Beyond the Colonial Legacy: Caste, Criminalization, and the Denotified Tribes of India

Abstract (English)

In 1871, the British government introduced the Criminal Tribes Act in India, which declared around 200 nomadic communities as 'Born Criminals'. Dragomir (2019) highlights that while colonial laws like the CTA institutionalised the idea of group criminality, this codification was made possible by pre-existing indigenous beliefs and caste hierarchies. Guha suggests that the colonial power operated in alliance with the traditional local powers (as cited in Bhukya, 2010, p. 24). Piliavsky (2015) argues that colonial authorities did not invent the idea of hereditary criminal communities; instead, they absorbed and formalised local concepts through alliances with dominant castes. Devy (2006) claims that Upper-caste Hindu texts broadly classified jatis (castes) as pure or impure, attributing honesty or dishonesty accordingly. The colonial state adopted this perspective and linked it to their prejudiced notions of vagrants, gypsies, and nomads as being born criminals. The British ethnographic accounts were often shaped through Brahmin intermediaries, filtering Indian society through a Brahminic lens (Berg, 2020). Mukul Kumar (2004) argues that the concept of group criminality in India emerged not from poverty or survival-driven acts, as was the case in England, but from the caste system itself, where occupation and identity were fused. Similarly, Singha (1998) shows how elite and upper-caste attitudes toward the poor and marginalised shaped their portrayal as criminally inclined. Scholarship on Denotified Tribes (erstwhile 'Criminal Tribes') often emphasises colonial legacies but overlooks the enduring role of caste in sustaining their criminalisation in postcolonial India. This paper argues that the continued stigma and surveillance of DNTs, even 78 years after independence, is not simply a leftover from colonial rule but a reflection of the persistent role of caste-based power structures in defining legitimacy, deviance, and belonging in modern India. The paper also argues that the process of decolonization in the Indian context must go hand in hand with debrahminization, as colonial governance drew legitimacy and form from pre-existing caste hierarchies, especially Brahminical ideologies. Methodologically, this study will involve ethnographic fieldwork with the Chhara (denotified) community in Gujarat, India. The research will combine participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and analysis of legal documents to examine how social and state practices continue to produce and reproduce the logic of criminalisation beyond the colonial legacy.