[ Mamum Megu ]
There is an uncomfortable question that Arunachal Pradesh needs to ask itself:
Are tribal women not tribal enough?
The question may sound provocative. But it becomes difficult to ignore when discussions about tribal land, inheritance and inter-community marriages begin to suggest that a tribal woman's relationship with her community depends on whom she chooses to marry.
A tribal man marries a woman from another community and his tribal identity generally remains unquestioned. But when a tribal woman marries outside her community, concerns immediately arise. Will tribal land leave the community? What will happen to her children? Should she inherit ancestral property? Does her marriage threaten tribal identity?
Why is the same anxiety not expressed with equal force when a tribal man marries outside his community?
Perhaps this debate is not only about land. Perhaps it is also about who gets to belong.
What makes someone tribal?
Before deciding who should enjoy tribal rights, we should ask a more fundamental question: What makes a person tribal?
Anthropologists have debated the meaning of 'tribe' for more than a century. Earlier scholars focused on characteristics such as kinship, territory, language, social organisation and distinctive customs. Indian anthropologists such as DN Majumdar and TB Naik also examined tribal communities through characteristics including common territory, social organisation, cultural practices and a shared sense of identity.
Later, scholars such as Fredrik Barth challenged the idea that ethnic communities could be defined simply by a fixed list of cultural characteristics. He drew attention instead to the boundaries through which communities define and maintain their collective identity.
The larger point is important: there is no single characteristic that makes a person tribal.
Tribal identity is connected to ancestry, history, culture, social relationships, community recognition and belonging. It cannot simply be reduced to ownership of land or to the identity of one's spouse.
If that is so, why should marriage become a test of tribal belonging?
Why does marriage matter differently for women?
A tribal woman is born into her community. She grows up within its culture, learns its customs, participates in its social life and develops a relationship with the land and people around her.
Marriage does not erase that history.
Yet when she marries a man from another community, her relationship with her natal community may suddenly become a matter of concern.
This raises an obvious question.
If a tribal man's identity does not ordinarily disappear because he marries outside his community, why should a tribal woman's identity be treated differently?
The argument is sometimes made that a woman who marries outside the tribe may become a channel through which tribal land passes to outsiders.
The concern about land is legitimate.
But the assumption that a woman's marriage automatically threatens tribal land is another matter.
Marriage does not automatically transfer ownership of a woman's ancestral property to her husband. Nor does every non-tribal husband necessarily seek to acquire or control his wife's ancestral land.
The two issues must be separated.
Protect the land, but do not exclude the woman
There is no question that tribal land in Arunachal Pradesh deserves protection.
Land is not merely an economic commodity here. It is closely tied to family, clan, community, history and identity. The fear of land alienation is therefore understandable.
But protecting tribal land and recognising tribal women's property rights are not mutually exclusive objectives.
If the concern is that protected tribal land may pass into the hands of non-tribals, the law can regulate its transfer.
Sale, gift, mortgage and other forms of alienation can be restricted. Certain categories of land can be protected from transfer outside the community. Stronger safeguards can be created where existing mechanisms are inadequate.
Why, then, should the solution be to deny a tribal woman her inheritance simply because she married outside the community?
Ownership and alienation are two different questions. A woman can have a recognised right over property while the law can simultaneously prevent that property from being transferred to a person who is not legally entitled to acquire it.
In simple terms, protect the land without disowning the woman.
That should be the starting point of the discussion.
Who are the protectors of tribal land?
There is another question that rarely receives enough attention: Who are the protectors of tribal land? Are they only men?
Tribal women have always been active participants in the economic and social life of their communities. They cultivate fields, contribute to household economies, participate in the use and management of natural resources, raise children and transmit language, food practices, traditions and cultural knowledge.
Their relationship with land cannot be measured only by whose name appears on a document.
If women are considered important custodians of tribal culture when they preserve traditions and raise the next generation, why should they suddenly become a threat to that culture when they exercise a property right?
