Murdered with no moral restraint

Nobody's People (Stanford University Press, 2020) takes us into the world of the Kanjars, often considered thieves. Introducing us to wily policemen, quirky aristocrats, and resourceful goddesses, the author shows that hierarchy is a potent normative idiom through which Kanjars imagine better lives and pursue social ambitions. A community once patronized secretly by aristocrats and now precariously in the service of farmers and the police, Kanjars try and fail repeatedly to find a way into hierarchic relations rather than out of them. In a world where to be is to belong, they are nobody's people, those who can be murdered with no moral restraint or remorse. Following Kanjars on their journey between death and hope, Anastasia Piliavsky invites readers to see in hierarchy-not inequality-a viable ethical frame instead of an archaic system of subjugation.

Denotified 68 Years Ago, ‘Criminal’ Tribes Still Fight Stigma, Poverty

August 31 is celebrated as Liberation Day by Denotified Nomadic Tribes across India, but real freedom stays far-fetched as social stigma and systemic discrimination continue to affect people belonging to such tribes, says Imaad ul Hasan in Outlook (Aug 30, 2020). 

Still from 61st National Award-winning film ‘The Lost Behrupiya’ 
by Sriram Dalton

“There is a stereotype against Denotified Nomadic Tribes (DNTs) in police, media, society and even some judges. Every member of this community is considered a criminal by the virtue of birth and this stigma continues till they die,” says Sudam Rathore, a PhD research scholar from Laman Banjara tribe of Maharashtra.

Sudam is currently teaching in a tribal area of Dhindori in Nashik district. While talking about the institutional bias towards DNTs, he referred to a 2019 Supreme Court’s judgment.

In March last year, the Supreme Court had set aside its own 2009 judgment and set six convicts free, who were earlier sent to death row. It was a first of its kind ruling. They were convicted by multiple courts - including the Apex Court- in a famous rape and multiple murder case of Nashik district. The Supreme Court said the six men were falsely implicated and roped in by the police. All six of them, who spent 16 years in jail for a crime they never committed, belonged to the nomadic tribes formerly declared as ‘born criminals’.

Prominent and educated persons in law enforcement and government have also shown to have a bias against the DNTs, one example being former IPS officer and present Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry, Kiran Bedi. Bedi’s controversial tweet calling people from ex-criminal tribes as "hardcore professionals in committing crimes" came after police named Bawarias in Bulandshahr rape incident. She later apologised after protests. 

In 2007, the UN Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) asked the Indian government to repeal the Habitual Offenders Act and affectively rehabilitate them. In its concluding observation, it expressed concern and stated that “the so-called denotified and nomadic, which are listed for their alleged ‘criminal tendencies’ under the former Criminal Tribes Act (1871), continue to be stigmatized under the Habitual Offenders Act (1852) (art. 2 (1) ) ©).”

The Kanjars revisited

'White as Milk and Rice' (Penguin, 240 pp, Rs. 399, 2020) is a latest book on six isolated tribes which also features 'Kanjars', and reiterates that the replacement of the Criminal Tribes Act with the Habitual Offenders Act, 1952 has re-stigmatized their marginal existence.

Author Nidhi Dugar Kundalia suggests that 'they may not be nomads any more, but they can't break the habit of keeping things close in case they need to run.' Pandits sprinkle water from the Ganga when they pass by; other men and women protest when their encampment is too close to the village, often destroying the Kanjar's homes or burning them down; even the poorest Chamars refuse to take work from them. They are subjected to headcounts on account of their being considered habitual offenders by the state, or their settlements are made close to the police station. Often, the members of such tribes become easy replacements for criminals whom the policy fail to apprehend.

It is easy then for them to be trapped in the soul-killing, gravitational pull of the judicial system; survival then becomes a daily hustle and their relationships with neighbours and society are coarsened and befouled by that hustle.  

Need it be said that the country attained independence, but not the hapless Kanjars.