Months after the Hattee community of Himachal Pradesh’s Trans-Giri area was declared as a Scheduled Tribe, anger is building among members over the delay in the implementation of the new classification. Thousands of members of the community on Tuesday gathered in Nahan district to seek immediate implementation and begin the issuance of ST certificates.
The Kendriya Hattee Samiti and the Hattee Vikas Manch (HVM) on Tuesday led a march from the Chaugan ground in Nahan to the district collectorate and submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister’s Office through the District Collector, seeking that the ST certificates be issued to them immediately.
Ramesh Singta, chief spokesperson for Kendriya Hattee Samiti, told The Hindu: “More than 3,000 people were at the peaceful march today and we are planning a much larger rally in Shillai before the Assembly session is set to begin on December 20.”
This comes even as the Himachal Pradesh government and the Union government are yet to decide if the addition of Hattees in the ST list will include those communities that are already classified as SCs. The State government had sent a letter seeking a clarification on this to the Union Tribal Affairs Ministry in September, as reported by The Hindu.
Meeting with State govt.
Members of the Kendriya Hattee Samiti said that the State government had also held a meeting with them last week in the Secretariat to sort out the issue. Both the KHS and the HVM suggested that they have no problem with SCs being included or excluded from the definition of Hattees.
“What we suggested was to at least start issuing certificates to the rest of us in the meantime. But the State government said it cannot do anything until the Centre responded. So, we gave them an ultimatum that large-scale protests will be unstoppable if the classification is not implemented within seven days,” Mr. Singta said, adding that Industries Minister Harshwardhan Chauhan and Tribal Minister Jagat Singh Negi also attended the meeting.
In the letter to the Tribal Affairs Ministry, the State government’s Tribal Development Department had said that the reasoning in the Bill introduced in Parliament excluded SCs, but the entry added to the ST list just says “Hattee of Trans-Giri area of Sirmour District”.
It had noted the State Law Department’s opinion that since the entry did not exclude any community specifically, its interpretation should include SC communities. Nevertheless, the Tribal Development Department said it needed a clarification from the Union government.
Registrar General’s views
According to past observations of the Office of the Registrar General of India, people who are referred to as Hattees in the region also include those from communities like Koli, Badhai, Lohar, Dhaki, Dom, Chamar, etc. which are already designated as SCs.
Notably, the reasons cited by the Office of the RGI in the past to reject ST status for Hattees included this as a key one.
In its 2017 opinion rejecting ST status for the community, the ORGI had noted that “Hattee” was a term used to refer to the inhabitants of Trans-Giri area and that this included people from “upper status social groups” like the Khash-Khanet (Rajput) and Bhat (Brahmin) castes and people from Scheduled Caste communities like the ones mentioned above.
Ever since the Union government announced last year that the Hattees would be added to the ST list, there has been stiff opposition from the Gujjar community — the only other ST in the area — and SC communities. The Gujjars have argued that adding 1.6 lakh “relatively forward” people will crowd them out of ST benefits.
Meanwhile, people from the SC communities in the area have insisted that atrocities against them continue — mostly perpetrated by people from Bhat and Khas-Khanet castes — and that adding them to the ST list would only embolden them.
