An unfortunate legacy

The colonial category of “criminal tribes” may have been “denotified” but many communities remain unclassified

in papers and articles. Everyone seems to suggest there was a 1952 “Central” statute, though the UN Report didn’t quite say that explicitly.

Entry 15 in the Concurrent List (seventh schedule) mentions “vagrancy; nomadic and migratory tribes”. Don’t get me wrong. There are certainly state-level statutes on habitual offenders. The earliest is Punjab/haryana (1918), followed by Madras/tamil Nadu (1948). Others followed in 1950s/1960s. Some states didn’t bother. A few enacted a law, but didn’t enforce it. UP is one of those that enacted such a statute, but repealed it later. Unless I have got it completely wrong, contrary to popular perception, there never was a Unionlevel statute. After the CTA repeal, the Union government had a model bill. States used this as a template and for “habitual offenders”, there were principles of registration, restrictions on movement and provisions for corrective training. These principles followed the CTA, but the emphasis was on the individual, not the collective. But let’s leave aside the habitual offender issue and return to the unfortunate legacy.

A quote from a 2016 Report of the NCDNT sums it up: “After Independence, the erstwhile aborigines were classified as scheduled tribes, the untouchables were classified as scheduled castes and others included in the backward classes. Although, many of the denotified, nomadic and seminomadic tribes are spread among SC/ST/OBC, many are still not classified anywhere and have no access to socio-economic benefits, whether education, health, housing or otherwise... Except a few states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, etc, some of these communities figure in various classifications in the states such as Backward Tribe (Puducherry), Most Backward Classes (Tamil Nadu), Extremely Backward Classes (Bihar), “original settlers” in Arunachal Pradesh, Primitive Tribes (Jharkhand/ Odisha), Hill Tribes (Assam) etc. In some states they are called “tribal settlers”. In some states they are called “hidden tribes” etc... There are many anomalies in terms of identification of these communities, from state to state. Many people also do not know what is denotified tribe and which authority is looking after their grievances. Recently, this Commission made a recommendation to the Government of India to write to all state governments to form a district-level Grievances Redressal Committee under the District Collector to hear the grievances of these communities/groups/tribes.”

“These communities/tribes account for nearly 10 per cent of community’s population as has been mentioned in some writings and there are nearly 820 communities and tribes in India, although some of the community leaders assess that their number would be more with 198 denotified tribes and nearly 1,500 nomadic tribes and their population may be even more than 10 per cent.”

This is partly a positive affirmation/ reservation issue. But if you go through the annexures in the 2016 NCDNT report, some communities want to be recognised as SCS, STS or OBCS. But there are also those who want recognition as DNTS/NTS.

The writer is member, Niti Aayog. Views are personal