Once an accused, always an accused: how past decides the fate of a denotified tribe in Madhya Pradesh

Dewas, Madhya Pradesh: “We have hundreds of stories of police atrocity to tell, but if you go to the victims, they will not speak due to fear. Around 20 days ago, a boy from our caste [Jhala] bought a second-hand electronics item. On learning this, the police nabbed him and falsely accused him of stealing it from a truck. He was tortured to such an extent that his family had to sell their two bighas of land and hand over Rs 10 lakh. Once they got the money, he was released. No case was registered, no action followed.” 

The words of Satyanarayan Jhala (67), a former sarpanch of Chidawad in Tonk Khurd block of Dewas district, point to the caste-based injustice meted out to the Jhalas, mostly addressed by the derogatory word ‘Kanjar’, in Madhya Pradesh. Crimes ‘orchestrated’ by Kanjar gangs are always in the news, as are some ‘infamous’ villages where people of this caste reside. Chidawad, Pipalrawan and Dhani Ghati are among these villages. 

According to Satyanarayan, only 10% of the people in his community commit crimes now and police have their complete information with them. Still, the remaining peaceful residents are harassed. He alleged that police were implicating poor people by working hand in hand with these known 10% criminals. They are mostly charged with illegal liquor possession and petty theft to extort money from their families. If money is not paid, they are threatened with more serious charges.

How the innocent are targeted

Innocent people of this caste are also trapped when the police are unable to catch the real culprit. Cases are not registered most of the time, and people are kept in illegal detention. If a case is registered, especially under Section 34(2) of the Madhya Pradesh Excise Act, 1915 ('Excise Act'), then bail from court can be obtained only after more than a month.

“We formed a reform committee to fight this injustice and to keep an eye on criminals, but we were unsuccessful because the media and administration did not support us. The criminals and corrupt policemen did not allow the committee to work,” added Satyanarayan.

The illegal extortion game of the police is not new here. “In 2000, a Station House Officer (SHO) of Tonk Khurd Police Station arrived in our village and ordered me to arrange a monthly pay-off. I refused, because I was struggling to raise my children. But the officer did not budge. He told me, ‘You are poor; steal, defraud or do whatever you can, I want Rs 10,000 per month’, and threatened to implicate me in a false case if I did not obey. Finally, they did implicate me in a false theft case,” Satyanarayan rued.

He said he complained to the then- Inspector General (IG), Surjeet Singh, who promised action if his complaint was true. When the probe proved that the SHO had erred, the police put pressure on the petitioner in the presence of an additional superintendent of police to get the complaint withdrawn. 

Satyanarayan claimed that, unlike the previous generations who were not averse to committing crimes, the younger ones are getting educated. Nevertheless, they are labelled criminals. “When I approach the police to help them out, the officers remind me that even one fish can make the pond dirty.”  

“Their [police] point of view is that if one of us is in front of them, they should throw that person in jail and impose whatever sections of the Indian Penal Code [IPC] they want,” Narendra Goden (50) of Bairwakhedi told 101Reporters.

Goden could not complete his LLB because he was implicated in a fabricated theft case. “In 2002, while returning from college one day, Tonk Khurd SHO Dilip Singh and team arrested me under Section 379 of the IPC (theft).”

In their report, the police wrote that they saw Goden running in the dark from behind. “Now you tell me, how can a person be identified from behind, that too in the dark? I was in jail for a month, and had to spend Rs 3 lakh for legal purposes. The torture went on for two years. I was wrongly implicated out of enmity, because I was working for the betterment of my community. Though the court acquitted me later, I could not complete my studies,” detailed Goden, a farmer and livestock rearer.

The weight of a criminal label

According to him, police always kept an eye on their personal belongings. “We had a Mahindra jeep, which the police wanted to snatch away. When we remained adamant, they tried to target us in the name of caste and made false cases with the help of criminals in the community. Police continuously violated the right to life guaranteed under Article 21 and right to equality guaranteed under Article 14 of the Constitution,” he added.

Describing the police raids, Goden said 200 to 300 police personnel would enter the houses in the village at midnight to take away any man or youth in whatever condition they were at that time. Cases will be registered against them, and police will present fake witnesses in the court. These witnesses are the same brokers, informers and habitual criminals who deal regularly with policemen.

“There are other respectable people in the village, including the sarpanch and secretary. Why not make them witnesses?” Goden wondered.

Referring to a recent raid, Goden said, “In one dramatic raid, police ‘recovered’ stolen goods worth crores of rupees from this village, including 10 four-wheelers, many motorcycles and several other things. This way, they also confiscated our four-wheeler.”

“Based on court orders, police later had to return every item seized, including our four-wheeler. The receipt of purchase of our Mahindra Scorpio was presented in court to get it back. But we could not produce the purchase bill of the motor pump that the police had confiscated. How can we provide the bill of a pump purchased 10 years ago?" Goden said, while showing the court order.

