‘Tea Tribe’ or ‘Scheduled Tribe’?: Vexed Adivasi Identity in Assam

Introduction

The Santhal, Oraon, Munda and Kharia settlers of Assam, who migrated there as tea plantation labour over a century, comprise 18–20% of Assam’s population according to the Census of India, 2011. Called ‘tea-tribes’ or chah jonogoshti in Assamese, they name themselves Adivasis, ¹ that is, the original tribal inhabitants of India, as their brethren in the original place in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha are known as. Like Adivasis elsewhere, they maintain certain distinct cultural features and identities. They speak their respective languages—Santhali, Kurukh (Oraon), Mundari and Kharia—besides a lingua franca called Sadri, spoken in Jharkhand and parts of Chhattisgarh and Odisha. With such cultural characteristics, the settler Adivasis stake the claim of Scheduled Tribe (ST) status in the state of Assam, which they now consider their home as permanent settlers. The demand, however, has been successively denied to them since the first list of STs was included in the Indian constitution. With the ST status, the Adivasis of Assam would have been eligible to get those special privileges that other STs are enjoying in India.

The article is divided into three sections, beginning with a brief description of the contentious category of ‘tea tribe’. The second section deals with the Adivasi identity awareness and quest for the constitutional ST status against the imposed status of ‘second-class’ citizens. The final section reviews the government exercise to schedule tribal people for a special administrative dispensation and situates the case of Assam Adivasis in the flood of claims for entry in the schedule. The study shows that various committees, besides adopting certain anomalous methodologies, were bogged down by the volatile local politics of Assam and prevented from considering the Adivasis case judiciously.

Adivasi or ‘Tea Tribe’ in Assam: An Identity Question

British conquest of Bengal’s south-west frontiers dislocated the Santhals, Mundas, Oraons and other Adivasis since the late 18th century. By the mid-19th century, their displacement was massive (Ghosh, 1999, pp. 8–48). Two major revolts, the Kol insurrection of 1831–1833 by the Mundas and Oraons in Chotanagpur and the Hul (revolt) by the Santals in 1855–1856 in the Chotanagpur region indicated Adivasis’ anger against uprooting them from their home and habitat (Jha, 1996, p. 22). The revolts were cruelly suppressed. Punctuated by a brief lull following the suppression, the Adivasis’ deprivation was unabated.

Culturally rooted, while some sections of the Adivasis continued to resist colonial exploitation, many of them were compelled to leave their place in search of livelihood and landed up as workers in mines, road constructions and plantations in the late 19th century. This became a congenial time for the British to recruit the Adivasis of the regions of Chotanagpur, Santhal Parganas and adjacent parts of Orissa and Chhattisgarh for the upcoming tea plantation industry of Assam. The planters originally tried to engage the native peasantry to engage as labourers in the plantations. Having failed in this, ‘the planters turned their attention from 1840 onwards to the various tribal and marginalised caste populations from mainly the Chhotanagpur region spanning over the states of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa’ (Sharma, 2012, p. 292).

Over the decades, the Adivasi migrant labourers established themselves in various parts of Assam. In post-independent India, they came to be known as ‘tea tribes’, alternatively called ‘bagania’, ‘coolie’ and ‘mini’ (for women). All these are used in despicable terms, conveying the sense of the ‘other’. Currently, the ‘tea tribes’ are listed as Other Backward Classes (OBC). However, the term ‘tea tribe’ is not used in the OBC list of Assam. Some 96 communities from this category listed as the OBCs are officially known as ‘Tea ‘Garden Labourers’, ‘Tea Garden Tribes’, ‘Ex-Tea Garden Labourers’ and ‘Ex-Tea Garden Tribes’. ² ‘Tea tribe’ is a hybrid term. Within this, there are Oraon, Munda, Santhal, Ho and Kharia communities who particularly identify themselves as ‘Adivasis’ and vehemently disapprove of the term ‘tea tribe’. Significantly, these Adivasi groups in central India are classified as STs. Using it as a plank, the Assam Adivasis have been demanding recognition as ST. To make their claim bold, they maintain that the other ‘tea tribe’ communities (tea and ex-tea garden tribe and recognised as OBC by the Assam government) in the original place are listed as either OBCs or Scheduled Castes, whereas they are STs. As Adivasi rationalisation and mobilisation for this cause have been in progress, the local groups, especially the Bodos have risen to contest the Adivasi claim. Bodo leaders assert that Adivasis form a major part of the Chah Jonogosti or tea tribes, who have lost their distinctive Adivasi/tribal traits in Assam and have been assimilated into greater Assamese culture. ³ The Assam government fears a political fallout. It has been argued that conferring the Adivasis the ST status would create tensions in Assam’s political scenario. ⁴ Under this situation, there has been simmering bitterness in the inter-community relationship, where the Adivasi community has been the victim.

