'Excessive Criminalization Has Led To Stigma Of Denotified Tribes' : Criminal Justice & Police Accountability Project

The Criminal Justice & Police Accountability Project (CPA Project) is a Bhopal-based litigation and research intervention project focused on building accountability against criminalisation of certain communities by the police and the criminal justice system. The project works at grassroot level focusing in specific locations, and particular communities across the state of Madhya Pradesh. These communities include those previously officially criminalised under colonial laws, now classified as Denotified Tribal (DNT) Communities as well as other communities that are similarly persecuted and stigmatised by the criminal justice system. In this two part series, we interview Nikita Sonavane, Ameya Bokil and Srujana Bej, lawyers and team members at the CPA project and discuss their work. In the first part we discuss the need of documenting and intervening against the disproportionate harm caused by the criminal justice system against marginalized castes and the harm caused by excessive criminalization. In the second part, we will discuss policing in the pandemic and the way-forward for Indian criminal justice system. 1. CPA project both through its research and litigation has brought focus to hitherto ignored issues of casteist disposition of Indian Criminal justice system. You have written that the colonial system has 'camouflaged and adapted itself to reify the caste system'. What is the aim of the Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project? Please share with us the role of your project in documenting, researching and advocating against the caste injustice and discrimination continued through criminal justice system. There are several communities across the country, known as the Vimukta''s or Denotified Tribes(DNT) who were classified as criminals by the British colonial rulers under Criminal Tribes Act (CTA), 1871. While the act was repealed in 1952 but working with these communities in Bhopal, we found that the label and stigma of criminality is still sustained in various ways by the criminal justice system. The criminal law and the criminal justice system has legitimised the disproportionate harm and targeting of these communities through law with the rationale of the same being found in the deeply violent Indian caste system. The fundamental principle or the cardinal rule of criminal law is that everyone is 'innocent until proven guilty' but for the communities belonging to various oppressed communities like Vimuktas or jaatistai "other" tribal groups who fall outside of the caste system, there is a presumed criminality through various existing laws like state Excise Acts, Habitual Offenders provisions; Arms Act, 1959; and anti-gambling laws etc. And thus these communities continue to be criminalized and overrepresented in the criminal justice system as accused persons. The oppression of the criminal law against these communities is two fold, while on one hand we see their excessive targeting through these acts, on the other hand, in the instances of violence against these communities the same system refuses to take any action or provide redressal or any kind to them. There has been criticism of the colonial tendencies of the Indian criminal justice system, largely through a reformist prism of making the system better, putting safeguards in place etc., but very little understanding and analysis has been undertaken of the fundamental ethos which were designed to bolster the caste system through criminal law and the justice system. Vimukta communities attained independence five years after the rest of the country and continue to face violence but with little acknowledgement or documentation of that violence. In this process police play a key role as the first point of contact of the system. While the routine custodial violence, abuse of power and corruption within police machinery has been documented and demanded to be reformed, there is need of research, documentation, and litigation to question the casteist disposition of the police machinery. That is the gap CPA aims to fill. We further are attempting to orient our focus and reinvent our engagement on the fundamental questions on how and who we criminalize, how much discretion and powers the police have and how we look at the carceral and crime control model of our system because the system currently is running at expense of life and liberty of marginalized communities. 2. Similar projects in the United States have also brought focus on race and the criminal justice system. In the recently released Netflix Documentary 13th, we saw that the American criminal justice system with 'war on drugs' and 'law and order' narratives have led to overrepresentation of African American community in the prison population in the US. Have they inspired your work? The abolitionist and anti-carceral perspective have been advocated for long in the United States of America ...

'Excessive Criminalization Has Led To Stigma Of Denotified Tribes' : Criminal Justice & Police Accountability Project

Surbhi Karwa & Rajesh Ranjan

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