A STUDY OF CRIMINAL TRIBES IN INDIA

Table of Contents
S. No. Title Page
No.
1 Introduction 3
2 What is Criminology? 3
3 The need for the study of criminology 3
4 Criminal Tribes 4
5 Why was the Criminal Tribes Act enacted? 7
6 Marginalisation of Criminal Tribes 10
7 Current Position of the de-notified tribes 12
8 Conclusion 14
9 Bibliography 15

Introduction
What is Criminology?
 A study of the Criminal Tribes in India

Criminology is the study of crime and how we as a society react to crime. No other
qualification brings together so many different ways of understanding crime. It involves the
study the characteristics of the offenders, learn how police operate, and how the law and the
courts try to prevent and control crime. Debates about youth and crime, the politics of crime
and policing, services to crime victims, and media coverage of crime are imperative facets in
the study of criminology. Criminology brings together law, psychology, policing, sociology,
and cultural studies to give a big picture view of crime in our society.1

The need for the study of criminology

The primary reason behind people’s curiosity is to protect themselves from such negative
situation that they may encounter in the future. Interest in crime is not only personal, but also
bears a social qualification. This situation is actually quite apparent in the media. Judiciary
and police reporters of newspapers and TV channels make special programs and write special
essays on crimes and criminals.2 There exists a real and justified level of curiosity in
understanding how the mind of a criminal works and what are the social, psychological and
the economic scenario that leads one to the life of crime.

It is also claimed that the society having interest in crime is beneficial in terms of raising
social awareness. The society checks whether the rules of criminal law are obeyed or not by
having interest in crime. As a result, the fact that the criminals are effectively punished raises
community’s confidence in the state and the judiciary system, whereas such factors such as
failure to effectively fight against crime, failure of the judiciary system to work well and
remissions of punishment cause people lose their belief in the state of law and the judiciary
system.

Crime is costly to the society, besides the damage caused by the commitment of a crime,
costs incurred by the society in maintaining the police forces, the judiciary system and the
penitentiaries established for catching and punishing criminals are extremely high. Thus the
interest of the society in criminology and finding more efficient ways to combat crime is
understandable.

In addition to the same, the feeling of insecurity arising in the society because of crime is
more important than the substantial damages directly caused by crime, because it is extremely
1
Subject overview, School of Social and Cultural Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand,
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/study/programmes-courses/subjects/criminology, website visited on 29th October 2013
2
Prof. Dr. Timur Demirbaş, Kriminoloji, Seçkin Publishing House, 2nd ed., Ankara, 2005, pp. 40-44, translated
and posted online on http://www.umut.org.tr/en/yazi.aspx?id=19576, website visited on 29th October 2013

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 A study of the Criminal Tribes in India

difficult to determine in advance the damage which can be caused by disbelief in the police
and the judiciary system and which is spread by surging. Indeed, due to the developing
communication network, instant appearing of crimes in the media and sometimes by being
exaggerated causes such disbelief to spread. Such disbelief among people may sometimes
gain an international dimension, while causing domestic and foreign companies to cease their
investments and tourists not to go to such places because of security of life and property.3

In addition to such general interest, some occupational groups have special interest in crimes
and criminals due to their duties. Criminology is quite important for such people as
prosecutors, lawyers, police, gendarme, penitentiary managers, executioners, educators and
politicians, as well as social service specialists. Indeed, such people have to have knowledge,
at least in general terms, on criminology in order to fight against crime, reasons of crime and
criminals.

Criminal Tribes

The study of criminal behaviour in the past has led to the development of recognition of
criminal or deviant behaviour which has its advantages, but the same has its disadvantages as
it leads to stereotypes and labelling of certain people of similar characteristics and their
subsequent persecution. Even though the study of criminal behaviour leads to the better
understanding of the trends of behaviour and the tendencies of a criminally active person, it
also has led to the persecution of some in the attempts made by the state in commanding
control over the social events.

