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Protective Discrimination and Crisis of Citizenship in North-East IndiaAuthor(s): Sanjib BaruahReviewed work(s):Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 38, No. 17 (Apr. 26 - May 2, 2003), pp. 1624-1626Published by: Economic and Political WeeklyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4413479 .

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7/27/2019 Protective Discrimination and Crisis of Citizenship in North-East India

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Commentary

Protective Dscrimnation

a n d C r i s is o f Citizenship

i n North-East n d i a

North-eastIndia is a region where thepolitics of protectivediscriminationor scheduledtribestodayraises some of the most

difficult ssues ofjustice, fairness and costs on systemlegitimacy.Thetimemayhave come to considerways of breakingawayfromthe ethnicdiscourse of the existingprotectivediscrimination

regimethat, in effect, involvesthe stateforever categorisinggroupsof people in ethnic terms and makingdescendantsofimmigrants ntoperpetualoutsiders.

SANJIBBARUAH

ost peoplemay agreewith thenotion that historicallydisad-

vantagedgroupsdeserve someform of protective discrimination oraffirmative ction.However, n concretesituations adjudicating between the

competingclaims of supposedly ad-

vantagedand disadvantaged roupsongrounds fjusticeand airnesssdifficult.

Furthermore,n termsof system legiti-macy there are costs of tinkeringwiththeprincipleof equalitybefore the law.How would one know that the costs areworth the gains made in terms of

achievingsome measure of compen-satory ustice?WKymlickandWNormandescribehetoughstandardshat ntellec-tualargumentsorprotectivediscrimina-tionmustmeet."Critics f minority ightscan no longerclaim",they write,"that

minorityrights inherentlyconflict with

citizenship ideals." At the same time"defenders of minority rights can no

longerclaimthat concernsaboutcivilityandcivic identityaresimply illegitimateattemptso silenceordismiss roublesomeminorities"Kymlicka ndNorman 000:

41].North-east ndia s aregionwhere he

politicsof protectivediscrimination orscheduled ribes STs) todayraisessomeof the most difficult issues of justice,fairnessandcosts on system legitimacy.

Theviolenceagainst divasiSanthalsn

Kokrajhar istrict of Assam in the last

coupleof yearsthat led to the displace-ment of largenumbers f them s a casein point.The Santhalswere victims ofBodo extremists,who are committed othe causeof a Bodo homeland.The factthat the demographic icture n the area

today scomplexand hatnon-Bodos avea substantial presence explains thetensionsbetweenBodosandSanthals nd

other non-Bodo communities. TheSanthalsare descendants f tea workers

broughto Assam as indenturedworkers- manyof themmore hana centuryago.Theirdisplaced orefathers rovided hemuscle or the tea industry hat markedthearrival f globalcapitalismn Assamin the 19thcentury.That such a groupcould be displacedfor the second timeinthe course of anotherhistoricallydis-

advantaged roup'sdemand or greaterautonomy- no matter how tragic the

storyoftheirmmiserisation-bringsomethe absurdityof the prevailingway of

definingwho is historicallyadvantagedand disadvantaged n north-eastIndia

today.In erms fglobalpolitical conomy, he

nineteenthenturymigrantswhocametowork nthe teaplantationsfAssamwere

part f thesamemigrationhat ookIndianindenturedabour o variouspartsof theBritishEmpire.Eventslike the Pravasi

BharatiyaDivas of thepast Januarywasabout elebratinghedescendants fthose

migrants some of whom even rose tobecomeheads fgovernmentsncountries

like Fiji andGuyanaandMauritius.Onthe other hand, the descendants of

precisely he same migration low who

signed up with a different 19thcenturyindentured abour contractorand thusremainedwithin the bordersof indepen-dent India ind themselves n therefugeecampsofKokrajhar.o add nsult oinjuryin order to save the publicface of the

governmentof India, they are hiddenfrom the view of refugee advocacyorganisations.

