Chaumtoli Huq
Photo credit. Birth1871 documentary.
Editor of Law@theMargins Chaumtoli Huq sits down and talks with documentary filmmaker and Director of Budhan Theater Dakxin Chhara on his film Birth 1871 on the history of denotified tribes (DNT) in India. “Do you think 60 million people are born criminals?” he asks. Of course, our answer is no because to say otherwise would go against our sense of fairness and human rights.
Dakxin is a member of the Chhara tribe. Denotified tribes which includes the Chharas are the only communities in human history to be defined as hereditary criminals through the Criminal Tribe Act passed under British colonialism. Even after the law was repealed, members of denotified tribes still faced and continue to face pervasive discrimination in society. To learn more about his film, you can view his website. http://birth1871.org Dakxin speaks powerfully about the link between history, art, and law.
“I decided to use art to speak about the problem” or DNT and “trained 100 youth groups ….We are not born criminals, we are born entertainers. ”
“We want a separate nation, but not a nation with borders … Nomadism is part of our civilization.”
Listen to the interview.
