Tribes, Crime & Punishment

A Japanese friend stumped me with a question today morning.

Nemoto-san's PhD thesis was on Neo-Buddhists in India. His friends in Nagpur sent him a list of a list of students who belong to a school managed by local Buddhists. This list had three categories - ST, SC, NT and VJNT. The first two, of course, stood for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. But what about NT and VJNT?

"If NT meant "Nomadic Tribes, and if VJ is 'Vimukta Jati', what is the difference," he asked, "between NT and VJNT or NT and NT of VJNT?"  -- I did not have the slightest idea!

Thanks to the Gods of WWW, here is what I found -

For starters, the Indian Constitution is the longest written constitution in the world, containing 444 articles in 22 parts, 12 schedules and 118 amendments. Schedules are lists in the Constitution that categorize and tabulate bureaucratic activity and policy of the Government. Among the Schedules, The Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution (Article 244(1)) provides for the administration and control of Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes (areas and tribes needing special protection due to disadvantageous conditions). Under this, we have Nomadic Tribes (NTs) and De-notified Tribes (DNTs).

VJ (Vimukta Jati) was the Hindi translation of Denotified Tribes (DNTs). These were the tribes that were originally listed under the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871, under the British Colonial Regime. After Independence, this Act was repealed in 1952. Also, under Article 366 (25) of the Constitution of India, certain tribes were classified as Scheduled Tribes and were provided with constitutional safeguards under Article 342 (2) on a national basis.

So what about VJNT? Well,  Marashtra seems to have just created this new acronym which basically combines VJs and NTs (just as "SC-ST", but without the hyphen).

In the midst of all these acronyms and numbered constitutional provisions, one often misses the underlying human folly.

Call them "Criminal Tribes" of DNT's but the very idea rests on the absurd notion that a person can be born a criminal. The Denotified and Nomadic tribes make up about 60 million of India’s population (UN 2006). There are 313 Nomadic Tribes and 198 De-notified Tribes. If you belong to any of these tribes, chances are that you will be carged with theft, robbery or murder, even if there isn't a figment of proof. Between 1979 and 1982, forty-two DNTs of the Lodha community were mob-lynched without suspicion of crime but based on their tribal identity. Police have yet to take any action on any of the cases.

I hope the Buddhist school in Nagpur has good reasons for keeping a record of the tribal antecedants of its students.

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LINKS & REFERENCES:

* Zee News (18 Sep'12): Maharashtra Government to spend Rs 10 crores for nomadic tribal dwellings - http://zeenews.india.com/news/maharashtra/maharashtra-government-to-spend-rs-10-crores-for-nomadic-tribe-dwell_800261.html
* Rathod, Motiraj (2000): Denotified and Nomadic Tribes of Maharashtra, URL -- http://sickle.bwh.harvard.edu/india_tribes.html
* Maharashtra OBC Network -- http://obcreservation.net/ver2/about-us-mainmenu-103/we-obc-mainmenu-114.html

* Report of the Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination (2006) -- http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/docs/ngos/resist.pdf

* UNDP Q&A on Constitutional Provisions for Reservation in Services: http://persmin.gov.in/otraining/UNDPProject/undp_modules/Reservation%20in%20Service.pdf

http://zeenews.india.com/home/15-castes-included-in-obcs-six-to-vjnt-in-maharashtra_448462.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduled_Castes_and_Scheduled_Tribes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Scheduled_Tribes_in_India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denotified_Tribes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Tribes_Act

INDIAN CONSTITUTION
* Provisions of the Indian Constitution having a bearing on Education -- http://mhrd.gov.in/const_scheduled

NATIONAL COMMISSION FOR DENOTIFIED TRIBES
Colonial Act still haunts denotified tribes: expert -- http://www.hindu.com/2008/03/27/stories/2008032752100300.htm

MAHARASHTRA CASTE LISTS
* http://mumbaicitysetu.org/Castelist_Maha.html
* http://www.firstfoundation.in/socio_casteslist_Maha.htm
* Maharashtra OBC Network -- http://obcreservation.net/ver2/about-us-mainmenu-103/we-obc-mainmenu-114.html

BOOK
D'Souza, Dilip (): Branded by Law: Looking at India's Denotified Tribes, URL -- http://www.narmada.org/resources/books/brandedbylaw.html
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Who was Kihota Hollohan?

At the core of numerous 'landmark judgments' passed by the Supreme Court of India, are individuals who stood up against the system and ended up re-defining the Indian Constitution.

Mr. Inder Golak Nath protested against the Punjab government for delaring his land 'surplus', and fit to be taken over by the state. His legal battle went on for years until the Supreme Court not only ruled in his favor but also decided on 27 Feb., 1967, that the Parliament's power to amend the Constitution could not be used to curtail fundamental rights.

Another landmark case was filed in 1970 by Swami Keshavananda Bharati, head of a monastry (muth) in Kerala. He was objecting against attmempts by the Kerala state government (under land reform acts) to restrict control over the monasty's property. This case too went on to address the much grander issue of the Parliament's power to amend the Constitution. It marked the beginning of something that has been called the "basic structure" of the Constitution which cannot be altered by any government, under any circumstances.

Now we come to Kihota Hollohan. A legal battle between this gentleman and Mr. Zanchillu also resulted in a Supreme Court judgement (1992) that not only has a bearing on how elected representatives behave in the Parliament and Legislative Assemblies, it unwittingly also prevents prevents the legislature from performing one of its principle functions: scrutiny of the executive. It does this through an anti-defection law which rests on the assumption that  'elections are won by political parties rather than persons'.

Whatever be the pros and cons of the anti-defection law, one curious thing about Kihota Hollohan is that there is hardly any information about him or about his opponent, Zanchillu, in the legal tomes that rest in cyberspace. Nothing in Manupatra; nothing in indiankanoon.com .

So far, the only bit of information I could find is that Mr. Hollohan was the Nagaland state minister for social security and welfare, in 2003.

Wonder what was it that Zanchillu did to so upset him...

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REFERENCES

North East Enquirer (7 July 2003) - http://www.nenanews.com/NEE%20July%207%20-%2021,%2003/oh17.htm

Supreme Court of India: Shri Kihota Hollohon vs Mr. Zachilhu And Others on 18 February, 1992 - URL - http://indiankanoon.org/doc/542383/

Scribd: A Case Analysis on Kihota Hollohon - http://www.scribd.com/doc/47535196/Case-Analysis-of-the-Case-of-Kihoto-Hollohon

Khanna, Kartik and Dhvani Shah (2012): ANTI-DEFECTION LAW: A DEATH KNELL FOR PARLIAMENTARY DISSENT? NUJS Law Review 2012; URL - http://www.nujslawreview.org/articles2012vol5no1/kartik-khanna-and-dhvani-shah.pdf