Criminalizing the natives : a study of the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: Asian Studies, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Safdar, Arafat
issued: 2020-05-04T17:18:42Z
issued: 2020
related degree: Master of Arts - MA
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: The wandering groups of India, who were criminalized by the British through the Criminal Tribes Act of 1870 (“CTA”), have been a subject of much scholarly discussion. In my work, I place the Act in context more broadly, delineating its relationship with a wide range of legal initiatives and codes in both British India and the UK, to understand how the wandering tribes were integrated into a broader British legal regime in India. In the first chapter, I look into the specific conception of ‘crime’ in the nineteenth century British India. The colonial officials classified an activity as a ‘crime’ by relying on the information contained in the contemporary official reports, minutes, and the ethnographic accounts. The act of defining a crime was then followed by a campaign for its elimination which would later be publicized through what I call the elimination narrative. In the second chapter, I examine the development of CTA as a statute by looking into the debates over the draft bill which was circulated among the bureaucrats of Punjab, NWP & Oudh. I trace the different responses submitted by officials from Punjab and NWP & Oudh to the proposed Act, as some of its provisions were already in place in the latter and had already drawn criticism from the provincial bureaucrats due to their inefficacy. In the last chapter, I situate CTA in the wider imperial context by comparing it with the Habitual Criminals Act, 1869 (“HCA”) and highlight the difference in the imperial and colonial perspective of these wandering groups of people. I also explore the history of the Salvation Army mission in India and their efforts to reform the criminal tribes of India through a close reading of Criminocurology, a book written by one of the founders of the Salvation Army in India. Such a multi-pronged study of CTA helps us recreate not only the story of the wandering groups but also that of law as an important marker of change in the colonial society.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/74274
note: i CRIMINALIZING THE NATIVES: A STUDY OF THE CRIMINAL TRIBES ACT, 1871 by Arafat Safdar A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Asian Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) April 2020 © Arafat Safdar, 2020 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: Criminalizing the Natives: A Study of the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871 Examining Committee: Dr. Anne Murphy, Asian Studies Supervisor Dr. Renisa Mawani, Sociology Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Naveena Naqvi, Asian Studies Supervisory Committee Member Duan Duan Li, Asian Studies Additional Examiner submitted by Arafat Safdar in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Asian Studies iii Abstract The wandering groups of India, who were criminalized by the British through the Criminal Tribes Act of 1870 (“CTA”), have been a subject of much scholarly discussion. The secondary scholarship on the criminal tribes in India and the Act itself has hitherto viewed it as a continuation of the earlier efforts to root out thuggee in India (e.g. Thuggee Act, 1836); in my work, I place the Act in context more broadly, delineating its relationship with a wide range of legal initiatives and codes in both British India and the UK, to understand how the wandering tribes were integrated into a broader British legal regime in India. In the first chapter, I look into the specific conception of ‘crime’ in the nineteenth century British India. The colonial officials classified an activity as a ‘crime’ by relying on the information contained in the contemporary official reports, minutes, and the ethnographic accounts. The act of defining a crime was then followed by a campaign for its elimination which would later be publicized through what I call the elimination narrative. In…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2020-05
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0390312
language: eng
degree discipline: Asian Studies
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/74274