Protective Discrimination and Crisis of Citizenship in North-East India

Author(s): Sanjib Baruah

Source: Economic and Political Weekly , Apr. 26 - May 2, 2003, Vol. 38, No. 17 (Apr. 26 -
May 2, 2003), pp. 1624-1626
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4413479

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 Commentary

Protective Discrimination
like Fiji and Guyana and Mauritius. On
the other hand, the descendants of
precisely the same migration flow who

and Crisis of Citizenship

signed up with a different 19th century
indentured labour contractor and thus
remained within the borders of indepen-

in North-East India
dent India find themselves in the refugee
camps of Kokrajhar. To add insult to injury
in order to save the public face of the
government of India, they are hidden
North-east India is a region where the politics of protective from the view of refugee advocacy
organisations.
discrimination for scheduled tribes today raises some of the most
difficult issues ofjustice, fairness and costs on system legitimacy.
Facing up to the Limits
The time may have come to consider ways of breaking away from of the Sixth Schedule
the ethnic discourse of the existing protective discrimination
The demand for a Bodo homeland is
regime that, in effect, involves the state forever categorising
inspired by the apparent success of a few
groups of people in ethnic terms and making descendants of other scheduled tribes of the region who
immigrants into perpetual outsiders. had enjoyed the statutory protection of
the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.
SANJIB BARUAH couple of years that led to the displace-
The Sixth Schedule provides for autono-
ment of large numbers of them is a casemous districts and autonomous regions
ost people may agree with the in point. The Santhals were victims of within districts for specified scheduled
notion that historically disad- Bodo extremists, who are committed totribes. Later when some of those districts
vantaged groups deserve some the cause of a Bodo homeland. The fact became full-fledged states the instruments
form of protective discrimination or that the demographic picture in the areaof protective discrimination were made
affirmative action. However, in concrete today is complex and that non-Bodos have available at the state level. As a result the
situations adjudicating between the a substantial presence explains the legislative assemblies of Arunachal
competing claims of supposedly ad- tensions between Bodos and Santhals and Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland today
vantaged and disadvantaged groups on other non-Bodo communities. The have all but one seat reserved for STs. In
grounds ofjustice and fairness is difficult. Santhals are descendants of tea workers Meghalaya 55 of the 60 seats are reserved
Furthermore, in terms of system legiti- brought to Assam as indentured workers for STs. This, of course, creates a de facto
macy there are costs of tinkering with - many of them more than a century ago. regime of two-tiered citizenship. Apart
the principle of equality before the law. Their displaced forefathers provided thefrom non-tribals not being able to contest
How would one know that the costs are muscle for the tea industry that marked elections, the principle of one-person, one-
worth the gains made in terms ofthe arrival of global capitalism in Assamvote, one-value has to be undermined as
achieving some measure of compen- in the 19th century. That such a group well in order to achieve such a weighted
satory justice? W Kymlicka and W Norman could be displaced for the second time system of representation. Generally, the
describe the tough standards that intellec- in the course of another historically dis-norm about ensuring the equality of
tual arguments for protective discrimina- advantaged group's demand for greater the relative weight of each vote in a
tion must meet. "Critics of minority rights autonomy - no matter how tragic the democracy requires that in electoral
can no longer claim", they write, "that story of their immiserisation-brings home systems with single-member constituen-
minority rights inherently conflict with the absurdity of the prevailing way of cies, the electorates in all districts be
citizenship ideals." At the same time defining who is historically advantaged roughly of the same size. But this cannot
"defenders of minority rights can no and disadvantaged in north-east Indiabe done if the legislative assemblies
longer claim that concerns about civility today. are to have such a weighted system of
and civic identity are simply illegitimateIn terms of global political economy, the representation.
attempts to silence or dismiss troublesome nineteenth century migrants who came to As if the regime of two-tiered citizen-
minorities" [Kymlicka and Norman 2000: work in the tea plantations of Assam were ship in areas where STs are a clear ma-
41]. North-east India is a region where the
part of the same migration that took Indian jority was not bad enough, in recent decades
politics of protective discrimination forindentured labour to various parts of the Indian policy-makers displaying a remark-
scheduled tribes (STs) today raises some British Empire. Events like the Pravasi able lack of historical memory have gone
of the most difficult issues of justice, Bharatiya Divas of the past January was along with the demand for extending el-
fairness and costs on system legitimacy. about celebrating the descendants of those ements of the Sixth Schedule to areas
migrants - some of whom even rose to
The violence against adivasi Santhals in where the demographic picture is far more
Kokrajhar district of Assam in the last become heads of governments in countries mixed. The agreement on a Bodoland

