Babaria

A survey of the Rajbohra in Rajasthan indicates two myths of origin. One is the claim of descent from a man called Dana, who lived near Nagarkot and whom they believe married a goddess over a millennium ago; they still worship that goddess, together with Kali, Shed Devi, and Thakarji. Their other belief is that they were cursed by God at the time of creation and thereby banished to live in the forest and to steal.[2]

British authorities in Punjab Province became frustrated by the criminal behaviour they perceived to be exhibited by some nomadic and semi-itinerant communities, including the Babaria, some of whom had developed a tactic of raiding British-controlled territories and then seeking refuge in areas controlled by native princes. The authorities thought that limiting the movement of these groups would minimise this as well as allow for better monitoring of their activities and encourage them to switch from criminality to agricultural pursuits.[3]

Inspired by the reported successes of William Henry Sleeman in controlling the Thuggees of the North-Western Provinces, they initially attempted to restrict movement by imposing a system of compulsory registration at police stations, insisting on the targeted people being in their own village overnight unless they had permission for absence, and loading responsibility for their location and actions on to the village headmen. These measures were easily evaded by many nomads, who just dispersed or proffered different identities.[1]

Thus, by the mid-1850s, the British turned instead to internment as a solution to their problem. The experiment failed and indeed was forecast to fail by several British administrators, who noted that the communities were so averse to engaging in agriculture that it could never work and that they would just become a burden on food supplies, for they would either have to starve or be fed via aid.[3]

Rather than letting a bad idea die after the courts deemed internment illegal in 1867, the ruling spurred the administrations of both Punjab and the North-Western Provinces to seek a national system. Using data compiled from then accepted theories of scientific racism and poorly-sourced ethnographic surveys of folk tales, which suggested entire groups of people as hereditarily criminal, this ultimately resulted in the introduction of the Criminal Tribes Act in 1871. The Babaria of the Punjab became subject to it by order in August 1875, and their alleged characteristics were subsequently documented by V. T. P. Vivian in his A Handbook of Criminal Tribes of the Punjab (1912).[3]

The Criminal Tribes Act was repealed in 1952, after the independence of India, meaning that they were then recorded as a Denotified Tribe, but it was replaced by the 1953 Habitual Offenders Act which, together with the long prior history of being stigmatised as a criminal community, means that the Bawaria remain a socially oppressed people, are still subject to harassment by law enforcement bodies such as the police and forestry departments, and are still stereotyped as criminals. Fear and wariness of outsiders have persisted among them as a consequence.[2][1] The Bawaria are classified as an Open Caste under India's reservation system.[4][5][6][7]

• Babariawad