In the mid-nineteenth century, there was a focused attempt by the British Administrators to
garner control over the Indian society by providing for crime countering provisions. This led
to the promulgation of the Indian Penal Code, Indian Evidence Act and the Female
Infanticide Act, 1862 and the introduction of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1861. The
introduction of the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871 aimed at blending in with the local customs and
practices while providing for procedure to bring the said social elements under control.4

The discrimination, abuse, and social and economic marginalisation faced by millions of
Indians belonging to 'de-notified and nomadic tribes' (DNT-NTs) have their roots in 19th
century British colonialism when such tribes were 'notified' by the British as being inherently

3
ibid.
4
Subir Rana, Nomadism, Ambulation and the ‘Empire’: Contextualising the Criminal Tribes Act XXVII of 1871,
Transcience (2011) Vol. 2, Issue 2

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"criminal". However, this historical pattern of marginalisation and abuse continues today, and
is blight on India's human rights record and its declared commitment to the equality and well-
being of all its citizens under both domestic and international law.5

The constitution of the notion of a "criminal caste" was a gradual process, involving changes
not only in the way in which particular Indian communities were represented but also in the
way in which history itself was represented. In 1904, the Madras District Gazetteer for the
Bellary District of southern India described the predicament of two Indian communities thus:

It is noticed that the earlier reports of the incidents of reporting of the increasing crime in the
de-notified areas were done as a part of the reports of social studies which looked into the
effect of industry and the Colonial activities in the said areas,

‘The railways again have robbed some of the people of their only employment. Before the
days of trains the wandering Korachas and Lambadis lived by trading with the west coast,
driving down there once or twice a year large herds of pack-cattle laden with cotton, piece-
goods, etc., and returning with salt, areca, coconut and so forth. This occupation is now gone
and these two castes, driven to less reputable means of livelihood, are responsible for much
of the crime of the district.’6

The above extract was taken from the Gazette issue in 1904, the reporting of the activities of
the said tribes and the official stand on the same matter had taken a radical turn by the year
1930 when the following extract appeared in the very same gazette,

‘The excuse that the original occupations of the Lambadis and Korachas have disappeared,
has become threadbare with age. It may be safely asserted that these people always had
criminal leavings even if their tours to the West Coast were ostensibly for purposes of
trade.’7

The transformation of hundreds of communities like those of the Lambadis and Korachas into
criminal castes or tribes marked the confluence of several strains of social thought. Two
major bodies of knowledge were instrumental in constituting the notion of a criminal caste:

(1) ideas about the nature of Indian society derived from colonial anthropology; and

5
Human Rights Features, Stigma Of Criminality, 09 July, 2004, document available on
http://www.countercurrents.org/hr-hrf090704.htm, accessed on 9th October 2013
6
Madras District Gazette for Bellary District, 1904, Government of Madras
7
Madras District Gazette for Bellary District, 1930, Government of Madras

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 A study of the Criminal Tribes in India

(2) ideas drawn from the contemporary discourse on crime and class in Britain.8

A number of theories about the nature of Indian society converged in the notion of a criminal
caste. The behaviour of Indians was guided by caste, caste defined occupation, and caste was
easily, if vaguely, related to racial and hereditary theories of criminality. If certain Indians
committed crime, it was because their castes prescribed such behaviour.

It was clearly pointed out in the Indian Legislature by James Fitzjames Stephens, a high
ranking British Official of the East-India Company, that,

‘Traders go by castes in India: a family of carpenters now will be a family of carpenters a

century or five centuries hence, if they last so long.... If we only keep this in mind when we
speak of "professional criminals," we shall then realize what the term really does mean. It
means a tribe whose ancestors were criminals from time immemorial, who are themselves
destined by the usages of caste to commit crime, and whose descendants will be offenders
against the law, until the whole tribe is exterminated or accounted for’9

Why was the Criminal Tribes Act enacted?