1624 Economic and Political Weekly April 26, 2003

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Territorial Council is an example of that. economic and demographic changes of in order to contain the potential political
The Sixth Schedule, it is worth recalling, more than half a century of independence. fall-out of demographic change, the gov-
was intended to apply only to those sched- ernment of India, through constitutional
uled tribes that were considered to be amendments, has frozen the balance of
Political Economy at Odds with
seats reserved for STs in the state assem-
relatively concentrated in the 'excluded' the Sixth Schedule
and 'partially excluded' areas of the co- blies. Apart from the changing demo-
lonial era. The subcommittee of the Indian graphic balance, the trend in economic
What is sure to make the citizenship
Constituent Assembly in charge of what crisis in north-east India worse in coming
policies further points to the need for some
was then called the 'Tribal Areas of Assam' form
years is that the population trend in all theof loosening, if not outright disman-
(the Bordoloi subcommittee) did not con- tribal areas of the region is for STs tling
as aof that regime in future. Thus Gulshan
sider the situation of STs such as Bodos, proportion of the total population toSachdeva de- has argued that the 'rigid bar-
Misings and Tiwas who were not con- cline. Apart from the successive genera- riers' that exist in the region are in conflict
sidered indigenous to the 'excluded' and tions of non-tribals inhabitants who have with efforts to integrate these economies
'partially excluded' areas. Their needs lived there, the economic transformationwith the dynamic world economy
were the responsibility of a separate sub- of the post-colonial era has attracted many [Sachdeva 2000: 162]. Elsewhere he has
committee, which was in charge of new non-tribal immigrants. Yet since theargued for fundamental policy changes in
minority rights. Indeed a Bodo politician, protective discrimination regime restrictsland and labour policies of the region in
Rupnath Brahma, was a member of that what non-tribals can legally do, numerousorder to attract private capital. While the
committee. informal arrangements have emerged intribal population constitutes only about a
The Sixth Schedule can be traced back the ownership and control of agriculturalfourth of the population of the region, he
to colonial efforts to create protected land and in business practices. Non-tribalpoints out, about two-thirds of its land is
enclaves for 'aborigines' where they can immigrants and their descendants have"owned, controlled or managed by tribes,
be allowed to pursue their 'customary become integrated into the economies ofclans or village communities". Under such
practices' including kinship and clan-the region in substantial, but often quiteconditions, he writes, "it is almost impos-
based rules of land allocation. Extending informal ways. sible to transfer this land to non-tribals and
a set of rules meant for isolated aboriginal There has also been a significant shiftoutsiders". Changes in the land tenure
groups to new groups in the profoundly in land control from clans to individual system, according to him, are essential so
that land can be made "available to inves-
ownership. "It is no longer surprising",
transformed conditions of the twentyfirst
century cannot but produce a crisis of tors for industry, plantation, horticulture,
writes sociologist M N Karna of the North
citizenship that is eloquently represented etc, either on lease or on ownership in a
Eastern Hill University, "to come across
by the adivasis in the refugee camps of transparent manner". Except for Assam's
a Naga or a Garo owning a thousand acres
