It may still not be an easy fight for them, but the Supreme Court’s order that the amended Hindu Succession Act, which gives daughters equal rights to ancestral property, will have a retrospective effect comes as a ray of hope for the tribal women of Himachal Pradesh, who do not have inheritance right as per century old ‘customary law’ in tribal areas of the state.

“We have been battling to get the right to inherit property for long at different levels, but to no avail so far. Nobody is ready to amend the ‘customary law’ that bars tribal women from inheriting ancestral property. The SC judgement for women will definitely boost our struggle to get the discriminatory law amended,” said Rattan Manjari, Chairman of Mahila Kalyan Parishad, women NGO in tribal district of Kinnaur.

Manjari told The Statesman that the Parishad had approached the HP High Court sometime back through a PIL.

“We may still have to fight it out as provisions of Hindu Succession Act, 1956 are not implemented in tribal areas, but we are very much hopeful after this development that like other women we will also get our due,” she said.

 The ‘customary law’ is recorded in Wazib ul arz- a revenue document of settlement pertaining to earlier 20^th century in the tribal area of Kinnaur.  Manjari shared that as per the tribal law a daughter has no claim over father’s property.

“If her husband dies, the property goes to the son, even if he is a minor. This discriminatory law should be amended,” she said.

 Manjari said there have been many examples where single women (widows, divorced or unmarried women) have been abandoned by their families.

“If they have the right to property, they can atleast live with dignity even being single,” she said.

With times, the tribal society in Kinnaur has shed many customs like ‘common marriage’ (polyandry, wherein all brothers used to marry one woman mainly to protect small land holdings from division with agriculture traditionally the main occupation of people).

“But the people are not ready to shed this century old customary law. The Parishad launched the signature campaign and even took the issue to gram sabhas some years back to build consensus in tribal society for amendment in law, but there was resistance, mainly from the men folk,” Manjari said.

Argued RS Negi, convener of Him Lok Jagriti Manch in Kinnaur and a retired IAS officer, “The tribal areas have their own Revenue Act, which needs to be amended to give this right to the women. There is resistance from the tribal society on this because the land holdings in Kinnaur are very small (1-2 bighas on an average) and the tribal girls are increasingly marrying outside. The phenomenon would throw the tribal land open to non-tribals with this phenomenon.”

Negi said his Manch that does awareness programmes, the amendment could be done with some riders so that the land does not go to non-tribals as a matter of right.

The Parishad’s representations to the politicians in state and centre have also fallen on deaf ears so far.

In 2015, however, the HP High Court order in an individual case gave the right to tribal women as per Hindu Succession Act, 1956, but before the tribal women could draw advantage, some other people went to SC on that. “The Parishad wanted to file a petition in SC, but we were told to file a PIL in HC,” Manjari said.