Pardhis: the usual suspects

Despite the repeal of the Criminal Tribe Act in 1949 'denotified' tribes are still branded criminals and illegally detained by the police. Should the community apply for anticipatory bail?

DIONNE BUNSHA
In Kalamb, Marathwada region, Maharashtra

When Banabai Banshi Pawar set herself on fire in a crowded courtroom in Kalamb, Usmanabad on 28th August, it symbolised her frustration with a lifetime of harassment.

Doused in kerosene, she pleaded with the judge to release her two sons, whom she said had been arrested on false charges. She threatened to kill herself if they were not released. A policeman standing next to her sneered at a woman he considered to be from one of the ‘low’ Pardhi criminal tribes. “You are all liars. That’s not kerosene. It’s water,” he said. That was enough to ignite her anger. She set herself on fire to prove her point, and died.

Banabai is from the Pardhi community, one of the 150 ‘denotified’ tribes which were branded ‘criminal’ under British law because they rebelled against the Raj. Today, even though independent India repealed the Criminal Tribe Act in 1949, officially denotifying them from the criminal label, they still face discrimination. In Maharashtra, at least six known attacks on denotified tribes have occurred in the last three months.

Banabai’s suicide sparked a witch hunt against her community. The next day, merchants in the town burned down more than 100 Pardhi houses.

Soon after her suicide, Pardhi women, already furious following the arrest of nine men from their basti, confronted a local police inspector. Infuriated, the police met powerful local leaders and traders at the police station that evening, asking them to help the police maintain ‘law and order’. The traders decided to call a bandh the next day.

During the bandh, a huge mob armed with swords, sticks and kerosene entered the Pardhi basti and torched everything in sight. Local leaders, including local Shiv Sena leaders, notorious as local hoods, led the mob. More than 100 houses were set alight. Their huts, a truck, motorcycles, belongings reduced to ashes. “All we were left with were the saris we were wearing. Everything else was destroyed - our vessels, grains, bedding, clothes,” says Sakarbai Pawar, whose hut was burned. Her family of 12 now takes shelter under two tin sheets. “The mob came here, called us thieves, and asked us how we had built these houses. They threatened that they would not let us stay here. We ran away,” says Natabai Pawar.

In Kalamb, the Pardhis have been called thieves, bootleggers and moneylenders. While a handful of people within the community do run an illicit liquor and moneylending joint, most others are agricultural and construction workers. Two people, whose brick houses were burned, worked as a bus conductor and a peon in the local government office. “Not all of us are brewing liquor here. We work as labour in fields or at construction sites. If we really were thieves, would we be living like this, searching for the next meal?” asks Tai Phulchand Kale, standing next to what remains of her hut.

Sakarbai Pawar's 12-member family, without a proper roof over their head, at the spot where their home was torched at Kalamb in Usmanabad district
The first to propagate the stereotype against Pardhis and profit from it are the police. “The town’s residents were harassed by these criminals. They gave vent to their frustration,” says the local senior police inspector, sympathetically. However, the Pardhis say it was the police who incited the traders against them the night before the attack.

Moreover, they add that the nine men arrested on the night of August 27th were not caught while on their way to a dacoity, as claimed by the police, but were dragged out of their homes and taken to the police station. There, they were asked to pay Rs 7,000 each for their release. The Maharashtra police’s protection of civil liberties cell is investigating the charges of false arrests against the Kalamb police. Senior police officials admit that the investigation seems to suggest that the arrests were fake.

The real reason for the torching of Pardhi homes seems to have more to do with commerce. The Pardhis occupy land near the market. As the town has grown, their basti is now prime property, worth lakhs of rupees. Local politicians and traders are eager to get them out. In fact, the Kalamb traders association has even asked the government to ‘rehabilitate’ the ‘the criminals’ outside the town. “They have encroached on government land. Once they are rehabilitated outside the town, the law and order situation will improve,” says Lakshmichand Bhalai, committee member of the traders’ association.

Special Inspector-General S.S. Suradkar explains, “People use the criminal label against them to serve their own vested interests. However, most Pardhis are not involved in illegal businesses. Some cultivate land, others have jobs or businesses.”

Yet, the label sticks. The powerful benefit from perpetuating the stereotype. “It’s convenient to brand us criminals. Whenever a low caste community begins to prosper, the upper castes cannot stomach it. They will do anything to repress them. The big, politically powerful criminals like to use us as scapegoats,” says renowned writer and Pardhi activist Lakshman Gaikwad, who has himself risen from a small Pardhi basti in Latur to become a Sahitya Akademi award-winning writer.

For instance, recently, in the Achler village, Latur district, 22 houses and shops in the Banjara basti were set on fire by others more powerful in the village. They were angry that the local Banjara zilla parishad member Shankar Pawar was elected president of the local Vidya Vikas School board. Banjaras are another community that were denotified. Although traditionally a nomadic community, the Banjaras in Achler have been living here for decades.

Ramnabai Chavan and her family have been living in the village’s community centre, or sleeping under the shade of trees, ever since their house was torched on 19th September. “Nothing remains of our houses, not even a blanket to cover my children,” she says. “The upper castes cannot swallow the fact that a small man has gone forward. They want to retain power. We ordinary people have to bear the brunt of their politics,” she adds.

Moreover, the upper castes have now boycotted the Banjara community. “When people are working in their own fields, they accuse them of stealing. They don’t give us work in the farms, don’t let us enter the market or use the water tank, and have even asked the neighbouring village not to buy our produce like milk. How are we supposed to survive?” asks Ramnabai.

The mob came and attacked Ranu Lakshman Ade and her son while they were working in the field. She broke her arm, while her son was beaten till he was unconscious. “Luckily, the police came and stopped them. They sent him to the hospital,” she says.

Shankar Pawar, the man at the centre of the controversy, explains, “It’s all political. They are lashing out at our community to scare me before the zilla parishad elections.” He points out that a few days before the attack, a group called the Shiv Sanghatana had held a meeting to mobilise the Shaivite community here. “During the attack, they even entered the school and hit one of the teachers. His hand was broken. For 40 years, a man from their caste was president. They don’t like the fact that now a lower caste was elected by the board,” he says.

Their struggle for both political and economic opportunities may be bitter. But the fact that denotified tribals are attaining and fighting for their piece of the pie is itself a sign of change. It’s becoming more difficult for the powerful to keep them marginalised. Even labels have a shelf life.

Frontline, Nov. 10 - 23, 2001 Also available here