Inexplicably, the Congress regime sat on the Centre’s letter for around three years. In November 2002, a lower divisional clerk of the Rajasthan government reached Shastri Bhawan in New Delhi looking for the state government’s list that was referred by the above-said GOI letter. In a note sent to the CM’s office in July 2003, the state social welfare ministry claimed that the state government had not made any recommendation about including Gujjars in the ST list — that was around four years after the Centre had sought supplementary information in this regard. The file was then buried by the Congress regime.

In the national interest, the UPA government should at least examine the Chopra committee report. It has unequivocally held that ‘judging eligibility of a group for tribal status, using the (existing) five criteria is, thus, almost an impossibility ‘. This observation of the Chopra Committee is a reiteration of what is spelt out in the Government of India Tribal Policy Document of July 2006 where it was given out that ‘the criteria laid down by the Lokur Committee are hardly relevant today ‘ and ‘more accurate criteria need to be fixed’.

The Chopra Committee has suggested that the Central government initiate a national debate and called on it ‘to abrogate the criteria used so far to include any class of people in the fold of Scheduled Tribe, as these have become obsolete and outdated’. It has recommended that ‘these should be replaced by quantifiable criteria that are relevant in the present context’. According to the Committee, ‘the criteria should be such that they could stand judicial scrutiny ‘ and render examination of ‘the issue with exactitude and reliability’.

... contd.