Assam's Tribes Are Losing Ground

Across Assam, a quiet storm has been building up. The Bodo, Mising, Karbi, Rabha, Dimasa, and Sonowal Kachari tribes share a common concern: the land that their ancestors had inhabited for generations is increasingly being eyed by the state. With it, they fear the erosion of identity, autonomy, and survival itself. 

The latest flashpoint is familiar in its shape. The Assam government's proposal to create a new Scheduled Tribes category, ST (Valley), covering six communities: the Ahom, Chutia, Moran, Matak, Koch-Rajbongshi, and Tea Tribes. Existing tribal groups, already holding ST (Plains) and ST (Hills) status, see this as a dilution of their rights. They worry it will weaken their political representation, educational quotas, and economic protections. The government insists the three-tier structure will not reduce existing entitlements but few are convinced.

The tension is sharpest along the Assam-Meghalaya border, where a proposed hydropower-cum-irrigation project on the Kulsi River has united an unlikely coalition of communities in protest. First proposed in 1997 and later categorised as a National Project, the Rs. 1,454.95 crore project promises to generate 55 MW of electricity and irrigate nearly 26,000 hectares of land.

What it also means, critics say, is the displacement of up to 25 villages Rabha, Garo, and Khasi populations who have lived here and farmed this land for centuries. The proposed 62-metre concrete dam at Ukiam, on the upper Kulsi, a tributary of the Brahmaputra River rising from Meghalaya's West Khasi Hills, will, protesters say, destroy agriculture in Kamrup district, threaten the Chandubi Lake wetlands, and endanger the habitat of the Gangetic river dolphin, already listed as endangered.

In June 2025, 19 organisations protested at Chaygaon in Kamrup, seeking the cancellation of the project. The All Rabha Students Union, Garo National Council, Khasi Students Union, and organisations of Gorkhas, Koch-Rajbongshi, Bengalis, and Boros submitted memorandums to both Chief Ministers, Himanta Biswa Sarma of Assam and Conrad Sangma of Meghalaya. Sarma has reportedly said the government would not take any step without the people's consent.

Behind the dam controversy lies an older grievance. Many residents hold no formal land titles. As a member of the Rabha National Council from Barduar Bagan in Kamrup district at the foothills of the Assam-Meghalaya border, Pakhiraj Rabha, put it, people have lived here for generations and traditionally seen no need for documentation. That informal arrangement has now become a serious legal vulnerability. The Forest Rights Act is reportedly being implemented in parts of the area, with land allocated to families, but with no written orders to confirm it.

Governance itself is uneven. The Rabha areas come under the Rabha Hasong Autonomous Council. While it gives some semblance of order in terms of an administrative body and a budget, it does not give them legislative powers as mandated by the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.

The Khasi areas adjacent to these in Meghalaya do enjoy these provisions. Similarly, in Assam, Dima Hasao and Karbi Anglong were given such status in 1995. The Bodoland Territorial Region was given such status in 2003. The people of Kamrup and Goalpara districts have been waiting much longer.

Suneet Marak, president of the Garo National Council, says his community has sought an autonomous council for over 15 years. What they got in 2020 is a Garo Development Council, without their consent or agreement. Mission Basundhara, a state government initiative for issuing land records to all, is another area about which Marak is highly critical. "It is not for us," he declares. "Less than 10 per cent of what was to be done has been done." Moreover, he alleges, common resources have been allocated to important political leaders without any benefit to society. “It is now Basundhara 3.0 and none of us have got legal documents,” he adds.

The Assam Congress has added its voice, accusing the state government of helping to transfer tribal land to non-ST and external business groups, which it terms as systematic economic marginalisation. The tribal groups are seeking the enforcement of land protection laws, land titles for genuine forest dwellers, the establishment of a tribal university, ST status for the Amri-Karbi tribe, inclusion of the 312 Bodo revenue villages within the Boro Kachar Welfare Autonomous Council, and the establishment of development councils for all the tribal groups in the plains who are currently outside any such arrangement.

Last year in Goalpara, the All Bodo Students Union, along with several allied organisations, staged a massive demonstration demanding the immediate implementation of every clause of the Bodo Peace Accord signed on January 27, 2020. The protesters urged the government to transfer 312 Bodo-majority villages of Goalpara and South Kamrup districts — currently under the Rabha Hasong Autonomous Council — to the proposed Bodo Kachari Welfare Autonomous Council. They also pressed for early elections to the council.

Though they live on Rabha land, Bodo groups argue they want to be placed under the Bodo Kachari Welfare Autonomous Council, accusing the Assam government of neglecting the issue despite repeated appeals. The Bodo Coordination Protection Committee asserted that the Bodo community "does not belong" within the Rabha Hasong administrative framework, alleging that the state government had misled the community and failed to address long-standing concerns about the administrative status of Bodo villages in the area.

The population across these contested districts is strikingly diverse. Bishnu Basumatary, President of the All Bathou Mahasabha of South Kamrup and former secretary of the Bodo Sahitya Sabha, notes that his region encompasses around 1.5 lakh Bodo people under the Rabha Hasong Autonomous Council that has nearly 2 lakh Rabha people. Neighbouring areas comprise Garo tribes, Hajong, Koch Rajbongshi, Bengali, Muslim, Nepali, and Nath Jogi (OBC) communities across Kamrup and Goalpara districts. "We want to update the council," he says, stressing the need for reforms. "Our demand for self-determination has not been fulfilled under the present council structure."

Basumatary points to the lack of housing projects and skilled sector initiatives, and noted that without proper irrigation, farming communities are left without support. "Jobs are being given to people outside, teachers in our schools don’t know our language, while local people are left without opportunities," he adds.

Assam presently has a reservation of 59 per cent, which is already in excess of the limit set by the Supreme Court in its judgment in the Indra Sawhney case in 1992. In that judgment, the Supreme Court has said that the limit of reservation should not exceed 50 per cent. In Assam, within that, Scheduled Tribes (Plains) have a reservation of 10 per cent and Scheduled Tribes (Hills) have a reservation of five percent. If six more communities are included in a new category of STs (Valley), the reservation figure will touch 70 per cent.

Chutia, Koch-Rajbongshi, Matak, Moran, Tai Ahom, and “Tea Tribes” (Adivasis), want to be included under ST(Valley), but of these Chutiyas, Mataks, Morans, and Tai Ahoms have traditionally been a part of the Assamese mainstream. Also, none of them were recognised as a tribe by the report of the tribal classification committee in 1947 or by the Lokur Committee in 1965. In the case of the Koch Rajbongshi, the issue becomes complicated by the fact that the Koch tribe has already been recognised as a Scheduled Caste in West Bengal.

Basumatary has an opinion of his own on that though. "As long as the existing 10 per cent of the ST (Plains) are not touched or interfered with, the government can decide on the ST status for the remaining tribes.” However, Stephen Lakra, former president of the All Adivasi Students Association of Assam (AASAA), strikes a cautious note. “Once the six communities who are not tribals get notified as tribals, it will take away reservation from those who need it most. These six communities are mainstream unlike the communities who have ST status now.” 

The Greater Guwahati Karbi Students' Association has perhaps framed the wider situation clearly: the hill tribes of Assam are not only the most financially and economically backward communities in the state, but also the most ill-informed in matters of law.

Until governance structures catch up with constitutional promises, that gap will remain both a vulnerability and a grievance.