The Census of India operations were launched in the last quarter of the 19th century
throughout the length and breadth of the country. The British administrators could not
understand the cultural pluralism of the Indian people and their sense of accommodation and
adjustment with different religions and communities. The imperial rulers also could not
understand the meaning of nomadism, for instance, which was a way of life with a large
number of communities in India and outside.

Thus such classes of people and communities who lived with and in nature, and practised
nomadism were misunderstood by the imperial rulers and administrators. They considered
them not only uncivilised and uncultured but "savages and barbarians" who posed a threat to
the law and order of the society. Since they were poor and lacked definite means of
production to earn their living, they were assumed to be thieves and dacoits. Thus they were
dubbed as criminals. According to David Arnold, the Criminal Tribes Act (CTA) was used
8
Rachel J. Tolen, Colonizing and Transforming the Criminal Tribesman: The Salvation Army in British India,
American Ethnologist, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Feb., 1991)
9
Governor-General of India, 1871, Abstract of the Proceedings of the Council of the Governor-General of India,
Assembled for the Purpose of Making Laws and Regulations, 1870, Vol. 9, Calcutta, Office of the
Superintendent of Government Printing.

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against ‘wandering groups, nomadic petty traders and pastoralists, gypsy types, hill- and
forest-dwelling tribals, in short, against a wide variety of marginals who did not conform to
the colonial pattern of settled agricultural and wage labour’10

These nomadic communities were forced to settle on government lands on the peripheries of
villages and cities. They were issued identity cards that were mandatory for them to carry
whenever they moved out of their settlements. For instance, the bauria11 were made to carry
"chittha" an identity card contained in a metallic pipe. Its absence was an unbailable offence
and one could be arrested without any warrants. Bauria males were roll-called thrice a day by
the local chowkidar, lambardar or at the police post.12

The CTA of 1871 was modified in 1911 making certain draconian recommendations of
getting finger prints, etc, and also registering these communities properly. It was noted during
the fieldwork among the bauria who mentioned: "It was only their men who were made to
give thumb impressions by rolling the whole thumb from left to right. It was no simple thumb
impression as taken from other communities.”

It has been noted by Meena Radhakrishnan that,

"The needs of practical governance led to a search for a 'social scientific' explanation of
crime in India, connecting Indian criminality to the introduction of the railways, the new
forest policy, repeated famines and so on."13

It was also noted that,

‘The language of the revised Criminal Tribes Act of 1911 reflected the imperial refocus from
the countryside to the urban landscape. Though the fictional label of 'tribe' was retained, the
groups who could be proclaimed and imprisoned without establishing individual guilt now
included any collection of persons - that is, 'gang' - who had engaged over time in
premeditated collective crime’14

10
Arnold, David: 'Crime and Crime Control in Madras 1858-1947', Crime and Criminality in British India,
University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1985
11
De-notified tribe in Punjab
12
Birinder Pal Singh, Ex-Criminal Tribes of Punjab, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 43, No. 51, Dec. 20,
2008, p. 58-65
13
Radhakrishna, Meena, Dishonoured by History: 'Criminal Tribes' and British Colonial Policy, Orient Longman,
Chandigarh, 2001
14
Freitag, Sandra B, 'Crime in the Social Order of Colonial North India', Modern Asian Studies, Vol 25, No 2, p.
227-61

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In 1835 Sleeman reached the conclusion that the Thugs and the criminal tribes were one and
the same people; in 1852 H Brereton, the Superintendent Thuggee Investigations, Punjab,
reaffirmed this linkage, observing that Thugs in the Punjab, although mostly Mazhabis (the
Chuhra section within the Sikh community), were recruited from the general criminal class:
'Chuhra thieves, Sainsee burglars, and Child Stealers, and Jat dacoits'. But the linkage, in
terms of a common origin, was erroneous for the simple reason that the Thugs were a
professional organisation of individuals, recruited from the whole spectrum of society, not a
tribe or community.15

