Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how mobilisation around labour disputes in the late 1930s in western India implicated communities incarcerated in open prisons, becoming a means by which so-called 'Criminal Tribes' expressed insurgent forms of citizenship.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores how mobilisation around labour disputes in the late 1930s in western India implicated communities incarcerated in open prisons, becoming a means by which so-called 'Criminal Tribes' expressed insurgent forms of citizenship. Examining the specific case study of the mill strikes in Sholapur during the regime of the Bombay Congress government in 1938 to 1939, it identifies emergent leaderships among the 'settlement' populations and the background to a distinctive identity politics that cut across other low caste mobilisations. This community assertion was to become significant later on, via modes of occupational and industrial skills, in the communities' claims to 'backwardness' or 'adivasi' status.