Facing up to the Limitsof the Sixth Schedule

The demandfor a Bodo homeland sinspiredbytheapparentuccess of a fewotherscheduled ribesof theregionwhohad enjoyedthe statutoryprotectionofthe Sixth Scheduleof the Constitution.TheSixthScheduleprovides orautono-mous districtsand autonomousregionswithin districts for specified scheduledtribes.Laterwhensome of those districtsbecame ull-fledged tates he nstrumentsof protectivediscriminationwere madeavailableat the state evel. As aresult he

legislative assemblies of Arunachal

Pradesh,Mizoram and Nagalandtoday

have all but one seat reserved or STs. InMeghalaya 5 of the 60 seatsarereservedforSTs.This,of course,createsa defacto

regimeof two-tieredcitizenship. Apartfromnon-tribals otbeingabletocontest

elections,heprinciple fone-person,ne-

vote,one-valuehas to be undermined swell in order o achievesucha weightedsystemof representation.Generally, henorm about ensuring the equality oftherelative weight of each vote in a

democracy requires that in electoral

systemswithsingle-member onstituen-

cies, the electorates in all districts be

roughlyof the samesize. But this cannotbe done if the legislative assembliesareto have such a weighted system of

representation.As if theregimeof two-tieredcitizen-

ship in areas whereSTs are a clear ma-

joritywasnotbad nough,nrecent ecadesIndian olicy-makersisplaying remark-able ackof historicalmemoryhavegonealongwiththe demand or extendingel-ements of the Sixth Schedule to areaswhere hedemographic icturesfarmoremixed. The agreementon a Bodoland

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Territorial Council is an example of that.

The Sixth Schedule, it is worth recalling,was intended to applyonly to those sched-

uled tribes that were considered to be

relatively concentrated in the 'excluded'

and 'partially excluded' areas of the co-

lonial era.The subcommittee of the Indian

Constituent Assembly in charge of what

was thencalled the 'TribalAreas of Assam'

(the Bordoloi subcommittee) did not con-sider the situation of STs such as Bodos,

Misings and Tiwas who were not con-

sidered indigenous to the 'excluded' and

'partially excluded' areas. Their needs

were the responsibility of a separate sub-

committee, which was in charge of

minority rights. Indeed a Bodo politician,

RupnathBrahma, was a member of that

committee.

The Sixth Schedule can be traced back

to colonial efforts to create protectedenclaves for 'aborigines' where they can

be allowed to pursuetheir

'customarypractices' including kinship and clan-

based rules of land allocation. Extendinga set of rules meant for isolated aboriginal

groups to new groups in the profoundlytransformedconditions of the twentyfirst

century cannot but produce a crisis of

citizenship that is eloquently represented

by the adivasis in the refugee camps of

Kokrajhar. After all, even in colonial

times some of the potential problems,

especially the dangers to non-tribal

people living in those areas, were antici-

pated in thedebates about these measures.

Thus G S Ghurye, one of the best-knowncritics of colonial-era tribal policies,wrote that in its "eagerness to do some-

thing for the tribals", the British parlia-ment when it voted on the Government

of India Act of 1935, barely considered

the condition of

the non-tribalsin whose midst the pro-tected aborigines ive and on whom they

depend to some extent for their liveli-

hood. That these non-tribals, too, have

rights, that their good will and coopera-tion, next only to the conscious and

deliberate internal organisation of the

tribalsthemselves, are the most essentialfactors for thepresentwelfare andfuture

developmentof the so-called aborigines,failed to receive adequateconsideration

[Ghurye 1980: 111].

The irony is that if attempts were

made in the colonial era and by the Indian

Constitution-makers to make some dis-

tinctionsbetween tribals iving indifferent

levels of isolation fromnon-tribal commu-

nities, in post-colonial India the Sixth

Schedule is being extended to far less

isolated tribalgroups,and that too after the

economic and demographic hanges ofmore hanhalfacentury f independence.

Political Economy at Odds withthe Sixth Schedule

What is sure to make the citizenshipcrisisin north-east ndiaworse ncomingyears s that hepopulationrendnall the

tribalareas of the regionis for STs as aproportion f the totalpopulation o de-cline. Apart rom the successivegenera-tionsof non-tribalsnhabitantswhohavelived there,the economictransformationof thepost-colonial rahas attractedmanynew non-tribalmmigrants.Yet since the

protectivediscriminationegimerestrictswhatnon-tribals an egallydo,numerousinformalarrangementsave emerged ntheownershipand controlof agriculturallandand n businesspractices.Non-tribal

immigrantsand their descendantshave

becomeintegratednto the economiesofthe regionin substantial, utoftenquiteinformalways.

