describe this criminalisation.

Newgate Novels, Confessions of a Thug and the Narrative of Oriental Criminality

In this paper, the author compares the novel Confessions of a Thug (1839), written by a colonial official named Philip Meadows Taylor, with Newgate novels in general and the novel Jack Sheppard (1839) by William Harrison Ainsworth in particular. During the first half of the nineteenth century, two English colonial administrators named Philip Meadows Taylor and Colonel William Henry Sleeman published two works named Confessions of a Thug (1839) and Ramaseeana (1836). These two works popularised the notion that a religiously motivated murderous cult named 'thugs' operated on the roads of India, and they strangled and looted the unfortunate travelers. However, studies by Postcolonial scholars such as Kim A Wagner (2004), Aijaz Ahmed (1991), Maire Ni Fhlathuin (2001), and Amal Chatterjee (1998) questioned the veracity of the phenomenon of 'thuggee' and especially its supposed religious foundation. Ajay Dandekar (2014) notably considered thuggee and its religious associations to be a fictional creation of Sleeman and Taylor that led to the Inhuman Criminal Tribes Act of 1871. In this paper, the author analyzes the contradictions within the narrative of Confessions of a Thug and proves how the novel’s similarity with Newgate novels effectively negates the colonial narrative that portrays criminality and lawlessness as something unique to Asian and African nations. This paper also clarifies that the different critical receptions of Confessions of a Thug and Jack Sheppard, despite similar themes, effectively illustrate the argument of Edward Said that no knowledge is non-political.

Representation of Humiliation in Bengali Dalit Literature: A Comparative Study

This article proposes to develop a comparatist framework of pan-Indian Dalit writings on one hand and the representative Bengali Dalit writings on the other in the context of the experience of humiliation. The chief objective of this comparison would be a close reading of the treatment of the experience of humiliation, along with its claims and contexts, in both literary traditions. Cutting across the literary genres, the main argument of this article will be to show the qualitative difference in the perception of humiliation in Dalit literary expressions and a resultant realization that Bengali Dalit experience somehow falls short of depicting the intensity of insult abundantly manifest in Marathi and other Dalit writings. Throughout the scope of this article, various factors responsible for such low decibel representation of humiliation will be taken up for detailed study with frequent references to past and present Dalit authors and their most representative studies. Another abiding engagement with the issue of humiliation, vis-a-vis the tragic demise of Chuni Kotal, will lead to questions about the muted presence of the community experience of humiliation by the erstwhile Criminal Tribe, Lodha Savar, in contemporary Bengali Dalit writings.

‘Ostracized by law’: The sociopolitical and juridical construction of the ‘criminal tribe’ in Colonial India

ABSTRACT The British enacted the Criminal Tribes Act in 1871 to control Indian society after the rebellion against colonial rule in 1857. By means of the Act, the British depicted entire communities and groups as hereditary criminals – without any substantive legal or incriminating evidence – using the concept of race, used in anthropology and anthropometry, and of caste. They termed the groups ‘tribes’ instead of ‘castes’ to evoke qualities of wildness and savagery in a way that the term ‘caste’ could not. The British also used the Act to term the tribes ‘criminal’. In ascribing criminality, they misinterpreted texts, folklore and proverbs, and they relied on the biased advice of upper caste elite native informants. This systematic sociopolitical and legal subjugation stigmatized, ostracized and impoverished many so-called lower-caste and tribal communities. Even 75 years after Independence and denotification of the ‘criminal’ status, these communities remain outcastes. This paper traces the making of the category of ‘criminal tribe’ in colonial times – by charting the discourses, practices, processes and legal landmarks that led to the enactment, subsequent amendments and, finally, repeal of the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871 – and its afterlife in postcolonial India. The paper argues that although the category of ‘criminal caste’ did exist before colonial times, the British colonialists applied the category of ‘tribe’ to the criminal castes for rhetorical and administrative purposes, and that the socio-legal construction of criminal tribes happened through a concatenation of contradictory notions that made the label of ‘criminal tribe’ a patchwork of mutually untenable discourses.

Re-examining Post-colonial Critique of Orientalism: Reviewing Criminal Tribes Acts in the Light of 17th-Century Jesuit Sources.

Re-examining Post-colonial Critique of Orientalism: Reviewing Criminal Tribes Acts in the Light of 17th-Century Jesuit Sources.

