What Assam’s new Scheduled Tribe reservation proposal could mean for its marginalised groups

On November 29, a report drafted by a group of ministers of the Assam cabinet was tabled in the state Assembly. It proposed Scheduled Tribe status for six “indigenous” groups of the state through the creation of a complex system of internal reservation.

For months now, the communities, who form a critical voter base of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party government, have held massive protests in Upper Assam to step up pressure on the Himanta Biswa Sarma government to concede to their long-pending demand for tribal status.

The six groups welcomed the report, but hours later, protests broke out in Kokrajhar district in the Bodoland region.

Hundreds of Bodo students stormed the Bodoland Territorial Council Assembly, overpowered security personnel and vandalised chairs and desks.

The protesting tribal students claimed that the decision to grant Scheduled Tribe status to other groups will dilute their constitutional rights. “We reject the recommendation to grant them tribal status,” Dipen Boro, who heads the All Bodo Students Union, the most influential Bodo group, told Scroll. “It threatens the political rights, reservation, education and jobs of existing tribal groups.”

The Coordinating Committee of Tribal Organisations of Assam, an umbrella group of tribals in the state, burnt the group of ministers’ report in Guwahati on November 30 and threatened to launch a mass movement against it.

The recommendation evoked a similar response in the state’s three hill districts of Dima Hasao, West Karbi Anglong and Karbi Anglong. Thousands hit the streets in Haflong and Dokmoka in the first week of December. Bodoland and the hill districts in the state are governed under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, which gives greater autonomy to tribal communities.

“For the BJP, the report is a double-edged sword,” political scientist Dibyajyoti Dutta, who teaches at Dibrugarh University, told Scroll. “Through it, the party aims to consolidate votes from the six communities, which collectively hold significant influence. But this risks alienating existing tribes, who fear long-term dilution of their constitutional benefits.”

Observers also told Scroll that the proposal sets in motion a constitutionally complex arrangement, one not attempted by other states, with long-term implications for the state’s marginalised groups.

What the report proposes

Assam has 3.1 crore people, according to the 2011 Census, with recognised Scheduled Tribes accounting for 40 lakh or 13% of the population.

The six communities demanding Scheduled Tribe status – Tai Ahoms, Koch Rajbongshis, Moran, Muttock, Sutia and Adivasi tea tribes – are currently included in the state’s Other Backward Classes list. Together, they add up to one crore people, according to the ministers’ report.

The Scheduled Tribes are in turn divided into two groups: ST (plains) with 10% reservation and ST (hills) with 5% reservation. The largest tribal group in the state, Bodos, are included in the former category, along with the Mising, Rabha and Lalung tribes, among others. Such categories do not exist in other states of the Northeast.

The group of ministers, headed by Ranoj Pegu, has proposed the creation of a new category of ST (valley) and recommended that the Tai Ahoms, Sutia and Adivasi tea tribes be included in it. The Moran and Muttock, which are relatively smaller communities, would be included in the ST (plains) list, the report said.

For the Koch Rajbongshis, inclusion would depend on geography. So, the Koch Rajbonghis of undivided Goalpara region will be included in the ST (plains) list, while those living in the the rest of the state, such as Upper Assam, will be included in the ST (valley) list with Ahom, Sutia, tea tribes and Adivasis.

However, in Bodoland areas of Goalpara, their inclusion in the ST (plains) list would require a no-objection certificate from the Bodoland Territorial Council.

The ministerial report, walking a thin line between competing interest groups, said it would slice the pie such that the reservation of existing tribal groups in state government jobs and seats in educational institutions is untouched. Instead, that share would come from the OBC quota.

“Presently, 27% reservation is available for OBCs,” the report said. “Once these six communities are declared as ST, a proportionate share can be deducted and made available to the new six communities with a separate nomenclature, such as ST (valley), to avoid any conflict with the existing tribal communities.”

