Resumo de Denotified And Nomadic Tribes Of India

The social category generally known as the Denotified and Nomadic Tribes of India covers a population or approximately six crores. Some of them are included in the list of Scheduled Castes, some others in the Scheduled Tribes and quite a few in none of the above. What is common to all these Denotified and Nomadic Tribes (DNTs) is the fate of being branded as ?born? criminals. The story of the DNTs goes back to the early years of colonial rule. In those times, whoever opposed the British colonial expansion was perceived as a potential criminal. Particularly if any attempt was made to oppose the colonial government with the use of arms, the charge of criminality was a certainty. Many of the wandering minstrels, fakirs, petty traders, rustic transporters and disbanded groups of soldiers were included by the British in their list of criminal groups. During the first half of the nineteenth century, the tribes in the North West frontier declared ?criminal tribes?. The category became increasingly open ended, and by 1871 the British had prepared an official list of Criminal Tribes (CTs). An Act to regulate criminal tribes was passed in that year. For instance, the tribes who had fought the British in Khandesh or on the banks of Narmada and were convicted under section 110 of the Indian Penal Code were to be recognized as criminal tribes. The Criminal Tribes Act made provisions for establishing reformatory settlements where the criminal Adivasis could be kept in confinement and subjected to low paid work. They were required to report to the guard rooms several times everyday, so that they did not escape the oppressive settlements. By 1921, the CT Act was extended to cover numerous other tribes in the Madras Presidency, Hyderabad and Mysore. Thus, about the time the Indian politics saw the emergence of Mahatma Gandhi as the leader of the freedom struggle; Indian society mutely witnessed the emergence of a new class of people who were branded as born criminals. Soon after Independence, the communities notified as criminal adivasis were Denotified by the Government. This notification was followed by the substitution of a series of Acts, generally entitled ?Habitual Offenders Act.? The denotification and the passing of the HOAs should have ended the misery of the communities penalized under the CT Act. This, however, did not transpire as the HOAs preserved most of the provisions of the former CT Act, except the premise implicit in it that an entire community can be born criminal. The police forces as well as the people in general were taught to look upon the ?criminal tribes? as born criminals during the colonial times. That attitude continues to persist even today. One does not know if the police training academies in India still teach the trainees that certain communities are habitually criminal; but surely the CT Act is a part of the syllabus leading to the discussion of crime watch. The result is that every time there is a petty theft in a locality, the DNTs in the neighborhood become the first suspects. The ration between the arrests and the convictions of the DNTs needs to be analyzed to see the extent of the harassment caused by the police to this most vulnerable and disadvantaged section or our society. The land possessed by the criminal tribes was already alienated during the colonial rule. After independence, various state governments have done little to restore their land to them. Schemes for economic uplift do not seem to have benefited them. The illiteracy rate among the DNTs is higher than the scheduled castes or scheduled tribes, malnutrition more frequent and provisions for education and health care almost negligible, since most of the DNTs have remained nomadic in habit. Above all, there is no end to the atrocities that the DNTs have to face. Being illiterate and ignorant of the law of the land the DNTs know very little about police procedures, and so they often get into difficult situations. The onus of proving innocence rests with them. Prof Devi, the author knows many among them who are scared to wear new clothes for the fear of being arrested and therefore soil them before using them. Mob-lynched, hounded from village to village, starved of all civic amenities, deprived of means of livelihood and gripped by the fear of police persecution, the DNTs of India are on the run. Freedom has still not reached them.

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