of Assam and the state government of Assam.88 The aim of the Sixth Schedule was to meet the aspirations of the people of the area and on the other hand, to assimilate the tribal people with the mainstream country (Hansaria, 1983). Dr. B. R. Ambedkar felt that the tribal of Assam were different from the tribal population of other parts of India and to retain their distinctiveness, they should have different administrative structures.89 Therefore, despite many criticisms, Ambedkar supported the views of Gopinath Bordoloi and left the provision for a different administrative structure for the hill tribes of Northeast India.
Fifth Schedule of the Constitution. The Fifth Schedules provides Tribes Advisory Council to promote educational and economic interest of the tribal communities. The Schedule also aims to provide social justice and prevent from exploitation of dominant classes. The central government provides financial assistance to tribal communities under Article 275 of the constitution. However, the Sixth Schedule provides creation of autonomous districts and autonomous regions in the tribal area and constitution of district councils and regional councils for the proper administration and decentralization of powers.90 Part X of the Indian constitution contains the provision for the administration of the scheduled and tribal areas and formation of local legislature or council of ministers in the autonomous districts. Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution formulated by the Indian Constituent Assembly created the Autonomous district Council (ADC) for the hill tribes in the region to administrate their own affairs. Autonomous district means an area deemed as such under paragraph 1(1) of the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution of India. Rules and laws were made for the formation of autonomous district councils, rules for election, terms of Executive Members, and different rules of the councils by Assam Autonomous Districts Rules 1951. The Assam Autonomous Districts Rules of 1951 provided different rules and division of power and functions for the autonomous councils.91 The autonomous tribal districts of Assam were namely the Garo Hills, the United Khasi-Jaintia Hills, Mikir Hills, North-Cachar Hills, Lushai Hills and the Naga Hills. The administrative system operative in the autonomous districts was laid down under the provisions of Sixth Schedule of the Constitution of India. The constitution with regards to the administration of the tribal areas was to develop and strengthen the indigenous political institutions where tribal people can continue and promote their traditional
90 See, Constitution of India.
91 See, Assam Autonomous Districts (Constitution of District Councils) Rules, 1951.
administrative practices. The constitution under paragraph 8 of the Sixth Schedule provided that the council has the power to collect land revenues within the autonomous districts.92 But more demand was put forward by the Members of the Legislative Assembly from the autonomous districts to empower the councils to assess certain sources of revenue such as sales tax, revenues from reserved forests, betting and amusement tax, taxes on liquor and agricultural income tax. To access revenues and resources from the autonomous councils, the Finance Act, 1951 and the Assam Forest Products (Acquisition) Act, 1950 were implemented. Certain autonomous councils did not approve the implementation of such Acts in the tribal areas.93 Autonomous councils wanted to have a different taxation structure and rules compared to other areas because their administrative structures were primitive and granted separate administrative structure since the British period.
The process of creation of autonomous councils and decentralization of administration for the tribal areas of Northeast India had a history since the colonial period.
The areas that were decentralized under the federal structure were earlier known as
“backward tracts” in the colonial period. During the colonial administration, different legal orders were maintained in the “backward tracts” compared to other plain areas of Assam.
We can draw examples from the Garo Hills Act, 1869, which excluded these areas from the general administrative setup. According to the Act, Garo Hills were removed from the general jurisdiction of the Courts of Criminal and Civil Judicature and from the control of revenue rules under Bengal. The Act further provided that the provisions of the Act could be implemented by the Lt. Governor of Jaintia Hills, Naga Hills and Khasi hills. The Garo Hills
92 See, Report on Autonomous Districts- Problems of their Administration and Development- District Council, their Financial Position and Problems- Potentialities of Taxation, Printed at the Assam Government Press, Shillong, 1954.
93 See, The Finance Act, 1951 (XXIII of 1951) and The Assam Forest Product (Acquisition) Act, 1950, Assam Act XXXI of 1950.
Act can be said to have paved the way for a separate administrative mechanism of criminal and civil justice in such areas. In the year 1874 Assam was put under a Chief Commissioner and the Scheduled Districts Act was also enacted. Schedule Districts were those remote or backward tracts which had never been brought within or under the operation of the general Act and Regulations. So far as the frontier tracts of Assam were concerned, power had been granted to the Chief Commissioner in 1880, by the Assam Frontier Tracts Regulation, 1880 to remove certain parts of backward tracts (Chaube, 1999). The power of administration of these regions was bestowed on the Governor. People living in these areas were considered to be primitive in nature and no political institutions existed to govern them. The Government of India Act, 1919 inserted section 52A for the declaration of the backward tracts.
According to section 52A (2) states, “the Governor-General in Council may declare any territory in British India to be a backward tract. By a notification issued under Section 52A (2), the Governor-General declared certain areas as backward tracts, such as the Garo Hills Districts, the British portion of Khasi and Jaintia Hills District other than the Shillong Municipality and Cantonment, the Mikir Hills, the North Cachar Hills, the Naga Hills District, the Lushai Hills District, the Sadiya Frontier Tract, the Balipara Frontier Tract and the Lakhimpur Frontier Tract.”94
These areas were designated as Tribal Areas and later on, Sixth Schedule was enacted in these areas. The colonial policies of exclusion and discrimination persisted in the postcolonial nature of modern Indian state. Some of these areas were administered by the provisions contained in the Government of India (Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas) Order 1936. The territories which were earlier named as backward tracts under the
94 See, Assam State Gazetteer, 1999, Vol. 1.
Government of India Act, 1919, were later categorized as Excluded Areas and Partially Excluded Areas (Hansaria, 1983). Some of the provisions for the administration of tribal areas in the Government of India Act, 1935 were taken up in the Indian (Provisional Constitutional) Order, 1947. The provisions which existed for these regions on the eve of the framing of Constitution did not apply ipso facto to these areas. Secondly, the mechanism of applying these laws with or without modification was granted to the Governor for governing the territories. The tribal leaders and the people were not much concerned with self- determination in the colonial period, but for the security of land tenure, freedom to practice their traditional ways of livelihood and customs (Hansaria, 1983).