There has also been a significant hiftin land controlfrom clans to individual

ownership."It is no longer surprising",writes ociologistM N Karna f theNorthEasternHill University,"tocome acrossaNagaor a Garoowninga thousand cresof land. Nowherein these areas would

customarypracticeshavepermitteducha concentrationf land,but newlinkageshavebroughtwiththemhitherto nknown

phenomenalike absentee landlordism,

realisationof rentfromland,sharecrop-ping,landmortgage,andlessnessand soon" [Karna1990:36]. The other side ofthisprivatisationf clan-held ands s the

emergenceof a poorergroupof peopleekingout a living by workingas agricul-tural workers or sharecroppersor bywhateverother meanspossible.Most ofthem are local tribals,who despite the

protectiongiven to them as membersof

STs, ack he socialandpolitical esourcesto benefit romprivatisationf clan-landsor to be able to holdon to landsallocatedto them. But occupyingthese economic

niches are also a large numberof non-tribals. The process of transition rom

shifting o settledcultivation as been fartoo complexfor the dichotomybetweentribalsandnon-tribals o neatlycoincidewiththe notion hat he former realwaysexploitedbythe atter.Questions f social

justice in north-east ndia have become

significantlymore omplex odayhanwhatthecurrentegime fprotective iscrimina-tionwasoriginally esignedo accomplish.

The strainson theregimeas a resultof

demographic hangeareapparent.ndeed

in order to contain the potential politicalfall-out of demographic change, the gov-ernment of India, through constitutional

amendments, has frozen the balance of

seats reserved for STs in the state assem-

blies. Apart from the changing demo-

graphic balance, the trend in economic

policies furtherpoints to the need for some

form of loosening, if not outright disman-

tlingof thatregime in future.Thus GulshanSachdeva has argued that the 'rigid bar-

riers' that exist in the region arein conflict

with efforts to integrate these economies

with the dynamic world economy

[Sachdeva 2000: 162]. Elsewhere he has

argued for fundamentalpolicy changes in

land and labour policies of the region in

order to attractprivate capital. While the

tribal population constitutes only about a

fourth of the population of the region, he

points out, about two-thirds of its land is

"owned, controlled or managed by tribes,clans or

villagecommunities".Undersuch

conditions, he writes, "it is almost impos-sible to transfer his landto non-tribals and

outsiders". Changes in the land tenure

system, according to him, are essential so

that land can be made "available to inves-

tors for industry, plantation, horticulture,

etc, either on lease or on ownership in a

transparentmanner".Except for Assam's

Brahmaputra alley andTripura, henorth-

east is a labour scarce region and institu-

tions like the Inner Line - which can be

seen as an added layer of protective dis-

crimination that exists in Arunachal

Pradesh,Mizoram andNagaland - restrictlabour movement. The region, Sachdeva

believes, has to be open to outside labour,

though given the sensitive nature of the

issue, he adds, "some control mechanism

could be worked out" [Sachdeva 1999].

Alternatives for the Future

Despite all the talk of the twentyfirst

century andlinking north-east India to the

dynamic economies of south-east Asia,India's policy community seems strangely

unprepared for the future. It is true that

steps have been takento freeze the balancebetween tribaland non-tribal members in

the state assemblies of the region. But this

can do little more than make the citizen-

ship crisis worse since the system of a de

facto two-tiered citizenship would be even

more out of synch with the political

economy of the future.

What is the way out? It may appearthat

the only alternative is a regime of undif-

ferentiated nationwide citizenship and the

elimination of all forms of protectivediscrimination,otably heInnerLineand

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the restrictions on the ownership of land

andbusiness by non-tribals. If the primary

goal is seen as the incorporation of the

ethnic outsider - at least beyond the first

generation - and bring the citizenship

regime in line with the actually existing

politicaleconomy of theregion,otherpolicyalternativesmaybe available. The time has

come to consider ways of breaking away

from the ethnic discourse of the existing

protective discrimination regime that, in

effect, involves the state forever

categorising groups of people in ethnic

terms and making descendants of immi-

grants into perpetualoutsiders. A leadingcandidate for an alternative policydiscourse would be the notion of dual

citizenship, not unknown in federal

systems, i e, citizenship both of India and

of one of the states of north-east India.

It would replace the ethnic principlewith a civic principle and give the rightto define the rules of inclusion and

exclusion to territoriallydefined political

communities.At the same time such a

regimeof dualcitizenshipwouldonlybea variationon the theme of the actualrestrictionshat exist on the groundas aresult of the accumulatedegacy of theinstruments f protectivediscriminationof the past.E

References

Ghurye,G S (1980) [1959]:The ScheduledTribes

of India,TransactionBooks, New Brunswick.

Kama,MN(1990): TheAgrarian cene',Seminar,New Delhi, No 366, February,pp 30-38.

