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Social Exclusion and Law

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 I. Introduction

Social exclusion is a relatively new concept. The term social exclusion was coined by French
politician René Lenoir. It refers to the exclusion of some people from getting access to the
rights, opportunities and recourses which are normally available to other people in the
society. People can be socially excluded because of their race, class, religion or their
Economic positions. In some countries like Italy, social exclusion is a legal concept. In India
one of the most socially excluded communities are the tribes in the North-east India. There
are several legislations made for their social Inclusion. One of the most prominent one is the
sixth Schedule which gives various benefits to the tribal communities. However, the sixth
Schedule has failed in the complete social inclusion of these tribal communities.

II. Rationale

Even though social exclusion is a relatively new concept it is one of the most pressing issues
in the world right now. Modernization and migration have led to the social exclusion of many
native tribals and migrants. Social exclusion is rampant in throughout India. The socially
excluded communities includes the dalits, muslims and tribal communities. This project
analyses the effectiveness of the sixth Schedule of the India Constitution which is one of
most prominent legislation on the social inclusion. As a law student I think it is of utmost
importance to analyse the effectiveness of the legislations in my country. Moreover, as a
sociology student one must understand how effective are laws in solving various sociological
problems in the country.

III. Objective

This paper analyses how effective was the sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution in the
social inclusion of the tribal communities of North-east. It also analyses why the sixth
Schedule failed to achieve it’s aim of social inclusion and suggests improvements which
could make the legislation more efficient.
 IV. Methods

This paper is an analysis which is based various journal articles and statutes relating to the
issue. In order to make this paper I have relied on various articles which analyses the
legislation on which this paper is based on. It also relies on various surveys and estimates by
various government organizations. Various online databases were used to gather journals and
articles related to the topic.

V. Discussion

Social exclusion is a major problem which encompasses many problems. The things people
may be excluded from includes a wide range facilities such as a livelihood; secure,
permanent employment; earnings; property ,credit, or land; housing; minimal or prevailing
consumption levels; education, skills, and cultural capital; the welfare state; citizenship and
legal equality; democratic participation; public goods; the nation or the dominant race; family
and sociability; humanity, respect, fulfilment and understanding. Silver (1994) .These are
only some of the things that people maybe socially excluded from. In some countries like
Italy, social exclusion is a legal concept. The European union has took up social exclusion as
a serious issue. Social Inclusion is an important part of their of their agenda. The Europe
2020 strategy was adopted by the European Union to further this agenda. A ‘platform
against poverty and Social Exclusion’ was one of the flagship initiatives of the Europe 2020
strategy. Moreover, many countries have various policies for poverty and social inclusion.
Law plays an important part in social exclusion. One such example of law made for social
inclusion is the sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution. This was a law made for the social
inclusion of the tribes in India especially in the north-eastern area.

The sixth Schedule is a set off rules which was made for the tribal settlements in the hills of
North-east India. This law was meant to provide a democratic structure to the tribal structure.
It sought to achieve this by creating Autonomous District Councils(ADCs). These councils
were headed by the tribal chiefs and headmen. The councils were empowered to take laws
regarding the administration of their respective areas. These include the laws regarding
various issues such the customs, traditions, water, land and forest issues. The aim of the
government behind this law was to preserve the tribal order and thus felicitate the socio
economic inclusion of these tribes. However, the statistics prove that the government have
failed in its mission of social inclusion of the tribes. Meghalaya one of the north-eastern
states is having the highest number of landless tribal in the country. 60% of what was
community land of the tribal is now in the hands of private individuals. The tribal community
have been marginalized except for a few educated elite within the tribes Soriede(2013). Time
has proved that the laws for the prevention of the social exclusion of these tribes are
inefficient.

There are several reasons for which the sixth Schedule could not achieve what is sought to
achieve. One of the reasons is that giving one the tribal community special powers would
lead to the discrimination of other communities in that area. As discussed earlier the sixth
Schedule provided for Autonomous district councils for certain communities in the specific
area, later when these districts became full-fledged states these incentives and the positive
discrimination were available to them at the state level. As a result the legislative assemblies
of Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland today have all but one seat reserved for STs.
In Meghalaya 55 of the 60 seats are reserved for STs. Such kind of weighted system of
representation have undermined democracy. It had created a two-tiered society. There is a de
facto two-tiered citizenship in these states. Baruah(2003:1). The fact that there is negligible
amount of democratic representation for the non-tribal will annoy them and will only result in
higher degree of social exclusion.

Further, if we look in another perspective giving autonomy and special treatment for social
inclusion can produce the exact opposite result. In the case of sixth Schedule, if the
government allocates ADCs to the area where there is one dominant community, it will lead
to the social exclusion of other smaller communities living there. The smaller communities
will get marginalized. The jobs and resources will become a monopoly of the dominant
community. This discrimination may result in the frustrating the minority communities and
as a result it may end in the minority community adopting extremist or separatist stance.
Bijukumar(2013:31).

VI. Conclusion

Even though the sixth Schedule have achieved some positive results it has also resulted in
more social exclusion of the minority communities. Many people are landless in the north-
east and they are excluded from the non-tribal community. As discussed earlier when the
autonomous districts became separate states they got the benefits on a state level basis. This
created a two type citizens of the state i.e., the tribal and non-tribal people. Also, as they are
getting more benefits from these Autonomous District Councils they tend be confined with
their safezone and not be connected with the rest of India. Since there are no interactions
between the north-eastern people and the rest of the Indians they are still treated as outsiders.
One of the major backdrops of the sixth Schedule which was proved in the course of time
was its short sightedness. The framers of this law considered that empowering the tribal
communities by giving them autonomous powers and more benefits will result in their social
inclusion. In my view in order to create more social inclusion the laws must encourage the
social interaction between the communities. The laws must aid the communities to live in
harmony with each other. The laws which give more autonomy to one dominant community
will result in the minority community being marginalized. Instead if the communities are
made to interact with each other in cultural and economic way they will eventually be able to
live in harmony with each other which will help in eliminating the social exclusion of these
communities. Therefore, even though the economic upliftment and recognizing their cultural
identity of the tribal community is essential, they are not enough. The laws must also help
improve the social interaction of the tribal communities with the other communities and
thereby promote social inclusion.

Furthermore, the sixth Schedule must be amended with the changing times and circumstances
as the demography of the north-east have changed post-independence. The demography of
the north-east has changed greatly due to the migrants from Bengal. As the sixth Schedule is
meant for places where there is only one dominant communities as the provisions gives too
autonomy for a single community. Therefore, the government must make amendments to the
legislation so that it would be effective in the present situation of the north-east.
 VII. Bibliography
Statutes
 The Constitution of India,1950.

Articles
 Baruah Sanjib.2003. “Protective Discrimination and Crisis of Citizenship in North-
East India”. Economic and Political Weekly 38(17):1624-26.
 Bijukumar V. 2013. “Social Exclusion and Ethnicity in Northeast India”. The Nehru
Journal 9(2):19-35.
 Silver Hilary.1994. “Social exclusion andsocial solidarity:threeparadigms”.
International Labour Review 133:532-36.
 Søreide Navlani Kavita. 2013. “Tribal marginalization in india: social exclusion and
protective law”. CMI Brief 12(4):1-2.