Our readers must have noticed and wondered at the long gap separating the publication of the present issue (Volume 4, Issue I) of Eastern Quarterly (EQ) from the last one—one year, to be exact. We in EQ are inclined to think that this overly long interlude from April 2006 to March 2007 deserves to be treated as a gap year. We hope our readers would have shrugged off the implied inconvenience and support this view.

We are all aware of the hopes as well as fears associated with the concept and history of Autonomous District Councils (ADC) under the Sixth Schedule of the Indian constitution. Hopes of empowerment still seem to ride the concept undimmed by the shortfalls revealed during its five decades of practice. Fears are equally persistent and prophetic that the concept is a Trojan horse that carries the seed of the eventual breakaway of the ADC area from the state. The current issue of the EQ, ‘FEDERAL EMPOWERMENT OR DEEPENING CENTRALIZATION’ aims to engage and examine some of these contemporary concerns relating to the question of autonomy under the Sixth Schedule—concerns whose resonance is felt acutely in the polity of the Northeast and beyond. Hopefully, the debate generated on the issue may engender a constructive discourse on the dynamics of empowerment by balancing it against the intrinsic pitfall of deepening centralization of the country’s federal policy.

ADCs have been created as an administrative unit (in most cases with territorial boundaries) under the Sixth Schedule with the purpose of providing a certain amount of self-rule to tribal communities of the undivided Assam, thereby enabling them to preserve their preferred forms of cultural life. Of late, however, questions have been raised against it, on the one hand, and, on the other, demands for introduction of the same have also increased. (Even many communities in areas governed under the domain of the Advisory Council under the Fifth Schedule of Constitution, as is the case in Manipur, have started demanding the Sixth Schedule status).

The above conflict of positions is reflected in the recent debate over the issue of converting ADCs into full-fledged states. The positions held by the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution, 2001, and its counterpoint espoused by Dr. Jayanta Rongpi, a veteran MP from Assam, is an illustration of this political pragmatics. Endorsing the relevance of ADCs for empowering the marginalised communities to self-governance, the former expresses the need to retain the present state boundaries of the Northeast for proper administration. In diametrical opposition, the latter argues for converting ADCs into full-fledged states on the premise that ADCs have failed to function as free autonomous bodies due to state interference.

The assumption common to both positions is the empowerment of the marginalized communities. However, empowerment is envisaged as part of the process of decentralization. The pertinent question is if the spirit of ‘autonomy’ as envisaged in the federalising process has filtered into the actual working of the Sixth Schedule. All talks about ‘autonomy’ appears unreal when such institutions have limited control over resources and local sentiments as also concerns are ridden roughshod over by extraneous laws in the overall business of economic life in the name of ‘equality of national life’. This needs to be appraised in the context of autonomy vs. financial dependency, given that the financial strings continue to be in the hands of the Central government. Another concern is the delivery capacity of the Sixth Schedule as an administrative mechanism for local governance. Given such an understanding, it is time to ask the overdue question: Is the Sixth Schedule on balance a federal façade camouflaging the opposite trend of accentuation of the unitary state in India in actual practice?

The present issue of Eastern Quarterly also seeks to interrogate the internal tension in the very conceptualization of the ADC under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution to ‘protect’ the life-forms of the marginalized tribes. Bringing in the interventionist project of the ADC as a modern democratic institution, it would be important to explore the dynamics of conflict between the ADC and separate traditional institutions like the Khun system, the Dorbar system, the Long system, etc.
Given the importance of the Sixth Schedule as a key institutional feature of India’s asymmetrical federalism or as a process of decentralization, this issue also seeks to examine certain questions emerging in the context of its actual working and a largely ignored area of its societal impacts.

