Article 244 (A)

News

The Congress leader Rahul Gandhi promised to implement Article 244 (A) of the Constitution to safeguard the interests of the people in Assam’s tribal-majority districts.

Background

• In the 1950s, a demand for a separate hill state arose around certain sections of the tribal population of undivided Assam.
• In 1960, various political parties of the hill areas merged to form the All Party Hill Leaders Conference, demanding a separate state.
  •  After prolonged agitations, Meghalaya gained statehood in 1972.
• The leaders of the Karbi Anglong and North Cachar Hills were also part of this movement.
  • They were given the option to stay in Assam or join Meghalaya.
• They stayed back as the then Congress government promised more powers, including Article 244 (A).
• Since then, there has been a demand for its implementation.
• In the 1980s, this demand took the form of a movement with a number of Karbi groups resorting to violence.
  •  It soon became an armed separatist insurgency demanding full statehood.

• In January, a group of BJP legislators from Assam submitted a memorandum to the Centre seeking the implementation of Article 244 (A).

About Article 244 (A)

• The Congress government in 1969 had inserted article 244(A) in the Constitution to enact a law for constituting an autonomous State within the State of Assam and also to provide the autonomous State with a Legislature, Council of Ministers or both with such powers and functions as may be defined by that law.
• The 22nd Amendment, amended article 275 in regard to sums and grants payable to the autonomous State on and from its formation under article 244A.

How is it different from the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution?

• The Sixth Schedule of the Constitution — Articles 244(2) and 275(1) — is a special provision that allows for greater political autonomy and decentralised governance in certain tribal areas of the Northeast through autonomous councils that are administered by elected representatives.
•  In Assam, the hill districts of Dima Hasao, Karbi Anglong and West Karbi and the Bodo Territorial Region are under this provision.
• Article 244(A) accounts for more autonomous powers to tribal areas.
• According to Uttam Bathari, who teaches history at Gauhati University, among these the most important power is the control over law and order.
  • In Autonomous Councils under the Sixth Schedule, they do not have jurisdiction of law and order.

Source :IE