The Hindu
Bodo tribal boys, wearing body paint, shout slogans during a rally in
Ghoramara in Sonitpur district, Assam, demanding a separate Bodoland
state. File photo: Ritu Raj Konwar
The Sunday Story
Assam’s ethnic pot is boiling once again with the United
Progressive Alliance’s nod to create a Telangana State, spurring the
revival of statehood movements by four ethnic groups — the Bodos, the
Karbis, the Dimasas and the Koch-Rajbangshis.
While
organisations of the Koch-Rajbangshis have demanded a Kamatapur state
comprising 15 districts of Assam and six of West Bengal, the other three
demands have been raised from the Bodoland Territorial Area District
(BTAD), Karbi Anglong hill district and Dima Hasao (the erstwhile North
Cachar) hill district which are governed by administrative set-ups
enjoying legislative, executive and financial autonomy under the Sixth
Schedule to the Constitution.
The revival of the
statehood movements raises the question whether its autonomy experiment —
thought to be the panacea for addressing territory-linked
ethno-linguistic and ethno-cultural identity issues — has failed.
Political
elites among the Bodos, the Karbis and the Dimasas argue that the Sixth
Schedule experiment failed to fulfil the aspirations of the people in
the three areas as the State government did not fully devolve powers on
the councils as promised.
Meanwhile, ordinary Bodo,
Karbi and Dimasa people never got any opportunity to enjoy
self-governance as no power was handed to villages.
The
autonomous institutions in the three Sixth Schedule areas of BTAD,
Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao — namely the Bodoland Territorial Council
(BTC), the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAAC) and the Dima Hasao
District Autonomous Council (DHDAC) — are single-tiered and outside the
purview of the Panchayati Raj system.
Since the ad hoc village
council bodies are not elected, villagers have remained passive
beneficiaries of development schemes and do not have any say when
allocated funds fail to reach them.
In Tripura,
nominated village committees were replaced with elected councils in 2006
in all 527 village committees under the Tribal Areas Autonomous
District Council (TTADC). The TTADC, which came under the purview of the
Sixth Schedule in August 1985, also vested with the elected Village
Committees the powers and duties for implementation of State and Central
development schemes. There is 33 per cent reservation for women in
these committees.
Nearly nine years after the
formation of the BTC, the Bodoland Village Council Bill, 2012, which
provides for a directly elected council, was passed on July 18, 2012.
The Bill still awaits the Assam Governor’s assent.
The
peace accord signed by the Centre and Assam governments with the
erstwhile militant outfit United People’s Democratic Solidarity (UPDS)
of Karbi Anglong hill district on August 25, 2011 provides for setting
up of village councils under the Karbi Anglong Autonomus Council (KAAC)
to deepen the democratic process at the grassroots. The Memorandum of
Settlement signed with both factions of the erstwhile militant outfit
Dima Halam Daogah(DHD) of Dima Hasao hill district on October 8, 2012
also provides for setting up of village councils for devolution of
powers on the grassroots to benefit all sections.
The
State government has allowed the Bill and the two peace accords to
gather dust instead of ensuring their speedy implementation. Failure on
the part of the Centre and Assam governments to make the Sixth Schedule
an effective institution with wider participation of the people has
allowed the political elites of the three tribes to seize the
opportunity created by the Telangana decision, to revive the statehood
demand and articulate it as the only means of getting rid of
backwardness and for the preservation of their identity, culture and
heritage.
