Sixth Schedule to The Constitution

Sixth Schedule to the Constitution was visualised by the founding fathers to recognise diversity of this great nation; and confer constitutional recognition of the customs, language, practices and traditions guaranteed to every strata of society. The importance of Sixth Schedule can be visualised by the fact that over a period of time, its provisions has been extended to the areas which were outside the purview of Sixth Schedule, as originally adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 26th November 1949. In the year 1984, Sixth Schedule was made applicable to the State of Tripura; and in the year 2003, it was applied to a large area in the State of Assam inhabited by the Bodo tribe. There has been demand of extending it to Gorkhaland in the State of West Bengal; and, of late, there is a big agitation demanding the applicability of Sixth Schedule in Ladakh, situated in the northern-most part of the country.

The book has traced the history of administration of tribal areas of the North-eastern States which was earlier termed by the British Government as 'excluded areas' and/or 'backward areas' from 1882 till the present position.

A new Chapter XI on Ladakh has been added. Ladakh has been kept out of the democratic process of governance since 1834, when it became part of Jammu and Kashmir. The Praja Sabha constituted under the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution Act, 1934, though had 33 elected members, the people of Ladakh did not get any say in the constitution of Praja Sabha, as four members from Ladakh were to be nominated by the Maharaja. The people of Ladakh had elected representative for the first time in the Legislative Assembly in 1957, when one member from Leh and one member from Kargil were elected to the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly. Under the Reorganisation Act, 2019, the democratic right of the people of Ladakh to have elected representatives at the State level has been taken away, and the Union Territory of Ladakh is constituted without a legislature. Presently, there is only one elected representative from Ladakh in the Lok Sabha who can speak for the people residing there.

Also added a new Chapter I explaining the constitutional philosophy behind the Sixth Schedule and establishment of Autonomous District Councils. Sixth Schedule was initially made applicable to the unified Assam (comprising present State of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya), which comprised Plains Division and Hills Division. In 1950, the Plains Division was 27% geographic area of Assam, but had 86% of the State population; and the Hills Division, though comprised of 73% of the geographical area of State had 14% of population. The Sixth Schedule is a constitutional device for conserving distinct language, script and culture guaranteed to every section of citizens of India by Article 29(1) of the Constitution. The chapter also deals with the current scenario of different States in North-east, Gorkhaland and Ladakh.