Understanding the Silence: An Ethnographic Study of Kabutari Community and Narratives of Its Stigmatized Life-world

Stigmatized identity makes a community vulnerable, excluded and deprived of citizenry rights. In India, criminality of communities is a prevalent stigma. Under the British rule, a large number of nomadic, semi-nomadic and tribal communities were labelled as ‘Born criminals’ under the Criminal Tribes Acts 1871. After independence, the Act was repealed, and some of these communities were ‘De-notified’. These communities are still living under the burden of stereotypes. They face an identity crisis due to their absence from the state’s assigned social categories. In the absence of statutory documents, they are unable to get the benefit of government welfare programmes. This article is an attempt to develop an insight to understand the vulnerability of one such de-notified community, the ‘Kabutari’ of the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh, through their own narratives. On the whole, this study is an attempt to identify the factors behind the increasing vulnerability, muteness and invisibility of the community, and their inability to cope up with changing socio-economic realities and market, which increases their vulnerability further, and finally, to explore the hidden resistance with an aspiration of a better life with a dignified identity.