How demand for ST status has turned into a political battle in poll-bound Assam

A representative group of Assam’s Scheduled Tribe (ST) communities Tuesday “rejected” the state government’s recommendation for the grant of ST status to six communities that have long agitated for the same.

As Assam moves towards elections this year, this issue has emerged as one of the most heated political questions over the past few months. The existing ST communities have expressed anxiety about a potential weakening of their political rights and the six communities — which account for a little less than a third of the state’s population — have turned up the heat on the government.

What is the current arrangement for STs in Assam and which communities have been demanding that tag?

The tribes currently recognised in Assam are divided into two categories: ST (Plains) with 10% reservation and ST (Hills) with a 5% reservation for state government recruitment and educational institutions. ST (Hills) refers to tribes from the autonomous hill districts of Karbi Anglong, West Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao.

Two of Assam’s 14 Lok Sabha constituencies and 19 of its 126 Assembly constituencies are reserved for ST candidates. According to the 2011 census, these communities had a total population of around 38.8 lakh, which is 12.4% of the state’s total population. The major tribes are Bodo (35% of the state’s tribal population), Mishing (17.52%), Karbi (11.1%), Rabha (7.6%), Sonowal Kachari (6.5%), Lalung (5.2%), Garo (4.2%) and Dimasa (3.2%).

These are the six communities that have long agitated for recognition as scheduled tribes: Tai Ahom, Moran, Motok, Chutia, Koch Rajbongshi and Tea Tribes or Adivasis. These communities are currently included in the state’s Other Backward Classes list — which has a 27% reservation quota — and are estimated to collectively number around one crore. The 2011 census had placed Assam’s total population at 3.12 crore.

What is the Assam government’s stand on this?

The Assam government had constituted a  Group of Ministers (GoM) to frame recommendations on this issue. Its “interim report” was tabled in the Assembly in November 2025. The GoM report stated that it found “full justification” for the inclusion of the communities in the ST list and recommended the creation of a complex “three-tier classification” of tribes in the state to accommodate this.

Essentially, in addition to the sub-division of STs in the state as Plains and Hills, it recommends the creation of a third category called ST (Valley) for the larger communities: Ahoms, Chutias, Tea Tribes and Adivasis, and Koch Rajbongshis (excluding those residing in the undivided Goalpara region). It states that the ST (Valley) category will have separate reservation quotas with distinct rosters and vacancy registers for all state government recruitment and educational institutions and that “existing ST(P) and ST (H) quotas will remain fully protected”. It suggests that “a proportionate share can be deducted” from the 27% OBC reservation and be made available to this category.

It recommends that the smaller Moran and Motok communities and Koch Rajbonghis in undivided Goalpara — subject to a NOC from the Bodoland Territorial Council for parts of undivided Goalpara under the BTC — be included in the ST (Plains) list. However, it recommends that in the case of central government reservations that all these communities compete under the common ST pool as there is a single national ST list.

The report recommends that Lok Sabha constituencies that currently cover Sixth Schedule areas — Kokrajhar and Diphu — be permanently reserved for the existing ST(P) and ST (H), respectively, through a Constitutional amendment. It states that additional seats will have to be reserved to Parliament for ST(V) since the number of reserved seats will increase “in view of the fact that a large number of people will now be recognized as Scheduled Tribes in the state of Assam”.

Through these recommendations, the GoM has stated that it has tried to walk the tightrope between accommodating the demand of the six communities and protecting the political rights and socio-economic and educational interests of existing ST communities.

Why have the existing ST communities rejected this proposal?

Despite the government’s attempts to placate anxieties, tribal bodies are opposing this. Coordinating this resistance is the Coordinating Committee of Tribal Organisation of Assam (CCTOA). Following a meeting with Tribal Affairs Minister Ranoj Pegu, the group formed a six-member “consultative group” to examine the GoM’s recommendations.

In its report, this consultative group claimed that the six communities cannot be “re-classified as Scheduled Tribes” for “political expediencies” once the National Commission for Backward Classes already identified them as OBC and after they were not considered for ST status historically by reports of previous panels such as “Report of the Advisory committee on the Revision of the List of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes of 1965” and “Joint Report of the Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas (Other Than Assam) and the North-East Frontier (Assam) Tribal and Excluded Areas Sub-Committee” of 1947.

However, the group’s core reason for opposing this is political representation. The report of the consultative committee alleges that the demand of the six communities — who avail of reservation in employment education opportunities under the OBC quota — is “only to ensure their political reservation especially at the level of the Panchayats, Autonomous Councils, Autonomous District Council and State Legislative Assembly as there are no seats reserved for the OBCs in the State Assembly”.

“The granting of ST status will destroy the political reservation of the existing Scheduled Tribes… in addition to affecting reservation from the Central government’s pool… The State of Assam must not disempower and destroy the existing Scheduled Tribes,” states the consultative committee’s report.

Based on this report, the CCTOA wrote to Minister Pegu on Tuesday that it rejects the proposal for inclusion of the six communities, which it refers to as “advanced and populous”. The consultative committee and the CCTOA also maintain that the communities, especially the Tai Ahoms who “ruled Assam for six hundred years”, do not fulfil the criteria for recognition as ST which include “indications of primitive traits, distinctive culture, geographical isolation, shyness of contact with the community at large”.