Early this year, the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) issued an alert regarding organised wildlife crime networks involved in tiger poaching. It called for greater patrolling and surveillance and preventive measures. Following this, states like Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra issued their own alerts.
Media reports uncovered the pervasive extent of organised poaching networks across states and neighbouring countries. Despite this organised wildlife trade's far-reaching impacts, the recent alerts do not focus on strengthening investigative capacities and tracing financial links through inter-departmental coordination. Instead, the singular focus is on forest-dwelling nomadic communities and amping up the everyday surveillance of their lives.
Disturbingly, the WCCB memo relies on an earlier advisory in naming seven nomadic communities –– Pardhis, Bahelias, Bawarias, Saperas, Mongyas, Banjaras and Kanjars –– their modus operandi, which summarises their occupations and their habits to a disturbing detail, leaving out any inter-state and transnational traders. The state-wide alert issued by the principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife) (PCCF), MP lists out surveillance measures such as regular search of settlements, use of dog squads, creation of a database and registration in local police stations.
The wholesale statutory sanction in treating entire communities as suspects is not new, and harkens back to the draconian legacy of the Criminal Tribes Act (CTA). The disproportionate focus, surveillance and blanket association of criminality, as seen in this case due to the involvement of a few individuals from these communities, follows the exact logic of group and associated crime based on caste and tribe.
Questionable validity of executive action
At the outset, the alerts by WCCB and MP PCCF do not specify the legal basis of their authority to pass such measures for surveillance. The Wildlife Protection Act, 1973 (WPA) mandates the requirement of ‘reasonable ground’ of the commission of a crime by a person before conducting any search, seizure or arrest. On the contrary, the alerts do not lay out any reasonable ground. They only mention individual cases from years ago (in the national memo of the WCCB) and name these communities, which is opposite to the purview of WPA.
Further, it favours intrusive surveillance and prejudicial treatment against the tribals. It has put alleged hunting or nomadic communities subject to surveillance just on the basis of their caste/community is prima facie contrary to these legal standards. The alerts are against the right to privacy for being disproportional, without legitimate state interest and devoid of any legal basis.
Recently, the Supreme Court in the cases of Sukanya Shantha vs. Union of India and in Amanatullah Khan vs. The Commissioner of Police took note of the stereotyping and selective targeting of formerly criminalised Vimukta communities. It strongly directed the necessity of preventive measures to safeguard such communities from being subjected to inexcusable targeting or prejudicial treatment.
Legacy of manufacturing criminality in the forests
As mentioned, there is an uncanny similarity between the alerts and the caste-colonial Criminal Tribes Act, 1871. The erstwhile act classified around 200 Nomadic & Semi Nomadic Tribes as hereditary & habitual criminals addicted to ‘systematic commission of crime’. The legislation gave blanket powers to the executive to arbitrarily classify communities, put them under surveillance and restrict their movement by forcing them to reside in settlements created by the government. Dominant caste ‘village headmen’ were given the power to monitor and inform about the movements of these tribes/communities. The law effectively laid the ground for ‘modern’ surveillance infrastructure where detailed registers were maintained to monitor the movements of these communities branded as criminals. Even though the law was repealed in 1952, many laws about repeat offenders have kept the main idea of the CTA alive and relevant today.
Police Regulations still use references to Denotified tribes, ‘wandering tribes’, ‘criminal tribe’, ‘gangs’ and so on as objects of everyday surveillance, qualifying for automatic entry into history sheets or specific qualification as habitual offenders where even children are not exempt. Wildlife investigative practices have followed this trend too.
Cultural beliefs about pollution have shaped forest governance policies, labeling nomadic and forest-dwelling communities as “polluters” and “encroachers,” rather than recognising them as guardians of the environment.
Our research shows that the discretionary powers given to Forest departments under the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 often weakened the effectiveness of criminalization in a way that maintains executive control over forests and limits the exercise of forest rights by communities.
Alarmingly, about 64.5 per cent of hunted animals are less protected species, rather than key conservation ones like tigers and elephants. This approach creates a perception of criminality that reinforces social hierarchies, while real poaching issues and wildlife trade networks go unaddressed. Interviews with officials indicate that investigations focus mainly on vulnerable individuals from forest communities, neglecting the major players in the trade. Current policies favour broad criminalisation as an easy solution, burdening these communities with disproportionate surveillance.