By 1911, when the Criminal Tribes Act was extended to the Madras Presidency, an
established body of knowledge about criminal castes, including theories about their
constitution, had already been developed. Following the 1892 publication of Mullaly's Notes
on Criminal Classes, further descriptions appeared in the Gazetteers, Thurston's Castes and
Tribes of Southern India,16 and various other publications. These accounts presented their
subjects in remarkably uniform and conventional terms. Thurston's and Mullaly's accounts
remained authoritative and were cited heavily in later descriptions. Often, the native
assistants used in the collection of information had been drawn from the ranks of the
prestigious and the powerful, and too often the portrayals of "criminal castes" appeared to
rely on hearsay and innuendo, undoubtedly filtered through the particular prejudices of the
chosen informants. Vanniyans, for instance, were said to "have rather a bad name for
crime".17

There was widespread registration imposed upon the marginalised tribes and thus leading to
identification and segregation of the said tribes in mainstream social section. This further has
led to high marginalisation to the present day whereby there have been reports of widespread
atrocities being committed against theses sections off the society.

It is pertinent to note that to this date, more than 5% of the population of India is covered
under the present day Habitual Offenders Act which has retained the draconian nature of the
earlier Colonial Laws and has further led to the marginalisation of the social groups.

15
Major, Andrew J, 'State and Criminal Tribes in Colonial Punjab: Surveillance, Control and Reclamation of the
'Dangerous Classes' ', Modern Asian Studies, Vol 33, No 3, pp 657-88, 1999
16
Thurston and Edgar, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, 7 vols., Madras: Government Press., 1909
17
Supra, note 7

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Marginalisation of Criminal Tribes

A study of the field work conducted by various socially active groups 18 among the de-notified
tribes of Punjab provides for a number of stories and personalised anecdotes from the
members of such communities who had been harassed especially by the police. And, they
quote this as an evidence of the police terror in their minds till date.19

It is pertinent to note that the Criminal Tribes Act was not repealed with the end of the
Colonial Rule over India. The CTA remained effective even after 1947. The members of such
tribes finally got "independence" on August 31, 1952 when the tag of criminality was
removed. Now they are called de-notified tribes or 'vimukt jatis'. Yet, as has been mentioned
earlier, there has been little or no respite for the tribesmen as they have been subject to
widespread marginalisation and the new law, as promulgated by the Indian Legislature has
yet again enslaved them to the discriminatory policies of the State whereby they have been
debarred from most of the rights that are guaranteed to the other social groups in the country.

It was wide belief among English Legislators that though there is a procedure for the
registration of the said tribes as ‘criminal tribes’ during the colonial tribes, the registration
used to happen simply on the ipse dixit20 of the Local Government.

The procedure for registration of Criminal tribes followed during the Colonial period can be
summed up as follows,

First, the local police must make lengthy and detailed inquiries and their conclusions have to
be supported by oral and by documentary evidence. These have next to be tested by the
District Superintendent of Police, and, in succession, the case is examined by the District
Magistrate, the Deputy Inspector-General of Police, and the Divisional Commissioner. If
they, one and all, are convinced that a good case has been made out then the papers are sent
to the Inspector-General of Police, who examines them afresh. At long last, it he approves of
the many case histories, voluminous statements and numerous appendices he will forward the
record with his recommendation to Government for final orders. Moreover, at any time after

18
supra, note 11, p. 65. Reference has been taken of the said studies in brief in the said article.
19
The study mentions that the members of the Bauria tribe have stated that they were made to sit at the
police station or some police post for hours together and asked to do 'begaar' that included odd jobs like doing
domestic or agriculture work for the police office.
20
Latin for ‘He, himself said it’. It points towards an unsupported statement that rests solely on the authority
of the individual who makes it.

