Access to Justice for Indigenous Women and Girls in Northeast India

Written on 21 May 2026. Posted in News

By Samir Talati for Indigenous Debates

In Northeast India, Indigenous women and girls encounter multiple and intersecting barriers to justice arising from historical marginalisation, dispossession of land and resources, and power relations. While constitutional safeguards and protective legislation exist formally, the lived reality of Indigenous women reveals a profound contradiction between legal equality and social inequality. This contradiction is particularly stark where customary laws govern everyday life but are subordinated to a formal legal system rooted in colonialism, private property and state intervention. The question of access to justice for women must therefore be framed in close relation to identity, Indigeneity, and sustenance.

Most conflicts in Northeast India are fundamentally over identity, at the centre of which lies the recognition – or denial – of Indigenous status and community-based systems of sustenance. The State initially legally rendered customary lands as “state property”, “wastelands”, or “unclassed forests”. Then, community ownership and collective management were replaced by individual titles, forest laws, and revenue administration. Consequently, the failure of the State to recognise these systems has engendered large-scale alienation of land, forests, and common property resources (CPRs), which has not only undermined the livelihoods of the Indigenous Peoples but also threatened their cultural identity and social organisation.

For women, this alienation has gender-specific consequences. Traditionally, Indigenous women have enjoyed a relatively high status due to their role in production, ecological knowledge, and family economy, which are built on CPRs. Indigenous women of North-East India have thus participated in decision-making and are economically active agents as long as land is managed by the community. When these systems are disrupted through land alienation, development-induced displacement, legal assimilation with the dominant society, and market interventions, Indigenous women experience a disproportionate loss of status, agency, and access to justice.

Justice for Indigenous women must, therefore be located at the intersection of collective rights, livelihood security, gendered power relations, and self-determination. The loss of CPRs, the imposition of individualised legal regimes, and development-induced displacement have disproportionately undermined Indigenous women’s rights. A re-conceptualisation of the notion of justice is therefore necessary that prioritises sustenance-based rights, gender-sensitive reforms of customary laws, and meaningful recognition of Indigenous legal systems.

 Collective Rights and the Question of Justice

The Indian debate on whether communities should be recognised as “tribal” or “Indigenous” is not merely semantic.  The term “tribe”, as used in the Indian constitution, refers to a community with shared culture and social organisation. It thus situates these communities within a welfare and development paradigm, while not acknowledging their historical prior occupancy. The term “Indigenous,” on the other hand, is grounded in international law and emphasises original habitation, self-determination, collective rights, and sovereignty over land, forests, and natural resources. This term refers to a rights-based political identity tied to historical continuity.

The Indian State, however, does not recognise any community as Indigenous; it classifies them all under the caterory of “tribal”. While “tribal” recognition limits justice to redistributive and compensatory measures, “Indigenous” recognition extends it to historical, territorial, and restorative justice. Indigenous Peoples perceive themselves as distinct “peoples” possessing collective rights rooted in their historical, cultural, spiritual, and territorial relationships. Their rights are not limited to individual entitlements but include collective rights over land, resources, and governance systems. These collective rights are essential for maintaining intergenerational continuity of culture, law, and livelihood.

However, the imposition of private or individual property regimes through colonial and postcolonial legal frameworks and capitalist notions of development has undermined the collective land rights of tribal and Indigenous communities. The legal system in India does not recognise CPR as the Indigenous Peoples’ sustenance. The denial of their right over CPR leads to land alienation and impoverishment. Such a framework is particularly ill-suited to Indigenous societies that have traditionally held and managed land and other resources collectively. Justice in this context means recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ collective rights and their authority over sustenance systems.

Gender Implications, Customary Law and Formal Law

Indigenous communities in Northeast India have traditionally governed themselves through customary laws that prioritised equitable distribution, sustainable management of resources, and intergenerational equity. Women enjoyed a relatively high (although not equal) status because of their role in managing the family economy. However, the imposition of individual property has converted community land into state property and recognised ownership largely through individual pattas (legal individual ownership land document), usually vested in “male heads of households”. As CPRs are alienated, Indigenous women increasingly lose access to the economic and social spaces that sustained their status.

