What is the issue?
- The Delhi High Court has recently struck down some provisions of the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act. Click here to know more
- It is imperative, in this context, to understand the colonial perceptions behind the coming in of such laws.
What was the colonial era approach?
- In 1871, the colonial regime passed the Criminal Tribes Act.
- This was based upon the racist British belief that many groups and communities are being criminal by birth, nature, and occupation.
- The Act unleashed a reign of terror, with systems of surveillance, police reporting, separation of families, detention camps, and forced labour.
- More than six decades after independence, India repealed the Act.
- But sadly, the “denotified tribes” continue to suffer from stigma and systemic disadvantage.
What is the rationale behind?
- Criminal Tribes Act is one among a range of colonial laws that dehumanised communities.
- The colonial administrators were particularly concerned about nomadic communities.
- It's because, by virtue of their movements and lifestyle, it was difficult to track, surveil, control, and tax them.
- So the Criminal Tribes Act and other such laws attempted to destroy these patterns of life.
- They were used to coerce these communities into settlements and subject them to forced labour.
What happened after independence?
- Constitution did promise liberty, equality, fraternity, and dignity to all.
- However, independent India’s rulers continued to replicate colonial logic in framing laws for the new republic.
- Individuals were continued to be treated as subjects to be controlled, rather than rights-bearing citizens.
- The Bombay Prevention of Begging Act comes as an extension of this approach.
What are the larger concerns with the Act?
- The Act has continued to exist in as many as 20 States and two Union Territories.
- The definition refers to "singing, dancing, fortune telling, performing or offering any article for sale" for receiving alms.
- The vague definitions give unchecked power to the police to harass citizens.
- The Begging Act was used just before the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
- The Delhi government took measures to take beggars off the street as their presence would embarrass the nation before foreigners.
- Such operations are also a regular part of preparing for national events, such as Independence Day and Republic Day.
- It seems to be targeting groups and communities whose nomadic patterns of life do not fit within mainstream stereotypes.
- It reflects the desire to erase public spaces of people who look or act differently.
- It conveys that the constitutional guarantees of pluralism and inclusiveness are not available to these people.
What is the significance of HC ruling?
- The Delhi High Court’s judgment marks a crucial step forward in dismantling a vicious legacy of colonialism.
- It comes as a recognition of the fact that our Constitution is a transformative one.
- It seeks to undo legacies of injustice and lift up all individuals and communities to the plane of equal citizenship.
What is the way forward?
- A court can strike down an unconstitutional law, but it cannot reform society.
- Poverty is a systemic and structural problem of the society.
- So it is the task of the legislatures and the government to replace contentious laws as the Begging Act.
- Measures focusing on rehabilitation and integration of the most vulnerable and marginalised members should be the way forward.
Source: The Hindu
