Criminal Tribes Act (CTA), India
In 1871 the British rulers passed a law known as Criminal Tribes Act (CTA) branding scores of castes and communities steeped in grinding poverty in India, as ‘born criminals’.
This barbaric law was first notified and enforced in northern India that was subsequently extended to Bengal and other provinces as well. It notified 160 castes that constitute the core of present day ‘Dalit Samaj’ as hereditary criminals.
As a community they were branded as criminals by birth, that receive training in professions like theft, burglary, house-breaking, robbery, dacoity, and counterfeiting from one generation to the next.
The total head count of these criminal tribes was approximately 60 million constituting nearly 30% of the total population (according to 1871 census the total population of India was about 200 million).
All the members of the so called ‘criminal-tribes’ were native Hindus. As such, with a single stroke of pen the British rulers declared 30% of the Hindu population as hereditary criminals, thereby condemning their unborn generations as ‘pariahs’ destined to work as hewers of wood and drawers of water.
It is important to note that the CTA made it lawful to perform genocide against a list of Indian tribes at different regions (Bhils, Kanjars, Sansis, Nats, Meenas, Charas, Satnamis, Gonds, Marias, Chenchus, etc., to name a few), deemed to be criminals by birth.
Apparently, many of these tribes were deprived of basic human rights not because they were indulged in any criminal activity but because they were fighting against British destruction of their jungles and other habitats.
Thugs were one such courageous tribe that valiantly fought against British rulers. As such, they were badly maligned via publicized atrocity literature and ‘Thug’ became a synonym for criminal in English language!
Surprisingly, this distortion and misrepresentation of Indian history and traditions is being taught at major academic institutions both in India and the west, even today. This needs to be exposed and corrected by presenting the facts at appropriate academic forums.
Thus, the bill introduced in 1871 by the British Jurist, James Fitzjames Stephen (who authored Indian Evidence Act), deprived these communities elementary human rights and dignity, permanently arresting their socioeconomic growth by restricting their mobility.
This draconian law was based on an irrational assumption that people in India have been pursuing the ‘caste-system-defined-job-positions’ like weaving, carpentry that is passed on from one generation to the next, as a hereditary profession. Therefore, there must have been hereditary criminals as well who followed their forefathers’ profession!
Elaborating on this atrocious logic he commented “when we speak of professional criminals we mean a tribe whose ancestors from time immemorial destined by the usage of caste to commit crime, and whose descendants will be offenders against law, until the whole tribe is exterminated in the manner of thugs’.
Thus, this draconian law was evidently based on an irrational assumption rather than on any empirical research data. No attempt was made to investigate the causes that compelled these hapless tribes to take to crime for earning a livelihood-a phenomenon which apparently took shape during the long period of Islamic rule in India.
Mercifully, British rulers did not follow this advice, namely the extermination of these hapless tribes, as suggested by Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, follower of Anglican Church turned lawmaker for India!
The people that praise British as just and egalitarian and blame high caste Hindus for social evils in India (Kancha Ilaiah) should answer as to why the British did not ban untouchability during their 200-years long rule of India?
Also, these critics should recognize the fact that people who agitated for the abolition of untouchability and facilitated the untouchability prevention act of 1955, were mostly high caste Hindus.
Consequently the Dalit Samaj of today holds deep grudge against the so-called ‘high castes’ and the caste warfare rhetoric goes on relentlessly, even after six decades after the independence. The leftist and pseudo-secular writers find no time to find the truth, and unfortunately, the vote-bank politics and caste warfare continue unabated.
Source: https://www.myind.net/Home/viewArticle/scheduled-castes-and-tribes-fault-lines-created-british-raj