The interventionist nature of the modern state has been brought up in H. Kham Khan Suan’s article ‘Salvaging Autonomy in India’s Northeast: Beyond the Sixth Schedule Way’ critiquing the top-down thesis inbuilt in the Sixth schedule—in the creation of ADC and its subsequent promotion to statehood. Attributing this attitude to the ‘civilizational burden’ inherited by the postcolonial Indian state, Suan highlights this mindscape through the Constituent Assembly debates on the Sixth Schedule. As a result, he points out that most of the autonomous district councils, at best, have in practice been ‘managerial’ in both its organization and functions. Still, with all the limitations, he argues that the Sixth Schedule is a platform for decentralization of power by empowering the marginalized communities. Only a ‘bottom-up autonomy model’ is envisioned to salvage autonomy from the present predicament. He further prescribes the recommendations made by the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (2001).

The issues of empowerment and decentralization in the debates on the Sixth Schedule have been interrogated in G. Amarjit Sharma’s ‘Tribal Autonomy: Politics of Exclusion and Inclusion’ by bringing the modern democratic state’s politics of exclusion and inclusion as the main focus. The creation of ADCs, G. Amarjit argues, is the modern state’s attempt to democratically exclude certain sections of its population in the name of ‘peculiarity of cultural practices and worldviews.’ Behind the tussle between majority’s democratic exclusion and marginalized community’s desire for separation from the existing institutional structure, emerges an unforeseen outcome of deepening centralization of the Central government through these constitutional arrangements. He also argues that embedded in the mindset of the ‘modern liberal state’ is a blend of colonial attitude with centrist agenda in excluding yet not parting (thereby being inclusive?) with these otherwise ‘peculiar people’—the tribes of the Northeastern region.

The process of exclusion and inclusion can best be understood by tracing the political development relating to the granting of autonomy in the region. M. Amarjeet Singh’s ‘Tribal Autonomy in Assam: Problems and Prospects’ tracks down the historical experiences in the implementation of ADCs under the Sixth Schedule in the region. Since the debate on autonomy of tribes in the region began with the undivided Assam, M. Amarjeet makes a plea for a review of the ‘balkanization of Assam’. In doing so, the contemporary histories of political unrest and constitutional reforms in Assam have been closely studied. He argues that constitutional enactment of ADC has not really helped empowerment and decentralization. The democratic principle of ethnic pluralism vis-à-vis the ideologies of ethnic exclusivism, he argues, are the problematic parts of the process of empowerment.

Rajesh Dev’s ‘Negotiating Diversities through Institutional Strategies’ graphically sketches another layer of failure in promised scheme of decentralization and autonomy under the Sixth Schedule. Dev argues that the central role of the ADCs as modern democratic institutions enacted through the Constitution to negotiate between the liberal individual and the tribal collective self has been subverted by default. In addition, a form of minority-exclusion through the majority’s homogenous ethnic identity has been witnessed in states created out of ADCs. Extrapolating the experience of Meghalaya, he shows the dynamics of reverse exclusion by the majority tribals over the minority non-tribals. Dev argues that the idea of decentralization, if not blended with proper democratization of institutions and individual aspirations, may give rise to exclusivist ideologies.

In the Kaleidoscope section, Sumitra Thoidingjam, in her article entitled ‘Taming “Keibu Keioiba”: Translation as Recovery’ explores some of the problems one face in the translation of folk literature. It also attempts to highlight how translation becomes a means of rediscovering the myths embedded in the everyday forms of life. The other article by Dhanabir Laishram entitled ‘Resolution of Armed-conflict in Manipur: An Alternative Perspective’ deals with some of the structural problems of insurgency faced in the state of Manipur between the armed opposition groups and the Indian State. The conflict situation that divides the hills and the valley is another aspect that is brought up in the article. Finally, Professor Satya P. Gautam in TAKE TWO finds the preceding theme articles on ‘NATIONAL QUESTIONS: TRAJECTORIES AND PREDICAMENTS’, stimulating as a critique of the official imagination of India as a singular or unitary nation. In conclusion, though, he sees value in politics which respects the foundations of civil society, dignity and autonomy of individuals.

We hope that our readers would enjoy the debate engendered by the current issue of EQ and we look forward to your continued encouragement and support in our future endeavours.