Assam: BONSU and AATS slam BJP leaders over remarks on sixth schedule

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOKRAJHAR: Bodo National Students Union (BONSU) and All Assam Tribal Sangha (AATS), Sonitpur district committee, issued a scathing attack on state BJP president and MP Dilip Saikia over his recent public remarks which were reiterated by Assam Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma during election campaign meetings in the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) that the organizations said hurt the sentiments of the Bodo and other tribal communities. BONSU termed the statement of Saikia as “anti-tribal, unconstitutional, and dangerously misleading.”

In a press release, BONSU president Bonjit Manjil Basumatary stated that the BJP leader’s comments were clearly an attempt to portray the sixth schedule provisions and tribal land protections as ‘discriminatory.’ “These remarks misrepresent the constitutional and legal safeguards granted to tribal people in BTR and other sixth schedule areas. They threaten not only the social harmony but the democratic process in these regions,” he added.

BONSU president Basumatary reminded that the tribal communities of Assam had a long history of facing systemic displacement, alienation from ancestral lands and the neglect of protective laws like chapter-X of the Assam Land and Revenue Regulation, 1886 and the sixth schedule of the Constitution. He emphasized that these legal frameworks were complementary and not conflicting and were enacted to safeguard tribal rights against illegal encroachment and exploitation.

Refuting the narrative promoted by BJP leaders, BONSU clarified that the bonafide non-tribal residents with valid pre-notification land records remain protected under law. “Restrictions apply only to post-notification but illegal encroachers not legitimate residents,” it stated, adding that the political leaders were fostering ethnic polarization and communal disharmony ahead of the BTC elections, and that such actions violate the Model Code of Conduct, the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and the Representation of the People’s Act.

Meanwhile, the president of Sonitpur district AATS, Lakhiram Basumatary, while strongly criticizing MP Dilip Saikia’s remarks, said that the MP and state BJP President was ignorant and politically arrogant. He said that both tribal belts and block protections (established under the Assam Land and Revenue Regulation Act, 1886) and the sixth schedule (enshrined in the Constitution under Article 244(2)) were created to safeguard the land, culture, and identity of the tribal people of Assam. He said that Saikia’s remarks, “there cannot be two protective tribal land laws in BTC,” was a mockery of the Indian Constitution that Dilip Saikia took an oath to uphold, and that it also implied a desire to strip away protections, especially from regions like the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) where both policies have coexisted peacefully and legally.

“BTR is not for bargaining-it is under sixth schedule because the BTR is governed under the sixth schedule of the Constitution of India, a special provision to empower tribal-majority regions with autonomous governance, cultural protection and control over their land and resources. Alongside this, parts of BTR fall within the notified tribal belts and blocks, which are protected areas where land ownership by non-tribals is restricted to prevent alienation and displacement,” Basumatary said.

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