‘Constitution ST (Amendment) Bill will not protect rights of existing tribals’

Our Correspondent

KOKRAJHAR: Former IRS and president of the Bodoland Janajati Suraksha Mancha (BJSM), Janaklal Basumatary in a statement on Monday said that the Constitution ST (Amendment) Bill, 2019 would not protect the constitutional rights of the existing original Scheduled Tribes of 14 communities of Assam.

He expressed fear that the existing STs of Assam would lose reservation rights not only in BTC but across the country. While drawing the attention of the Prime Minister of India, he said the tea tribes were not groups of communities but groups of individuals. He further said there was no ethnic community by the name of Koch Rajbongshi in Assam as well as in West Bengal. The Koch and Rajbongshi are notified separately as SC in WB, and OBC in Assam. “Only to claim ST in Assam, the Rajbongshis added Koch and became Koch Rajbongshi only from the 1980s,” he said.

“Dr BM Das, Head of the Department of Anthropology of Dibrugarh University, also opined that Koch and Rajbongshi are not same ethnic group. The Government of Assam suppressed it but the RGI earlier noticed it and rejected their proposal in the 2012 ST bill. Thus, there is no community by the name of Koch Rajbongshi. If you push the non-existent community Koch Rajbongshi and 50 unknown communities of tea tribes, the existing ST plains will not be protected. Thus, the bill cannot be introduced in its present form,” Basumatary said.

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