The Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 and its Global Legacy

The Criminal Tribes Act of 1871, imposed by British colonial authorities in India, was a draconian law that branded entire communities as “hereditary criminals,” enforcing systematic surveillance, forced settlement, and social ostracization. This paper provides a comprehensive examination of the Act’s origins, implementation, and enduring legacy. It begins by contextualizing the Act within India’s caste system, tracing how ancient religious codifications – from the Rigveda to the Manusmriti – established and justified a rigid hierarchy that colonial policies later exploited. We analyze the language and intent of the Act, illustrating how the British administration wielded it as an instrument to control nomadic and marginalized groups by presuming criminality by birth. The short-term impacts on Dalits (formerly “Untouchables”), Adivasis (indigenous tribes), and other minorities were severe: communities faced loss of land, curtailed freedoms, and state-sanctioned stigma, with an estimated thirteen million people across 127 communities directly affected by Independence. The Act’s long-term repercussions persisted well beyond its repeal in 1949, as independent India’s Habitual Offenders Act (1952) continued to profile and police these denotified tribes, entrenching cycles of poverty and prejudice.