'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.
