Talk:Criminal Tribes Act

Questions about article
The article doesn't seem very neutral and seems heavier on philosophy than on concrete facts about these "criminal" tribes. Are there other opinions out there? Were the British as high handed and crazy as the article makes it sound here, or maybe there are dissident/revisionist views on the actual relevance of these measures? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.24.104.52 (talk) 02:07, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, yes, the British colonial era was quite racist. If you want high handed, google the Amritsar massacre. Or the Highland Clearances. A common saying in Britain was "Wogs begin at Calais". That said, the article sounds written by someone with an axe to grind. Over time, editors will go through and keep the facts, but trim the editorialising. Billyshiverstick (talk) 05:39, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Serious rewriting needed
POV issues, poor grammar, and some questionable assertions. Wilson44691 (talk) 16:18, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Questionable assertions indeed. I flagged a particularly blatant paragraph in the History section.  The other text surrounding it is only marginally better, uses highly emotive language more appropriate on a placard than in a Wikipedia article, and is flagrantly POV.  Alas, I am not familiar enough with Indian history to attempt fixing the article myself, but it cries out for attention. Freederick (talk) 02:39, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It will get that attention over the next few weeks. - Sitush (talk) 14:00, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Punishable to be a Gypsy in England under Henry VIII and others
This article would be richer with an addition of a section to provide the backdrop of discriminatory legislation already in place in England itself, prior to the act being implemented in India. It became an offence to simply be Gypsy in England under Henry VIII, and being caught could lead to flogging , whipping and banishment .Being caught a second time could be punishable by death.

An interesting book on the subject is English Gypsies And State Policies By David Mayall. The book has a   A summary of key legislation relating to gypsies, vagrants , rogues and vagabonds ,England and Wales , 1530-1914 Intothefire (talk) 09:32, 6 April 2013 (UTC)


 * That would be a form of synthesis unless reliable sources discuss a connection between two sets of legislation passed 300 years apart. Without that, I doubt it is even worth a See Also link. Was the gypsy legislation even in force in the 1800s in Britain? And if it was, was it enforced? - Sitush (talk) 13:49, 6 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Another relevant book is Roma And Gypsy - Travellers In Europe: Modernity, Race, Space And Exclusion By Angus Bancroft which explores the racial discrimination and disastrous consequences of driving gypsies to homelessness due to the various and uninterrupted Acts of legislation as late as 1960s, which made it impossible to live as a gypsy without breaking the law  .Intothefire (talk) 17:51, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * And I ask again ... where is this source "relevant"? It may be relevant to an article concerning gypsies or something similar but nowhere does it seem to mention the subject of this article and, indeed, it only mentions India in passing on p. 7 when referring to a possible-but-contested theory of origin. - Sitush (talk) 18:16, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I've slightly misrepresented things there, sorry. The source also refers to Indian on pp. 9, 13-14 and 44. The most relevant is p. 44, where an analogy between Indian untouchable castes and Gypsies is made ... and rejected. - Sitush (talk) 18:19, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Also see Practicing Anthropology in Development Processes edited by Floriana Ciccodicola Page 220-221-Intothefire (talk) 18:29, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * A brief look suggests that there is nothing wrong with that as a source. It could be cited as . I've not read the entire chapter but it would certainly justify a sentence in this article - a good find. - Sitush (talk) 18:57, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * And yet another relevant book citing the commonality of ill-treatment pf Gypsies under law by the English in England and Colonial India -Challenging The Rules(s) of Law: Colonialism, Criminology and Human Rights in India edited by Kalpana Kannabiran, Ranbir Singh.Intothefire (talk) 11:20, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Criminal Tribes Act
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Criminal Tribes Act's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "ReferenceA": From Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989: Home Minister P Chidambaram in the Lok Sabha (Lower House of Indian Parliament) on 30 August 2010 From Perna caste: People of India Haryana Volume XXIII edited by M.K Sharma and A.K Bhatia pages 400 to 403 Manohar From Thuggee: James Paton, 'Collections on Thuggee and Dacoitee', British Library Add. Mss. 41300 From Nomads of India: Nomads in India : proceedings of the National Seminar / edited by P.K. Misra, K.C. Malhotra From Mahtam: A Glossary of the tribes & castes of Punjab by H. A Rose From Baheliya: People of India Hayana Volume XXIII edited by M.L Sharma and A.K Bhatia pages 122 to 125 Manohar From International Standard Book Number: The ISBN Users' Manual International Edition, 6th edition From Kanjar: Kanjar in A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of Punjab by H. A Rose page 475 Low Price Publications</li> <li>From The Guardian: Audit Bureau of Circulations Ltd– abc.org.uk</li> <li>From Rajasthan: </li> <li>From Gujarat: P. 67 An era of peace By Krishna Chandra Sagar</li> <li>From Mirasi: People of India Punjab Volume XXXVII edited by I.J.S Bansal and Swaran Singh pages 322 to 333 Manohar</li> <li>From Columbia University: See Demographics of the United States for references.</li> <li>From The Hindu: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/changes-at-the-helm-editorial-and-business/article5257829.ece?homepage=true</li> <li>From Vagri: Census of India 1911 Vol 16, Baroda Pt 1, Report page 318</li> <li>From Abdal (caste): Marginal Muslim Communities in India edited by M.K.A Siddiqui pages 344-356</li> </ul>

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 18:26, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Factual error?
We say Ramnarayan Rawat, a professor of History and specialising in social exclusion in Indian subcontinent, states that the criminal-by-birth castes under this Act included initially Gujjars but its enforcement expanded by late 19th century to include most Shudras and untouchables such as Chamars, as well as Sanyassis and hill tribes. Try as I might, I cannot see where the cited pages of Rawat's book say the stuff about which groups fell under the Act initially and the bit about Sanyassis and hill tribes definitely is not said by him (a re-phrase would probably fix that because there is a source given for it but the sentence attributes it incorrectly). Can someone please provide a quote here or at least tell me what paragraph of what page I should be looking at. I have a hard copy of the book, btw. - Sitush (talk) 18:20, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

It appears to have been added in this edit by. Some bits have since gone missing (Ahirs etc), probably because of people trying to sanitise on behalf of their castes. The pages in Rawat certainly refer to these communities but not, as far as I can see, in the way that has been paraphrased. - Sitush (talk) 18:28, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

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nowiki but formatted as wikilinks?
There are several tribal names (e. g. Lodhi) formatted with the double-brackets of wikilinks, but then surrounded with nowiki tags. Is there a reason for this, or is it just a mistake? IAmNitpicking (talk) 18:47, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Criminal tribes
Meena. -- Karsan Chanda (talk) 07:32, 23 February 2022 (UTC)