More than Just a Nomenclature: Awareness of the Adivasi—Self

The incident highlighted the long-standing subjugation of the Adivasis and their oppression. Under these situations, the Adivasis started reflecting upon their self-identity as well as questioning the reasons for their oppression as social groups. This took the form of organised political assertion.

For Adivasis, the idea of the ‘self’ and demands for a distinct ‘identity’ can be traced before independence in Assam. Though, one of the first instances of the demand for an ST status was by a prominent Adivasi member of the constituent assembly, pioneering visionary Jaipal Singh Munda and his visit to Assam in 1955–1958. This stirred a general Adivasi awareness. In Jharkhand, migration of Adivasis was always a prominent question in the Jharkhand movement.

His visit paved the way for the formation of the Adivasi Council of Assam (ACA) under the leadership of Francis Hans and I.S. Ekka. The organisation made the first attempt to demand ST status for the Assam Adivasis. They submitted a memorandum to the Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi. Earnest lobbying for several years initiated the case for ST status for nine Adivasi communities in 1987 when P.K. Mahanta was the Chief Minister of Assam.

The move, however, was not fulfilled as some ‘tea tribe’ communities demanded the ST status for the entire ‘tea tribe’ community (about 96 communities), which included some migrant caste groups. Further, the All-Assam Tea Tribes Students Association evolved from the Chotanagpur Students’ Union formed in 1974. The Association drew a twenty-point charter of demands in 1988–1989, of which ST status for the Adivasis was a prominent one. The subject was left unanswered when an Accord with P. K. Mahanta, the Chief Minister of Assam, was signed.

The other crucial incidents in Assam’s Adivasi political history to do with the stirring self-identity and mobilisations for ST status were the consecutive militant attacks by Bodo militants in 1996, 1998 and 2014. There were prior attacks on the Bengali Muslims, however, it was the attack on the Adivasis that escalated political and social tension in the lower Assam region. Fieldwork interviews suggested that the Bodos were unhappy with the 1985 Assam Accord provisions as they did not provide any scope for preserving their culture and identity; Instead, they primarily focused on preserving and accentuating ‘Assamese culture’. ⁵ The Bodoland Autonomous Council did not prove to be effective either, as it was not a constitutional body. Post this event, outlawed Bodo militant outfits were unhappy with the Memorandum of Settlement clauses and the demand for a separate ‘homeland’ gained momentum among them.

Adivasi communities were not satisfied with the Accord for similar reasons to the Bodo community that is, there was no mention of preserving Adivasi culture and language other than Assamese. The Adivasi Council, through its Central Committee, issued a press release that stated—‘Both the government and the ABSU leaders have failed to include the Adivasis like Santhals, Mundas, Oraons, Gonds, Bheels, etc. in the ST list in spite of the fact that both government and the ABSU leaders have supported their demands’. ⁶ This paved way for the ACA to highlight their long-standing demand for ST status for Adivasis in Assam.

