A “Criminal Tribe” in Post-Colonial India: Discrimination and Resistance in Chuni Kotal’s Writings

Today deemed a PVTG, or Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group of West Bengal, the Lodhas (also known as Shabar) were categorized as a “criminal tribe” under British colonial rule and as a Denotified Tribe in the 1950s. This epistemic violence perpetrated by the British has remained deeply embedded within the hegemonic knowledge system of post-Independence India, and the Lodhas continue to be subjected to various humiliations and everyday violence by the rural population to this day, not only in their interaction with upper-caste and upper-class dominant groups, but also by upper-class members of other socially marginalized communities. Epistemic violence, therefore, has resulted in the destruction of the marginalized community’s ability to speak and to be heard, and has left most community members trapped within a situation of extreme poverty. This paper focuses on the representations of the lived experience of poverty in the autobiographical writings of Chuni Kotal, a young Lodha woman who died by suicide in 1992. These writings, in fact, are one of the few examples of self-representation on the part of the Lodhas, for most of whom education remains a distant dream. The paper analyses how the formal education system and the persistence of deeply ingrained social stereotypes serve to deny opportunities for self-advancement to those who reside at the bottom of the social hierarchy.