Article 371 for Ladakh

Article 371 for Ladakh

Context: Against the backdrop of widespread protests in Ladakh, the central government is currently contemplating the possibility of extending constitutional safeguards akin to those provided under Article 371 to the Union Territory.

What happened in past?
• In 2019, the former State of Jammu & Kashmir was bifurcated into two Union Territories — Jammu & Kashmir, and Ladakh, the latter without a Legislative Assembly.
• After its special status was removed, several political groups in Ladakh have been demanding that land, employment, and the cultural identity of Ladakh, should be protected under the Sixth Schedule.
• In 2019, the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes recommended the inclusion of Ladakh under the Sixth Schedule. 

Sixth schedule
• The Sixth Schedule under Article 244 provides for the formation of autonomous administrative divisions —Autonomous District Councils (ADCs) — that have some legislative, judicial, and administrative autonomy within a state.
• This Schedule contains provisions regarding the administration of tribal areas in the states of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.
• The Schedule also gives ARCs and ADCs the power to collect land revenue, impose taxes, regulate money lending and trading, collect royalties from licenses or leases for the extraction of minerals in their areas, and establish public facilities such as schools, markets, and roads.

What are the protections offered under article 371?
• Articles 371 and 371-A through J provide “special provisions” for specific states, often to give representation to certain religious and social groups and to allow these groups to exercise autonomy over their affairs without interference from the state and central governments.
• Special provisions under Article 371 would allow protections to be extended to the local population of Ladakh.

Centre’s opinion
• Union Home Ministry opines that the main objective of the inclusion of tribal populations under the said schedule is to ensure their overall socio-economic development, which the Union Territory’s administration “has already been taking care of since its creation”.
• It added that the Ladakh administration had recently increased the reservation for Scheduled Tribes in direct recruitment from 10% to 45%, which would help the tribal population significantly in its development.

Forward path
• Notably, no region outside the Northeast has been included in the Sixth Schedule. Manipur, which has predominantly tribal populations in some places, the autonomous councils are not included in the Sixth Schedule. 
• According to the Home ministry, for tribal areas in the rest of the country, there is the Fifth Schedule. So, Ladakh’s inclusion in the Sixth Schedule would be difficult.