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| Federal Empowerment or Deepening Centralization |
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Salvaging Autonomy in India’s Northeast:
INTRODUCTION: |
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| BENIGN PATERNALISM AS MANAGERIALISM: LOCATING THE POWER VERSUS KNOWLEDGE SOLUTIONS DEBATE (5) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| It is a truism that the ideational premise which underpins the Sixth Schedule of India’s Constitution privileges paternal control of the state. It posits a civili-zational burden on the post-colonial state to manage, as it were, the developmental affairs of the tribal (community) in line with the dominant mainstream development model. Central to this idea is the naïve assumption that the tribal (community) ‘other’ for whom the administrative arrangement is contrived, are essentially seen as lacking a sense of order and organisation. They are perceived as being susceptible to the ‘wiles of the money-lenders’. This perception is aroused because of their traditional barter economy which was considered awfully unequal to the modern monetised economy. As a corollary, the prescribed antidote to this is the paternal control of the state which privileges the ‘individual’ citizen over the ‘community’. Hence, as B.K. Roy Burman reminded us, the erosion of the community per se and concomitant decadence of its identity and rights are embedded in the very concept of the autonomy envisioned by the Sixth Schedule.(6) I shall discuss the implication of this conceptual flaw in the next section. Right from the onset of colonialism in the Indian subcontinent, resolving the tussle between the rights and identity of the tribal communities in order to maintain their autonomous ‘societal culture’(7) has been a nagging constitutional conundrum. So is the case with the post-colonial state’s project to maintain its unity and integrity. The institutional mechanism to recognise and protect antecedent autonomous ‘societal culture’ in the forms of the Inner Line Regulations (1873), Scheduled District (1874), ‘Backward Tract’ (1919), and the ‘Partially Excluded and Excluded Areas’ (1935) spawned special and asymmetrical demands. In fact, the terms of enquiry of the Bordoloi Committee,(8) constituted by the Constituent Assembly on 27 February 1947, were ‘to report on a scheme of administration for the tribal and excluded areas’(9) which would help in ‘reconciling the hill peoples’ demand for political autonomy with the Assam government’s drive to integrate them with the plains.’(10) The Report submitted by this Committee to the Constituent Assembly was thoroughly debated between July 7 and 9, 1947. The Constituent Assembly Debates (hereafter CAD) provided moments of interplay between the development and security paradigms which echoes in the power versus knowledge solution approaches. For one thing the demands of the hill tribes to maintain separate autonomous ‘societal culture’ was considered to be the outcome of economic backwardness. This can be rectified, as is contended, by evolving holistic development programmes so they can be brought in line with the mainstream culture and development. Secondly, demands of such nature are considered to have a direct bearing on the security and thereby on the unity and integrity of the state. This development-security paradigm which heavily informed the CAD got sprinkled in the power versus knowledge solutions we have just mentioned above. A careful perusal of the CAD would convincingly prove this point. The concern for security and development was so palpable that a member of the Constituent Assembly saw in the proposed Sixth Schedule an ‘old separatist tendency’. And thus the anticipation of the creation of a ‘Tribalstan’ or a ‘Communistan’ came into being. This, he felt, would be tantamount to ‘misrule’ or ‘a primitive rule’.(11) The power solution approach emanated from this concern. It posits national interests above the so-called ‘provincial autonomy’. Brajeshwar Prasad, participating in the debate, minced no words and made his views explicitly clear when he said: |
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| Therefore, Sir, is it right, is it safe, is it strategically desirable, is it militarily in the interests of the government of India, is it politically advisable that the administration of such a vast tract of land should be left in the hands of provincial government, especially in a province where there is no element of political stability? Sir, I love this country more than provincial autonomy. (12) He went further saying, ‘to vest wide political powers into the hands of tribes is the surest method of inviting chaos, anarchy and disorder throughout the length and breadth of this country.’(13) In a similar tone another member, Rohini Kumar Chaudhuri, vigorously put forward this view in saying: ‘If you want to keep them separate, they will combine with Tibet, they will combine with Burma, they will never combine with the rest of India.’