Chharanagar is an urban settlement in Ahmedabad, dating back to the 19th century. The Chharas are just one of the many tribes that were labeled as “criminals” or “Notified tribes” by the British under India's Criminal Tribes Act of 1871, to solve their law and order problems. Independent India in 1952, declared these tribes 'denotified. Released from the forced labor camp (nau kholi- nine rooms were allotted to the entire tribe in the outskirts of Ahmedabad as a reformatory cell ) which had been their prison for the past forty years, the Chhara were resettled on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, in Chharanagar. Roughly three square miles, with a population of over twenty thousand.In 1952, the constitution of Independent India changed only words and not acts. Members of denotified tribes are still harassed by the police and carry the stigma of their formerly “criminal” designation. They are still treated as Criminals by birth and subjected to harassment and persecution at the hands of the police and the state machinery. In the eyes of the society they are still criminals- the criminal label is enough to close the doors to regular employment and social segregation is common.
