Iinvited Vivek, a part-time journalist, for a cup of tea at a restaurant by the river. I had heard that he was interested in working for me as a research assistant and translator. When I told him of my plan to study the boatmen of Banaras, he replied, somewhat condescendingly, that one must be wary of boatmen, as they are well-known cheats, drunks and thieves. He pressed me to reconsider my research topic, saying that this group of people are of the ‘criminal type’. Well, I thought to myself, perhaps this is the reason why no anthropologist has travelled this murky path before. I was, however, intrigued by the prospect of working with a group that inspired such strong sentiments. This would indeed be a fascinating project.

Admittedly, I wasn't overly surprised to hear this from Vivek; I was aware that under colonial rule people belonging to fishing and boating communities were legally classified under the ominous category of ‘criminal castes’. Still, I was somewhat taken aback by the conviction and immediacy conveyed by such derogatory statements. To what extent contemporary views of boatmen are coloured by the colonial legacy is hard to determine. Nevertheless, the targeting and categorizing of a group as a ‘criminal’ caste is significant if we are to understand the way in which under colonial social order boatmen and numerous other low castes were systematically marginalized, oppressed and stigmatized.