Kanjar Care: 2019

Tuesday, May 7, 2019

Tagging some tribes as 'Criminal' is linked to power dynamics

(Dr) Poulami Sarkar
University of Mumbai

While there is general consensus about the fact that “criminal tribe” was a stereotypical category created by the British, it has also been argued that this categorisation has its basis in India’s ancient past. A close examination of ancient Indian scriptures and colonial archival texts reveals how both had very different views about the so-called “criminal tribes,” which in turn affected the ways in which power hierarchies were constructed and maintained. Poulami Sarker, a Ph.D scholar at the University of Mumbai, provides incisive insights on the phenomenon through history in her paper published in the Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. 54, Issue No. 16, 20 Apr, 2019.

She concludes: "In Western eyes, they remained as superstitious, magic-prone people, who did not believe in god, but the bloodthirsty goddess. In the British period, the mechanisms of power were engaged to transform such groups from within. The fundamental difference in the treatment of the so-called criminal tribes in the three major historical phases was that the ancient and the medieval rulers set them free but restricted their movement in civil areas and maintained their presence in combative forces in times of necessity, but in the colonial period, the British targeted certain communities and made an effort to transform the so-called criminal tribes, to subordinate them in the name of labour mobilisation".

The question that is worth exploring is: why have some tribes continued to be remain tagged as 'criminal' ?

Innovative Initiative: To match a `thief'

WWF and the Madhya Pradesh forest department have embarked on a unique initiative to gentrify the `criminal' Pardhi tribe and stop large-scale tiger poaching. The project has two linked objectives - one, persuading the adults to change their ways and two, giving the community's children a shot at education and a subsequent normal life. Called `residential bridge course', the Pardhi children spend none months away from their families in such `borading schools' before crossing over to conventional schools. By now, nearly 250 children have gone through the bridge course in the last three years.

"Dissuading children who accompany their parents on dangerous hunts for wild boars, leopards and tigers haven't been easy,'' says S S Rajput, Chief Conservator of Forests, Bhopal. The challenge is to show Pardhi tribe that it is profitable to protect wildlife than poach it. The need is to co-opt them in the Indian state rather than fight them. . . .more

The Initiative

Started in Nov 2009, rehabilitating the Kanjar in Jhalawar district of Rajasthan is a joint initiative of IFFDC (http://www.iffdc.org.in) and Rajasthan Mission on Skills & Livelihoods (www.rajasthanlivelihoods.org) with support from UNDP. The project aims to not only develop a comprehensive understanding of the tribe's past but relate to it in devising inclusive livelihoods options for the stigmatised community. The specific objectives of the initiative are:

1. to sensitize and mobilize Kanjar families towards improvement in their living standards.

2. to strengthen the linkages of community groups with other agencies to improve their access to productive resources in Jhalarapatan and Gangdhar blocks of Jhalawar district.

3. to respond to contemporary poverty related issues, including health and primary education, of women and children.

4. to enhance state-civil society-community partnership towards policy advocacy.

Plotting Kundli as an idea to understand social dynamics

Kanjar offer a formidable challenge in ameliorating their plight. There are wide array of inter-related issues that impact their lives - from cultural isolation to social stigma, from resource poverty to low incomes and from official apathy to economic exclusion. Understanding inter-relationships between issues and the manner in which these influence an `intervention' is critical to designing livelihoods programs for them. `Kundli chart' as a `concept' is being piloted to understand how each of the variables impact the outcome and to get a sense of the combination of factors that need to be tweaked to create a tangible impact.

The `co-production' idea

Speaking of the Bhils, the Pindaris and the Thugs, Gandhiji had said: `...all are our own countrymen. To win them over is your and my work. So long as we fear our own brethern, we are unfit to reach the goal.'

In response to Gandhiji's remark, the idea of Co-production is being mooted to bring Kanjar into the mainstream. Co-production is a concept that gives responsibility to people who are regarded as `the problem', and makes them feel useful when they had been condemned as useless - and by so doing transforms their lives. It is not same as `participation' because co-production means `reciprocity'. The point is that practically everybody does have something to give and both they, and the community around them, are better for the giving.