CORRESPONDENT
SHILLONG: The Meghalaya Indigenous Minority Scheduled Tribes Forum (MIMSTF) has raised strong objections against what it termed as attempts to undermine the constitutional rights of smaller indigenous tribes in the state.
In a representation submitted to Chief Secretary D. P. Wahlang, IAS, the forum condemned statements attributed to KHNAM working president Thomas Passah, who, as per a media report on August 22, 2025, had urged authorities to “strictly follow” the Ministry of Home Affairs guidelines of 1975 and 1977 in issuing Scheduled Tribe (ST) certificates. Passah had reportedly insisted that central recruitment drives, including those of the BSF, should recognize only Khasi, Jaintia, and Garo communities.
Terming the statement “divisive and discriminatory,” the forum stressed that it disregarded the constitutional recognition of other tribes such as Rabha, Hajong, Koch, Boro, Mann, and Karbi of Meghalaya. General Secretary Pankaj Rabha reminded that the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Orders of 1950 and subsequent amendments safeguard the rights of all recognized communities.
In a separate memorandum to the Chief Secretary, the forum also alleged irregularities in the Meghalaya Teacher Eligibility Test (MTET) 2025. It claimed that candidates from minority tribes faced rejection of their OMR sheets due to an “unannounced OST category,” which was absent from the official handbook but later inserted in the exam sheets. According to the MIMSTF, this mismatch led to disqualification despite invigilators validating the entries during the test.
Calling the development a “denial of rights under the state reservation policy,” the forum urged authorities to suspend the teacher recruitment process until the OMR sheets were re-evaluated. General Secretary Kaushik Hajong reiterated that indigenous minority tribes “should not be pronounced as OST” and appealed to the government to take corrective measures in the larger interest of Meghalaya’s ethnic harmony.
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