Kymlicka, W, and W Norman (2000):'Introduction'n KymlickaandNorman,eds,

Citizenship in Diverse Societies, Oxford

UniversityPress, Oxford.

Sachdeva, Gulshan (1999): 'Rejuvenating the

North-eastern Economy', Oriental Times,GuestColumn1(34-35),January 2-February6. http://www.nenanews.com/OT%20Jan22-Feb6,99/GuestC.htm

- (2000): Economy of the North-East: Policy,Present Conditionsand Future

Possibilities,Centrefor Policy Research,New Delhi.

Managing R a d i o

Frequency Spectrum

SomeIssues

Radiospectrum s a limited resource and by traditionhas cometo be ownedby thestate. Its use has to be regulated n termsofpurposeof use,place, transmittedpower and coverage includingdirectivity. n India the sharpdemand or allotmentof radio

spectrumarose in the 1990s with theintroductionof cellular

mobileradio. Thegovernmentand its agencies have notbeenparticularlyable or wise in coping with the diversedemandssince then.

T H CHOWDARY

-N rot very ate after he inventionof

radio transmissions by Marconi,India even while under the impe-

rial rule of Great Britain started usingradio. In 1902, wireless telegraphy was

used between Saugar islands (Bay of

Bengal) and sand-heads (near Calcutta).Radio telegraph service for public was

introducedby the Overseas Communica-

tion Service (OCS), now the Videsh

Sanchar Nigam (VSNL), in 1927 and

radio telephony in 1933, both first to the

UnitedKingdomandprogressivelytomanyother countries. OCS/VSNL was also the

first to use satellitecommunications or

telegraphy,elex andvoicewith asatelliteearthstation n 1971. During he second

world war radio communications nderthe OCSwere remendously xpanded.A

privatecompany n Mumbaiused radio

broadcastingor the first ime n 1926andafter a few years,it was takenover as a

monopolyof the then imperialgovern-ment,which stablishedheAll IndiaRadio

(AIR),now a partof the PrasaraBharati

(Broadcastingndia).RadioTVtransmis-sionswerebegun n Indianthemid-1960sandby the mid-1980s,more or less thewhole territory f Indiawas coveredforTVtransmissionssingboth satelliteand

terrestrialradio links to feed the transmit-

ting stations. Departments like civil avia-

tion, coast guard, forests, police, and of

course, the armed forces had been usingradio on a very extensive scale and under-

standablyhadbeengiven anextraordinarily

large spectrum. For public telecommuni-

cations like telephony, radiospectrumwas

required irstfor long distance, VHF, UHF

and terrestrial and satellite microwavetransmission highways from the mid-

1960s. The use of radio spectrum for

telecommunications grew after that. The

first microwave radio link was between

Calcutta and Asansol in 1965; the first

satellite earth station for international

telecom was commissioned in 1971 (at

Arvi, near Pune) and for domestic pur-

poses in November 1980. UHF radio links

began to be established from 1974

(Mangalore-Udipi). Bharat Sanchar has

now 1,10,000 route kilometres (rkm) of

terrestrialdigital

microwave,45,000

rkm

of UHF and28,000 rkm of analogue radio

systems, spread over the entire country,

linking over 4,000 towns and cities.

In order to minimise the interference

between various radio transmissions bydifferent users and to plan and allot the

spectrum and monitor its proper use both

in regard to the frequency band allotted

and the transmittedpower, thegovernmentcreatedthe CentralWireless Planning and

Co-ordination (CWPC) office and wire-

less adviser charged with the function of

planning,allotmentandmonitoringof radio

spectrum for different users. The reallyexplosive requirement of radio spectrumhad arisenwith the introduction of cellular

mobile radio telephony in the early 1990s

(mobile telephony was introduced in In-

dia, in Delhi in December 1985) and use

of radio or wireless in the access segment;that is, from the customer premises to the

network point, namely a telephone ex-

change or an Internet point of presence

(POP). India is a vast country and the

spectrum that is given to it for different

uses is just the same as is given for a verysmall country, thus requiring complex

planning, allotment and monitoring. Sec-

ondly, since cities are the places where

every user has a great requirement for

many wireless services, coordination for

limitinginterferencebetween various rans-

missions and as importantly, the availabi-

lity and siting of towers for mountingantennas is extending the problems from

of radio spectrum management to one of

city planning, architecture and environ-

ment. Aggravating this problem is the

presence of competing multiple operatorsfor massmarketsikefixedtelephony nd

1626 Economic and Political Weekly April 26, 2003