By Jag Jivan*
In a new episode of the Unmute Podcast, activist Deepa Pawar, founder of Anubhuti Trust and a voice from India's Nomadic and Denotified Tribes (NT-DNT), laid bare the deep-seated wounds inflicted by colonial-era laws that branded her community as criminals. Speaking with hosts Gagan Sethi, a veteran development practitioner with over 40 years in policy advocacy and minority rights, and Minar Pimple, founder of YUVA and former Amnesty International director, Pawar dismantled the myths of progress that sideline these marginalized groups, urging a reckoning with dignity, citizenship, and mental health in the fight for justice.
Pawar, hailing from the Ghisadi community in Maharashtra, traced her journey from a girl raised in urban slums to a feminist, environmentalist, and Phule-Shahu-Ambedkar-inspired leader. "My first inspiration comes from my community," she said, highlighting the labor-intensive, collective ethos where women bear the brunt of responsibility. "These women of labor, productivity, and expression—they are the foundation." Her path to activism crystallized during a chance encounter on Ambedkar's Mahaparinirvan Day in 1990s Mumbai, where she stumbled into a crowd and picked up a copy of B.R. Ambedkar's Who Were the Shudras?. "Holding Babasaheb's book, it felt like he was telling me about myself," Pawar recounted, igniting a ideological awakening that propelled her to dedicate her life to amplifying NT-DNT voices.
The conversation delved into the grim history of NT-DNT communities, comprising about 10% of India's population yet rendered invisible in national narratives. Pawar detailed how British colonial rulers, in collusion with local Brahminical elites, enacted the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 to suppress these mobile, land-savvy groups who were pivotal in the freedom struggle. "These communities were the first to manifestos for independence," she noted, citing Umaji Naik of the Ramoshi community as the earliest executed rebel, whom the British feared as a potential "second Shivaji." The Act confined over 198 tribes—including trans communities and indigenous groups—to open jails, stripped them of land, water, and forest rights, and criminalized their nomadic livelihoods rooted in diverse arts, languages, and zero-capitalism.
Repealed in 1952 amid Ambedkar's advocacy and Nehru's intervention, the law's repeal offered nominal relief: "Those branded criminals are no longer criminals—that's it," Pawar quipped. Yet, the mentality endures. "In Ahmedabad's Chhara Nagar, police round up my friend Dakshin at the first sign of theft," Sethi interjected, a pattern replicated nationwide. Pawar linked this to Brahminical hegemony, which views NT-DNT as perpetual threats to property and order. Post-independence, these tribes gained freedom five years late, were absent from the Constitution's drafting and the first elections, and remain scattered across Scheduled Castes, Tribes, and Other Backward Classes categories to dilute their unity. "Educate, organize, agitate—Babasaheb's slogan," Pawar emphasized. "But scattered, we can't act."
As India gears up for a caste census, Pawar sees both peril and promise. "It must be event-based, constitutional—not imposed," she argued, warning of manipulation in data collection, where 60% of NT-DNT still roam without awareness or capacity-building. She advocates a nationwide identity, ideally under Scheduled Tribes given their indigenous roots, with community representation in decision-making. "We need our plate—what we want served, not what's thrust upon us." On gender dynamics, Pawar critiqued the patriarchal creep into matrilineal NT-DNT structures, fueling rising gender-based violence. "External attacks create internal tremors," she said, but stressed women's inherent leadership in citizenship, health, and environmental struggles. Caste panchayats, often maligned, emerge as survival mechanisms amid state failures: "When justice systems demand caste certificates we lack, communities build their own—flawed, but born of exclusion."
Pawar's Anubhuti Trust, launched around 2010-11, embodies community-led resilience, focusing on mental health among youth. Drawing from Buddhist philosophy of empathetic engagement, it rejects elite, Western models for grassroots healing. "Vulnerability isn't innate; systems make us weak—starting with mental and emotional assaults," she explained. Sessions, led by community members, address historical criminalization's toll: guilt, self-criminalization, and inferiority complexes. "No external counselors; our people know the wounds best." Pawar, who suspects she endured undiagnosed depression and anxiety, positions this as "mental justice" against collective violence, rooted in constitutional rights and human dignity.
Her Marathi book Poladi Baya (Wandering Women), born from two years of interviews with eight NT-DNT women across districts, reclaims narratives of strength amid evictions and disasters. "These laboring women are heroines—navigating climate change, land rights, education without fanfare," Pawar said. The work challenges mainstream feminism to introspect: "Established movements must reflect on grassroots feminism in daily labor, collectivity, and financial decisions." For young progressive activists, it offers inspiration: "Claim space for nomadic literature—our histories of migration aren't deficits; they're knowledge trajectories."
Internationally, Pawar draws parallels with Roma communities in Europe and African tribes, where cultural assertions—songs, dances, languages—fortify advocacy at the UN. "They don't abandon heritage for 'development'; it's rebellion," she observed. In India, however, schools silence NT-DNT tongues as "babble," and markets exploit their aesthetics—from tattoos to folk cuisines—without credit. Anti-capitalist by ethos, NT-DNT resist branding, making them easy prey: "We craft for utility, not profit—hence our erasure." Pawar called for reparations, echoing Roma demands: "You owe us for centuries of repression."
As the podcast closed, Sethi urged CSR commitments on community terms, not paternalistic projects. Pawar echoed the sentiment: "Society owes reparations—not tokenism, but space for our imaginations to thrive." Her words resonate as a clarion call: true justice demands centering the excluded, weaving their stories into the nation's fabric before colonial ghosts haunt another generation. The episode, available on YouTube, underscores Unmute's mission to amplify silenced solidarities.
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*Freelance writer
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