Protest in Assam tribal council against move to transfer land to corporate houses

GUWAHATI Scores of people took to the streets in Diphu, the headquarters of central Assam’s Karbi Anglong district, on Wednesday (August 20, 2025) to protest the Assam government’s move to hand over tribal land to large corporate houses.

Karbi Anglong is one of three regions in Assam under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution of India, which safeguards tribal rights and grants autonomy to the local government. Diphu is about 240 km east of Guwahati.

Led by All-Party Hills Leaders Conference president Jones Ingti Kathar, the protestors shouted slogans against Tuliram Ronghang, the Chief Executive Member of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Karbi Anglong Autonomous District Council.

The protest assumed significance after a judge of the Gauhati High Court expressed shock over the Assam government allotting 3,000 bighas of land in the adjoining Dima Hasao district to a private firm registered in Kolkata. Dima Hasao is also a Sixth Schedule area.

Assam Jatiya Parishad president Lurinjyoti Gogoi, who joined the rally, accused Mr Ronghang of colluding with corporate entities and betraying the interests of the tribal and indigenous communities of Karbi Anglong.

“While the head of the council builds a lavish house worth ₹200 crore, the tribal people of this hill district are forced to live in crude, makeshift houses. The BJP is jeopardising the cultural and economic identity of the hill communities by handing over land to the corporate houses,” he said, vowing to continue resisting such moves in Assam.

A controversy erupted in July after Assam Congress president Gaurav Gogoi released a video of an under-construction house, which he claimed was owned by a “close friend” of the Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma. He was referring to Mr. Ronghang.

Further east, in the Tinsukia district, tribal communities slammed the State government for extending the protected class status to several non-tribal groups to let them settle in the Tirap Tribal Belt adjoining Arunachal Pradesh. On August 18, the State Cabinet approved this decision.

The approval allows the settlement of non-tribal communities such as Adivasi, Ahom, Chutia, Gurkha, Bengali (Namasudra and Sutradhar), Matak, Moran, and Gurkha under Section 160(2) of the Assam Land and Revenue Regulation, 1886.

Communities such as the Aiton, Bodo, Deori, Khamti, Khamyang, Mech, Mising, Rabha, Sema, Singpho, Sonowal, and Tangsa have been living in the Tirap Tribal Belt, which was created by a government notification in March 1951.

Leaders of these communities announced a 24-hour shutdown in Tinsukia and the adjoining Dibrugarh district on August 24 to protest the Cabinet decision, which they said would change the demography and marginalise the indigenous communities. The shutdown would coincide with the Chief Minister’s scheduled visit to Tinsukia district’s Margherita.