Background
Denotified Tribes refers to an estimated 110 million people belonging to communities that were labelled as ‘born criminals’ under a series of Criminal Tribes Acts under British colonial rule. These laws criminalised oppressed communities who lived at the margins of society as nomads, surviving on petty trade, pastoralism, raiding, slash and burn cultivation, and as itinerant bards and performers, placed them under intensive surveillance, restricted their movement and forced them into settlements that functioned as open prisons and labour camps.
Although the Act was repealed after India’s independence, the stigma of criminality and social exclusion continues. Today, DNTs are among the most precarious populations in the subcontinent working at the margins of India’s informal economy as manual labourers, agricultural and construction workers and also as performers and street entertainers. Many de-notified and nomadic communities still face systemic discrimination, limited access to education, and denial of basic citizenship rights. Their representation in mainstream culture often reinforces stereotypes that keep them marginalized from India’s social and economic mainstream.
Budhan Theatre was founded in 1998 in response to the custodial death of Budhan Sabar, a member of a DNT community. Budhan Theatre’s creation was supported by renowned linguist Ganesh Devy, celebrated writer and activist Mahashweta Devi, and Laxman Gaikwad, an award-winning Marathi writer from a DNT community, as a cultural strategy to challenge the “criminal” stigma imposed on their people and to reclaim dignity, identity, and voice through performance and storytelling.
Photography by Shiwangni