Perhaps we need to stop seeing tribal women as potential channels through which land may leave the community and start seeing them as stakeholders in protecting that land.
"But Arunachal is a patrilineal society"
One of the most common arguments against changing inheritance practices is that Arunachal is traditionally a patrilineal society.
That is true of many tribal communities of the state. Descent, family identity and inheritance have traditionally followed the male line in many communities.
But there is an important distinction between respecting a patrilineal tradition and assuming that patriliny makes reform impossible.
A social system can have a particular historical structure and still adapt to new circumstances.
There is an interesting example from our own Northeast.
What can Meghalaya teach us?
The Khasi society of Meghalaya is famously matrilineal. Lineage and clan identity ordinarily pass through the mother, and traditional inheritance follows the female line. The youngest daughter, known as Ka Khadduh, has a particularly important place in the traditional inheritance system.
Yet Khasi customary law has also developed a mechanism for circumstances that do not fit neatly within the ordinary matrilineal pattern.
The Khasi Social Custom of Lineage Act, 1997 recognises a customary mechanism known as Tang Jait. In specified circumstances, children of a Khasi man and a woman who does not belong to the Khasi community can be incorporated into the Khasi social system through the father's Kur/Jait or through a new Kur/Jait/clan established through the customary mechanism.
Why is this example relevant to Arunachal Pradesh? Not because Meghalaya should be copied. Not because matriliny is necessarily better than patriliny. And certainly not because Meghalaya represents a perfect model of gender equality.
Matrilineal does not automatically mean matriarchal. Khasi men, particularly maternal uncles, have traditionally exercised important social and family roles, and women's greater position in inheritance does not automatically translate into equality in every sphere of public decision-making.
The significance of the Khasi example lies elsewhere. It demonstrates that customary systems can develop mechanisms to accommodate social realities that do not fit neatly within their conventional rules.
If a matrilineal society can create an institutional mechanism to accommodate children born from marriages between a Khasi man and a woman from another community, can a patrilineal society such as Arunachal not similarly explore mechanisms that protect the rights of tribal women who marry outside their own community?
The question is not whether Arunachal should abandon patriliny.
The question is whether patriliny must necessarily mean that women have fewer rights.
Custom is not a museum piece
Customary law is an important part of Arunachal's identity. It reflects the history and social institutions of its communities. It has governed relationships, property, marriage and dispute resolution for generations.
But customs are not museum pieces.
They survive because communities continue to interpret and practise them.
Societies change. Circumstances change. Family structures change. Women's education and economic participation change. Migration and urbanisation change the way communities interact.
Customary institutions therefore also need the capacity to respond.
This does not mean abandoning tradition.
It means asking a more useful question: How can we preserve the values of our customary institutions while removing forms of inequality that are no longer necessary to protect those values?
That is a conversation worth having in Arunachal.
What does the Constitution tell us?
The Constitution provides protection both for tribal communities and for individual equality.
Article 14 guarantees equality before the law. Article 15 prohibits discrimination on grounds including sex. Article 21 protects life and personal liberty, including important aspects of dignity and personal autonomy. Article 46 directs the state to promote the educational and economic interests of Scheduled Tribes and protect them from social injustice and exploitation. Article 342 provides the constitutional framework for specifying Scheduled Tribes.
These provisions do not require us to choose between tribal protection and women's equality.
Both matter. The question is how they can be protected together.
There is also an important legal distinction here. A person who does not belong to a Scheduled Tribe community does not ordinarily acquire Scheduled Tribe status merely by marrying a tribal person. But that principle cannot automatically be reversed to mean that a person born into a Scheduled Tribe loses her tribal identity simply because she marries outside the community.
These are different questions.
What about the children?
The debate becomes even more complicated when children are involved.
If a tribal woman marries a man from another community, what should be the position of their children?
This cannot simply be answered by saying that the father's identity determines everything.
