The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Amendment) Bill 2021

• Vaid's ICS, Lucknow
• 10, Nov 2021

Why in News?

More than a year after the Union Cabinet approved a proposal to amend the list of Scheduled Tribes in Arunachal Pradesh, Parliament last week passed the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Amendment) Bill 2021.

Background:

• The Bill seeks to amend the nomenclature of certain tribes from Arunachal Pradesh mentioned in the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950.

What does the Bill amend?

• The bill modified Part-XVIII of the Schedule to the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950which is related to the state of Arunachal Pradesh.
• Part-XVIII lists 16 tribes of Arunachal Pradesh.
• The Bill corrects the names of tribes spelt incorrectly, and adds names of a few tribes that were either named ambiguously or had their parent group named only.
• The bill also restores the power of states to identify backward classes.

The five key changes are:

• Deleting‘Abor’ (tribe), because ‘Adi’ tribe in the list is same as ‘Abor’
• Changing‘Khampti’ to ‘Tai Khamti’
• Including ‘Mishmi-Kaman (Miju Mishmi)’, ‘Idu (Mishmi)’ and ‘Taraon (Digaru Mishmi)’ in lieu of Mishmi [Idu, Taroon]
• Including ‘Monpa’, ‘Memba’, ‘Sartang’, ‘Sajolang (Miji)’ in place of ‘Momba’

Replacing ‘Any Naga Tribes’ with names of 4 tribes:

• Nocte
• Tangsa
• Tutsa
• Wancho