Criminal Tribes of United Provinces PAJKAJ KUMAR MISHRA

CASIRJ

Volume 6 Issue 12 [Year - 2015]

ISSN 2319 – 9202

Criminal Tribes of United Provinces PAJKAJ KUMAR MISHRA RESEARCH SCHOLAR, DEPARTMENHT OF HISTORY B. B. A. U. LUCKNOW The late nineteenth century witnessed the growth of British imperialism in Indian subcontinent. With the extension of British Empire in India there were many challenges before them. Industrial revolution and scientific discoveries were affecting the life of every common man in those days. This situation led to the need for continual reformulation of social policy in relation to the population both in Britain and its colonies. W.W. Hunter, a senior civil servant whom the British government had asked to conduct a great stock-taking after a century of British rule in India, wrote of a more secure, more prosperous India where roads, railways, bridges, canals, schools and hospitals had been built: famines tackled; Thugi, Dacoity and predatory castes suppressed trade developed; barbaric social practices like widow-burning and infanticide abolished. The Criminal Tribes Act was one of the monstrous provisions of British social policy, which dealt with some predatory nomadic castes. It searches the origin and meanings of a piece of legislation, The Criminal Tribes Act, which was introduced by colonial government in 1871. This act was introduced in United Provinces from the beginning and had affected 16,68,845 people according to official figures. India was probably the only country in the world that had recognized crime as an inherited trait and large number of people were registered and stigmatized as criminals by birth. In one province alone in the United Provinces there were about two million people described as „criminal‟ by birth. They were scattered all over the India. To control these people and also to their nefarious activities, colonial administration launched an act which was called as Criminal Tribes Act, which turned a large number of itinerant communities into criminals category. Colonial government used this act as an illustration of some general aspects of British social policy in the colonies. The colonial administration in India displayed its ignorance of India‟s social structure and cultural institutions. In 1871 the act was enforced in the Northern part of British India including some parts of United Provinces and Oudh also and later on it was extended to whole India after various amendments in the act. Under this act some castes were branded as „criminal‟ due to the act which they did to spend their life. Their act was termed as community profession by the colonial government and hence the whole community was called as criminal tribes or born criminals. In United Provinces these tribes alphabetically wereInternational Research Journal of Commerce Arts and Science http://www.casirj.com

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1. Aherias 2. Badhaks 3. Banjaras 4. Barwars 5. Baurias 6. Berias 7. Bhars 8. Bhatras 9. Bhantus or Bhatus 10. Chain Mallah 11. Daleras 12. Doms 13. Gujars 14. Haburas

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15. Jogi Pathans 16. Dusadhs 17. Kanjars 18. Karwals 19. Musahars 20. Nats 21. Oudhias 22. Pasis 23. Rinds 24. Sansiahs 25. Sanauriahs 26. Bhamptas 27. Chaparbands 28. Marwari Baurias

These tribes were predatory, itinerant, socially backward lower class people of colonial government. United Provinces, one of the greatest provinces of colonial government, situated in the northern part of British Indian boundary. These tribes were distributed in different parts of provinces like Gonda, Jhansi, Etah. Gorakhpur etc. The crimes covered they included counterfeiting of coins and currency, murder and theft, robbery, dacoity and house breaking and also crimes related to women. The ostensible purpose of the Criminal Tribes Act had been to suppress hereditary criminal sections of contemporary Indian society. During nineteenth century causes of crimes were mainly drunkenness, increasing poverty, increasing prosperity, rapid urbanization, overcrowding of residential areas, unsettled family life and increasing population‟s burden on agriculture in western society. But the situation with respect to India was somewhat different because here poverty and ignorance were main causes behind the crime .In western society crime was assumed as a genetic feature of human behaviour, transmitted from one generation to another through ancestors. In spite of decades of social reformation in western countries the basic problems like unemployment, economic depression and strikes remain unchanged. So a new concept to reform society on biological basis was developed which was termed as „Eugenes‟ i.e. good genes. The role of Anthropology was also contributed to the ideas of hereditary criminal classes. Under this discipline mostly tribal communities were studied. This branch stated that the crime is a hereditary feature which could actually be perceived in the physical feature of a person. Another concept in England was developed that the portion of human society that had not yet confronted to civilized habits, is a criminal section of the society. These were different

