Criminal Tribes Act

The Criminal Tribes Act (CTA ), or decree on dangerous strains of a common evolved over several decades wealthy Gesetzesgebung in British India is referred to, which took its beginning in 1871, and first in the northern Indian princely states was applied. With the CTA all peoples were nomadic explained in the respective scope of criminal. It got gradually additives that have been integrated into a single Act 1924, and became mandatory for more and more regions. After India's independence, the CTA was repealed

The Governor-General and Viceroy of India, Richard Bourke, 6th Earl of Mayo, agreed as head of the local British colonial administration CTA on October 12, 1871. The nomadic peoples who found their income with retail and crafts as well as acrobats, dancers and musicians, and among the resident population had a good reputation, were recorded in a register, viewed as inherently criminal and treated accordingly. Such peoples such as the Banjaras, Lambadis or Kuravas were only allowed in certain areas of their traditional way of life to pursue, had to report to the police regularly and could be taken into custody without execution command. Children aged six to 18 years were separated from their parents and placed in boarding schools. The existing before the CTA forestry law prohibition, to graze in the forests of their cattle and collect there bamboo and leaves, and the increasing development of India by the railways, which greatly limited the demand for their services and products, they already had in the marginalized years ago 1871 rapidly.

At first it was only in the northern Indian princely states such as Avadh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the present-day Uttar Pradesh. 1876, the CTA was introduced in Bengal and most recently in 1911 in Madras. In 1947, when India achieved its independence and the CTA, the called Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Indian Prime Minister, a disgrace to any civilized nation, abolished, had inferior to 13 million Indians to the supervision of this law. Shortly thereafter came a milder but similar in content determination, the Habitual Offenders Act or Decree habit perpetrators, who continued the stigmatization of the nomadic population in place of the CTA.

The standing behind the adoption of the CTA motivation is assessed differently. Firstly Biologism of the late 19th century is held responsible with representatives such as Cesare Lombroso and his doctrine of the born criminal, others see it as a reaction to the colonial power, from their perspective nomadism posed no lawful means of livelihood, of the Indian uprising 1857, at which nomadic tribal leaders had involved mainly in the north.