Narrating another illegal arrest that haunted him, Goden said Madhavnagar town inspector arrested him on January 28, 2020, without any reason and kept him in illegal custody for three days. “While in custody, I kept thinking that I should be free, even if it came at the cost of selling my house or land. However, I secured release after my family gave a bribe of Rs 30,000. I have filed a complaint in the court, but the hearing has not yet begun. I want to know the reason for police action.”

A neighbour of Goden, Sumitra Jhala (46), gave an account of how her husband Nathu Singh was taken into illegal custody by Ujjain Police, but was released after bribing officers of Rs 30,000. “Police threatened to impose a heavy fine if we did not pay up. I run the house by selling milk, so I know how I arranged the money. We have to suffer if someone else errs,” she lamented. 

In 2021, Akhil Bharatiya Gihara Samaj Jagriti Parishad filed a petition seeking direction to the authorities not to use the derogatory word ‘Kanjar’ in the caste certificate of the members of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The petition said the community is known as Gihara.

“Kanjar is a slur used by the British against the nomadic people who harassed them. The denotified castes continued to be called Kanjars even after Independence, and were treated the same way as before,” a senior official of the Anthropological Survey of India told 101Reporters on condition of anonymity.

“It is believed that the roots of crime are deep in the denotified castes. They get involved in crime, but not always… The mainstream society and the police treatment as criminals for a long time are responsible for keeping them criminals,” said the official who has worked with such castes in Dewas.

Two years ago, Chidawad-based Vicky Jhala (23), Ravindra Jhala (24) and three others were arrested in Operation Prahar, which media publicised as action in a Kanjar crime. Satyanarayan said he managed to release three of them from the police station without bribery. One of them, Ravindra, has become a lawyer. However, Vicky spent a month in jail. He is now out on bail. 

The toll the arrest had taken on Vicky was evident when he got scared by our presence and hid in the toilet of the house. Despite repeated attempts to speak to him, Vicky refused to come out even after waiting for a long time. Vicky's parents are mentally disturbed.

“He is an educated boy who does not indulge in theft or illegal activities. Police trapped him in an illicit liquor case and ruined his life… We sold our goats and buffalo calves to secure his bail. The high court hearing is still on. Police and lawyers are looting us. So far, we have spent Rs 35,000,” deplored Vicky's grandmother, Sampat Kumar (65).  

Bribes, beatings and bail

Retired Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel Kiran Singh Jhala (72) of Tonk Kalan recalled how police picked up his son, a government teacher, while going for a court hearing in a land case. He was accused of possessing illicit liquor and was kept in police lockup for eight days. His release came about only after the police department was paid a bribe of Rs 60,000.

“The case is going on. The day he is sentenced, he will lose his job. We appealed to the Collector and Superintendent of Police (SP), but to no avail,” Kiran Singh said.

Pappi Bai (47) of Pipalrawan narrated how two constables entered her house on March 21 and demanded that she hand over Rs 2 lakh. “They used to seek money from us every six months. However, this time, their eyes were on the harvested garlic. So they coolly demanded Rs 2 lakh. When I flatly refused, they threatened to register such a case against my husband that he would languish in jail for the rest of his life. They also beat me unconscious and set our house on fire, in which household items were damaged,” Bai said. Her husband Inder (49) is handicapped.

Ajay* (22) of Dhani Ghati operated an online customer service centre. One day, he was arrested in nearby Nevri village and booked under Section 34(2) for possessing illicit intoxicants. According to Ajay’s mother, the police forcefully made him sign a confession statement and sought Rs 5 lakh for his release.

According to a research paper by Bhopal-based Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project, Section 34(2) cases are generally not granted bail by the District and Sessions court. Ajay was in jail for over a month before getting bail from the High Court. 

The same report also highlights how women from this community are disproportionately criminalised under the Excise Act. A recent survey on NT-DNT communities (Nomadic and Denotified Tribes) in several states shows the percentage of arrest and detention is very high among the Kanjar as compared to other communities. Data shows that out of 314 persons (13.8%) detained from the total 2,274 households surveyed, Kanjars make up the maximum percentage of 43.9%. 

In the public eye too, their reputation suffers at the hands of the mainstream media, which routinely brands the entire community as criminals. All this while these communities remain extremely marginalised, struggling with rampant poverty, illiteracy and disenfranchisement. 

Thus, despite legal reform efforts, communities like these remain caught in a vicious cycle of stigma and surveillance, where perception, and not fact, determines their fate.

(Satish Malviya is a Madhya Pradesh-based freelance journalist and a member of 101Reporters, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.)

This story has been produced by 101Reporters, an independent news agency with a network of 3,000+ freelance journalists across the country, in collaboration with Crime & Punishment, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.