By Patricia Mukhim
In the light of ongoing controversies arising out of the rigid application of Clause 10 of the Sixth Schedule namely the Power of District Councils to make regulations for trading by non-tribals, one took the time to go through the voluminous and heated debates from men of letters such as Kuladhar Chaliha, Rohini Kumar Chaudhuri, Jaipal Singh, Rev JJM Nichols Roy amongst others. The debates were candid and unsparingly forthright. On several occasions Dr BR Ambedkar, the chairperson of the Drafting Committee was accused by the leaders from Assam of trying to vivisect India yet again by creating constituencies of differences rather than a of building a nation whose members would have equal and unifying laws. Each clause of the Schedule was scrutinised very minutely and their repercussions analysed. The debate was a long and strenuous one and it showed the depth of interest that members took before agreeing to every single clause. What one could glean from the debate is that the premier of Assam, Gopinath Bordoloi and some members of the Tribal Council who sought to push through the Sixth Schedule had several meetings in the tribal areas of the region and elicited wide-ranging public opinions. The debate suggests that Messrs Rohini Kumar Chaudhuri, Kuladhar Chaliha and other members of the Committee were admittedly ignorant of the culture and politics of the tribals which Nichols Roy pointed out on more than one occasion was far superior than the culture of mainland India as there was no caste or class hierarchy as existed in the rest of India.
The Sixth Schedule was never meant to be an instrument that would be needed in perpetuity. The Nagas did away with it once they attained statehood. The Mizos apply the Sixth Schedule only in respect of minority tribes within the State of Mizoram. So why has Meghalaya allowed the Sixth Schedule to continue as another political institution that appears to be like a subordinate legislature – a place where those who fail to make it to the State legislature find temporary reprieve. Since the laws in this country are vague on most issues there was no clear interpretation by the Indian Constitution or the Election Commission as to whether a sitting member of the District Council could also be a legislator (MLA) and vice-versa and whether there would be a clash of interests in the two functions. This is a matter of scrutiny and it would be in the interests of the governed that these matters are promptly cleared.
Since Meghalaya has for obscure reasons chosen to continue with the District Councils it would be in public interest to understand the spirit and not the letter of the Sixth Schedule. In those early days after Independence when the tribal people and their political institutions lacked a uniform code for governance and were, as some of the members of the drafting committees disparagingly put it, “primitive,” ( perhaps for want of a better word and because they were ignorant of the fairly developed tribal institutions existing at the time), the enlightened tribal members felt the need for a model of governance that would be able to resist the assimilatory objectives of the then rulers of Assam whose sympathies and understanding of tribal life was vague and minimal, with the clear exception of Gopinath Bordoloi. The District Councils could not protect the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo tribes from the Assam Language Bill which sought to impose Assamese as the official language across the board. Hence language which is a basic element of culture is the premise upon which the State of Meghalaya was created. This means that a state legislature comprising of majority of tribal legislators is important to promote and protect our language and culture and by extension our land and forests. District Councils should have become passé in 1972 except for the fact that the first Chief Minister of Meghalaya, WA Sangma wanted it to continue as a hub for upcoming politicians. This indeed is a very narrow political objective and is the anti-thesis to statesmanship. Political interest is essentially self-interest. Statesmanship sees the greatest good for the largest number of people. Alas! Meghalaya is yet to produce a statesman! Even those with the potential to become statesmen actually slithered into the morass of politics or were solitary voices.
My question before the members of the District Councils is (a) what special protective clauses do the Councils offer the present lot of tribals which the State legislature does not. If so then what is the purpose of having a separate state of Meghalaya? (b) Are we to imply that the State Legislature is incompetent to legislate on laws relating to tribal cultural practices? Is that not what the Department of Art and Culture of the State Government supposed to engage with and deploy its resources for? (c) Can the legislature not make suitable laws on ‘trading by non-tribals’ in line with the present economic realities? (d) why should a trader who had obtained permission from the Council in the past be subjected to harassment in that he/she has to get the signature of every executive member of the Dorbar Shnong under which he/she resides before getting his/her license renewed? Is this not a blatant attempt at corruption since every member of the executive committee of the Dorbar Shnong who appends his signature on the license renewal form would have to be paid, if not officially then under the table? (e) Why should a non-tribal resident who is never included in any of the affairs of the Dorbar Shnong and is considered as somebody outside the purview of the Dorbar since he/she has no say whatsoever in its governance, be made to submit to this purely tribal institution? What sort of double-standard is this? I am sure that this can be challenged in a court of law by someone with the spunk to take on modern tribal warlords. What is happening is unconstitutional because non-tribals who are born and bred here cannot be treated as non-permanent residents every time.
The repeated hounding of genuine non-tribal traders, whose licenses are pending renewal for reasons best known to the Executive Member in Charge Trade, is clearly an undue harassment of a citizen. One is not stating here that there are no serious breaches and that every person peddling his wares in Iewduh or elsewhere has a trading license. But there is a way to go about this process without violating the constitutional rights of the person and reducing him to the position of a refugee. Such actions are bound to have repercussions. I have argued in these columns that our propensity to treat all non-tribals as second or third class citizens who must subject themselves to our arbitrary tribal laws is bound to boomerang sooner than later.
I understand that this argument is apt to be construed as anti-tribal but that’s not what is important here. What is important for the public to know is why the Councils have always gone overboard in the implementation of Clause 10 of the Sixth Schedule (Trading by non-tribals) to the exclusion of other equally important matters. How about the forests under the watch of the Councils? Why are they degraded? Who is stealing the standing trees in these forests? Water resources which include streams, rivers, waterfalls etc are all within the purview of the Councils. What have they done to reclaim these polluted streams, rivers etc.? Merely asserting their tights over Wah Umkhrah in a fit of pique is not a public duty. It is a mere political gimmick. And what has happened to that big show of cleaning the Wah Umkhrah? Today that opportunity is lost because the National Green Tribunal has received a petition on the unabated onslaught on the Wah Umkhrah and Umshyrpi. It will not be long before the Tribunal issues directives to the so-called owners of these rivers and takes them to task.
The District Council’s functions have clearly overlapped with those of the State legislature in some critical areas. Now that we have a State Water Resources Department, what are the arrangements between the Councils and this Department in terms of conserving and reclaiming water sources that have been rendered toxic? We have seen no model for any kind of co-operation here. The Councils have never created accountable second- rung governance structures such as village and town councils that could provide better governance along modern lines and not by clinging on to arbitrary and outmoded traditional systems. On the contrary the Councils have appropriated to themselves all powers because of the fear that devolution of such powers might create other power centres.