(14) He underlined the fear of entirely losing the whole of tribal areas on lack of information. Forcefully stressing the policy of assimilation, he thus said: ‘We want to assimilate the tribal people; we were not given that opportunity so far.’ (15) A critical appraisal of the context of the debate is in order here. To be sure, the long standing internal instability of Assam which is characterised by conflicts between the Ahoms and the Assamese, the Bengalis and the Muslims and the Mongoloid races alike enlarged the scope of subversive activities across porous borders with China, Tibet, Burma and Pakistan. Hence, any talk of self-determination or for that matter autonomous ‘societal culture’ was considered inopportune. In fact, the gory images of Partition overshadowed the CAD climate so much so that the very word, ‘self-determination’ or ‘autonomy’ became suspect (skeptical). The outright approach of assimilation was, however, considered inimical and insensitive to the unique and distinct ‘life world’ of the tribes. Moreover, the overriding concerns for dominant mainstream development and security ignore the fundamental question of tribal self-rule/autonomy. This is done by virtue of relegating their basic aspirations to the background. In other words, the issue of self-rule or autonomy was considered to be adjunct to development and security. These issues can only be taken care of when these overriding concerns are fulfilled. Hence, the so-called ‘state within a state’ demand during the 1960s was an attempt to reverse these priorities. A counter approach to this, referred earlier as the knowledge solution, would be to seek to take tribe sensitivities into account and to deal them with understanding. Rev. J.J.M Nichols Roy aptly encapsulated this when he said, ‘Sir, the first principle for bringing about a feeling of reconciliation between people who are estranged from one another is that one must place himself in the place of another.’(16) According to him, ‘advancement comes by a process of assimilation of a higher culture, higher mode of thinking and not by force.’(17) Jaipal Singh was more persuasive in his words: I would appeal to members to be generous in what they say about the tribal people, to be generous to them and not think as if they were enemies of India … I am very optimistic about the future of Assam, particularly if the Sixth Schedule, even with all its shortcomings, is operated, in a spirit of accommodation and in the real desire to serve the hill people of Assam, as our compatriots, and as people whom we want to come into our fold, as people whom we will not let go out of our fold and for whom we will make any amount of sacrifice so that they remain with us.(18) (emphasis mine) Furthermore, the knowledge solution allays the fear of ‘misrule’ or ‘primitive rule’ which is posited by the power solution. To quote Gopinath Bordoloi, the Chairman of the Bordoloi Committee: ‘What is necessary for good government is already there.’(19) An approach also taken by B.R. Ambedkar who contended that unlike the tribe in other areas, those in Assam have ‘distinct and unique laws of inheritance, of marriage and customs.’(20) Eventually this approach culminated into an ad hoc asymmetric federal arrangement in order to protect the tribes until they ‘acquire some capacity for judgment.’(21). |
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| INSTITUTIONALISING AUTONOMY: A HALF-WAY HOUSE TO STATEHOOD? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A careful reading of the Constituent Assembly Debates (hereafter CAD) shows that ADCs as envisaged by the Sixth Schedule were an afterthought to the earlier ‘assimilationist’ approach—an approach that some Constituent Assembly members have unabashedly championed. Not strangely enough, issues of development and security continue to inform and precede the substantive question of autonomy till today. Precisely speaking, ADCs are basically intended to give self-management rights in matters pertaining to, inter alia, marriage, social customs, culture, land, religion and tradition.(22) The legislation of the state would not normally be effective until it is discussed by the tribe representatives and thereafter consented to by the Governor. Protagonists of state autonomy consider this approach as an instance to clip the wings of the legislative powers of the state. Studies on ADC’s legislation, however, prove otherwise. The Commission on the Hill Areas of Assam headed by H.V. Patashkar (hereafter simply as the Patashkar Commission) and appointed by the Government of India in 1965, for example, concluded that none of the five ADCs in the erstwhile tribal hill areas except the Mizo Hills passed any significant legislation.(23) Even in the latter, the Commission contended that insignificant tribal laws pertaining to custom, land, marriage and tradition were passed. Another study discerns a regular pattern of superseding ‘community ownership’ of land and property by encouraging private property since 1979.