Governance of the Fifth Schedule Areas: Role of Governor

The indigenous communities all over the world are experiencing various forms of alienation. Among all, alienation of rights over land, forest and other natural resources is the most serious one. Indigenous people of India are known as adivasis meaning the ‘first inhabitants’ with official name of ‘Scheduled Tribes’. The socio-economic and political alienation of Scheduled Tribes has manifested itself in the form of insurrections. The issues concerning the political insurrection in central and eastern India are multi-dimensional in nature. To illustrate, these issues relate to land acquisition in Scheduled V Areas, rights over the natural resources, agrarian transformation, governance conflict, socio-economic and political exclusion of the disadvantaged sections of the society, needs of youth, poverty and the role of political ideology.

One of the important aspects of governance which has not been dealt with adequately in the literature is the role of governors and the president in ensuring peace and good governance in Scheduled Areas. The main purpose of the article is to explore the status of governance with particular reference to the role of governor in establishing peace and good government in the Fifth Scheduled Areas. Through discourse and document analysis of Annual Governors’ reports accessed through Centre for Policy Research, it is found that the Office of Governor has failed in fulfilling the constitutional responsibility of ensuring the peace and good governance in Scheduled V Areas. It is high time for the governor’s office to effectively participate in the nation-building process by enabling proper implementation of the progressive laws enacted for the well-being of Scheduled Tribes.