The Supreme Court has recognised, in the context of tribal status, that factors such as upbringing, socialisation, community acceptance and the circumstances in which a child grows up may become relevant.
This matters because tribal societies today are not isolated worlds.
Young people study outside their villages. They work in cities. They travel. They form relationships across community. They live in increasingly interconnected social environments.
The future of tribal identity will depend partly on how communities respond to these realities.
A rigid understanding of identity may not necessarily protect a community. It may instead create new forms of exclusion within it.
Are women being asked to prove their loyalty?
There is perhaps a deeper issue beneath the land debate.
When a woman marries within her community, her loyalty is rarely questioned. When she marries outside it, she may suddenly be asked to prove that she still belongs.
This creates an unequal burden.
It sends the message that a woman's membership in her own community is conditional upon making the 'right' marital choice.
But should belonging work this way?
A tribal woman does not stop being the daughter of her parents because she gets married.
She does not lose her childhood.
She does not lose her ancestry.
She does not automatically forget her language or culture.
She does not become a stranger to the people and place that shaped her.
Why, then, should marriage become the decisive test of her tribal-ness?
Perhaps the real problem is land alienation (not women)
If our genuine concern is the loss of tribal land, then our attention should be directed towards the actual causes of land alienation.
Are existing laws being effectively implemented? Are there illegal transfers? Are land records accurate? Are vulnerable families being exploited? Are there loopholes that allow protected land to change hands? Are women themselves being pressured or manipulated into surrendering property?
These questions deserve serious consideration.
It is much easier to blame an individual woman for marrying outside her community than to examine the institutional weaknesses that may actually facilitate land alienation.
But good policy should address the problem at its source.
If land alienation is the problem, regulate land alienation.
Do not make women's marriages the proxy for it.
What should the way forward be?
The answer does not have to be either complete preservation of existing practices or complete abandonment of customary law. There can be a middle path.
First, a tribal woman's identity should not be treated as something that disappears merely because she marries outside her community.
Second, tribal women should receive meaningful recognition in inheritance, while legitimate restrictions on the transfer of protected tribal land can remain.
Third, ownership and alienation should be treated separately. A woman may inherit property without being free to transfer protected land to a non-tribal person.
Fourth, women should have a meaningful voice in customary institutions dealing with marriage, inheritance and land.
Fifth, customary law should be allowed to evolve through community dialogue, rather than being treated as permanently frozen.
Sixth, greater attention should be given to the position of children born from inter-community marriages.
Seventh, the protection of tribal land should focus on preventing actual alienation rather than assuming that every woman who marries outside the community represents a threat.
And most importantly, tribal women themselves must have a voice in deciding what the future of tribal customary law should look like.
Tribal protection should include women.
Protecting tribal identity is not an anti-woman idea. But it becomes one when women are expected to surrender their rights in the name of protecting the community. A strong tribal society should not have to choose between protecting its land and respecting its women.
It should be capable of doing both.
The strength of a community is not demonstrated by how effectively it controls the choices of its women. It is demonstrated by how confidently it can protect its identity while allowing its members to live with dignity, equality and freedom.
A tribal woman who marries outside her community does not suddenly become an outsider. She remains a daughter. She remains connected to her history. She remains part of the culture that shaped her. She remains a member of the community into which she was born.
If we genuinely believe that tribal identity is about history, culture, community, ancestry and belonging, then we need to ask ourselves:
Why should a woman's tribal-ness depend upon whom she marries?
Perhaps the question is not whether tribal women are 'tribal enough'. Perhaps the real question is whether our understanding of tribal identity is inclusive enough to recognise women as equal members of the communities they have helped sustain.
And perhaps the strongest way to protect tribal land is not to make tribal women strangers to their own inheritance, but to make them equal partners in protecting it. (The contributor is a PhD scholar at Rajiv Gandhi University, Rono Hills. The views expressed are personal.)