(24) This, it contended, is facilitated by the propensity of ADCs and the Village Chiefs to play into the hands of vested propertied class. When friendly party dominates the Executive Council of ADCs, it opens up space for political manipulation as the ADCs members and the Chiefs are known for their political affiliations.(25) Structurally, too, the Sixth Schedule is considered to give leverage to non-democratic forces since it is based upon two institutional bedrocks having contrasting loyalties. Firstly, the village authority(ies) or village council under the leadership of the Village Chief (s), which is based on kinship relations; and secondly, the district council (s), which is based on territorial loyalty and, which in turn operates according to the principle of democratic citizenship.(26) The sustenance of the first kind of institutional bedrock implies legitimising ‘non-democratic forces’ as the head of the village authorities/councils. For instance, the Village Chief is more often than not hereditary and is based on lineage. The second institutional bedrock implies the extension of single-line administration which flows from the Union to the state and thereafter to the district(s) and finally to the village levels. By giving the power of ‘filter mechanism’ to the Governor, who is simultaneously the representative of the Union executive and head of the state, it establishes a cascading linkage between the three levels of government, viz. the Union, state and sub-state/district. This extension of state’s power to the grassroots has the potential to override extant traditional self-governing institutions. It is interesting here to note the dissatisfaction shown by the tribes, particularly the Khasis, for superimposing the District Councils’ authority over their Chiefs/Syiems when the Patashkar Commission team visited Shillong. Owing to their continued perception of the Chiefs as the custodians of community identity and rights, the Khasis demanded the reversal of the said authority.(27) Anxieties of this nature are apparent in the face of Paragraph 12A to the Sixth Schedule inserted by the Assam Reorganisation (Meghalaya) Act, 1969 and the North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971.(28) Specifically applicable to the state of Meghalaya, it gives precedence to the laws made by the state legislature over those of ADCs in case they overlap. In fact, paragraph 15 explicitly makes it clear that autonomous institutions and the ensuing laws, regulations, organisations and functions would have to conform to the overriding consideration of ‘order’ and ‘safety’ of India, and, for that matter, the state at the ground level. Towards this end, paragraph 16 empowers the Governor to wield a Damocles Sword as he has the power to either dissolve or suspend the ADC(s) in the light of the findings submitted by an Enquiry Commission (Paragraph 14) that he may duly appoint. This reinforces a double hierarchical responsibility of ADCs towards the Union and the state and engenders a split identity on the ADCs. Cascading linkages contrived in such an autonomy schema confounded the problem—of fixing responsibility, the onus for which often lies not on the Union but on the state. It is also pertinent to note the bleak performance of the Sixth Schedule provisions in light with the financial domain. ADCs are empowered to mobilise their own resources by investing them with the power to collect taxes and levies on land, schools, buildings, market place etc. They are also statutorily assured of financial grant from the Union via Article 275 (1) which would, in turn, supplement their income and resources. It is disheartening to note, however, that ADCs could not satisfactorily mobilise their own resources which were, at best, limited. For example, the Patashkar Commission found that from 1960-61 to 1964-65 forest accounted for the bulk of ADCs’ income contributing 69.6 per cent to Mikir Hills, 67.03 per cent to United Khasi and Jaintia Hills (UKJH), 53.62 per cent to North Cachar Hills, 51.01 per cent to Mizo Hills and 38.45 per cent to the Garo Hills. The contribution of land revenue was significantly poor accounting respectively to 20.91, 4.8, 7.19, 33.87 and 23.29 per cent. The contribution from the market varied from 0.63 per cent in Mizo Hills to 25.94 per cent in North Cachar Hills.(29) The thesis of non-viability of a ‘state within a state’ in a situation of economic insufficiency seemed to be buttressed by the mismatch in terms of receipts and expenditure of the five ADCs. The gross mismatch could somehow be bridged by grants-in-aid made by the Union Government, which until 1961 stood at a merely Rs. 40 crore. ADCs are notorious for incurring massive non-developmental expenditure which eats up their vitals. The Patashkar Commission pointed out that during 1960-61 and 1964-65 the proportion of expenditure on staff vis-à-vis establishment to their own resources, excluding grants-in-aid received from the Union, has been abnormally high. The Mizo Hills topped the list with a whopping 99 per cent, followed by UKJH (63 per cent), NC Hills (57 per cent), Mikir Hills (44 per cent) and Garo Hills (32 per cent).