Draft:Scheduled Tribe Demand Committee Manipur

SCHEDULED TRIBE DEMAND COMMITTEE OF MANIPUR:

The Scheduled Tribe Demand Committee of Manipur (STDCM) is a body formed by the Meitei people, one of the indigenous communities of Manipur. It is a non-political and non-religious people’s organization. It is an independent organization of the Meitei society, spearheaded by retired bureaucrats and ex-army officers.

The STDCM, on behalf of the indigenous Meitei community of Manipur, has been striving to secure Constitutional safeguards by getting the indigenous Meitei included in the ST list under Article 342(1) of the Constitution of India since the last part of 2012.

Vision

To bring about a cohesive and harmonious society in Manipur based on ethnic social equality by:

1. Providing Constitutional Safeguard to Meitei ethnic identity as Yelhoumee (aboriginal/indigenous people) of Manipur to prevent it from becoming a minority & extinct in Manipur.
2. Removing the Constitutional divide creates social division between Scheduled Tribes and Non-scheduled Tribes amongst indigenous communities of Manipur.
3. Extending Constitutional safeguard to valley districts of Manipur under the Constitution as that of hill districts of the State.
4. Creating a composite ST-dominant State of Manipur with equal respect for all indigenous communities.

Mission

To include Meitei in the Scheduled Tribe list of India.

The Facts

1. Meitei, also called Manipuri, inhabit the centrally located valley area of Manipur, which is less than 10% of the total area of 22,327 sq. km.
2. Meitei self-identifies as Yelhoumee ( aboriginal inhabitants /indigenous people) but does not enjoy any Constitutional safeguard as indigenous people (Yelhoumee).
3. Indian Constitution does not state who indigenous people are. In a January 5, 2011 judgment, the Supreme Court of India referred to Adivasi/Scheduled Tribe as the descendants of India's original /aborigines (Yelhoumee).
4. Although tribal by birth, Meiteis are not included in the Constitutional categorization of Scheduled Tribe and have been Constitutionally and administratively categorized as Other Backward Class (OBC) and Scheduled Castes (SC).
5. The population of the Meitei Tribe is approximately 14 lakhs. It is 0.1% ( point one percent) of 140 crores of India’s population. The community fears being swamped by these 140 crores sooner or later if there is no Constitutional safeguard to protect them in their traditional ancestral homeland.

Official Records of Meitei Tribe

1. Census of India 1891 A General Report, page 194 records Manipuri as Forest Tribe of Manipur.
2. Census of India 1901 Volume 1: Report, page 121 documents Manipuri under the Province of Assam as the Main Tribe of Manipur.
3. Census of India 1931 Volume 1, page 430, Para 181 clarifies Manipuri as wholly Hindu Tribe but retaining their distinctive language and culture.
4. Imperial Gazetteer of India Provincial Series – Eastern Bengal and Assam; and Gazetteer of Bengal and North East India 1909, records Manipuri (Meitei) as one of the Principal Tribes of the North East India.
5. Ethnography ( Castes and Tribes), 1912 report by Sir Athelstaine Baines, Appendix B, Caste Index classifies Meithei (Meitei) in group 43(f) as “Hill Tribe” in the locality of Manipur.
6. As per census record of 1951, Meitei population was 59% of the total population of Manipur. As per census record of 2011 the percentage has reduced to 44%.

The Argument

1. Before merging with Union of India in 1949, Manipur had a simple homogenous society. On joining the Union of India, Indian social hierarchical structure as per the Indian Constitution was formally imposed sub-dividing hitherto homogenous society into various castes as General, OBC, SC and ST. In other words Indian Constitution formally draws a dividing line between Meitei and their hill brethren creating social division as Scheduled Tribe hill people and un-Scheduled Tribe valley people.
2. Scheduled Tribes in hill areas of Manipur have been provided safeguards under Article 371C of the Indian Constitution and Manipur Land Revenue and Reforms Act, 1960; whereby their land is protected among others. Meitei tribe in the valley are left without any Constitutional safeguard to protect their ancestral land and ethnic identity.
3. The rapid and continuous demographic change taking place in the valley, if not checked now, it will result in the Meitei tribe people to become minority in their own ancestral homeland and in due course of time will be on the brink of extinction.
4. Once the Meitei tribe is included in ST list, Manipur Valley, predominantly inhabited by Meitei tribe, will have a Constitutional safeguard in line with their hill brethren. This will make Manipur more or less a composite ST dominant State and provide Constitutional safeguard to Meitei’s ethnic identity as Yelhoumee (Indigenous people) since their ancestral land would be protected as also remove the Constitutional divide prevailing between the Hill tribes and Valley tribes, thereby creating more or less a homogenous society. The fear of becoming a minority would also be non-existent.