Kokrajhar. After all, even in colonial
of land. Nowhere in these areas would Brahmaputra valley and Tripura, the north-
times some of the potential problems, east is a labour scarce region and institu-
customary practices have permitted such
especially the dangers to non-tribal tions like the Inner Line - which can be
a concentration of land, but new linkages
people living in those areas, were antici-
have brought with them hitherto unknown seen as an added layer of protective dis-
phenomena like absentee landlordism,
pated in the debates about these measures. crimination that exists in Arunachal
Thus G S Ghurye, one of the best-known Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland - restrict
realisation of rent from land, sharecrop-
critics of colonial-era tribal policies, ping, land mortgage, landlessness and labour
so movement. The region, Sachdeva
wrote that in its "eagerness to do some- on" [Karna 1990: 36]. The other sidebelieves,
of has to be open to outside labour,
this privatisation of clan-held lands isthough
thing for the tribals", the British parlia- the given the sensitive nature of th
ment when it voted on the Government emergence of a poorer group of people issue, he adds, "some control mechanism
of India Act of 1935, barely considered could be worked out" [Sachdeva 1999].
eking out a living by working as agricul-
the condition of tural workers or sharecroppers or by
the non-tribals in whose midst the pro-whatever other means possible. Most of
Alternatives for the Future
tected aborigines live and on whom they them are local tribals, who despite the
depend to some extent for their liveli-protection given to them as members Despite of all the talk of the twentyfirst
hood. That these non-tribals, too, have STs, lack the social and political resources
century and linking north-east India to the
rights, that their good will and coopera-to benefit from privatisation of clan-lands
dynamic economies of south-east Asia,
tion, next only to the conscious andor to be able to hold on to lands allocated India's policy community seems strangely
deliberate internal organisation of theto them. But occupying these economicunprepared for the future. It is true that
tribals themselves, are the most essential
niches are also a large number of non-steps have been taken to freeze the balance
factors for the present welfare and future
tribals. The process of transition frombetween tribal and non-tribal members in
development of the so-called aborigines,
the state assemblies of the region. But this
shifting to settled cultivation has been far
failed to receive adequate consideration can do little more than make the citizen-
too complex for the dichotomy between
[Ghurye 1980: 111].
tribals and non-tribals to neatly coincideship crisis worse since the system of a de
The irony is that if attempts werewith the notion that the former are alwaysfacto two-tiered citizenship would be even
made in the colonial era and by the Indian more out of synch with the political
exploited by the latter. Questions of social
Constitution-makers to make some dis-
justice in north-east India have becomeeconomy of the future.
tinctions between tribals living in different
significantly more complex today than what What is the way out? It may appear that
levels of isolation from non-tribal commu-
the only alternative is a regime of undif-
the current regime of protective discrimina-
nities, in post-colonial India the Sixth tion was originally designed to accomplish.ferentiated nationwide citizenship and the
Schedule is being extended to far less The strains on the regime as a result ofelimination of all forms of protective
isolated tribal groups, and that too after the
demographic change are apparent. Indeeddiscrimination, notably the Inner Line and

