ABSTRACT
The tribal population of the north-east is comparatively very small compared to the central belt of India. Administration of justice in tribal INE is significantly different from the rest of India. As the recognition of the sources of law is not easy and courts can be unpredictable, advocates of customary laws have realised that to be recognised as such, these laws need to be recorded as legal rights. Regarding women's legal rights, tribal women activists from the north-east argue that it is inappropriate to view their problems merely from the binary perspective of the uniform civil code versus community family laws. In the Indian Constituent Assembly, there was only one occasion when a direct reference was made to tribal laws in the context of a uniform civil code. The tribal family laws are not only distinct, they are also numerous, since there are many tribes and sub-tribes in South Asia.