Several militant organisations started mushrooming following the Bodo militants’ attacks on Adivasi people in the lower Assam region in 1996–1998. Some of these are Adivasi Cobra Militants of Assam (ACMA), Birsa Commando Force (BCF), Adivasi National Liberation of Assam, Adivasi Peoples’ Army and Adivasi Dragon Fighters. The Adivasi militant organisations in Assam came up after the Bodo violence against Adivasis in 1996, led by the Bodo Liberation Tigers, but certain interviews with Adivasi militant leaders who are on ceasefire suggested that much of the violence had to do with the usurpation of Adivasi land. Ratan Tudu, the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Adivasi Cobra Militant Force, explained that Santals, other Adivasi communities and a few Assamese families largely inhabited Gossaigaon. He further explained that due to lack of any legal protection, the land had been usurped by Bodo and Bengali Muslim communities after duping Adivasis. Muslims cite themselves as locals while they purchase land. He asserted that since Adivasis are not STs in Assam, therefore, are unable to defend themselves legally. ⁷

One of the other Adivasi militant organisations in Assam is the BCF. The organisation came into a ceasefire in 2004, however, they formally surrendered their weapons in 2012 in a ceremony (that was organised by the Assam government) attended by P. Chidambaram, the then Union Home Minister of India. The BCF was formed after the 1996 Bodo militant atrocities among the Adivasis in lower Assam. In an interview with Birsingh Munda, commander-in-chief of BCF, he explained that most of the violent activities by the Bodos reflect careful and detailed planning. Likewise, Birsingh Munda explained the initial thoughts on organising a planned organisation, that is, the idea of self-security, meaning providing security to their people (Adivasis) in remote villages, taking up traditional defence weapons like bows and arrows, spears, etc. He said that to recruit their cadres, they started surveying the villages affected and building amicable relations with them. ⁸ As the Secretary of (Movement Wing) of Adivasi National Convention, ⁹ Munda emphasises that securing the ST status in Assam will solve many problems associated with Adivasis of Assam.

To give way for redressal of our problems and issues in a democratic manner we have formed an all-umbrella Adivasi organization—the Adivasi National Convention. One of our main concerns is to acquire a Scheduled Tribe status in Assam in addition to other reasons too. The forest land in Assam wherein the 2006 Forest Land Act has been initiated states that one who dwells requires to furnish a proof of that resident for about 75 years and the Scheduled Tribes can avail the same forest land even if they have settled there before 2006 or after. ¹⁰

Birsingh Munda claims that they ‘settled in Assam before the British did and that they have integrated with the greater Assamese society’. By this, he stressed on Adivasis’ rights to dwell in those forest areas where they had been living for decades. He emphasised in an interview that they would like to avail the ST status to exercise political power. Further, he claims that in the 126 seats Assam Assembly they are a majority, yet they are not given any power or say in the formation of the government. The political parties such as the AGP, BJP or Congress do not provide them tickets(election) to contest the Assembly polls despite being the majority in some of the Assembly seats. He laments that despite 72 years of Indian Independence, they are socially, politically, economically and educationally underrepresented and marginalised. Notwithstanding the problems they have faced, he underlined the point that the Adivasi society in Assam has transformed itself into a core/vital sociological and political component of Assam. ¹¹

The other prominent political organisation in Assam working towards the greater quest for ST recognition is the All Adivasi Students Association of Assam (AASAA) created in 1996. The AASAA has a close relationship with the ACA, one of the first prominent organisations to identify and highlight the difference between the terms ‘tea-tribe’ and ‘Adivasi’. A telephonic interview with former education secretary Jitin Lakra (on 8 May 2020) stressed that the AASAA could be marked as the students’ wing of the ACA. He continued that ACA was the first such organisation to refer to Oraon, Munda, Santal and Kharia communities as Adivasis in Assam.

