Transgender persons are the people who are still struggling for their rights in our society as a result of society’s failure to accept their gender identities. As a result, they see this continue to suffer discrimination, social oppression, and physical abuse. However, National Legal Service Authority v. Union of India (2014) is a landmark judgment of the Supreme Court of India that declared transgender people as the ‘third gender’, and also affirmed that fundamental rights granted under the Indian constitution applies to them equally, and gave them the right to self-identify their gender as male, female or third gender.
Moreover, In Indian society, transgender people have existed for centuries. It was also recorded in ancient Indian texts that “third sex” or persons not conforming to male or female gender existed. For instance, in the Ramayana and the Vedas, there is an explicit mention of the LGBTI community. Even in Mahabharat the sexual transition of ‘Arjuna’ the warrior during the ‘agyatvas’ period was duly respected and loved.
Why was the Criminal Tribes Act passed
Many laws were passed by the British to divide and treat Indians according to their religion and caste identification. The Criminal Tribes Act (or CT Act/CTA) is one of these laws. The British passed three Criminal Tribes’ Acts during colonial rule. These were:
Criminal Tribes Act, 1871
Criminal Tribes Act, 1911
Criminal Tribes Act, 1924
In 1865, the secretary to the North-Western Provinces(NWP) wrote to the inspector general of police indicating that the administration aimed to prevent an increase in the number of hijras/eunuchs as that would gradually lead to their extinction. The CT Act in 1871, thus aimed to eliminate eunuchs by preventing initiations, castrations (because the British erroneously thought castration was essential to Hijra-hood), and by making Hijras invisible in public spaces.
The British government enacted these laws for various reasons, which can be summed up as follows:
Those in charge of the British administration viewed wandering people with suspicion.
Additionally, the British government was strictly against mobile craftsmen and traders (who hawked their products in communities), and pastoralists (who had to move from one place to another in search of fresh pastures for their cattle). Therefore, in order to stop these activities, the government passed the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871 and listed many tribal groups in India as Criminal Tribes.
The main purpose of the Act was to regulate and monitor pastoral people.
Consequently, to force these pastoral people to live in notified settlements and ban them from moving out without permission from the government. Due to this, their grazing grounds were restricted and their stock animals deteriorated.
By implementing the Criminal Tribes Act, the government aimed to rule over a settled population.
The government wanted the rural population to live in villages, in fixed places with fixed rights on specific fields as it was relatively easy to control and identify such a population.
There was a strong argument put forward that it was part of an entire model to preserve law and order in colonial India. Having used to a highly centralized society, the British viewed India as a volatile place with its complex array of castes and communities, each functioning as autonomous, self-governing units, following different lifestyles and social norms.
The most resistant communities to pax-Britannica were targeted in different ways for such special treatment. The worst victims were the communities that did not have sedentary lifestyles, which made it harder to demand subservience from them.
In 1952, the government of India replaced the Criminal Tribes Act with the Habitual Offenders Act. As a result of the enactment of this law, the former Criminal Tribes Act was denotified. In the contemporary world, most of these tribes are known as ex-criminal tribes or vimukta jatis.\
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