Reservation Quota Mechanism

16. State Govt. can regulate reservation quota mechanism within the State in accordance with Constitution Article 16(4). In Nagaland, ST is divided into Advanced Tribe and Backward Tribe, with different reservation quotas. In Assam, there are Plains Tribes and Hill Tribes, with their reservation quotas being 10% and 5%, respectively. Likewise, the present ST quota of 31% being enjoyed by hill tribes is to be safeguarded as it is, and the new valley ST tribes may be given a composite reservation quota since there would no longer be OBC and Scheduled Castes.

Scheduled Caste as ST

• April 5, 2022 Govt. of India de-enlisted Bhogta community of Jharkhand State from the Scheduled Caste list and enlisted it into the Scheduled Tribe list. The Bhogta community claimed that they were erroneously administratively classified as Scheduled Caste in 1950, whereas they should have been included in ST list. Govt. of India accordingly rectified the error.
• Likewise, SC community in Manipur, having been wrongly classified as SC instead of ST in 1950 will be de-enlisted from the SC list and enlisted into ST ist in the same manner as that of the Bhogta community of Jharkhand State.

Criteria for consideration as ST

• As per existing rules and regulations, the criteria laid down for consideration of a community as Scheduled Tribe are :-

1. Indication of primitive traits
2. Distinctive culture
3. Shyness of contact with the community at large
4. Geographical isolation
5. Backwardness

• The Meitei tribe fulfills the requisite criteria. Nonetheless, when the State Govt. sends its recommendation to the Registrar General of India (RGI) and the Ministry of Home, an ethnography report and socio-economic survey report will substantiate that Meitei tribes fulfill the given criteria. However, it may be noted that not all of the criteria need to be met.

ST Identity

The term Scheduled Tribe is derived from the Indian Constitution in accordance with Article 342(1) which in essence says that the President may specify the tribes or tribal communities or parts thereof which shall for the purposes of the Constitution be deemed to be Scheduled tribe. This is a Constitutional and Administrative Categorisation, which is far from the meaning of tribe as is ordinarily understood or taught in the Anthropology discipline.

United Nations understanding of Indigenous People and Tribal People

• The terms “indigenous people “ and “tribal people” are used as synonyms in the UN system and Meiteis self identify themselves as Yelhoumee or indigenous people of Manipur. United Nations ILO Convention No. 169 was adopted in 1989 based on a general attitude of respect for the cultures and ways of life of indigenous and tribal people, and the fundamental assumption that indigenous and tribal people constitute permanent societies.
• Thus this notion of tribal people being considered as permanent society contradicts the idea of tribe as understood in the Anthropology discipline. Accordingly Meiteis even after 75 years of being administratively categorised as OBC, SC, General etc. , still continue to be unscheduled tribe.

Crux of the Argument

1. The Report of the Advisory Committee on the Revision of the List of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, Govt. of India, 1965, also known as Lokur Committee Report, essentially states that the Census Report of 1931 was the basis for the inclusion of tribes in ST list of 1950 as this Census Report primarily brought out the list of depressed castes and tribes.
2. From 1891 to 1949, for six decades, Meitei was officially recorded as a tribe. The 1931 Census Report classifies Meiteis as a wholly Hindu Tribe but retaining their distinctive language and culture. Therefore, it should have been included in the ST list in 1950. However, it was indiscriminately left out by Govt. of India for reasons best known to them.
3. The Govt. of India committed an error then. The demand, therefore, is to rectify that error now and include the Meitei Tribe in the ST list to provide a Constitutional safeguard to this ethnic community, which constitutes barely 0.1% (point one percent) of the national population, to protect it from being swamped by mainstream population in their traditional ancestral habitat in Manipur