The Commission held discussions with experts in the
disciplines of anthropology, sociology and other social sciences in this regard
and arrived at the definitions and criteria discussed below-
The De-notified Tribes:
These are communities (or ‘tribes’) that, during the British
regime, due to specific administrative as well as law and order reasons, were
‘notified’ as being ‘born criminal’ by the British Government under a series of
laws starting with the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871. These laws were enacted as
crime was considered a ‘hereditary profession’ and the enactment of the law and
its entry into the working of police training as well as in the public arena
slapped the brand of being ‘born criminals’ on the entire population of these
communities. After Independence, this Act was repealed in 1952, and the
communities were ‘de-notified’, hence the name. Within the period of
notification, while the communities were branded as criminals quite
unjustifiably, efforts were also made to settle them as large groups at several
places throughout the country. More than 50 such ‘settlements’ were established
in the country [in Ayyangar Committee Report (1951: 137-9) information about
Bombay and Madras Provinces was not available. The Criminal Tribes Act was already
repealed by these two Provinces at the time of Ayyangar Committee] where a large
number of people from such communities were re-located, who were confined to a
specific locality and used as labourers in road or dam construction and in different
industries. Even while these were often termed as ‘open prisons’, land was allotted
to the people, housing created, though under strict police supervision, and occupational
training was imparted to them in various trades with a view to get them habituated
to a settled living earned through hard labour. In addition to the wages paid to
the working persons, special allowances were also paid to non-earning persons.
Schools were opened for children. As a result of these
efforts, as it is observed today, the living condition of the DNT population in
the erstwhile settlements is ironically far better as compared to their
counterparts who never got into the settlements, or broke away from them after
the settlements were opened.
Thus, the term ‘Denotified Tribes’ stands for all those
communities which were notified under the several versions of Criminal Tribes
Acts enforced during the British Rule between 1871 and 1947 throughout the
Indian territory and were ‘denotified’ by the repeal of these Acts after
India’s Independence. A list of such communities was compiled by the Ayyangar
Committee. The Commission has adopted this list along with those sent by the
States for the purpose of its investigation and inquiry.
Source- Report of Naional Commission for Denotified, Nomadic and Semi-nomadic Tribes, 2008, p 10-11
Note- Above note is just an extract of the report.
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