The “Criminal Tribe” in India before the British

Abstract

This paper challenges the broad consensus in current historiography that holds the Indian stereotype of criminal tribe to be a myth of colonial making. Drawing on a selection of precolonial descriptions of robber castes—ancient legal texts and folktales; Jain, Buddhist and Brahmanic narratives; Mughal sources; and Early Modern European travel accounts—I show that the idea of castes of congenital robbers was not a British import, but instead a label of much older vintage on the subcontinent. Enjoying pride of place in the postcolonial critics' pageant of “colonial stereotypes,” the case of criminal tribes is representative and it bears on broader questions about colonial knowledge and its relation to power. The study contributes to the literature that challenges the still widespread tendency to view colonial social categories, and indeed the bulk of colonial knowledge, as the imaginative residue of imperial politics. I argue that while colonialusesof the idea of a criminal tribe comprises a lurid history of violence against communities branded as born criminals in British law, the stereotype itself has indigenous roots. The case is representative and it bears on larger problems of method and analysis in “post-Orientalist” historiography.

Redefining Justice: Legal Scholarship in Critical Caste Studies

“…system to the advantage of the oppressor castes (Yang 1985;Piliavksy 2015). Mukul Kumar (2004) argues that the constitution of notions of crime and community-based criminality under the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 was a result of this collusion.…”

‘It’s a Matter of Land’: The Politics of Spatial Illegality and Cooperation in an Informal Settlement in Delhi

“…They criminalise and identify the urban poor as ‘dangerous’ or as an offence to the state (Merry, 1998). In India, criminalisation has been a fundamental part of the colonial construction of the ‘criminal tribe’ as a legal, social and political category, encoded in the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871, and surveilled by the state (Jauregui, 2014; Kannabiran & Singh, 2008; Kumar, 2021; Nigam, 1990; Piliavsky, 2015). Outside the context of caste, we see similar tactics of policing used in other Southern countries like Brazil, where the favela becomes symbolic of danger, criminality and spatial taint (Penglase, 2014; Wacquant, 2007).…”

A Comparison of the Hijra Transgenders Social Status Between the Mughal Empire and the Post-colonial Era

“…Piliavsky indicates that this law aimed to "control and reclaim" communities "addicted to the systematic commission of non-bailable offenses" [7]. In addition, the Section 377, which prohibited consensual sodomy, is another great example of British influence on India [8]. This legislation implied that sex between members of the same sex were unnatural and immoral, therefore ought to be eradicated.…”