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registration, a member of a criminal tribe can apply to the District Magistrate for his name to
be removed from the register.21

It is noted from the above explanation that the intent of the said government was to classify
and subdue the said nomadic and ‘uncivilized’ tribes. Many observers note that the British
Colonial rule had faced a huge challenge from the very groups that they had classified as
‘Criminal tribes’ in the 1857 revolt and thus the enactment of the Criminal Tribes Act has
been seen as a step towards subduing and marginalizing the threat that these tribes posed to
the British Empire.22

The said act was justified by the British Government under the following guise,

It was promulgated as not being a "punitive" Act and had been conceived in the interests of
the criminal tribes themselves as well as in the interests of the public, who have every right to
demand protection from the attentions of dacoits, burglars and the like. The chief motive of
the Act was to save criminal tribes from themselves; to reform and to declaim them, so far as
was humanly possible. The Act, supplied to the criminal classes a method by which they may
be able to improve themselves and to lead decent lives.23

It is the view of many that even if the scope, procedure and object of the Criminal Tribes Act,
1871 was made in the earnest, the effect of the said act has been very detrimental to the fabric
of Indian society and has contributed in no way to the repression of crime in the Country. In
the contrary, it is very clearly seen that the said Act has led to the deepening of the pre-
existent divide in the Indian society by the promulgation of the said act. The divide between
the classes and the domination of the de-notified tribes stand witness to the same. It is also
imperative to note that the act and its scope and object have carried on in the form of the
Habitual Offenders Act, 1952. This is in clear contrary to the rights guaranteed under the
Constitution of India, 1950 and the various other laws promulgated by the Indian Legislature
in accordance to the Constitution.

Current Position of the de-notified tribes

21
P. Leo Faulkner, SETTLEMENTS OF CRIMINAL TRIBES IN INDIA, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 71,
No. 3677 (MAY 11, 1923), p. 449, The author was an officer in the Indian Police.
22
Mahasweta Devi, India’s De-notified Tribes, March 2002, document available on
http://www.indiatogether.org/bhasha/budhan/birth1871.htm
23
supra, note 20

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A study of the current position of the de-notified tribes leads to the understanding that
nothing much has changed in the sphere of administration or social recognition of these
tribes. The struggle for recognition of these tribes as Scheduled tribes is underway and stands
testament to the fact that the tribes are not in equal footing to even the most marginalised of
the mainstream population. They are being actively discriminated against and are also being
denied the rights guaranteed to the tribes that have been seen as marginalized. The issue
becomes grim as there is no uniformity in the characterisation of STs.

Scheduled Tribes is an administrative political category.24 President (and the Parliament in

modification of the initial notification issued by the President in consultation with the
Governor of the concerned state) has been enabled to specify not only tribes and tribal
communities but even parts of groups within any tribe or tribal community, as belonging to
the category of Scheduled Tribe.25

If this article is seen along with the provisions of Art. 342(2) and Art. 341 of the Constitution,
it is clear that the classification and the listing of Scheduled Tribes or Scheduled Castes is an
instrument of policy….. it is possible that some communities, who are treated as tribals by the
anthropologists do not find mention in the list of Scheduled Tribes: on the other hand the list
may include many communities whose status as tribals is debatable... The Constitution has
not laid down any criteria for specification of communities as Scheduled Tribes.26

In an effort to garner the requisite recognition for their cause, the vimukt jatis established an
All India Denotified Tribes (Vimukt Jatis) Sewak Sangh in 1982 to articulate the demands of
the member communities. Its Punjab unit has also been raising the voice of seven de-notified
tribes (DnTs) at various levels. According to the Annual Report (2003-2004) of the Ministry
of Tribal Affairs, Government of India, there is no tribal population in the state.27

The issues raised by these groups are two fold,

One, denying them their original and traditional social status and degrading them by clubbing
with the untouchables with whom they keep distance.

