Months after the President of India notified the inclusion of the Hattee community in the State’s Scheduled Tribes list, the Himachal Pradesh government on January 1 issued necessary directions to all departments for the implementation of the new classification, officials told The Hindu.
The implementation had been held up for this long over confusion in the State government as to who the Hattees of the Trans-Giri area of Sirmour district were. Given that “Hattee” is also used to describe people already classified as Scheduled Castes, the confusion was over whether these communities would now be included in the ST list as Hattees.
Also read | Who are Hattees, Himachal asks Delhi, months after the community is added to ST list
Officials in the State government’s Tribal Development Department said that the Union government clarified on this issue on December 30 through a letter. “The State government’s Law Department was of the opinion that SCs should be included in the definition of Hattees. But the Union government clarified that they are to be excluded,” one official said.
The official added that the State government issued necessary directions for the implementation of the classification two days after the clarification came through.
A statement issued by the Himachal Pradesh government on Monday evening said that Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu met with representatives of the Hattee community. “We thanked the government for implementing the ST status for our community,” Ramesh Singta, chief spokesperson of the Kendriya Hattee Samiti said.
“The State government has received the clarification from the Central Government last Saturday evening on the Hattee’s status and within no time we have issued notification in this regard”, said the Chief Minister, as per the government statement, which added that the CM would be making an announcement on January 3 on a visit to the Sirmour district.
The BJP-led Union government had in 2022 pushed hard for the inclusion of the Hattees to the ST list, announcing the decision months before the State went to polls. Despite this, the party lost the State to the Congress. Of the five seats in Sirmour district, the BJP had lost three. The Presidential assent for the addition was granted in August this year.
This had led to significant outrage from Sirmour district’s Gujjar community, the only other ST community in the area. They argued that adding a relatively forward community like Hattees to the ST list would crowd them out of benefits.
In addition, the Scheduled Caste communities of the area were also opposed to the move, arguing that the Hattees are largely forward caste communities that allegedly perpetrate atrocities against them. As a result, they expressed concern that adding them to the ST list would embolden them.
