NEW DELHI: Vice President Hamid Ansari has called for having a relook into the role of the autonomous district councils in the country. This comes at a time when the chorus of amending the Sixth Schedule is getting louder by the day.
“We have to take a serious look at the politico-administrative arrangements, including the role of the Sixth Schedule Autonomous Councils,” the Vice President said.
“One has to see if they have provided for a genuine empowerment and democratization of the communities in the region or have merely created multiple power centers,” he added.
The Vice President was addressing a gathering after releasing the book ‘State, Policy and Conflicts in Northeast India’, written by Defense expert Dr. K.S. Subramanian.
“There is also a need to support, facilitate and contribute to civil society engagement, participation and intervention in the region with regard to conflict prevention for facilitating intermediation between the various stakeholders,” he said.
The North Eastern region of India has been described as an anthropologist’s delight and an administrator’s nightmare, the Vice President said. Dealing with such a region was always going to be hard and there are many truths here, conflicting realities, especially in terms of perceptions, he added.
Recognising the significant difference in the way of life and administrative set up of the North Eastern region from the rest of the country, the Constitution provides for special institutional arrangements for the tribal areas in the region, he said. Giving them a high degree of self governance through autonomous District Councils under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution is a part of that exercise, he said.
The Sixth Schedule was a path-breaking effort to give small tribal communities, disadvantaged by lack of opportunity – educational, political and numerical -powers through the system of autonomous district councils and protect their traditions, their way of life and their traditional livelihood, the Vice-President said. “To an extent, these laws have worked but there have been other repercussions, including inadequate development, a multiplicity of authority and, in some cases, majoritarian groups applied pressure on small ethnic groups within their territories, depriving them of the very rights for which the structure was created,” he said.