24
Art. 342 of the Indian Constitution
25
Roy, Burman, B K, ‘Tribal Population: Interface of Historical Ecology and Political Economy', Continuity and
Change in Tribal Society, Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla, 1993, p. 176
26
ibid
27
supra, note 12

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Two, denying them their right to separate quotas as prescribed in the reservation policy of the
country.

Conclusion
In conclusion, it would be proper to state that the usage of criminology and methods of
criminal determination in the cases of Criminal Tribes has gone horribly wrong. It is to be
noted that the Common Law and the current Indian Legal System work in the direction of
reformation and not retribution, but the effect of the said Act and its successor have been to
the effect of the latter.

In the attempts to recognise criminal behaviour, the effect of the Act has been to marginalize,
discriminate and supress the various social groups that have been listed in the said Act. The
recognition as Criminal tribes can be seen to be much more stigmatic than the recognition of
a certain group as an OBC28, a SC29 or a ST30, thus deepening the divide between the various
social groups in the Country.

28
Other Backward Classes
29
Schedule Castes
30
Schedule tribes

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There have been incidents of violence against the members of the de-notified tribes in the
country which have led to the belief that these acts have arisen only because of the status that
has been bestowed upon the said persons by the said Act.31

It should be taken into consideration by the Legislature before promulgating any act that there
should not be any detriment to any section of the society as that would be in detriment to both
the Constitutional Goals of the Country and shall lead to deeper divide just as the CTA, 1871
and the HOA, 1952 have in the recent past.

Bibliography
Books referred:

1. Anil Kumar, Criminology: Principles & Concepts, 1st ed., Ancient Publishing House,
2011
2. Sandra Walklate, Criminology : The Basics, 2nd ed., Routledge, 2005
3. Tim Newburn, Criminology, 2nd ed., Routledge, 2011
4. Thurston and Edgar, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, 7 vols., Madras
Government Press., 1909

Articles referred:

31
For further reference, please refer to the incidents enlisted in supra, note 22

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1. Roy, Burman, B K, ‘Tribal Population: Interface of Historical Ecology and Political

Economy', Continuity and Change in Tribal Society, Indian Institute of Advanced
Studies, Shimla, 1993
2. P. Leo Faulkner, SETTLEMENTS OF CRIMINAL TRIBES IN INDIA, Journal of the
Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 71, No. 3677 (MAY 11, 1923)
3. Prof. Dr. Timur Demirbaş, Kriminoloji, Seçkin Publishing House, 2nd ed., Ankara,
2005
4. Subir Rana, Nomadism, Ambulation and the ‘Empire’: Contextualising the Criminal
Tribes Act XXVII of 1871, Transcience (2011) Vol. 2, Issue 2
5. Rachel J. Tolen, Colonizing and Transforming the Criminal Tribesman: The Salvation
Army in British India, American Ethnologist, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Feb., 1991)
6. Arnold, David: 'Crime and Crime Control in Madras 1858-1947', Crime and
Criminality in British India, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1985
7. Birinder Pal Singh, Ex-Criminal Tribes of Punjab, Economic and Political Weekly,
Vol. 43, No. 51, Dec. 20, 2008,
8. Radhakrishna, Meena, Dishonoured by History: 'Criminal Tribes' and British Colonial
Policy, Orient Longman, Chandigarh, 2001
9. Freitag, Sandra B, 'Crime in the Social Order of Colonial North India', Modern Asian
Studies, Vol 25, No 2
10. Major, Andrew J, 'State and Criminal Tribes in Colonial Punjab: Surveillance,
Control and Reclamation of the 'Dangerous Classes' ', Modern Asian Studies, Vol 33,
No 3, 1999

Websites:

1. www.scconline.com
2. www.jstor.com
3. www.heinonline.com
4. www.countercurrents.com
5. www.indiatogether.org
6. www.indiankanoon.com
7. www.manupatra.com

13 Project in the subject of Criminology, Victimology and Penology