Economic and Political Weekly April 26, 2003 1625

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the restrictions on the ownership of land communities. At the same time such a terrestrial radio links to feed the transmit-
and business by non-tribals. If the primary regime of dual citizenship would onlyting
be stations. Departments like civil avia-
goal is seen as the incorporation of the a variation on the theme of the actual tion, coast guard, forests, police, and of
ethnic outsider - at least beyond the first restrictions that exist on the ground course,
as a the armed forces had been using
generation - and bring the citizenship result of the accumulated legacy of radio
the on a very extensive scale and under-
regime in line with the actually existing instruments of protective discrimination
standably had been given an extraordinarily
political economy of the region, other policy of the past. E large spectrum. For public telecommuni-
alternatives may be available. The time has cations like telephony, radio spectrum was
come to consider ways of breaking away References required first for long distance, VHF, UHF
from the ethnic discourse of the existing and terrestrial and satellite microwave
protective discrimination regime that, in
Ghurye, G S (1980) [1959]: The Scheduled Tribes transmission highways from the mid-
effect, involves the state forever of India, Transaction Books, New Brunswick. 1960s. The use of radio spectrum for
Kama, M N (1990): 'The Agrarian Scene', Seminar,
telecommunications grew after that. The
categorising groups of people in ethnic
New Delhi, No 366, February, pp 30-38. first microwave radio link was between
terms and making descendants of immi-
Kymlicka, W, and W Norman (2000):
grants into perpetual outsiders. A leading 'Introduction' in Kymlicka and Norman, eds, Calcutta and Asansol in 1965; the first
candidate for an alternative policy Citizenship in Diverse Societies, Oxfordsatellite earth station for international
discourse would be the notion of dual University Press, Oxford. telecom was commissioned in 1971 (at
Sachdeva, Gulshan (1999): 'Rejuvenating the
citizenship, not unknown in federal Arvi, near Pune) and for domestic pur-
North-eastern Economy', Oriental Times,
systems, i e, citizenship both of India and poses in November 1980. UHF radio links
Guest Column 1 (34-35), January 22-February
of one of the states of north-east India. began to be established from 1974
6. http://www.nenanews.com/OT%20Jan22-
It would replace the ethnic principle Feb6,99/GuestC.htm (Mangalore-Udipi). Bharat Sanchar has
with a civic principle and give the right- (2000): Economy of the North-East: Policy, now 1,10,000 route kilometres (rkm) of
to define the rules of inclusion and Present Conditions and Future Possibilities, terrestrial digital microwave, 45,000 rkm
exclusion to territorially defined political Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. of UHF and 28,000 rkm of analogue radio
systems, spread over the entire country,
linking over 4,000 towns and cities.
In order to minimise the interference

Managing Radio between various radio transmissions by

different users and to plan and allot the
spectrum and monitor its proper use both
Frequency Spectrum in regard to the frequency band allotted
and the transmitted power, the government
created the Central Wireless Planning and
Some Issues Co-ordination (CWPC) office and wire-
less adviser charged with the function of
planning, allotment and monitoring of radio
Radio spectrum is a limited resource and by tradition has come spectrum for different users. The really
explosive requirement of radio spectrum
to be owned by the state. Its use has to be regulated in terms ofhad arisen with the introduction of cellular
purpose of use, place, transmitted power and coverage including mobile radio telephony in the early 1990s
directivity. In India the sharp demand for allotment of radio (mobile telephony was introduced in In-
spectrum arose in the 1990s with the introduction of cellular dia, in Delhi in December 1985) and use
mobile radio. The government and its agencies have not of radio or wireless in the access segment;
that is, from the customer premises to the
been particularly able or wise in coping with the diverse network point, namely a telephone ex-
demands since then.
change or an Internet point of presence
(POP). India is a vast country and the
T H CHOWDARY first to use satellite communications for spectrum that is given to it for different
telegraphy, telex and voice with a satellite
uses is just the same as is given for a very
-N i rot very late after the invention of earth station in 1971. During the secondsmall country, thus requiring complex
radio transmissions by Marconi, world war radio communications under planning, allotment and monitoring. Sec-
India even while under the impe- the OCS were tremendously expanded.ondly, A since cities are the places where
rial rule of Great Britain started usingprivate company in Mumbai used radio every user has a great requirement for
radio. In 1902, wireless telegraphy wasbroadcasting for the first time in 1926 and
many wireless services, coordination for
used between Saugar islands (Bay of after a few years, it was taken over as a
limiting interference between various trans-
Bengal) and sand-heads (near Calcutta).monopoly of the then imperial govern- missions and as importantly, the availabi-
Radio telegraph service for public wasment, which established the All India Radio
lity and siting of towers for mounting
introduced by the Overseas Communica-(AIR), now a part of the Prasara Bharati antennas is extending the problems from
tion Service (OCS), now the Videsh (Broadcasting India). Radio TV transmis-
of radio spectrum management to one of
Sanchar Nigam (VSNL), in 1927 and sions were begun in India in the mid- 1960s city planning, architecture and environ-
and by the mid-1980s, more or less the
radio telephony in 1933, both first to the ment. Aggravating this problem is the
United Kingdom and progressively to many whole territory of India was covered for
presence of competing multiple operators
other countries. OCS/VSNL was also the TV transmissions using both satellite and
for mass markets like fixed telephony and

1626 Economic and Political Weekly April 26, 2003

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