A youth organisation in Meghalaya has requested Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma to rename the state from Meghalaya to “Khasi-Jaintia-Garo Land” or one of two alternative titles, arguing that the existing name fails to reflect the identity of its principal indigenous tribes.
In a letter dated 2 April 2026 and addressed to the chief minister’s office in Shillong, the All A’chik Youth Federation (AAYF), headquartered in Tura, submitted the demand under Clause (e) of Article 3 of the Constitution of India. The organisation, represented by its vice-president Te Rikkam P Marak, requested that CM Sangma table a motion in the forthcoming session of the state legislative assembly to initiate the renaming process.
The group has proposed three options: Khasi-Jaintia-Garo Land, Tribal Land, or Tribal State.
The federation expressed gratitude to the chief minister for fulfilling earlier demands by Garo NGOs concerning the mandatory issuance of Scheduled Tribe certificates in the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council. It then turned to the broader historical context, noting that Meghalaya was carved out of Assam on 21 January 1972 following protests against the Assam Official Language Act, which had imposed Assamese as the state language. The hill tribes, Khasi, Garo and Jaintia, had sought a separate state precisely to safeguard their distinct languages, traditions, cultures, customs and matrilineal society.
AAYF argued that the name “Meghalaya”, a Sanskrit term meaning “Abode of the Clouds”, was chosen without reference to any of the three principal tribes and therefore does not represent the people for whom the state was created. “It was because of these unique identities that the hill tribes were granted a separate state and not because of the region’s cloud-covered geography,” the letter stated.
