Thugs

We very commonly use terms such as Scheduled Caste, Schedule Tribes, Nomadic and denotified tribes. We rarely bother to find out the origin of these words. When we say denotified tribes mean what? Who had freed them, why and from what? There is a long history behind it and every patriotic Indian must read it.

Maratha Empire ended in 1818. But many patriotic Indians refused to accept British Raj and continued their struggle against them. It began with Pendharis who fought for 4-5 years. They were not a caste or tribe but group of people who helped Maratha army in many wars. They were from Maratha tribes, Muslims and even Jats. Pendhari’s arms struggle was secretly supported by Marathas. They were large in numbers. Therefore, British cornered them from all the sides with large army and finished them in 1820. It is a coincidence that Pendharis were finished and Thugs were born. There were many communities in India who were expert in trickery and used it for spying and espionage. They were paid employees of Indian rulers. Once British rule started, they were unemployed. They used their skills and troubled British a lot by robbing their convoy and killing them. Both of them have similar constituents i.e. both Hindus and Muslims. Since there was no community as Thugs, I strongly believe that British created it. Whatever information on Thugs I came across is British account. Therefore, one can sense that it was written as per their convenience. British were so troubled by Thugs that they formed a separate police force called Thuggee and Decoity Department in 1835. Unlike Pendharis, Thugs were very small group and no Indian rulers supported them. Thugs gave British very long fight. They even participated in 1857 freedom struggle. British could destroy them by 1871. As many as 3000 Thugs were hanged with no account whatsoever!

British were very cunning rulers. They knew that such arms struggle is not going to end. Therefore, they brought new act called Criminal Tribes Act in 1871. British put forward an astonishing theory. It says criminal behavior is hereditary rather than habitual! The tribes who fought against British were branded as Criminal tribes and were included into this act. In Maharashtra, Umaji Naik’s Ramoshi community raised arms struggle against British and hence Ramoshi, Paradhi, Kaikadi tribes were added into this act. They kept on revising this act and included new tribes into it. The final shape of this act came into place in 1924. As many as 198 tribes were added into this act. Such communities were forced live outside of towns and villages. Restrictions were imposed on their movement. They had to appear before police on weekly basis. Helping them would definitely become a crime and therefore mainstream communities started alienating from them. Decades of alienation resulted mainstream, patriotic, worrier tribes into completely isolated, poor, illiterate communities who had eventually taken crime as their profession for survival!

Nehru condemned this law before independence. Therefore, it was expected that it would be completely abolished post-independence and all these tribes would be brought into mainstream. On the contrary, in 1952 new government renamed it as Habitual Offender Act (HOA) by denotifying those tribes. Therefore, they are called as denotified tribes (विमुक्त जमाती (VJ)) as if new government had freed them from their old crimes.  Because of HOA social stigma on these communities continued. After 67 years of independence, these communities are still experiencing social alienation. Police atrocities are still continuing. Many of them are not provided with the benefits of reservations. Many social workers are demanding complete abolition of HOA because Indian Penal Code is sufficient enough. I personally feel that its abolition would be a nationalist act. Therefore, when Modi’s government asked citizen for suggestions, I submitted a request on mygov.in to abolish HOA. If you agree with me, request you to do the same!