Monalisa Changkija
Last month the Northeast was shocked to learn that nearly 3,000 bighas (around 1,000 acres) of tribal land in Dima Hasao, a remote hill district of southern Assam, have been allotted to Mahabal Cement Pvt. Ltd., which was acquired by New Delhi-based JK Lakshmi Cement in February 2024. The shock of the allotment expressed by Justice Sanjay Kumar Medhi of the Gauhati High Court, during a hearing on August 12, has gone viral and much as the Justice, the rest of the Northeast too is shocked and continues to be shocked. The media may have moved on to other news, breaking or otherwise, but for the tribal communities in the region, such allotment(s), which seems to have been done in an insidious manner, makes our tribal communities vulnerable to chicaneries, trickeries and treacheries.
Nagaland has Article 371 (A) to protect its land and resources inter alia. Several other Northeastern States have the Sixth Schedule for the same or similar purpose. Time was when tribal communities here lived a very different life in a world that was unimaginable to other parts of the country. The British noticed and noted the difference and left much of our ways for us to continue and manage ~ Nagaland is a prime example. After Independence, these very specific constitutional protective measures for tribal communities in the region were enacted to allow us autonomy in our ways of life in our ancestral land ~ at the same time, protect us from people from outside the region who were and are strangers to our ways, our customs and culture, our traditional systems on preserving our environment and healing, as also our food habits, all of which are rooted in our land. So when our land is taken away from us by whatever means, we are uprooted in more ways than the physical and the geographical. Our tribal ancestral land is our home in ways that non-tribals find hard to comprehend. When it is taken away by whatever means for whatever purpose, unless consented by consensus, we are bereft of a soul and spirit intrinsic to our existence and survival.
Tribal ancestral land is owned by indigenous inhabitants (tribe or clan) of that area, not the Government. And this land is managed by traditional authority chosen from amongst the inhabitants. This authority is called by different names in different places under various constitutional provisions therefore constitutionally protected and preserved. The British and later Independent India did not disturb, dilute, disband or destroy this system of local governance, and institutions thereof, on land and several other matters. These bodies have extensive independent legislative, judicial, executive and financial powers to govern their areas. There couldn’t have been a more ideal and idyllic arrangement for our tribal communities but for the fact of times and tides.
We are no longer what our ancestors were and the world is no longer what it was. While, the Northeast is believed to be one of the last and the least regions to be touched by a fast rotating and revolving world, we are not lagging behind much. Technology and so many other factors have brought this region into the vortex of ‘change’. And, human beings are the fastest to change. We are not our ancestors ~ not by a long shot and this change has impacted our ways of thinking and value-systems, which in turn has impacted our traditional systems and institutions. Today we turn everything, even the sacred, into assets to be monetized. And, land is our greatest physical asset. Our land is untouched, fertile and beneath it lays untold wealth of resources the corporate world is eying and vying and for which we are promised the moon. Alas, we forget the moon is barren.
So, now we are faced with the dual threat of the glitter the corporate world promises and our own people lusting for that glitter. Unfortunately, when these specific constitutional protective measures for tribal communities of this region were enacted, there were no protective measures for us from ourselves. But who thought that we would become what we have become? So now we either have traditional authority leadership that are uneducated and unexposed therefore gullible or extremely greedy and grabbing, who are masters at circumventing these constitutional measures and the art of seduction or coercion to arrive at “consensus’. Basically, we now have traditional leadership that have either tossed out the value-systems of our ancestors or are unfit to be custodians of said value-systems. Then there is local, state and national politics that either overwhelms traditional authorities with all kinds of laws that limit their ambit or entice them with money and power or make then bend and bow with muscle power. At the rate customary laws are altered and/or diluted, obviously the constitutional provisions prove inadequate to protect our land and its resources, customs, cultures and traditions ~ all of which unambiguously underscore the numerous power centres that rule the roost in our indigenous communities at the village, town and state levels.
There are opinions that constitutional protective measures such as the Sixth Schedule ought to be done away with. But replace them with what to protect our land? Governments have woefully failed to safeguard, secure and protect tribal or non-tribal land and we have seen how they capitulate to mega businesses resulting in tragic communal tensions, displacements and environmental destruction. Perhaps these constitutional protective measures could be revisited and some amended and made more relevant to today’s complex socio-economic and political environment. Perhaps, some educational and other qualifications for members of local authorities could be mandated. Perhaps some kind of transparency and accountability clauses could be inserted to curb abuse of power and funds. Gullibility and greed both need to be stemmed if ancestral tribal lands and their resources are to be protected and preserved from the onslaught of economic and political marauders who come with scented promises and glass beads for our immeasurable and irreplaceable wealth ~ our land.
(The Columnist is a Dimapur-based journalist, poet and former Editor of Nagaland Page. Published in the September 25, 2025 issue of Assam Tribune)
