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

Constructing the Criminal Tribe in Colonial India provides a detailed overview of the phenomenon of the “criminal tribe” in India from the early days of colonial rule to the present.

• Traces and analyzes 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

Keywords: Postcolonialism, imperialism, criminology, Thuggee, caste system, colonialism, 1820 to 2007, Cultural Studies General, Cultural Studies General