In terms of their ideology, the AASAA continues to influence the Adivasi community through their efforts to maintain the Adivasi cultural practices, and traditions, while celebrating festivals like Karam, Tusu, Sarhul, Phagua in addition to focusing on various Adivasi languages to be spoken in Assam. They emphasise the distinctive features of Adivasi identity as they believe that it can cushion their existence and they would survive amidst the overwhelming and overarching influence of the popular Assamese culture (the language, festivals and food, respectively). Along with political aspirations of the Adivasis in Assam, the AASAA has been time to time raising issues such as hikes in tea labourers’ wage, education, sanitation, issues on maternal health, etc., though demand for ST status has been prime to their mobilisation of Adivasi consciousness. The AASAA has a significant role in the formation of All Adivasi Women’s Association of Assam (AAWAA) which was created in 2003. The AAWAA is run by a group of Munda, Santal and Oraon women of Assam, and is involved in strengthening the alliances with other Adivasi literary groups, political groups, parties and associations in furthering the Adivasi cause.

The first students’ organisation that emerged among the students of the tea garden community was Chota Nagpuri Chhatra Sanmelani in December 1947. With Simon Singh Horo and Sontosh Kumar as their prominent leaders (Sharma, 2015, pp. 5–6), it was founded in Tengakhat, Dibrugarh in 1947. The inmates of the missionary hostels of Lakhimpur, Jorhat and Dibrugarh joined this group. The ATTSA traces its roots to this Chota Nagpuri Chhatra Sanmelari or Chotanagpur Students Union formed in 1974. It had emerged as an important pressure group in the period 1958–1979. It consolidated its power among the tea garden community and students.

The joining of the Chhatra Sanmelani to Assam Tea Labour Students Association in 1958 brought within its ambit a nomenclature that signified a transformation of how the Adivasi community in the tea estates identified itself that is, from ‘tea labour community’ to ‘tea garden tribes’. This was of political significance as we observe that the Adivasi community labouring in tea estates of Assam no longer wanted to be identified as ‘tea labourers’ or ‘tea coolies’. It could be argued here that the quest for a constitutionally recognised identity (for the Adivasis) was developing through these associations and organisations.

Besides associations of a political nature, several Adivasi cultural forums have come up. These cultural forums focus on the promotion of Adivasi culture and traditions to reinforce distinct Adivasi identity. Two such forums are Adivasi Sewa Samity and Adivasi Sahitya Sabha. The forums produce popular literature on the Oraon, Munda, Kharia, Saora and Santhal tribes. The main agenda of these forums, military or cultural, is the consolidation of Adivasi identity as well as showcasing greater Adivasi solidarity in Assamese politics and society.

State Attitude and Action: Response to the Adivasi Question

Adivasi and tribes in India have been one of the most marginalised and poorest sections of Indian society (Xaxa, 2014, p. 25). Within this, the response to the Adivasi question in Assam has been lukewarm owing to state-based politics. Both the central and state government have been lukewarm on Adivasis in Assam and their emancipation in post-colonial India. This section briefly reviews the history of the statutory exercise by nationalist Indian state to ‘schedule’ the tribal people, how the ‘tea tribes’ were kept out of the scheduling at the time of Independence, and the consequent course taken by Adivasis to push for their inclusion. It also illustrates how various post-independence government committees, bogged down with problems settling a huge number of claims and reviewing the general question of scheduling the tribes with fixed criteria, as also by political compulsions, did not redress the demands of Assam Adivasis for an official ST status.

The first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru’s enunciation signifies the nation’s change of heart towards appreciation of the tribal people and culture of India. He concurred with Article 339 of the Constitution which provided for the appointment of a commission to report on the administration of the Scheduled Areas and the welfare of the STs. In 1960, the Scheduled Areas and STs Commission was instituted, of which U.N. Dhebar was the chairperson along with Jaipal Singh and Verrier Elwin as its members. Concerned only with those groups designated as STs, yet the Commission was aware of the Adivasis problem in Assam. The Commission’s chairman pointed out to the President of India, in his letter forwarding the report, the question of migrant labour that they were tribal in origin and recognised as STs in the original homeland but lost the right on migration elsewhere (ibid.). The Commission instead of suggesting any concrete measure merely proposed the need of help to the migrants to enable them to maintain contact with their original cultural moorings and way of life.

