How someone can be a criminal by birth?

Just a few meters from the Ganesh chowk in burari on the right side of the road that lead to chamba, there are some temporary shelters (tents) of some people of tribal community. They are landless moving tribe of Rajasthan, Haryana and adjoining area of Madhya Pradesh states known as bourria tribe. They are landless people and even do not any residential proof so they remain deprived of number of government schemes. They make the iron tools and implements and see it as their only profession because they do not find daily labor as people do not offer them any job because of their criminal history.

In rudraprayag and Pauri district as well as Chamoli district they are living temporarily also and profess the same profession of making iron tools. I always been so curious and interested to know about these people as they have distinct culture, language, lifestyle, behavior, dresses as well as conversations. I often observed the activities of their children as well and found them very conservative and less talkative.

Last month I went to Jaipur and on the outskirt of the city and also on the roadsides I found colonies of people of same community, since I stayed there for two weeks one day I dared to ask one person about the community and he revealed that they are considered as criminal tribes since the british india and even today they are harassed because of their historical background.

This fueled my interest as hearing the criminal tribes was very unusual and surprising for me. I searched for some books in the library and found a book tribal rebellions of India, there I found some interesting things that in 1871 criminal tribes act was passed by the british government in which a number of tribes were declared as criminal tribes(criminals by birth). Through various amendments in the act it was more strengthened. The people of these tribes faced harassment and enmity as well as exclusion and outcaste from the mainstream society.

When India got independence these tribes ceased to be considered as criminal tribes and a new name become associated with these tribes “DE notified tribes (DNT)”. Although the name changed but the social believes and thinking/notions regarding them remain unchanged and people of free India also continued doing the same with these people as done by Britishers. Continued to be excluded, isolated, subtracted and out casted from the main stream society.

Talking to a member of respective community/tribe who was in his early fifty I came to know that even locals do not allow or offer them the daily labor. Their children  have no or very little access to schools since they keep no residential or address proof, no domicile etc. no  access to government schemes for development and welfare.

Yesterday going through an article in the Hindu newspaper I came to know that more than fifteen crores people in India are living as DE notified tribes in India. Seeing and observing the temporary shelters of theirs at different locations and seeing their lifestyle as well as the kind of life they are living I keep on thinking that what will be their way of seeing and defining the world, the world that consider them as criminal by birth. Sometimes I think that are not we also responsible for their present condition or state?

If you get a chance observe their life style, language as well as general behavior and public thinking about them. I hope you will find that how much good or bad notions and believes about a particular sect, religion, group, community etc. play a role in developing stratification and inequalities in the society.

  

shafiq

Rudraprayag.