In the ongoing Winter Session of Parliament, the government has introduced or passed four amendments to the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950, in either the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha. The order is a list of the communities that are deemed to be Scheduled Tribes (STs). In September, the Union Cabinet approved the decision to make changes in the Order. A look at the amendments made or sought: ST status for Gonds in UP On December 14, the Rajya Sabha passed the Constitution (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) Orders (Second Amendment) Bill, 2022, in a voice vote. The Bill seeks to give the ST status to the Gond community in four districts of Uttar Pradesh and was introduced by Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda in the Rajya Sabha. The Lok Sabha passed it in April. The Bill will ensure the inclusion of the Gond community in the Scheduled Tribes list in the districts of Sant Kabir Nagar, Sant Ravidas Nagar, Kushinagar, and Chandauli. As many as 26 MPs took part in the discussion on the Bill. Speaking in the House, Munda took a dig at the Opposition, alleging that previous governments had consistently ignored the welfare of tribals. The demand for inclusion of the Gond community in the ST list was first raised in the 1980s, the minister said. Hattees (Himachal) The Lok Sabha passed the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Third Amendment) Bill, 2022, on December 16 to include the Hattee community of Trans Giri area in Himachal Pradesh’s Sirmaur district in the Scheduled Tribes list. The government’s move to introduce the Bill came after the Himachal Pradesh government requested the Centre to include the Hattees in the ST list. The community is electorally influential and the state's recommendation came in September in the run-up to the Assembly elections in the state. Narikoravan and Kurivikkaran (Tamil Nadu) The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Second Amendment) Bill, 2022, was also introduced in the Lok Sabha on December 9. The Bill sought to amend the Order in Tamil Nadu to include the Narikoravan and Kurivikkaran communities in the ST list. The Lok Sabha passed it through a voice vote on December 15. In March, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene to expedite the process of including the communities, which are nomadic tribal groups, in the ST list of the state. Communities in Chhattisgarh On December 9, the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Fifth Amendment) Bill, 2022, was introduced in the Lok Sabha. The Bill seeks to include the Dhanuhar, Dhanuwar, Kisan, Saunra, Saonra, and Binjhia communities in the ST list in Chhattisgarh and seeks to formalise Bhuinya, Bhuiyan, and Bhuyan as synonyms of the Bharia Bhumia community. It also includes three Devanagari versions of the name of the Pando community. The Bill also substitutes names of certain tribal communities in the Order so that their names correspond with the Hindi version of the Madhya Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000. Name change of the Betta-Kuruba community Arjun Munda said the Bill seeks to provide justice to the Betta-Kuruba community which has only 5,000 members in Karnataka. In his reply to the debate on the Bill, Munda said that the Congress party has not done anything for the welfare of the tribal community. Meanwhile, the Opposition said that merely including the communities in the ST list will not help and the government should consider taking welfare measures for them as well. Congress member K Suresh said that the government has brought this Bill for vote bank politics. “Tribal communities are facing serious issues pertaining to education, health and employment,” he said.
