Study moots inclusion of 179 communities in SC, ST, OBC lists

AnSI study categorizes 268 tribes, recommends 179 for SC, ST, OBC lists, faces debate over classification fairness.

In one of the largest ethnographic studies of its kind, the Anthropological Survey of India (AnSI) and Tribal Research Institutes (TRIs) across the country have, for the first time, comprehensively categorised 268 denotified, semi-nomadic, and nomadic tribes that previous commissions believed had never been classified.  

The three-year-long study commissioned by a NITI Aayog panel has recommended the inclusion of 179 of these communities in Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes (Central) lists of 26 States and union territories, at least 85 of which are being recommended as fresh additions to these lists.  

Among the fresh additions, 46 communities have been recommended for OBC status, 29 for SC status, and 10 for Scheduled Tribe status. The greatest number of fresh additions were recommended for Uttar Pradesh (19), followed by Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan at eight each.  

Apart from the fresh additions, the study recommended correcting the categorisation of nine communities; and found that many of the 268 communities had already been categorised, albeit partially, i.e. either in State lists or mentioned in Central lists but only of some States.  

The study also concluded that 63 communities (over 20%) studied were “not traceable” anymore, which multiple researchers associated with the study explained was a classification for communities that had likely assimilated into larger communities, changed their names, or migrated to other States/union territories.  

Top officials of the Social Justice Ministry told The Hindu that the report was “pending” with the NITI Aayog panel, which was “scrutinising” the AnSI and TRIs’ findings. But the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs revealed in a Parliament reply last year that the Social Justice Ministry had received this report in August 2023.

This report’s recommendations to add entries to the SC, ST, OBC lists, which will consequently swell their populations, comes as uncertainty grows over the next Census and whether caste will be enumerated in it, with the clamour for increasing quota percentages to match with latest proportions only growing in the absence of a population count.