Bill extending ST status to several communities raises questions regarding the category and its applicability in contemporary times
The Gond community in Sant Kabir Nagar, Kushinagar, Chandauli, and Sant Ravidas Nagar districts would now be in the list of STs in Uttar Pradesh. Here, A woman from Gond tribe. Photo: Vikas Choudhary / CSE A plethora of demands are being raised by marginalised communities in parts of India, asking for rights and recognition from the state. The demand to be included within the ambit of the scheduled tribe (ST) category calls for a more nuanced understanding of the situation.
The demand to be categorised as an ST requires a minute understanding of the demanding groups, their cultural and historical profile and a reconsideration of actual practices of classification in India.
Such demands have proliferated for a long time amongst various sections in different regions. These demands have again taken centre stage, with the central government announcing the inclusion of new groups in the ST category in different states.
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The passing of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) Order (Second Amendment) Bill, 2022 raised substantial questions regarding the ST category and its applicability in contemporary times.
The Bill would bring communities such as Gond, Dhuriya, Nayak, Ojha, Pathari and Rajgond in the Sant Kabir Nagar, Kushinagar, Chandauli and Sant Ravidas Nagar districts into the list of the STs in Uttar Pradesh.
The Narikoravan community of Tamil Nadu, the Hatti community in the trans-Giri area of Himachal Pradesh’s Sirmaur and the Brijia community in Chhattisgarh would also be included.
More communities like the Darlongs in Tripura and Deshwari, Ganjhu, Dautalbandi (Dwalbandi), Patbandi, Raut, Maajhia, Khairi (Kheri), Tamaria (Tamadia) and Puran in Jharkhand would also fall in the SC category under the Bill.
The proposed scheduling has meant the de-scheduling of the Bhogta community from the scheduled castes (SC) category, complicating the matter. The move has also raised considerable protests from the people in Jharkhand.
Some opposing groups have termed such a move as an election manoeuvre and election strategy, which had nothing to do with the genuine upliftment of the groups concerned.
Further, the growing pool of the ST and the shrinking sphere of government jobs have led to ethnic contests in some places. Many tribal groups already in the ambit of the ST category have challenged the government’s move.
Union Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah, in his recent visit to Jammu and Kashmir, announced the inclusion of the Pahari community, composed of heterogeneous groups, including upper-class Muslims. The Gujjars and other tribal communities of the region opposed this.
From staunch opposition to the widescale celebration of such measures by the state, these practices reflect not simply a politics of recognition but of enlisting within the categories.
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It can be viewed as a product of the complex social and political churning at different levels and different governments have used it to gain political dividends.
Various social, cultural and historical imperatives in different regions of the country condition the politics of inclusion within the state-defined categories. Here, the community identities are continually restructured and renegotiated to present an idea of a group.
What is missed in all these practices is the heterogeneous composition of identities within the group’s boundaries. In many instances, the presence of caste structures within these groups is not well addressed, leading to claims of injustice embedded in the classificatory procedures.
The SC groups have raised this pertinent question; they have claimed that the whole-scale labelling of groups as ST and the region as Scheduled Area undermine their position at both cultural and political levels.
In some instances, they have demanded dual identity as SC within the ambit of ST. The nature of such claims indicates the complexity of classification followed in the Indian context.
Recognition, sadly, is lost in such discourse. By enlisting a heterogeneous group within the ambit of a homogeneous category, the issues of intra-group disparities are not addressed.
Recognition, to be truly representative and just, has to consider the historical, cultural, socio-economic and territorial factors of identity and group formation across communities.
It has to approach groups as historically constituted entities whose identities have undergone a periodic transformation and thus reflect different strands and, perhaps, each requiring differential treatment.
Group differentiation needs to be analysed and acknowledged along with similarities. The need of the hour is thus to reconsider the categories still used to determine groups and the practices of classification followed, which purportedly informs a complex ethnogenesis.
Classification of groups for affirmative policies requires us to look beyond the govern-analytical framework to consider groups’ nature and demands. It must be looked at through the depths of the historical, anthropological and ethnographic enterprise, which are not dictated by statist discourse.
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It requires us to rethink the colonial categories through the framework of indigenous categories, which were utilised by groups to mark their differentiation and affinities with each other. This requires a prudent understanding of the social categories still used by the groups to demarcate their identities at different levels within society.
In the absence of a nuanced understanding, the current classificatory practices based on colonial categories will further escalate ethnic mobilisations channelling novel ethnic forms based on the principles of authenticity. This, in turn, will escalate rifts and conflicts between groups and communities.
Nilamber Chhetri is assistant professor at School of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Mandi
Views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of IIT Mandi or Down To Earth
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