However, no such divisions in the Scheduled Tribe quota are possible at the national level. So, all communities would have to compete with each other for central government jobs and seats in central government educational institutions.

Independent MLA and Raijor Dal president Akhil Gogoi, who is from the Tai Ahom community, questioned if the proposal would withstand constitutional scrutiny. “The ST (valley) does not exist anywhere in the Constitution of India or in the central list of Scheduled Tribes,” Gogoi told reporters outside the Assembly after it was tabled. “It is an imaginary category. This is nothing but cheating the people.”

A senior government official in Dispur told Scroll that the three-tier division of the Scheduled Tribe quota will be unique to Assam. “It will depend on the Union government whether they will accept the third layer,” he said. “No other state has such different categories, nor is there a precedent for it. The Centre may approve this as a special case, grant the six groups ST status and let the state government declare them ST (valley) or ST (plains).”

Social scientist Pradeep Ramavath J, who teaches at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Guwahati, explained that the “rationality” of the Assam government proposal comes from the Supreme Court’s 2024 judgement permitting sub-classification within the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

“In the judgement, a seven-judge bench clarified that states can sub-classify SCs and STs to ensure a more equitable distribution of reservation benefits,” said Ramavath, who has extensively worked on Scheduled Castes internal reservation issues in Karnataka. “Before this judgment, internal reservation lacked firm constitutional validation. Now, it is both legally permissible and administratively feasible, which is why the group of ministers has recommended exploring it for Assam.”

The pushback

The strongest opposition to the proposal has come from existing tribal groups.

Several tribal leaders said the state government’s claim that their share of jobs and educational seats would not be affected was misleading.

“How will we not be affected?” said Daniel Langthasa, an activist-turned-politician from Dima Hasao, a hilly region under the Sixth Schedule.

Langthasa, who belongs to the Dimasa tribe, said the proposed reservation matrix was loaded against smaller groups such as his. “We have to compete for central government jobs with those who have been living in the plains, who have access to proper roads, schools and colleges, who have been assimilated into the mainstream and have a higher social status.”

Aditya Khaklari, a Bodo leader and head of the Coordinating Committee of Tribal Organisations of Assam, agreed. “We will lose out to Tai Ahoms, Sutias and Koch-Rajbongshis in central jobs and education institutions as they are the advanced communities,” he told Scroll.

Other tribal residents contested the legitimacy of the demand for ST status for the six groups. “These were the communities who once treated the aboriginal tribal people as ‘untouchable’, who purified their homes if a tribal person walked in,” Preetam Brahma Choudhury, a Kokrajhar-based journalist, told Scroll. “They looked down on us, mocked our culture and food. Now they want to wear the tribal name because it suits their political and economic convenience. This is not only hypocrisy, but an insult to the very idea of justice.”

The senior government official in Dispur admitted that all six groups do not fulfill the criteria for inclusion in the ST list. “If you consider the five criteria – indications of primitive traits, distinctive culture, geographical isolation, shyness of contact with the community at large, and backwardness – some of the groups don’t meet the conditions,” the official said.

Langthasa alleged that the BJP’s electoral interests were behind the decision. “The government is using the issue to create a vote bank and sacrifice the smaller tribes,” he said. “This is creating unrest.”

Who benefits?

Though the report has been largely welcomed by the agitating communities, there is a fair degree of scepticism about its benefits to the marginalised.

Ramavath, the TISS social scientist, pointed out that “without clear criteria, transparent data, and meaningful consultation with communities, sub-classification may complicate the reservation framework and generate new contestations without necessarily improving access for the most marginalised groups.”

The senior government official appeared to admit the challenge. Of the six communities, the tea tribes are the most backward, he said. “If they are given ST (valley) status and included with advanced groups like the Ahoms, it is very obvious who would get the maximum benefits,” the official said.

