Constructing the Criminal Tribe in Colonial India: Acting Like a Thief

ISBN: 978-1-4051-2057-9

Hardcover

176 pages

April 2010, Wiley-Blackwell

< >

A detailed overview of the phenomenon of the “criminal tribe” in India from the early days of colonial rule to the present, tracing and analyzing historical debates in historiography, anthropology and criminology
Argues that crime in the colonial context is used as much to control subject populations as to define morally repugnant behavior
Explores how crime evolved as the foil of political legitimacy under military
Examines the popular movement that has arisen to reverse the discrimination against the millions of people laboring under the stigma of criminal inheritance, producing a radical culture that contests stereotypes to reclaim their humanity