The Criminal Tribes Acts made hereditary caste logic the basis of colonial law.

Evidence

By the beginning of the twentieth century, huge sections of the population, mostly itinerant, were labelled criminal under the Criminal Tribes Acts of 1871 and 1911. Seeing criminality as hereditary was a logical outcome of the caste system. If people could be born scholars, weavers and cobblers they could also be born thieves and thugs. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 1089

Categorization

• XREF: Shows the caste system’s logic being weaponized and generalized by the colonial state — key to understanding how caste identity scaled into legal-penal categories.