Not surprisingly, the Assam Tea Tribes’ Students’ Association, which represents the interest of tea tribes and Adivasi groups, said they were not satisfied with the ministers’ report. Jagdish Boraik, who heads the association, questioned why the tea tribes were being included in the same category as Ahoms and Sutias, who are relatively better off. “We can’t compete with the Ahoms.”

He also pointed out that the minister's report is not clear about the number of tea tribes that will get Scheduled Tribe status.

In Assam, as many as 96 communities are classified as tea tribes. “We want all the tea tribes to be recognised as ST as we fulfill all the criteria for tribal status,” Boraik said.

The tea tribes and Adivasi groups are recognised as Scheduled Tribes in the states of their origin – Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal – from where they were brought to Assam by the British in the early 1800s. The tea garden community, spread across about 1,000 estates in Assam, plays a decisive role in electoral outcomes.

However, the group of ministers has stated that key questions remain unresolved, such as how many of the tea tribe communities will be classified as Scheduled Tribe, how many as Scheduled Caste and what the status of the remaining communities will be.

Even the larger of the six communities have questioned how much they stand to gain from the arrangement. Arunabh Konwar, an independent researcher from the Tai-Ahom community, said the ST (valley) status brings no real benefits, as it does not add to the reservation quota. “I am very skeptical of the restructuring of reservation percentages,” he said. “In an ideal world, the reservation should go beyond the 50% cap to proportionately represent the various disenfranchised communities, but we know that’s a pipe dream.”

Electoral implication

A new tribal quota also has implications for electoral politics. Currently, Assam has two Lok Sabha seats reserved for Scheduled Tribe groups – one each for the plains and hill tribes – besides 19 Assembly seats in the 126-member House.

The report’s proposal to reserve additional seats for ST (valley) groups has led to more unease.

Khaklari, the Bodo leader, said, “We are afraid that if the number of ST (valley) seats increase in the next delimitation, the existing Scheduled Tribe (plains) seats may decrease depending on the population.”

To allay fears of reducing the political representation of existing tribes, the ministers’ report proposes that the two Lok Sabha constituencies that fall in the Sixth Schedule areas – Kokrajhar and Diphu – be permanently reserved for existing Scheduled Tribes through a Constitutional amendment. “But it does not say anything about the Assembly segments,” Khaklari pointed out.

Granting Scheduled Tribe (plains) status to Koch Rajbangshis in areas of the Bodoland Territorial Council and the Rabha Autonomous Council is also a thorny issue, pointed out other tribal residents.

The Koch Rajbongshis, considered a Scheduled Tribe in Meghalaya and a Scheduled Caste in West Bengal, largely live in the western part of the state and many live in the two Bodoland districts of Chirang and Kokrajhar.

“It is not clear or explicit about whether only the current ST (plain) groups can contest elections in Bodoland or Rabha Autonomous Council,” Choudhury, the Kokrajhar-based journalist, told Scroll. “If the Koch Rajbanshis are allowed to contest elections in Bodoland, they could easily win seats, which would be disastrous for the existing tribal groups.”

Subhash Rabha, the general secretary of the Rabha Students’ Union, said: “If a populous community like Koch Rajbanshis get ST (plains) status, the autonomy of the Rabha council will be lost and the political rights of the aboriginal tribe will be snatched away.”

In Assam, the Koch-Rajbanshis have a population of around 4.6 lakh, according to the 2011 Census, and reside in Dhubri, Goalpara and Bongaigaon districts.

A political science researcher, who is working on the Bodoland Territorial Region, said, “Any move towards giving ST (plains) status to Koch-Rajbongshis in areas currently under the Bodoland Territorial Council and the Rabha Hasong Autonomous Council would make Bodos and Rabhas insecure about their hard-earned political autonomy.”

Nevertheless, Konwar said the BJP is likely to use the report to its advantage ahead of the elections. “This segmentation of the various ethnic communities and pitting one against the other benefits them. It makes it even easier for them to manage isolated community aspirations rather than having to deal with solidarity among them.”