Scheduled Tribes of North East India and Dalits of mainland India
Are they the same in any way ?

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Dalits hold the lowest place in Indian society. They perform all the odd jobs that people of other castes and classes need to be done for their normal lives to go on without issues, such as, cleaning of toilets, roads, drainage systems; collecting garbage; manual scavenging, etc. Some are farmers and landless labourers who work in the lands of other people and survive on commodities that they get from the land owners.

The Scheduled Tribes of North East India do not have specific jobs assigned to them based on their community. They can be farmers or labourers or they can opt for better paying jobs elsewhere if they have the means and ability.

In the eyes of the law, they are the vulnerable sections of society who get the shorter hand of the stick and therefore have to be protected with specific laws for them, but in the real society, these two cannot be considered the same in any way, based on how they are perceived by the dominant/developed castes.

Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes get reservations under the Constitution of India where a quota of their place is reserved, whether it be at Government jobs, central universities, or at the Lok Sabha. The Scheduled Tribes of North East India enjoy these reservations, and can get along with people of other castes with no problem when they go out to the society.

They are not looked at or treated differently in the North Eastern scene. However, such is not the case for the Dalits in mainland India. Even with reservations and special schemes curated just for their welfare, the Dalits cannot escape from their fate of being the ‘lower’ caste, and even if they manage to come out into the society, they are constantly getting ostracized for their caste.

“Dalits are forced to take up the jobs such as cleaning, manual scavenging, working at brick kilns, and leather crafting-occupations considered ‘filthy’ or ‘dishonourable’ for ‘higher’ caste communities”(CNN).

For people who make our daily lives easier with their service, they do not even get the basic respect as humans. For example, during the Covid-19 pandemic, these workers could not get the basic protection from the disease but had to keep doing the manual jobs as they had to keep living on even if they were being exposed to the dangers of getting infected with the deadly disease.

On the other side, the North East region is mainly populated by a lot of tribal communities and therefore, discrimination based on caste or tribe is rare in this part of the country. Even though disagreement between the communities because of the difference in their unique cultures can be visible sometimes, looking down on one certain community and socially isolating them is a foreign concept in this region.

More than a hundred tribes are Scheduled Tribes in North East India and are given special treatment in order for them to catch up with the rest of the society. However, there have been arguments that these reservations are not helping the backward communities of the society but instead making the differences between the rich and the poor bigger.

What started out as a means to bridge the gap between the development levels of different communities, has now become a major factor of increasing the differences between different classes.

In a paper called “Anomalies in Classification of STs in North East India : An overview” by Hanjanbam Sukhdeba Sharma and Aheibam Koireng Singh, they state that, “Even after seventy years of Independence, many tribes remain backward and inaccessible, whereas a new, socio-economically advanced category of tribes whom some scholars termed ‘Tribal Elites’ have come into existence consequent of the widening gap between the economically affluent and poor tribals” (Sharma and Singh, 31).

For the STs of NE India, the name ‘Scheduled Tribes’ is not a demeaning identity that separate them from the rest of the society, but an indication that they get extra support to upgrade their state of life and to protect the identity of their community, however big or small the support is.

But, for the Dalits, even though it is supposed to be their identity, the name keeps them ostracized from the rest of the society and they spend their whole lives trying to break free of the stigma that comes with the name.

In Northeast India, there have been demands to include particular communi- ties in to the scheduled tribes list, such as the six ethnic groups of Assam, namely the Tai Ahoms, Mottocks, Koch Rajbongshis, Sooties, Morans, and Tea Tribes, and the Meiteis in Manipur. But, their demand is not well received by the existing scheduled tribes of the respective States.

“Political experts believe that though the six ethnic groups are justified in their demand for inclusion in the ST category, the Government has been hesitant due to the opposition from the existing nine tribal communities” (Times of India). The groups who are already a part of the ST list fear that, with inclusion of new communities into the ST category, they will get their privileges taken away from them.

Sometimes, this leads to an ethnic conflict which can go as far as killing each other, as in the case of Manipur, where the demand of Meiteis to be included in the ST list has been opposed by the Kukis. For the Dalits, the reservation is based on religion.

The Hindu Dalits, Buddhist Dalits, and Sikh Dalits are included into the Scheduled Caste list and get reservations for it, but the Muslim and Christian Dalits are not included in the list.

The reason for this is that in Islam and Christianity, untouchability or difference of caste does not exist, and therefore, they don’t need to be protected. These Dalits have been fighting to be included in the list as, regardless of religion, they face discrimination everywhere they go because of their community, but with no success.

For the North East Indian tribes, the fight is between different communities of different cultural background, but for the Dalits, the fight is among themselves, just different religion. Over the years, the Scheduled Tribes of North East India have developed a lot in different fields of life and they cannot be called inferior to the general population, and are still on the rise.

However, the large population of Dalits have been on a stagnant state where they are neither treated right in the place they are in, nor do they see any see chance to upgrade the way they live. Legally, the Dalits of mainland India and the Scheduled Tribes of North East India may be considered the ‘lower’ sections of society, but we cannot say that they enjoy the same social status in their respective societies.

Works Cited

l Sur, Priyali. “Under India’s Caste System, Dalits Are Considered Untouchable. The Corona Virus is intensifying that Slur”. CNN, April 16, 2020.

l Sukhdeba, Hanjabam and Koireng, Aheibam. “Anomalies in classification of Schedule Tribe in North-East India: an overview”. Mekal Insights, Vol: IV, Issue: 2. IGNTU Amarkantak.

l Dutta, Rajib. “Taypa renews demand for ST status to Tai Ahom community”. Times of India, October 27, 2023.