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thoughts developed to read crime and criminality in those days. These notions were accountable to fix the definition of crime in colonial period. The criminal tribes act had its origin in local system of society. In nineteenth century there was a great interest about caste system among British policy makers. They never fixed itinerant communities into the Hindu social organization. Such communities were never placed in between the Hindu social organization both by Britishers as well as by Hindu upper classes. In Indian point of view colonial government established the idea of crime as a profession passed on from one generation of criminal castes to the next generation. Hereditary criminal caste members would pass on this profession to their offspring. The view of professional criminal developed because of a particular section of social structure in India. This section was promoted by the colonial government to rule properly. There was a great difference between these two assumptions i.e. genetically transmitted crime in European context and professional crime in Indian context.The relationship between the colonial government and concerned communities changed over time in the nineteenth century to label them criminal tribes or castes. The concept of crime and criminality mainly changed in India after first war of independence in 1857. This was the time when British policy makers had changed their policies towards Indians. These policies largely affected the common people of society. A section of such scholars developed a general concept that the criminality was due to introduction of railway, the new forest policy, repeated famines etc. With the introduction of these the concerned communities became lawless groups. How could they live except by committing crime if there were no means to support them. They were deprived of all the means of subsistence. So the causes of crime were directly related to the lack of means of livelihood and non availability of work. This implied that if any work could be found for the affected communities they could be weaned away from criminal habits. It introduced an idea of reformation of criminals. But the idea was ostensible because it profited the colonial government on the basis of low paid wage workers. The concerned communities were exploited both by British administrator as well as by high class landlords for their personal uses. Colonial government made various reformatory settlements in United Provinces in different districts to place these communities inside the settlements under their reformation procedures. These settlements either run directly by the government or were managed by agencies like the Salvation Army, The Arya Samaj and Harijan Sevak Sangh. My study explains the concept and policy of Criminal Tribes settlement in United Provinces under the direction of Salvation Army and other such organizations. Time to time the C.T.A. 1871 was amended and various new provisions were added to improve the act. Various itinerant communities of United Provinces became marginalized to the International Research Journal of Commerce Arts and Science http://www.casirj.com

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sedentary society. The relationship between itinerant and sedentary communities has become problematic in present times. While considering some of the prejudices about these moveable communities it is also useful to mention those charges which were in the minds of colonial government to label them criminal. First prejudices was that these communities wandered aimlessly here and there but researches certifies that their routes and schedule of wandering were fixed depending upon their demand and work i.e. availability of raw material for making useful goods The second charge was that they were idle and lazy. Members of these communities were never used to, to work hard. They had their own work, which they had been doing decades ago. This is the reason why they became idle and lazy and adopted the nefarious activities. Third prejudice was that of their lack of any social standards especially about their women. Some of the tribes had the women of loose character and they practice prostitution as a profession but we cannot blame all the woman of a tribe or all the women of all tribes as immoral. These were some of the prejudices of colonial government which helped them to declare these communities as criminal. These were the causes and prejudices which were in the minds of colonial administration while, declaring these tribes as criminals. For reformation of these communities Salvation Army and other such organizations were given responsibility. They were put in special settlements run by the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army itself was an organization with the imperial mind and projects of colonial government. The prestige of the Salvation Army was such that by 1913, Viceroy had awarded one of its most influential officers, Booth Tucker with a Kaiser-E- Hind award which glorifies the history of Salvation Army and its objectives in the British colonies. Reformation of criminals was not a new issue for Salvation Army. Salvation Army had its experiences with prisoners in India a few years ago the C.T.A. was launched. With the help of the theme „crimnocurology‟, Salvation Army had influenced the British administration about the reformation policy of Criminal Tribes through settlements. With the help of settlements Salvation Army prepared a new separate class loyal to the colonial administration. They formed a wide gap between the Indian social groups. The Salvation Army was very active in India for organizing works for poor and depressed classes. William Booth Tucker took the gospel of Jesus to them and Fredrick Booth Tucker listened to the speeches of William Booth Tucker in London and became influenced by his work and ideas and he applied these ideas in the C.T. settlement in five provinces of India. The points to be noted here is that the category of criminal tribe was not a sudden development. Different social causes were responsible to shape them. According to colonial government‟s opinion a criminal could be anyone who resisted the British, or a local high class landlord or high caste member. But the fact was that the criminal tribes act was used profitably to International Research Journal of Commerce Arts and Science http://www.casirj.com