Earlier in 1955, the First Backward Class Commission disregarded the Assam Adivasi settlers as tribes by observing: ‘these groups are quite backward socially and educationally and should be included in the list of OBC’ (Government of India. Lokur, 1965, p. 18). Based on the recommendations of the Backward Class Commission, the government issued a revised list of SCs and STs in 1956, where the migrant Adivasis in Assam did not figure. Meanwhile, there were numerous claims for ST and SC status by different groups and communities across the country. This compelled the Government of India to constitute, in 1965, a committee chaired by B.N. Lokur to examine those cases. In its exercise of inclusion and exclusion of the tribal groups as ST, the Lokur Committee did not prepare a database on the socioeconomic condition of different tribal groups. Instead, it resorted to conventional colonial writings and reports, including census reports to extrapolate key ahistorical and colonial traits to ascertain tribal status, that is, ‘primitive traits, distinctive culture, geographical isolation, shyness of contact with the community at large and backwardness’. ¹²

The committee noticed the basic anomaly: ‘members of the same caste and or tribe from ethnological or social points of view are deprived of the special privileges and benefits merely because they reside in different states of different parts of the same state’; Moreover, there were cases where members of an ethnological group in some areas of a state were STs, but others residing in another area of the same state or other states were not included in the list hindering social mobility self-development opportunities. Constrained by these inconsistencies, the committee did not declare area restriction to caste and tribe as ultra vires (ibid., pp. 12–13). Similarly, for Assam, the Lokur committee declined the ST status for three reasons: first, the objection of the Government of Assam that it would seriously disturb the local political picture; second, receiving regular wages and protection afforded by special law, the economic condition of the average immigrant labourer was ‘far better’ than that of local plains tribal groups; and third, the tendency of the immigrants to lose their tribal characteristics.

All these reasons looked presumptuous. As for the first, a political way by deft negotiation was needed. In connection with the second, in 1932, a note on the depressed and backward classes in Assam by C.S. Mullan, Superintendent of Census noted this regarding the tea garden workers, called the ‘cooly’ (including migrant castes besides the Munda, Uraon and Santhal tribals) and their social position as ‘worse than any class in the province’ being educationally ‘terribly backward’; having no ‘recognised leaders or associations’ to put forth their ‘social advancement’ (Government of India, 1932, pp. 359–360). The Lokur Committee saw the need for ‘gradual elimination of the larger and more advanced communities’ from the ST list in favour of the deserving. However, the rise of ‘vested interests’ of the dominant local ST groups, also mentioned in the Lokur Committee, the condition of the Adivasi migrant workers in Assam did not improve substantially (The Report of the Advisory Committee on the Revision Lists of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, p. 10).

Conclusion

The post Lokur discourse observed various study teams and GOI tribal planning committees such as P. Shilu Ao Committee (1976), the Removal of Area Restrictions (Amendment) Act, the Scheduled Areas and ST Areas Commission chaired by Dilip Bhuria in 2002 and a High-Level Committee on Socio-Economic, Health and Educational Status of Tribal Communities of India chaired by V. Xaxa in 2013. Bound by limited conditions, the above government committees could not deal with the larger area restrictions ¹³ or persistent state-based politics for example, between existing STs and Adivasis and lack of political coordination among Adivasi leaders for the quest for ST status.

Thus, the identity question of Adivasis, their self-awareness and political consciousness was marred by state/state-based attitude-action thereby excluding Adivasis from the ST list of Assam. Further, denying constitutional safeguards, socio-economic development, and political opportunities. Moreover, it did not acknowledge or effectively highlight the perennial problem of ‘tea tribes’ vying for an ethnic identity and constitutional entitlement. To have attempted to spotlight the condition of the Adivasis in Assam is an important step in voicing their tireless quest. This calls for serious, in-depth deliberation, policy action and accountability by the state. At the outset, the state is required to revise its anomalous policies towards communities such as ‘tea tribes’ and bring in mechanisms to define characteristics of ST in India devising a scientific approach.