Denotified tribes’ anger boiling over amid a stagnating scheme and classification deadlocks

Denotified tribes face caste certificate denial, anger grows, pushing for Idate Commission recommendations, demanding proper classification and caste-census.

With the Centre’s SEED scheme for denotified tribes just about taking off, caste certificates being denied to them in 29 States, and the Idate Commission’s 2017 report in cold storage, anger amongst the denotified tribes (DNT), semi-nomadic tribes (SNT), and nomadic tribes (NT) is growing across States like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Gujarat. This anger is now also frustrating Members of the Union government’s Development and Welfare Board for DNTs, SNTs, and NTs (DWBDNC), who are making fresh attempts to push for the implementation of the Idate recommendations which include a permanent commission, proper classification, and a detailed caste-census. 

As 2024 was winding down, the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment prepared a “roadmap” to address the communities’ most pressing concerns, but the anger of these communities is now being wielded by its leaders to attack the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) larger narrative on tribal identity, which has been constructed by centreing the reclamation of tribal leaders as the first ones to resist “foreign invaders” like Islamic rulers and European colonisers. 

“What kind of Hindutva is this?” asked Member, DWBDNC, Bharatbhai Babubhai Patni, in a phone interview with The Hindu, adding, “We were among the first to resist the British. As every other community succumbed to conversions, we were the ones who chose to stay within Hindu dharma.”  

Mr. Patni said that the government can no longer shut out voices calling for the Idate Commission’s recommendations to be implemented. “A Schedule must be put out listing out all the DNTs, alongside SC/ST/OBC certificates, there must be directions to issue joint certificates like SC-DNT, ST-DNT, OBC-DNT,” he added, echoing concerns raised by a host of other community leaders from Haryana and U.P. as well at a national-level meeting held in New Delhi last week.  

The government had constituted the National Commission for DNTs/NTs/SNTs in 2015 under the Chairmanship of Bhiku Ramji Idate, which had put out its final report in 2017, calling for the government to expedite the final classification of these communities, count their population by including a Caste-Census column in the 2021 Census, and provide a sub-quota for them under SC/ST/OBC quotas in public education and employment.  

The Idate Commission had concluded there were a total of 1,526 DNT, NT, and SNT communities across the country, of which 269 were not yet categorised as either SC, ST, or OBC.

The Renke Commission of 2005 had estimated their population to be around 10 to 12 crores at the time, though community leaders have estimated that their population would have risen to over 25 crores by now.