Inheritance of a Tag

Known as "criminal tribes" during the British era, and de-notified tribes in independent India, communities continue to face colonial stigma, torture and discrimination even today

- Dakxin Chhara

ON July 14, 2024, Deva Pardhi was picked up by the police in Guna, Madhya Pradesh, on his wedding day. His uncle too was arrested in connection with a theft case. Pardhi was brutally tortured and died in police custody. According to Pardhi's family, "The police hanged them, upside down, tied a black cloth on their mouths and started beating them". The police, however, said that he died of a heart attack.

On November 13, 2024, when people in Gujarat were celebrating their Diwali vacation, Nitin Sansi, a 22-year-old boy, was riding his bike. The Dahod police suspected that he was carrying liquor and they followed him. They pushed him from the running bike and he fell. He got badly injured. Instead of taking him to the hospital, the police beat him up, and he died on the spot due to a brain haemorrhage. When family members and Sansi community members went to Dahod police station to file a case against police officials, instead of registering their FIR, the police filed an FIR against around 400 community members under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Even today, the FIR against the police officials has not been registered.

I can quote a number of incidents of brutal torture, rape, illegal detention, and mob lynching against the De-notified Tribes (DNTs), formally known as "criminal tribes" because of the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871 (CTA). The British left, but the stigma still haunts these tribes.