INCONSTANT CIRCUMSTANCES OF A HUNTER-GATHERER FOREST DWELLING PRIMITIVE TRIBE: THE LODHA

India is enriched with all kinds of geographical definitions. Forest is one amongst others. Tribes are aboriginal; their individual traditional methods of sustaining livelihood identify their socio-economic condition and cultural heritage. The then ruler realizing the immense commercial potentiality of Indian Forest, amalgamated with better knowledge of the tribal community in the regard, ushered the Indian Forest Act in 1865 to establish absolute supremacy and control over the forest. The Lodha were indigenes, innocent, illiterate, hunter-gatherer forest dwelling primitive tribe and forest was their principal source of sustaining livelihood and domain. By dint of the Act without knowing any implications they were totally dislodged from the forest, which could not stop them from forest collections, since the forest was their basic source of sustaining livelihood. Repeated such actions identified them law offenders and restrained them by the Criminal Tribes Act 1871, though it was repealed in 1952, still the stigma to be foster even today. Thus, the ignorance of law and never ending dependence of the forest compelled them in capricious socioeconomic, sociobiological interpretation through malnutrition at present day scenario. The quest was quenched at Lengamara, a Lodha village under Khagra Beat, Hijli Range of Kharagpur Forest Division revealing facts and figures iterated in the sequel.

Fragmented Sovereignty, Ḍakaitī (Banditry), and ‘Criminal Tribe’ in a ‘Minor’ State of Late Colonial India

AbstractScholars have often considered twentieth-century sovereignty in colonial contexts as increasingly connected to the modern, territorially bounded state, stimulated by the influence of European rule. Yet there remained more malleable and amorphous sovereign configurations well into the twentieth century. Focusing on the case of Indore, a ‘minor’ state in late colonial central India, this article reveals the ongoing dynamism of ḍakait (‘bandits’) within such configurations. By approaching the state as a disaggregated entity, it captures how such communities held complex reciprocal relationships with local state representatives. These interactions challenge older histories, both in South Asia and beyond, that understand banditry primarily as evidence of state evasion or resistance, rather than reflecting an interlocking web of relational and gradated jurisdictions. By exploring connections between ḍakait and the state at the ‘everyday’ level, this article also takes issue with existing emphases on the wider institutional frameworks that classified such communities as ‘criminal tribes’. Such connections could engender local responses that undercut their ethnographic categorization and complicate postcolonial critiques of the essentialization of caste and ‘tribe’ in South Asia. Reconceptualizing sovereignty ultimately provides us with a compelling analytic tool to reconsider wider scholarly axioms relating to colonial knowledge, marginality, and state–society relations.

Hunters and fowlers in the Tungabhadra Plains of Andhra Pradesh, South India: an ethnographical study of Nir Sikaris

Hunting and gathering, which date back to the Middle Pleistocene, are the oldest sources of sustenance. Practically, these hunting and gathering societies have gradually expanded their settlements and culture across the country. The present paper attempts a qualitative ethnographical study on the ongoing life of the Nir Sikaris which is one of the hunting and fowling tribes in the Tungabhadra Plains of Andhra Pradesh. Primarily it focuses on their settlement patterns, subsistence strategies, and living traditions. S(h)ikar means hunting; Sikari means hunter. They populate Kurnool, Anantapur (Andhra Pradesh), Bellary (Karnataka) Districts and Maharashtra. They were labelled with a social stigma of a criminal tribe under the British Raj and were also considered ex-criminal tribe and de-notified tribe in post-independence India. They are currently classified as one of the backward classes (B.C.-A) by the State Government of Andhra Pradesh. It becomes vital to shedding light on documentation of Nir Sikaris’ evolving cultural life for posterity, as they are culturally transforming due to modernization in the current globalised society.

A mathematical model for breaching the blockades-mainstreaming transwomen and transmen in Chennai by using block fuzzy cognitive

Primeval history of India, and religious text manifest the close acceptance of “Third gender” in the society. It is only after the colonial interventionism the divide and rule policy of British, transgender were criminalized by passing the “Criminal tribe act of 1871” which created the punishment and fine for cross dressers in public sphere. Study was conducted by employing Quantitative method through which semi-structured interview schedule was used to collect the data from 77 transgender (transwomen (58), transmen (19)) residing in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Data collected were analyzed using SPSS 21 software, where regression and correlation method has been employed to find out the relationship between the variables. Results shows that Transgender ID card forms the basic identity document to benefit the various amenities of government and Transmen were deserted to get those provisions because of Trans ID card which is not offered to them. Transwomen were fortunate to apply for the subsidy policies of State government, in case of Transmen were struggling to form their individuality within the Transgender community. Study accomplishes with the view that there should be a clarity in the classification and variance between the Transwomen and Transmen, as their transition process differs, so there ought to be strategies to address and satisfy the need of both categories of Transgenders.

