A separate classification for denotified tribes | Explained

The story so far:

On January 30, the Union government assured community leaders from Denotified, Nomadic, and Semi-Nomadic Tribes (DNTs) that the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India had agreed to enumerate these communities in the upcoming second phase of the Census due in 2027. However, with no clarity on how this enumeration will be conducted, leaders of these communities are organising to push for their demand for a “separate column” for DNTs in the Census form. This demand has found support from academics and scholars, who have noted that the demand for a Census count of DNTs has been reiterated time and again by successive Commissions that have been set up to examine their condition in society.

Who are the DNTs?

The communities referred to as denotified, nomadic, and semi-nomadic tribes were, at one point, classified as “criminal” by colonial administrators, who had concluded that there were certain communities “addicted” to committing crimes. This was codified in the Criminal Tribes Act (CTA), first introduced in 1871, the same year that synchronous Censuses began in India.

The CTA, 1871, was introduced for the “registration, surveillance and control of certain criminal tribes and eunuchs”, describing “criminal tribes” as a “tribe, gang, or class of persons” that are “addicted” to committing non-bailable offences. While introducing the legislation, then Member of Law and Order, T.V. Stephens had said that, “the special feature of India is the caste system… Keeping this in mind, the meaning of professional criminal is clear. It means a tribe whose ancestors were criminals from times immemorial, who are themselves destined by the usages of caste to commit crime and whose descendants will be offenders against law…”

It was only in 1952, that the Government of India officially repealed the CTA, which had by that time been amended a couple of times. The repeal of the Act had led to the denotification of communities classified as “criminal” under the CTA, leading to these groups becoming known as the DNTs.

However, in the same year, India saw the introduction of various habitual offender laws throughout the States, which, while doing away with the hereditary definition of people being compelled to commit crimes, classified certain people as “habitual offenders”, leading to the continued targeting of these communities — this time not as “criminal” but as “habitual offenders”.

What is the history of their enumeration?

While both the CTA and synchronous Censuses in India began in 1871, it was from 1911 onwards that Census reports started discussing “criminal tribes” specifically. Provincial Census reports from 1911 and 1931 provide an insight into the enumeration of these communities, where they were specifically classified as such. The 1931 Census was, however, the last time these communities were accounted for in the Census exercise. Since the repeal of the CTA and the denotification of the communities, specific enumeration of these communities was done away with in subsequent Censuses, given the Republic’s conclusions at the time that it was not necessary to enumerate castes (apart from Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST)) in Censuses.

But the state’s effort to account for these communities had begun even before their official denotification, with the establishment of the Ayyangar Commission in 1949. Since 1952, by which time the concept of backward classes apart from SCs and STs had been introduced, several of the denotified communities were accommodated in these lists as “Vimukt Jatis”. Eventually, the decades after India’s Independence saw a majority of the denotified communities being assimilated into the SC, ST, or the Other Backward Classes (OBC) lists.

In 1998, author Mahasweta Devi and scholar G.N. Devy constituted the Denotified, Nomadic, and Semi-Nomadic Tribes-Rights Action Group (DNT-RAG), the work of which had led to a technical advisory group on DNTs, and the eventual formation of the first National Commission for DNTs, headed by B.S. Renke. The Commission submitted its report on recommendations to uplift DNTs in 2008. Following this, another national Commission was set up under the leadership of Bhiku Ramji Idate, which submitted its report in 2017. All Commission reports on the subject of DNTs began with the question of identifying and classifying them, before noting that a full, accurate classification and identification exercise was not possible until a Census count was conducted for these communities.

The latest assessment of the communities in the Idate Commission’s report had identified close to 1,200 communities that were DNTs, noting that all of these communities had been assimilated into the existing classifications of SCs, STs, and OBCs. Apart from this, the Commission had identified about 268 other denotified communities that had not been classified at all. A NITI Aayog-commissioned study conducted by the Anthropological Survey of India on these 268 communities had recommended their classifications. But this report has gone into cold storage.

What is their status now?

While in many States, DNTs have been incorporated into backward classes lists, and in SC and ST lists, where certain benefits of policies like reservations may have trickled down to them owing to selective application of sub-classification, State governments have formulated policies specifically targeting them as well. However, community leaders have argued that despite this, the stigma they had been subjected to continued even after their denotification, through the operation of laws like the Habitual Offenders Act. They argue that this led to their continued discrimination, and that they remained largely socially, economically, educationally, and politically backward, except for a few denotified communities that were settled and had used available resources to uplift themselves to a certain extent.

Even though the Idate Commission report had recommended a permanent National Commission for the DNTs, the first Narendra Modi-led government had decided that, since most of these communities had already been included in SC, ST, and OBC lists, a Welfare Board would be sufficient to address their concerns.

The Social Justice Ministry, eventually, also rolled out the SEED scheme for livelihood, education, housing, and health interventions for DNTs. But the government has been able to spend only a fraction of its intended ₹200 crore spending over the last five years. A principal problem with implementing this scheme was that it required an identification of a beneficiary as a DNT, which required them to have a DNT certification that need not be exclusive of the SC, ST, or OBC identities (if they were already included in these lists). The loudest complaint of the community across States has been that they are not being issued DNT certificates despite continuous reminders and letters from the Central government, with government data showing that only select districts in about half a dozen States issue these certificates.

This has only fed the movement of DNTs across many parts of India seeking a separate Constitutional classification for themselves on par with the SC, ST, and OBC categorisations, arguing that this would then lead to uniform issuance of DNT certificates. Further, this movement has also called for sub-classification within the specific DNT list to recognise uneven backwardness of communities within this grouping.

Moreover, community leaders and associations like the All India Denotified Nomadic Tribes Development Council have been framing their struggle for a separate classification as the need to have their specific discrimination and stigmatisation recognised by the State. In doing so, they have argued that the only reason colonial administrators labelled them “criminal” was because of their insistence on resisting foreign aggressors. Many community leaders have also noted that they had been the first line of defence even before colonialism, and had histories of resisting Islamic rulers as well.

What now?

Apart from assurances to community leaders that they will be counted, there has been no indication as to how this enumeration will take place.

DNT associations have made their demand clear that they want a specific column or question in the Census forms to classify people as DNTs. This demand has found support from scholars like Mr. Devy, who have consistently argued for a separate Census for the DNTs.

However, so far, the Union Government’s public statements have indicated that it is not considering any proposal for a separate classification for the DNTs.