The “Criminal Tribe” and Independence: Partition, Decolonisation, and the State in India's Punjab, 1910s-1980s Sarah Eleanor Gandee Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Leeds School of History August 2018 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own, except where work which has formed part of jointly authored publications has been included. The contribution of the candidate and the other authors to this work has been explicitly indicated below. The candidate confirms that appropriate credit has been given within the thesis where reference has been made to the work of others. Some of the source material contained in chapters III and IV has been used in a jointly authored publication: William Gould, Sarah Gandee, and Dakxin Bajrange, ‘Settling the Citizen, Settling the “Nomad”: “Habitual Offenders”, Rebellion and Civic Consciousness in Western India, 1938-1952’, Modern Asian Studies, forthcoming 2019. The arguments derived from this source material were developed by the author of this thesis alone. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. The right of Sarah Eleanor Gandee to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. © 2018 The University of Leeds and Sarah Eleanor Gandee i Acknowledgements Firstly, I must thank my supervisors, William Gould and Jonathan Saha. Their continual support, expertise and intellectual rigour have improved this work enormously, and I could not be more grateful. They have approached both the project and myself with patience, kindness and endless encouragement. In addition to reading seemingly countless chapter drafts, they provided sound guidance on the baffling world of academia, responded to last minute requests, and dealt with my worries – and occasional tears. This work was supported by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (grant number AH/L503848/1) through the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities (WRoCAH). In addition to generous financial support for research and conference trips, WRoCAH offered valuable training and professional development, and a constant source of support. Special thanks are due to Caryn Douglas, Clare Meadley, and Julian Richards. Further generous support was received from the Institute of Historical Research, the University of Leeds, the Economic History Society, the Royal Historical Society, and Funds for Women Graduates. Without their support I could not have completed the extended overseas research demanded by this project. The Institute of Historical Research deserves a special mention for granting me a six-month Junior Research Fellowship, which not only provided generous financial support but opportunities for training, research and guidance. The School of History at the University of Leeds has been a wonderful institutional home for the past four years. It has given me numerous opportunities to develop as an academic in an encouraging, supportive and intellectually stimulating environment. There are too many colleagues and friends to name here, but I thank you all for making the department the place it is. Special thanks go to: my advisor, Claire Eldridge, who has been a constant source of guidance, support, and inspiration; SES Officer Emma Chippendale, for always knowing the answer to every query; and friend- turned-colleague Elisabeth, for the coffee, the hummus, and Ru Paul. This study has benefited from access to a wealth of sources, expertise, and facilities at several institutions: the British Library; the National Archives of India; the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library; the state archives of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, and Rajasthan; the Tribune Office, Chandigarh; the Centre for South Asian Studies, ii Cambridge; University Library, Cambridge; the Salvation Army Archives, William Booth College; the libraries at the University of Leeds, the LSE, and SOAS. I am grateful to the staff for their advice, support and generosity. Special thanks go to Keven and Barb, as always. I am indebted to many individuals in India. Firstly, those individuals belonging to the denotified and nomadic communities who welcomed me and shared histories, experiences, and many cups of tea. There are too many to name here, but special thanks are due to Madan and Rekha Meena, Dakxin Bajrange Chhara, Amar Singh Bhedkut, Balak Ram Sansi, Satyendra and the late Laxminarayan Jharwal, and the many individuals I met in Delhi, Patiala, and Ahmedabad. Thanks also to Apne Aap Women Worldwide and Professor Birinder Pal Singh for facilitating many of these meetings. To Ekta Gautam, for translations. A promised thank you to Vineet for being my interpreter in the blistering Delhi heat and, more importantly, all the beer – good luck in your own Ph.D. adventures. Finally, to the Chotias and Mohindras (and Raju) for welcoming me into their homes and making me feel a part of their families. Vinod, I cannot imagine meeting anyone with better stories or more kindness than you; my breakfasts are much duller these days. Special thanks to Shachi, for both the Hindi and such warmth. On a personal front, I must thank my friends – old and new, near and far. Apologies for all the birthdays and special occasions I have missed. There are too many of you to name here but you have all contributed to this journey in some way. Special thanks to the Lady Brains, without whom I would not have laughed, or moaned, half as much these past four years. To Rob, for reminding me there is a life beyond the Ph.D., one that is filled with hills, bikes and cake. Lastly, and most importantly, to my family, for their unwavering support. Especially to my Nan, who may not always have seen the sense in this endeavour but supported me throughout nonetheless. iii Abstract On 14-15 August 1947, India obtained freedom from British colonial rule. For the so-called ‘criminal tribes’, however, freedom did not come at the midnight hour but five years later, on 31 August 1952, when the Government of India repealed the Criminal Tribes Act. Enacted by the colonial government in 1871, this draconian legislation sought to control a disparate set of supposedly criminal communities (and later gangs and individuals) through a raft of punitive and surveillance measures. This study examines the postcolonial afterlives of the ‘criminal tribe’ in the region of Punjab. Specifically, it traces the ways in which the postcolonial state re-embedded this ostensibly colonial category of identification in its legislative, discursive and material practices, at the same time as it dismantled the Act itself. The study is primarily situated in the 1940s and 1950s, as Partition and decolonisation wrought enormous changes upon the subcontinent. It argues that state actors, whether politicians, bureaucrats or local officers, infused the ‘criminal tribe’ with heightened salience in the years after 1947 in response to the exigencies of independence and nation-building. Its findings reveal that the ‘criminal tribe’ remained a tangible and intelligible category for the postcolonial state long after its legal abolition, whether in the refugee regime, legal structures and penal practices, or welfare policies for disadvantaged citizens. This sheds light on a hitherto overlooked period of the Criminal Tribes Act, namely the early post-independence years. It examines the continued relevance of the ‘criminal tribe’ within postcolonial statecraft not as an inevitable colonial hangover but the product of more contested lineages and developments rooted both pre- and post- 1947. This also offers new insights onto the state at this critical juncture. In contrast to the existing scholarship on the Act, which emphasises its unwavering dominance, this study illustrates the uncertainties, contingencies, and tensions of the late colonial and decolonising state. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ ii Abstract ........................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ........................................................................................................... v Abbreviations ................................................................................................................vii Glossary ....................................................................................................................... viii A note on terminology ................................................................................................. xii Introduction - Categories, Decolonisation, and the State ........................................ 1 A Historiographical Overview ........................................................................... 4 (Post)Colonial Categories ......................................................................... 5 Conceptualising the state .......................................................................... 9 Decolonisation and nation-building ...................................................... 16 Parameters of the Study .................................................................................... 21 Punjab Peculiarities .................................................................................. 21 Reading the state archive .......................................................................