Language Vitality, Attitude and Endangerment: Understanding from Field Work among Lodha Speakers

Lodhas are marginalized scheduled tribe groups in West Bengal, India. They are called as criminal tribes till the revocation of the Criminal Tribes’ Act of 1952. Lodha is an Indo-Aryan language, spoken by Lodhas in some villages of West Bengal, India. This paper has four objectives. First, this paper discussed about the effect of the dominant languages. Here we made an attempt to study the impact of Bangla influencing on Lodha language. This paper also talks about Language attitude of this community. To grow up their economy now they try to interact with the non-tribal Indo-Aryan population and they try to forget their own language. So we will discuss in detail their language attitude to know the present condition of Lodha. We discuss the socio-economic condition of Lodha. How this condition creates a barrier against them, we will discuss this in our paper by exemplified the situation. At last, this paper is to assess the nature and degree of language endangerment of Lodha based on UNESCO’s Language Vitality and Endangerment framework.

Imperial legacies and southern penal spaces: A study of hunting nomads in postcolonial India

Southern penal spaces are marked by resemblances and affinities with colonial regimes of control, yet they also reflect quite distinctive postcolonial social and political dynamics found in the global south. Here, legacies of control, forms of exile, status reductions, hierarchical social stratifications and other like forms come together in robust modes of containment suitable for managing ‘marginal’ and ‘suspect’ populations. We draw on ethnographic empirical work with two hunting nomadic groups in India by two of the co-authors who are working with the Kheria Sabar community in Purulia district in West Bengal and Pardhi community in Mumbai. The latter were subject to notification under the notorious Criminal Tribes Act 1871, marking them out as ‘criminal tribes’ until their de-notification shortly after India's independence in 1947, yet the Kheria Sabars too feel its effects. We draw attention here to the continual negotiation and (re)fabrication of both state and citizen at the point of their everyday contact. Our notion of southern penal spaces contributes to penal theory by breaking from northern societies’ focus on institutional carcerality and capturing instead both the variety and the dispersal of penal and punitive practices found in postcolonial societies of the south.

Thinking of Crime: The State, Migrant Population and the Missing Justice

This lecture discusses the ‘idea of crime’ as it was understood by the colonial establishment and also as understood by the present government. In 1871, Lord Mayo introduced the bill leading to the infamous Criminal Tribes Act (CTA) which led to the segregation of a certain set of professions and lifestyles from the rest of society. The segregation was given a concrete form with the creation of penal settlements by the colonial government. The communities brought under the provisions of the CTA are now known as Denotified and Nomadic Tribes, not to be mistaken with adivasis. Mostly nomadic in habit, these tribes have suffered the worst humiliation in the history of modern India. In recent decades, the idea of crime has also been associated with non-state actors in order to deal with terrorism. However, the provisions of laws made towards this objective, such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967, are being used speciously to restrain social activists and thinkers. This has raised many questions in recent years. The theme of this lecture outlines the gap between the idea of crime and the idea of justice that needs to be bridged in the interests of deepening democracy in India.

De/Colonizing Hijra

De/Colonizing <i>Hijra</i>

‘Forced to Choose’: Bacchara Women’s Experiences in Sex Work

In this qualitative study, we have attempted to explore the experiences of women of Bachhara community in Madhya Pradesh, India. The tradition of community sanctioned sex work is prevalent in this community, which often forces the women to enter into it. The study setting was three villages of Mandsaur District and one village of Neemuch district of Madhya Pradesh, India. We have interviewed 23 women participants involved in sex work. The study's findings underline that family coercion, community norms, and lack of livelihood alternatives are the major contributing factors for women's entry into sex work. The instances of violence, stigmatization, and discrimination are the women's dominating experience in sex work. The study reveals that the badge of 'criminal tribes' during the colonial rule continues to push this community on the margins and subject to multiple deprivations, especially the women folks. This research implies that urgent interventions are required to address the current state of the Bachhara community.

Socio-Demographic Factors Associated with Health Condition among Adult Bhantu Population of Andaman: A Cross-Sectional Study

Malnutrition encompassing both under and over nutrition increases health risks in the adult population. In recent days, the increase in obesity and in turn, the incidence of chronic disease in adult population, now urges weight management interventions in obese adults. Bhantu, a De-notified Community of Andaman, labelled as a Criminal Tribe during British administration for their criminal acts, was settled here after their imprisonment. The present study is the first attempt to understand the impact of socio-economic determinants of health condition of Bhantu. It is a community-based study conducted among 305 adult individuals including males and females. Anthropometric measurements of height (cm) and weight (kg) were taken using standard technique and Body Mass Index (BMI) was calculated. To access socio-demographic condition of Bhantu community, a well-structured questionnaire was used for all participants to collect information on their income, literacy, marital status, types of family and so on. Results revealed that maximum number of males and females were overweight and socio-demographic variables have shown effect on their health. In conclusion, this study highlighted the importance of considering socio-demographic factors in the context of health study and incorporation of socio-demographic determinants in further research work is crucial for maintenance of health, functional independence and quality of life.