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Denotified, nomadic, and semi-nomadic tribes (DNTs), classified as “criminal” tribes under the colonial administration, are now picking up pace on mobilising their demand to have a separate column for DNTs in the upcoming 2027 Census.
Associations of these communities in north India have now constituted a Central Joint Action Committee of Denotified, Nomadic, and Semi-nomadic Tribes (CJAC-DNT), even as associations and community leaders across the country are writing letters to the President, Prime Minister, Registrar General, and Census Commissioner of India, voicing this demand.
Last week, U.P.-based community organiser Mohit Tomar constituted the CJAC-DNT as a “single platform where community association come together to raise their demands and write letters to government authorities”, he told The Hindu.
Mr. Tomar, the convener/coordinator of the CJAC-DNT, on Sunday (March 9, 2026) wrote to President Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Office of the Registrar General of India, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Leaders of the Opposition in Parliament, the National Human Rights Commission, and the Secretaries of the Ministries of Social Justice, and Labour and Employment, with a list of the communities’ demands.
In addition to the demand for a separate column in the Census 2027 forms, and Constitutional recognition of their communities, the CJAC-DNT has demanded a Gazette notification specifying the communities that are DNTs, the creation of a permanent national commission for these communities, and 10% horizontal reservation for the communities in Central jobs and education.
Weeks before this, another set of community leaders from DNT communities across the country sent a similar letter seeking a separate column in the Census forms to the Census Commissioner of India, Mrityunjay Kumar Narayan, in which they asked for a meeting to be scheduled to address this demand specifically.
In this letter, drafted and signed by over 150 community leaders from Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Delhi, and many more, the communities have asked why they had been “ignored” despite the government having close to six years to prepare for the Census.
“Our claim is that we are over 15 crore in population. If carrying out a Census is found not necessary by the Census Commission, we shall have reason to assume that our claim is endorsed by you,” the community leaders said in the letter sent in mid-February.
“More and more leaders are signing this letter as we speak. The idea was to keep the letter open to signatories so that we can have as many people voice this demand as possible,” Dakxin Bajrange, a Gujarat-based DNT community leader, among the signatories to this letter, told The Hindu. They were yet to receive a response from the Census office on their request for a meeting, Mr. Bajrange added.
Mr. Tomar said that the purpose of CJAC-DNT is similar. “The idea behind setting up this committee was to bring all DNT associations together. We have prepared formats of the letter to be sent to the highest Government offices in the country and have made it open for DNT associations across the country to use this format to send their own representations,” he said.
Earlier this year, officials from the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and the Development and Welfare Board for Denotified, Nomadic, and Semi-Nomadic Communities met with some sections of community leaders. At this meeting in January, government officials assured that DNTs will be counted in this Census but did not specify if there would be a separate column for them.
In the questions notified by the Union government for the first phase of the Census that will be conducted in the next few months, there is a question to identify whether the head of the household belongs to a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe community, as has been practice. Some leaders like Mr. Bajrange have argued that even this phase should have a column to identify denotified, nomadic, and semi-nomadic communities.
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