(30) On the contrary, the proportion of development expenditure to their internal resources was awfully insufficient. Garo Hills which topped the list could spare only 19 per cent, followed by UKJH (8 per cent), Mikir Hills (16 per cent) and NC Hills (3 per cent) for the corresponding period. Consequently, Mizo Hills had to totally rely on Union grants to fund development expenditure of ADCs.(31) ADCs are also plagued by opaque financial management. Although Paragraph 7 of the Sixth Schedule provides District Fund for ADCs, no uniform rules could be passed. The system continued to be plagued even more by the absence of internal scrutiny mechanism, leave alone external scrutiny.(32) To cut it short, it is plausible to say that autonomy envisaged by the Sixth Schedule is still in its nascent stage; it has never been able to take off. Although it is a welcome instrument of decentralising powers and recognising the rights of tribal self-rule, the lackadaisical operationalization of the schema estranged disparate tribal groups within the very state of Assam. The All Party Hill Leaders’ Conference (APHLC) bid to establish a separate hill state and the Mizo movement for ‘Greater Mizoram’ during the 1960s, within the erstwhile state of Assam, were both glaring examples of this. While the Assam Language Bill, 1960 and the disastrous management of the Mautam Famine of 1959 (by the Assam government) were respectively the immediate catalyst of the movements, deep-rooted dissatisfaction over ‘step-motherly treatment’ which was meted out to the ADCs by the state was cited as the chief cause of their unrest or ‘separatist demands’.(33) Hence the desire to live on ‘equal terms’, with their self-sustaining autonomous ‘societal culture’ remaining unaffected by the long arm of state’s intervention and regulation, informed these demands. In a way, it was an attempt to reverse the precedence of the state over the community. This attempt was successfully managed by innovative asymmetric federal innovations. Creation of an autonomous state (via Article 244A) and later on full-fledged statehood granted to Meghalaya and Mizoram were the outcome of this very attempt. They, in turn, consolidated ethnic principle as a basis for creation of a state in India, the trend of which was set by the creation of Nagaland in 1962.(34) Paragraph 2(2) of the Sixth Schedule, in its attempt to preserve and protect minority rights and identities, provides for the establishment of regional councils for minority tribes within ADCs, if at all they demand the same. Unwittingly it implants a time-bomb within the ADCs. This is borne out by ongoing attempts by the Hmars and Paites, among others, to establish regional councils/ADCs in Mizoram. The Lai (Pawi), Mara (Lakher) and Chakmas had to undertake almost two decades of persistent struggle to upgrade their regional councils into ADCs in Mizoram. This was interspersed by the state government’s bid to dissolve and disband the erstwhile Chakma Regional Council on the grounds that they are not an indigenous tribe but refugees. Instances of such kinds provide opportunities to redefine and deepen grassroots democracy and at the same time recast the contours of majority-minority relations within a state. They may not, however, be seen a half-way house to statehood. |
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| SALVAGING AUTONOMY: BEYOND DEVELOPMENT CATALYST MODEL From the foregoing discussion it is clear that autonomy enshrined in the Sixth Schedule provides institutional mechanisms to preserve and protect tribals’ autonomous ‘societal culture’. Being hedged in by the institutional paraphernalia of Union and state control, it has never been able to take off in the true sense of the word. Soon after its operationalisation, it got enmeshed in a paradoxical situation where the state became the ‘main culprit’ in denying ‘full autonomy’ to ADCs. This engendered separatist demands which were, in turn, considered inimical to the state project of development and security. The concern for these issues are understandable but not to the extent of suspecting autonomy demands having territorial underpinnings. There is an urgent imperative to salvage autonomy from this predicament. This can be done, in my considered view, on the following grounds: (i) Since autonomy in the form of ADCs under the Sixth Schedule is basically a contrivance to bring about greater democratisation and decentralisation, it would continue to generate autonomy demands from minority tribal groups within ADCs or elsewhere. To deny autonomy on the ground that it is incompatible with the development-security paradigm is to contain democracy/ ‘democratisation’ or flog a dead