In what is being seen as timed to the state assembly elections, the Union cabinet on Wednesday gave its approval to give Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to the Hattee community of trans-Giri area of Sirmaur district in Himachal Pradesh.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership, including the present day defence minister and then BJP chief Rajnath Singh, had promised the status about a decade ago.
The Hattee community had been demanding the ST status since 1967. The BJP has also been supporting the demand and it gained momentum in April when Union home minister Amit Shah assured CM Jai Ram Thakur that the government was considering it.
BJP national president JP Nadda had also indicated his approval during his recent visit to Paonta Sahib and Nahan.
The Hattee community is demograpchically spread in Sirmaur district with borders around Uttarakhand. Four of the five assembly segments of Sirmaur, comprising Renuka Ji, Pacchad, Shillai and Paonta Sahib, could gain from the move and it could help the BJP electorally. This community has a population of about three lakh.
The Hattees are a close-knit community who take their name from their traditional occupation of selling home-grown crops, vegetables, meat, and wool at small-town markets known as ‘haats’. Hattee men traditionally don a distinctive white headgear on ceremonial occasions. The Hattees live in 154 panchayats. The Hattees are governed by a traditional council called ‘khumbli’ which, like the ‘khaps’ of Haryana, decide on community matters.
The BJP has been backing the demand for the status.
In its Lok Sabha election manifesto in 2009, the BJP promised, for the first time, to give ST status to the Hattees. This led to the consolidation of the community behind the party, has repeated the promise in its subsequent manifestos.
The BJP has gained from Hattee support in the parliamentary elections in Shimla, which was once a Congress stronghold.
In 2014, Rajnath Singh, who was then national president of the BJP, promised the Hattees ST status at a rally in Nahan in Sirmaur.
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