Denotified and Nomadic Tribes of India!
The Nomadic and Denotified tribes constitute about 60 million all over India. Due to the wandering traditions over hundreds of years without any ostensible means of livelihood under the influence of the caste system, they are forced to live under sub human conditions.
The large section of these tribes is known as “Vimukta jaatis” or the Ex-Criminal Tribes because they were branded as criminals by birth under the “Criminal Tribes Act, 1871”, enacted by the British Government. In spite of the repeal of the Act in 1952, they are still treated as Criminals by birth and subjected to harassment and persecution at the hands of the police and the state machinery.
From generation after generation, these tribes have had wandering traditions and they have hardly been integrated in the society. In fact, the society has always looked at them with mistrust and suspicion due to the stigma of criminality attached with them. In that sense, they have been living a life of isolation from the rest of the society.
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A major challenge in the development of these tribes comes due to dispersed nature of the tribes and having a nomadic culture. This results in health and educational services a challenging task to deliver for them. It also makes the implementation of nutritional initiative like addressing iodine deficiency a challenging task- Preservation of their culture, script, practices also gets hampered due to the same reason.