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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Undoing a legacy of injustice -Gautam Bhatia

Undoing a legacy of injustice -Gautam Bhatia

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published Published on Aug 13, 2018   modified Modified on Aug 13, 2018
-The Hindu

The Delhi High Court order striking down the Begging Act heeds the Constitution’s transformative nature

In 1871, the colonial regime passed the notorious Criminal Tribes Act. This law was based upon the racist British belief that in India there were entire groups and communities that were criminal by birth, nature, and occupation. The Act unleashed a reign of terror, with its systems of surveillance, police reporting, the separation of families, detention camps, and forced labour. More then six decades after independent India repealed the Act, the “denotified tribes” continue to suffer from stigma and systemic disadvantage.

Instance of dehumanisation

The Act was one strand of a web of colonial laws that dehumanised communities and ways of life. The colonial administrators were particularly concerned about nomadic and itinerant communities, which by virtue of their movements and lifestyle were difficult to track, surveil, control, and tax. Through laws such as the Criminal Tribes Act, and other legal weapons such as vagrancy laws, the regime attempted to destroy these patterns of life, by using criminal laws to coerce communities into settlements and subjecting them to forced labour.

Independence brought with it many changes, but also much continuity. Despite the birth of a Constitution that promised liberty, equality, fraternity, and dignity to all, independent India’s rulers continued to replicate colonial logic in framing laws for the new republic. They continued to treat individuals as subjects to be controlled and administered, rather than rights-bearing citizens. One of the most glaring examples of this is the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act. The Begging Act was passed in 1959 by the State of Bombay, and has continued to exist in as many as 20 States and two Union Territories. But last week, in a remarkable, landmark and long overdue judgment, the Delhi High Court struck it down as inconsistent with the Constitution.

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The Hindu, 13 August, 2018, https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/undoing-a-legacy-of-injustice/article24672202.ece


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