BPSC 69th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 103 of 144

Correct — D, All of the above. Every item on the list is one of the accepted criteria, so nothing can be dropped. The National Commission for Scheduled Tribes sets them out in exactly this form: "The following essential characteristics for a community to be identified as a Scheduled Tribe were accepted: Primitive way of life and habitation in remote and less easily accessible areas, Distinctive culture, Shyness of contact with the community at large, Geographical isolation, and General backwardness in all respects." Line the exam's four items against that official five and they map without a gap — item 1 is the primitive-traits criterion, item 2 is distinctive culture word for word, item 3 is shyness of contact word for word, and item 4 is a compound that carries the remaining two, general backwardness and geographical isolation. Four items, five criteria, complete coverage, so (d). Two things are worth being precise about, because they are what a careful candidate doubts. First, these criteria are not in the Constitution. The Constitution defines Scheduled Tribes only circularly — Article 366(25) says they are such tribes or tribal communities as are deemed under Article 342 to be Scheduled Tribes — and Article 342 supplies only a procedure: the President, after consulting the Governor where it is a State, specifies the tribes by public notification, and thereafter only Parliament by law may add to or remove from the list. The NCST states the position plainly: "the Constitution is silent about the criteria for specification of a community as a Scheduled Tribe." Second, the criteria have a traceable origin rather than being folklore. An Advisory Committee on the Revision of the Lists of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, chaired by B. N. Lokur, was set up in 1965; the draft Bill that followed went to a Joint Select Committee of Parliament on the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Order (Amendment) Bill, 1967, known as the Chanda Committee; and it was through that process that the five essential characteristics were accepted. The lists were then comprehensively revised by the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Orders (Amendment) Act, 1976 (Act No. 108 of 1976). So the five criteria are settled administrative policy resting on a parliamentary process, and the exam's four items are drawn from them without alteration.

• (a)Only 1 and 2 — Keeps the two criteria that sound most anthropological and throws away the two that decide most real cases. Shyness of contact with the community at large is on the official list in precisely those words, and geographical isolation together with general backwardness are the two criteria the Registrar General of India and the State Government actually test when a claim for inclusion is examined. Dropping items 3 and 4 removes three of the five criteria.
• (b)Only 2, 3 and 4 — Drops item 1 alone, which is what a candidate does on the reasonable instinct that "primitive traits" is too pejorative to be a live official test. The instinct is about the language, not the law. The criterion is still on the record — the Commission's formulation is "Primitive way of life and habitation in remote and less easily accessible areas", and its own shorter restatement of the same list opens with "Primitiveness". It has not been withdrawn, so item 1 stands.
• (c)Only 1, 3 and 4 — Drops distinctive culture, which is the single criterion the official list states in exactly the exam's two words and the one that does the most work in distinguishing a Scheduled Tribe from a merely poor or remote community. Poverty and isolation alone do not make a community a Scheduled Tribe; a distinct culture — language, custom, kinship, religious practice — is what separates the tribal category from the general backward-class category.

Scheduling a community is a procedure, not a definition. Article 366(25) defines Scheduled Tribes only by reference to Article 342, and Article 342 sets out machinery: the President, after consulting the Governor in the case of a State, specifies by public notification the tribes or tribal communities — or parts of, or groups within, them — that are Scheduled Tribes in relation to that State or Union Territory; thereafter Parliament by law may include or exclude a community, and the notification cannot be varied by any later notification. Because a list is made in relation to a State, it is State-specific: a community scheduled in one State need not be scheduled in the next, and Scheduled Tribes have been specified for every State and Union Territory except Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, Delhi and Puducherry. Over 700 tribes stand notified under Article 342, the largest number of main tribal communities — 62 — in relation to Odisha. Since June 1999 a claim for inclusion moves only if the State Government, the Registrar General of India and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes all agree, after which it goes to the Cabinet and then to Parliament as a Bill. Census 2011 counted about 10.42 crore Scheduled Tribes, 8.6 per cent of India's population and 11.3 per cent of its rural population, with a sex ratio of 990 females per 1,000 males against 978 in 2001.