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fight against secret societies, political preachers and nationalist movement and finally to suppress lower section of Indian society. By this act colonial government made an attempt to link issues of colonial laws with those of colonial ethnography. Not only did not the criminal Tribes Act impose some stern restrictions, but the punishment for breaking the rules were also dramatic. Anyone caught violating the above regulations could be subject to rigorous imprisonment for a term which may extend to six months or with fine or with whipping or with all or any two of that punishment. A second conviction could extend the prison term up to one year. Ultimately even the harsh penalties of the 1871 Act could not effectively eliminate the robberies and murders throughout the Indian countryside. We can say that the Act failed to affect that control over the tribes which was its intention. Working under the auspices of the criminal tribes act, the Indian police created a variety of guides to assist in the identification of such criminals. Policemen collected and published a great deal of information not only on the illegal activities, but also on the appearance and lifestyle of those groups. These groups were categorized under general appearance, composition, language and residence dress, jewelry and marks of identification and mode of begging habits. In order to reform the criminal tribes colonial government established so many reformatory settlements to make these people respectable members of the society. The concept of criminal tribe settlements is widely described in the C.T. Act. Colonial government established a number of colonies for these unfortunate people. But the notion of reformation remained failed due to faulty methods adopted by the colonial government. Criminal tribe settlements were generally very expensive and so their number in different provinces were very small in proportion to the population of criminal tribes in that area. In United Provinces, only 1881 registered about 1587 unregistered members were using the benefits of reformative facilities offered in the criminal Tribes settlements. Tribes numbering about 39,000 registered and 1,400,000 unregistered had no satisfactory arrangement for their reclamation. In criminal Tribe settlements tribes were detained for a long period and allowed to earn their livelihood by cultivating land or working labourers in jungles in industrial centers. In actual way these settlements were like jail. The purpose of the government failed because reformation became the secondary object of the official policy. REFRENCES 1.Arnold, David, “Dacoity and Rural Crime in Madras, 1860-1940”, The Journal of Peasant Studies, Volume-6, No. 2, January . 2.Gauri, Shankar, Born Criminals, Varanasi : Kishore Vidya Niketan, 1979. 3.Raghviah, V., The Problem of Criminal Tribes, Delhi : Akhil Bhartiya Adim Jati Sevak Sangh (BASS). International Research Journal of Commerce Arts and Science http://www.casirj.com

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4.Simhari, Y.C., “Changing Criminal Behaviour of an Ex-Criminal Tribe in an Indian village”, Indian Journal of Criminology 1976, 4 (1) 23-26. 5.Yang, Anand A. (ed.), Crime and Criminality in British India, Arizona : University of Arizona Press, 1985. 6. The Crooke, W., The Tribes and Castes of North Western Provinces and Oudh, (4 Volumes), Calcutta : 1896. 7.Fuchs, Stephen, The Aboriginal Tribes of India, New Delhi : Macmillan, 1973 . 8.Kapadia, K.M., “The Criminal Tribes of India”, Sociological Bulletin, I, II, 24 March 1952. 9.Majumdar, D.N., The Fortunes of Primitive Tribes, Lucknow :The Universal Publishers, 1944. 10.RadhaKrishna, Meena, Dishonoured by History : Criminal Tribes and British Colonial Policy, Orient Black swan, 2005. 11.Hollins, S.T., Superintendent of Police. The Criminal Tribes of The United Provinces, Allahabad : Government Press.

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