Apr 22nd 2010 From The Economist print edition http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15955530&source=most_commented http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15955530&source=most_commented India's criminal tribes If they were crooks, wouldn't they be richer? Millions of poor Indians are considered criminal by tradition. Most are nothing of the sort | ASHTI, MAHARASHTRA | According to an 1880 report of the Bombay Presidency, an area dominated by the modern states of Maharashtra and Gujarat, members of a Pardhi sub-tribe are "always ragged and dirty, walking with a sneaking gait". To fix these vagabonds, the Raj introduced the 1871 Criminal Tribes Act, under which members of around 150 tribes were forced to register with the police, forbidden to move around freely and, in many cases, herded into barbed-wire camps. The law was scrapped soon after India won independence, and the criminal tribes were formally "de-notified" in 1952. Some have prospered: in Rajasthan, the Meenas dominate a preferential-treatment scheme to allocate government jobs to tribal people, which has let them become part of India's elite civil services. Yet the fortunes of many de-notified tribes (DNTs) have scarcely improved. [snip] --- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar