Between the Devil and the Deep Sea: Tribal Women’s Inheritance Rights in India

Author:

Uma Saumya1

Affiliation:

1. Centre for Women’s Rights, Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India

Abstract

In recognition of their distinct culture and identity, tribal communities in India enjoy constitutionally guaranteed autonomy and self-governance, which extend to customary laws for marriage, matrimonial rights and inheritance. In contexts where the tribal customary law has denied women inheritance rights, some women have approached the courts of law. The Hindu law on inheritance specifically excludes tribal communities from its application; yet, courts have found a way to apply it by reasoning that the parties to the case were ‘sufficiently Hinduised’. This article examines Indian judicial responses to this issue, and the ramifications for the inheritance rights of tribal women. The article critiques law’s lack of imagination and inability to capture the complex dynamics of social relationships in tribal communities, in a context of their massive dispossession from tribal lands. While highlighting the distinct relationship of property, community and family in tribal communities, it examines how law could ensure that tribal women retain their tribal identity and yet secure equal inheritance rights, rather than force a trade-off between tribal identity and securing inheritance rights on grounds of ‘sufficient Hinduisation’.

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Subject

Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous),Cultural Studies,Health (social science),Gender Studies

Reference22 articles.

1. Who sows? Who reaps? Women and land rights in India

2. Aggarwal M. (2020, 8 March). Whose land is it anyway: Of India’s 703 ongoing conflicts, 25 percentage are in tribal areas. The Scroll. https://scroll.in/article/955147/whose-land-is-it-anyway-of-indias-703-ongoing-conflicts-25-are-in-tribal-areas

3. Forest tenure reform: exclusion of tribal women's rights in semi-arid Rajasthan, India

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