Scheduled castes and scheduled tribes

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Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) are Indian communities that are explicitly recognized by the Constitution of India as requiring special support to overcome centuries of discrimination by mainstream Hindu society. SCs/STs together comprise over 24% of India's population, with SC at over 16% and ST over 8% [1] as per the 2001 Census. The proportion of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the population of India has steadily risen since independence in 1947.

The Scheduled Caste people are also known as Dalits; Scheduled Tribe people (Bhil) are also referred to as Adivasis.

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[edit] History

The disadvantage faced by such a large section of Hindu society was not lost on everyone. Starting with the Christian missionaries and other Indian visionaries, the problems began to be brought out into open discourse as early as the 1850s. At this time these communities were loosely referred to as the Depressed Classes.

The early part of the 20th century saw a flurry of activity by the British Raj, at the insistence of the Indian reformists, to assess the feasibility of responsible self-government in India. The Morley-Minto Reforms Report, Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms Report, and the Simon Commission were some of the initiatives that happened in this context.

This was also the time when the Depressed Classes had a politically and intellectually capable leader to champion their cause, in the form of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. One of the hotly contested issues in the proposed reforms was the topic of reservation of seats for the "Depressed" Classes in provincial and central legislatures.

In 1935 the British passed The Government of India Act 1935, designed to give Indian provinces greater self-rule and set up a national federal structure. Reservation of seats for the Depressed Classes was incorporated into the act, which went into force in 1937. The Act brought the term "Scheduled Castes" into use, and defined the group as including "such castes, races or tribes or parts of groups within castes, races or tribes, which appear to His Majesty in Council to correspond to the classes of persons formerly known as the 'Depressed Classes', as His Majesty in Council may prefer." This decidedly vague definition was clarified in The Government of India (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1936 which contained a list, or Schedule, of castes throughout the British provinces.

After independence, the Constituent Assembly accepted the existent definition of Scheduled Castes and Tribes, and gave (via articles 341, 342) the President of India and Governors of states responsibility to compile a full listing of castes and tribes, and also the power to edit it later as required. The actual complete listing of castes and tribes was made via two orders The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950[2], and The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950[3] respectively.

[edit] Constitutional Framework for Safeguarding of Interests

The Constitution provides a framework with a three pronged strategy [4] to improve the situation of SCs and STs.

  1. Protective Arrangements - Such measures as are required to enforce equality, to provide punitive measures for transgressions, to eliminate established practices that perpetuate inequities, etc. A number of laws were enacted to operationalize the provisions in the Constitution. Examples of such laws include The Untouchability Practices Act, 1955, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, The Employment of Manual scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993, etc.
  2. Compensatory Discrimination - provide positive preferential treatment in allotment of jobs and access to higher education, as a means to accelerate the integration of the SCs and STs with mainstream society. Compensatory discrimination is also popularly referred to as Reservation.
  3. Development - Provide for resources and benefits to bridge the wide gap in social and economic condition between the SCs/STs and other communities.

[edit] National Commissions

To effectively implement the various safeguards built into the Constitution and other legislations, the Constitution, under Articles 338 and 338A, provides for two statutory commissions - the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes.

[edit] History

In the original Constitution, Article 338 provided for a Special Officer, called the Commissioner for SCs and STs, to have the responsibility of monitoring the effective implementation of various safeguards for SCs/STs in the Constitution as well as other related legislations and to report to the President. To enable efficient discharge of duties, 17 regional offices of the Commissioner were set up all over the country.

In the meanwhile there was persistent representation for a replacement of the Commissioner with a multi-member committee. It was proposed that the 48th Amendment to the Constitution be made to alter Article 338 to enable said proposal. While the amendment was being debated, the Ministry of Welfare issued an administrative decision to establish the Commission for SCs/STs as a multi-member committee to discharge the same functions as that of the Commissioner of SCs/STs. The first commission came into being in August 1978. The functions of the commission were modified in September 1987 to advise Government on broad policy issues and levels of development of SCs/STs.

It was not until 1990 that the Article 338 was finally amended to give birth to the statutory National Commission for SCs and STs via the Constitution (Sixty fifth Amendment) Bill, 1990[5]. The first Commission under the 65th Amendment was constituted in March 1992 replacing the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and the Commission set up under the Ministry of Welfare's Resolution of 1987.

In 2002, the Constitution was again amended to split the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes into two separate commissions - the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes

[edit] Distribution

Sachar Committee report of 2006 revealed that scheduled castes and tribes of India are not limited to the religion of Hinduism. The 61st Round Survey of the NSSO found that almost nine-tenth of the Buddhists and one-third of the Sikhs in India belonged to the notified scheduled castes of the Constitution while one-third of the Christians belonged to the notified scheduled tribes of the Constitution.

Religion Scheduled Caste Scheduled Tribe
Buddhism 89.50% 7.40%
Christianity 9.00% 32.80%
Sikhism 30.70% 0.90%
Hinduism 22.20% 9.10%
Zoroastrianism - 15.90%
Jainism - 2.60%
Islam 0.80% 0.50%

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Census of India - India at a Glance : Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes Population
  2. ^ THE CONSTITUTION (SCHEDULED CASTES) ORDER, 1950]1
  3. ^ 1THE CONSTITUTION (SCHEDULED TRIBES)
  4. ^ http://nhrc.nic.in/Publications/reportKBSaxena.pdf
  5. ^ The Constitution (Amendment)

[edit] External links

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Reservation in India