This legal shift transfers power from the community to a male elite and marginalises women from decision-making. The State and market institutions further intensify this process by granting loans, subsidies, and benefits only to individual landowners, reinforcing male control and accelerating class formation within the communities. As a result, women lose their economic roles, social autonomy, and authority, leading many to even internalise ideologies of female subordination. The encounter between customary and formal law is thus not a neutral transition but an unequal process that deepens gender injustice. 

Indications show that modernisation without safeguards or preparation strengthens male domination by introducing individual land ownership and intensifying male control over resources. It also results in class formation in their traditionally egalitarian societies. For example, among the matrilineal Garo of Meghalaya, financial schemes for State-supported rubber plantations required individual land titles in the name of male heads of households. This affected community ownership since a few powerful individuals monopolised land and it weakened women’s role.

There are also instances that benefit women and arise from  customary systems themselves. The reforms proposed by the Paite Tribal Council to recognise daughters’ inheritance rights demonstrate the possibility of aligning tradition with gender justice. Taken together, these experiences underscore that while externally imposed models of development often deepen gendered inequalities, meaningful gender justice is more likely to emerge when customary institutions themselves are reformed in ways that protect women’s rights.

Development, Displacement, and the Feminisation of Injustice

Development-induced displacement constitutes one of the gravest barriers to justice for Indigenous Peoples in general and Indigenous women and girls in particular. Dams, mining, and industrial expansion have primarily targeted the CPRs that form the backbone of Indigenous livelihoods. Large-scale acquisition of tribal land for development projects has resulted in widespread impoverishment.

In this regard, a significantly higher proportion of Indigenous displaced persons become landless compared to non-indigenous groups. Furthermore, territorial encroachment has devastating social consequences for Indigenous Peoples, such as marginalisation, destitution, and loss of identity and culture. In India, while around 25 percent of displaced cultivators become landless after displacement, this figure exceeds 50 percent among Indigenous and Dalit displaced persons.

While displacement impoverishes entire communities, its consequences are markedly gendered. Displacement erodes not only women’s material security but also their social status. The loss of CPRs deprives women of their status as economic contributors and social actors, thus reducing many to unpaid domestic roles and intensifying their dependence on men. Alongside this, women internalise the ideology of subordination and, as livelihoods collapse, they are often pushed into low-paid, insecure work.

For their part, girls are often withdrawn from school to contribute to household survival, perpetuating cycles of poverty and female exclusion. Justice mechanisms rarely account for these impacts because they focus narrowly on individual compensation rather than collective and social loss. Development-induced displacement thus goes beyond reproducing pre-existing inequalities; it actively feminises injustice by dismantling the material, social, and cultural bases that sustain Indigenous women’s dignity and rights.

Towards Justice for Indigenous Women

Ensuring access to justice for Indigenous women and girls in Northeast India requires a fundamental reorientation of legal and policy frameworks. First, Indigeneity must be defined in terms of sustenance rather than chronology. The protection of Indigenous rights  depends on recognising CPRs as the foundation of Indigenous culture. Second, customary laws must be accorded due recognition and interpreted to address gender inequity. While the uncritical revival of tradition risks reinforcing the patriarchy, reform grounded in Indigenous values of equity, sustainability, and community welfare can strengthen women’s rights.

Third, access to justice must be expanded beyond courts to include culturally appropriate dispute resolution mechanisms, legal literacy, and participatory governance structures that ensure women’s representation. Modernisation of their customary law would be a step in this direction. Finally, justice for Indigenous women must acknowledge their agency. Despite structural constraints, Indigenous women remain central to ecological knowledge, resource management, and community resilience. Recognising and strengthening this agency is essential not only for gender justice but also for sustainable development and democratic governance in the region.

What this means is that access to justice for Indigenous women in Northeast India is inseparable from struggles over land, livelihood, self-determination, and identity. The erosion of community-based sustenance systems, combined with the imposition of individualised legal regimes, has produced intersecting forms of injustice that affect women disproportionately. Addressing this injustice requires recognising collective rights, restoring control over CPR, and reforming both formal and customary laws through a gender-sensitive lens. Only by centring sustenance, dignity, and agency can justice become meaningful for Indigenous women in the Northeast and in the rest of India.

Samir Talati is a Senior Research Associate at North Eastern Social Research Centre, Guwahati, India. He works on Indigenous issues in Northeast India, focusing on inter-ethnic relations, land issues, migration, and Indigenous education.

Cover photo: Indigenous women in India driving social change. Photo: North Eastern Institute of Language and Culture

Tags: Indigenous Debates