This question rewards knowing the list and punishes cleverness. Three of the four items — distinctive culture, shyness of contact with the community at large, geographical isolation — appear in the official statement of criteria in almost exactly the exam's words, so the only item anyone hesitates over is the first. The hesitation is real and worth naming: "primitive traits" reads as dated and demeaning, and a well-read candidate may assume it has been dropped. It has not. The Commission's own current summary of the same criteria still begins with "Primitiveness, geographical isolation, shyness and social, educational & economic backwardness ... are the traits that distinguish Scheduled Tribe communities of our country from other communities". The second thing to notice is structural. Item 4 is a compound — it packs two separate criteria, backwardness and geographical isolation, into one line. When a statement bundles two items and both are on the list, the compound is true, and a candidate who splits it mentally and finds both halves valid has confirmed rather than weakened it. With all four items valid, the answer must be the all-inclusive option, and this is one of the cases where "All of the above" is not a trap but the plain reading. The instinct that at least one item in a four-item set must be wrong is the only thing standing between a prepared candidate and the mark.

• The five accepted essential characteristics (National Commission for Scheduled Tribes): primitive way of life and habitation in remote and less easily accessible areas; distinctive culture; shyness of contact with the community at large; geographical isolation; and general backwardness in all respects
• The Constitution is silent on the criteria — Article 366(25) defines Scheduled Tribes only by reference to Article 342, which supplies procedure and not tests
• Article 342: the President specifies the tribes by public notification after consulting the Governor of the State; only Parliament by law may thereafter include or exclude a community
• The criteria come from the Advisory Committee on the Revision of the Lists of SCs and STs (Lokur Committee), set up in 1965, and were accepted through the Joint Select Committee on the SC and ST Orders (Amendment) Bill, 1967 (Chanda Committee)
• The lists were comprehensively revised by the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Orders (Amendment) Act, 1976 (Act No. 108 of 1976); the founding orders are the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950 (C.O. 22) of 6 September 1950 and the (Part C States) Order, 1951 (C.O. 33) of 20 September 1951
• Over 700 tribes are notified under Article 342; Odisha has the largest number of main tribal communities at 62; no Scheduled Tribe is specified for Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, Delhi or Puducherry
• Since June 1999 an inclusion claim advances only where the State Government, the Registrar General of India and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes all concur, before Cabinet and Parliament
• Census 2011: about 10.42 crore Scheduled Tribes, 8.6% of the total population and 11.3% of the rural population; ST sex ratio 990 females per 1,000 males, up from 978 in 2001

• Discarding 'indications of primitive traits' because it sounds pejorative — it remains an operative criterion in the official formulation
• Believing the criteria are written into the Constitution; they are administrative, and the Constitution supplies only the Article 342 procedure
• Assuming a Scheduled Tribe is scheduled everywhere in India — the list is made in relation to a State or Union Territory and a community scheduled in one need not be scheduled in another

BPSC asks this as a checklist — it prints the criteria and asks which belong, so the mark goes to whoever has memorised the five and can resist the reflex that one item in any four-item list must be false. UPSC almost never prints the criteria; it tests the machinery around them, asking whether the President or the Governor declares a community a Scheduled Tribe, whether the status travels across State borders, or what the separate criteria for a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group are.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under which Article of the Constitution of India does the President specify, by public notification, the tribes or tribal communities to be Scheduled Tribes in relation to a State?

  • (a)Article 244
  • (b)Article 341
  • (c)Article 342
  • (d)Article 366(25)

  Answer(c) Article 342 — Article 341 does the same for Scheduled Castes, Article 244 governs the administration of Scheduled Areas, and Article 366(25) only defines the term by pointing back to Article 342.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Advisory Committee on the Revision of the Lists of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, set up in 1965, is popularly known as the

  • (a)Dhebar Commission
  • (b)Kalelkar Commission
  • (c)Chanda Committee
  • (d)Lokur Committee

  Answer(d) Lokur Committee — the Chanda Committee was the 1967 Joint Select Committee of Parliament on the amendment Bill, Kalelkar chaired the First Backward Classes Commission of 1955, and Dhebar chaired the Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes Commission.