Criminal Tribes Act - History

History

The idea of Thuggees, who were known for murdering and robbing travellers in caravans, had started around the 17th century and had reached significant proportions by the time the British established themselves in India. As the death toll rose, so did the myths and legend around them, so much so that they became part of British lexicon, and popular culture with novels such as Confessions of a Thug (1839). In 1835, the British colonialists established the Thuggee and Dacoity Department to address the issue, with William Sleeman as its first Superintendent. Sleeman's title was changed to Commissioner in 1839, when the suppression of Thugs came into full force. The department consisted of around 120 people, who captured around 3000 thugs, of whom 466 were hanged, 1564 transported and 933 imprisoned for life. By the 1850s, the Thugs were mostly eradicated and the British determined to use similar methods to tackle other issues on a nationwide scale. They identified groups deemed to be dangerous and eventually introduced the Criminal Tribes Act.

When the Bill was introduced in 1871 by jurist James Fitzjames Stephen, who also formulated the Indian Evidence Act 1872, stress was laid on various ethnological theories of caste which linked profession, upbringing and background, as he noted, "... people from time immemorial have been pursuing the caste system defined job-positions: weaving, carpentry and such were hereditary jobs. So there must have been hereditary criminals also who pursued their forefathers’ profession.". On another occasion defining his theory he had commented, "When we speak of professional criminals, we...(mean) a tribe whose ancestors were criminals from time immemorial, who are themselves destined by the usage of caste to commit crime, and whose descendants will be offenders against the law, until the whole tribe is exterminated or accounts for in manner of thugs". The measure was a part of a wider attempt at social engineering which saw, for example, the categorisation of castes as being "agricultural" or "martial" as a means of facilitating the distribution of property or recognising which groups were loyal to the colonial government and therefore suitable for military recruitment, respectively.

The British government was able to summon a large amount of public support, including the nationalist press, for the excesses committed on such communities. This is because the Criminal Tribes Act was posed widely as a social reform measure which reformed criminals through work. However, when they tried to make a living like everybody else, they did not find work outside the settlement because of public prejudice and ostracisation. The situation has continued to this day.

The tribes "notified" under the Act were labelled as Criminal Tribes for their so-called "criminal tendencies". As a result anyone born in these approximately 160 communities across the country was presumed as a "born criminal", irrespective of their criminal precedents. This gave the police sweeping powers to arrest them, control them, and monitor their movements. Once a tribe was officially notified, its members had no recourse to repeal such notices under the judicial system. From then on, their movements were monitored through a system of compulsory registration and passes, which specified where the holders could travel and reside, and district magistrates were required to maintain records of all such people.

An inquiry was set up in 1883, to investigate the need for extending the Act to the rest of India, and received an affirmative response. 1897 saw another amendment to the Act, wherein local governments were empowered to establish separate "reformatory" settlements, for tribal boys from age four to eighteen years, away from their parents.

Eventually, in 1911, it was enacted in Madras Presidency as well, bringing entire India into the jurisdiction of this law, in 1908, special ‘settlements’ were constructed for the notified tribes where they had to perform hard labour. With subsequent amendments to the Act, punitive penalties were increased, and fingerprinting of all members of the criminal tribe was made compulsory, such tight control according to many scholars was placed to ensure that no future revolts could take place.

Many of the tribes were "settled" in villages under the police guard, whose job was to ensure that no registered member of the tribe was absent with notice. Also imposition of punitive police posts on the villages with history of "misconduct" was also common.

In the coming decades, as a fallout of this act, a large section of the these notified tribes took up nomadic existence, living on the fringes of the society.

In 1936, Jawaharlal Nehru denouncing the Act commented, "The monstrous provisions of the Criminal Tribes Act constitute a negation of civil liberty. No tribe be classed as criminal as such and the whole principle out of consonance with all civilised principles."