horse. The ‘unity, security and integrity’ of the state is best preserved by guaranteeing autonomy, not the denial of it. (ii) A way out could possibly be to revisit the grounds for granting auto-nomy. This is premised upon an assumption that the present policy frame of autonomy vis-à-vis ADCs engenders a precarious regime of tribe recognition whose axis is vaguely defined in Article 342 (such as social backwardness and geographical isolation) and opens up space for populist measures. Take for example, the quick-fire solution adopted by Assam government in August 2005 wherein barely within five months of the formation of an un-enumerated plains tribe’s Committee, i.e., Thengal Kachari Autono-mous Demand Committee, Autonomous Council Bill for the same was passed. That this demand was made in Titabor (near Jorhat in Upper Assam), the ‘homeland and heartland’ of TKADC which also happened to be the constituency of the Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi, made the issue more riveting.35 Similar demands are now being made by Sonowal Kachari and Deori tribes. This is interesting as Assam already had four Autonomous Councils for the plains tribes—that of the Bodo, Mising, Rabha and the Tiwa. (iii) Finally, ways and means of incorporating local democratic institutions as recommended by the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (2001) must be evolved.36 A bottom-up autonomy model which would privilege communities’ rights and identities must be devised. This would look beyond the state-centric ‘top-down’ autonomy model envisaged by the Sixth Schedule. |
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NOTES & REFERENCES: 4. I shall use the term power versus knowledge solutions in the mould of what Jaipal Singh, a member of India ’s Constituent Assembly, reckoned with as ‘two solutions’ bequeathed by the ‘learned Ambassador in Moscow’. See the Constituent Assembly Debates in Savyasaachi, Tribal Forest-Dwellers and Self-Rule: The Constituent Assembly Debates on the Fifth and the Sixth Schedules, (New Delhi: Indian Social Institute), 1998, p. 129. 5.The following section is largely drawn from my, Special Status of the North-East in Indian Federalism, M.Phil Dissertation, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 2002, chapter 3. 6.B.K. Roy Burman, ‘Constitutional Framework for Tribal Autonomy with Special Reference to North-East India’, in Manis Kumar Raha and Aloke Kumar Ghosh (eds), North-East India: The Human Interface, (New Delhi: Gyan Publications), 1998, pp. 81–114. 7.I borrowed the term ‘societal culture’ from Will Kymlicka who used it to denote ‘a territorially concentrated culture, centred on a shared language’. It involves, as he says, ‘a common language and social institutions, rather than common religious beliefs, family customs, or personal lifestyles.’ Will Kymlicka, Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship, (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2001, p. 25. 8. The Bordoloi Committee is also known as the Sub-Committee on the North-East Frontier (Assam) Tribal and Excluded Areas. It was one of the Sub-Committees formed under Constituent Assembly of India’s Advisory Committee on the Rights of Citizens, Minorities and Tribal and Excluded Areas. See B. Shiva Rao, Framing of India’s Constitution, Vol. 3, (New Delhi: Indian Institute of Public Administration), 1967, p. 684. 9. See Bordoloi Committee Report, in B. Shiva Rao, ibid., p. 708. 10. See S.K. Chaube, Hill Politics in Northeast India, (New Delhi: Orient Longman), (first published in 1973) 1999, p. 100. 11.Kuladhar Chaliha (from Assam) in CAD in Savyasaachi, op. cit. 12.CAD, p. 115.
13. Ibid., p. 120. 14. Ibid., p. 127. 15. Ibid. 16. CAD, p. 133. 17.Ibid., p. 136. 18.Ibid., p. 131. 19.Ibid., p. 123. 20. Ibid., p. 139. 21. Lakhsmi Narain Sahu in CAD, ibid., p. 129. 22. See Paragraph 3 of the ‘Sixth Schedule’, in the Constitution of India (as amended up to 1 June 1996), (Government of India: Ministry of Law, Justice and Company Affairs), 1996, pp. 151–64. 23. See Report: Government of India, The Commission on the Hill Areas of Assam, Ministry of Home Affairs, 1965. 24.Sanjay Barbora, ‘Autonomy in the Northeast: The Frontiers of Centralised Politics,’ in Ranabir Samaddar (ed.), The Politics of Autonomy: Indian Experiences, (New Delhi: Sage), 2005, pp. 196–215 25.Ibid., p. 207 26. For related discussion see S.K. Chaube, ‘Tribal Societies and the Problem of Nation-building,’ in B. Pakem (ed.), Nationality, Ethnicity and Cultural Identity in North-East India, (New Delhi: Omsons Publications), 1990, pp. 15–25. 27.See Report, 1965, pp. 18–19. 28. P.M. Passah, The Working of the Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council’, in M.N. Karna, L.S. Gassah and C.J. Thomas (eds), Power to the People in Meghalaya (Sixth Schedule and the 73rd Amendment), (New Delhi: Regency Publications), 1998, pp. 109–15 29. See Report, 1965, p. 83 |
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