CCTOA Rejects GoM Recommendations on Granting ST Status to Six Assam Communities

The Coordination Committee of Tribal Organisations of Assam (CCTOA) has decided to reject the recommendation of granting Scheduled Tribes (ST) status/reservation to the six communities in Assam on Friday.

In a statement, it said that the decision to reject the recommendations of the Group of Ministers to grant Scheduled Tribes (ST) reservation came as recommended by the Consultative Group, chaired by Suhas Chakma.

The stated communities are the Tai Ahom, Chutia, Moran, Motok, Koch-Rajbongshi and Tea Tribes.

The rejection is based on detailed constitutional, historical, and legal grounds that emphasise the potential adverse impact on existing Scheduled Tribes, CCTOA said.

It added that under the Constitution of India, the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes are two different, distinct, and separate groups.

While the Scheduled Castes are identified based on their status in the Hindu caste system, the Scheduled Tribes are determined based on tribal characteristics, i.e., (a) indications of primitive traits, (b) distinctive culture, (c) geographical isolation, (d) shyness of contact with the community at large, and (e) backwardness for the community, as laid down in the “Report of the Advisory Committee on the Revision of the Lists of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes” of 1965, known as the Lokur Committee.

They added, in 1993, the Government of Assam, after research by the State government’s Assam Institute of Research for the Tribals and Scheduled Castes, recommended these six communities as “Other Backward Classes,” and the National Commission for Backward Classes had notified these six communities as “Other Backward Classes.”

Once they were identified as Other Backwards Classes, they cannot be reclassified as Scheduled Tribes by the same government for political expediency, CCTOA claimed.

On Tea and Ex-Tea Garden Tribes, each and every committee since India’s independence opposed the grant of Scheduled Tribes status. The “Joint Report of the Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas (Other Than Assam) and the North-East Frontier (Assam) Tribal and Excluded Areas Sub-Committee,” chaired by Gopinath Bordoloi and A.V. Thakkar, submitted to the Constituent Assembly on 25 August 1947, had categorically stated that “about seven lakhs are tea-garden labour from various parts of the country [not included in the Schedule B to the Government of India (Legislative Assemblies Order) 1936] are not to be taken into account as tribes of Assam.” The Lokur Committee report of 1965 also categorically stated that it does not “recommend the tea plantation tribal labour be treated as Scheduled Tribes.”

The Koch-Rajbongshis are two different and distinct communities. In the erstwhile Goalpara district, Koch means those ‘Khotri’ Hindu Bengali migrated to Goalpara district from Rongpur district of East Pakistan, while Rajbongshi means indigenous peoples of Assam who were subsumed into the wider Koch identity. This distinction between the two communities was not noted by the Group of Ministers. As per the 1950 Constitution Scheduled Caste order, the Koch were identified as a “Scheduled Caste” in West Bengal. Once the Koch had been identified as the Scheduled Castes in West Bengal, they cannot be classified as the Scheduled Tribes in Assam, they said.

The statement further read that the Tai Ahoms, Chutiyas, Morans, and Mataks are part of the mainstream Assamese. The list of the Scheduled Tribes under the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order of 1950, prepared based on the “Joint Report of the Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas (Other Than Assam) and the North-East Frontier (Assam) Tribal and Excluded Areas Sub-Committee” to the Constituent Assembly, did not include them as Scheduled Tribes. Furthermore, the Lokur Committee report, i.e., “Report of the Advisory Committee on the Revision of the Lists of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes,” also had not identified them as Scheduled Tribes. Therefore, they cannot be termed as ST presently.

The recommendations of the expert committees on the six communities cannot be the basis to grant ST status because, as per the notices of the Government of Assam, the members of these committees were recommended by various organisations of each community, and therefore, they are not independent. In fact, the Ethnographic Expert Committee on Tea and Ex-Tea Garden Tribes recommended that 38 out of 74 Tea and Ex-Tea Garden Communities be granted Scheduled Caste status, but all the 74 communities have been recommended for ST status by the Assam Government. The Assam Government, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, the Registrar General of India, or the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes have no jurisdiction to recommend contrary to the findings of the expert committees.

The demand of these six communities—Tai Ahom, Chutia, Moran, Motok, Koch-Rajbongshi, and Tea Tribes—to be considered as Scheduled Tribes is only to ensure their political reservation, especially at the level of the Panchayats, Autonomous Councils, Autonomous District Council, and State Legislative Assembly, as there are no seats reserved for the OBCs in the State Assembly, CCTOA added in the state.

Otherwise, the rights and benefits of these six communities in terms of access to education and employment are already secured through 27% reservation as the OBCs at the State level and the establishment of several autonomous and development councils for each of these communities.

"The granting of ST status will destroy the political reservation of the existing Scheduled Tribes at the Panchayats, Autonomous Councils, Autonomous District Council, State Legislative Assembly, and the Parliament (Lok Sabha) level, in addition to affecting reservation from the Central government’s pool. The recommendation of reserving parliamentary seats (Kokrajhar and Diphu Lok Sabha seats) will not justify the destruction of the reservation for the existing Scheduled Tribes at the level of the Panchayats, Autonomous Councils, Autonomous District Councils, State Legislative Assembly, and the Parliament", it added.

Bringing up court cases as an example, the CCTOA said that the scale of reservation in Assam is already unconstitutional as per the Supreme Court judgment in  Indra Sawhney Etc. Etc. vs Union of India and Others, Etc. Etc. [AIR 1993 SC 477, (1992)], which stipulates that reservation must not exceed 50%.

The Assam government provides 59% reservation [SC-7%, ST(P)-10%, ST(H)-5%, OBC/MOBC (including 3% Tea Tribes and Adivasis)-27%, and EWS-10%]. If 35 other Tea and Ex-Tea Garden Communities which are not included in the ST list as yet are included, the reservation can go beyond 70%, absolutely unconstitutional. As the reservation is based on proportionate populations, the existing Scheduled Tribes shall suffer once these six communities are listed as Scheduled Tribes.

The most critical issue is the recommendation by the all-party delegation of Assam Legislative Assembly to ensure that the grant of ST status to these six communities “does not affect the rights of the existing STs.” The current recommendations of the Assam Government, apart from being illegal and unconstitutional, affect and indeed destroy the political rights of the existing communities at the Panchayats, Autonomous Councils, Autonomous District Council, State Legislative Assembly, and the Parliament (Lok Sabha) level. Therefore, the recommendations are being rejected, said CCTOA.

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