[Assam] Your Excellency ex-Indian High Commissioner Nayar, with your journalism stint in Assam knowledge and 60% voting in by people in Assam in Indian General Elections, India must be in an unassailable position to win a referendum on Assam’s independence!

[Bartta Bistar]

Between The Lines - Kuldip
Nayar<http://www.cybernoon.com/More.asp?section=fromthepress&subsection=editorials&child=betweenthelines>
Wednesday, February 07, 2007 9:15:37 IST



Northeast in ferment

http://www.cybernoon.com/DisplayArticle.asp?section=fromthepress&subsection=editorials&xfile=February2007_betweenthelines_standard191&child=betweenthelines

Wednesday, February 07, 2007 9:15:37 IST

The worst role is that of the army which is trying to maintain peace. In the
name of curbing militancy, it has killed many innocent



India's northeast is like Baluchistan in Pakistan or Tibet in China. All the
three territories are in ferment. They want to secede from the countries
which claim them to be their part. The governments are employing arms for
registering their authority and the defiant their identity. It is a
political question which is sought to be solved through violence.
The northeast in India embraces Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura, Arunachal
Pradesh and Meghalaya. The first three states are disturbed, Assam probably
the worst. The army is combing the state which the militants, United
Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), have announced is meant only for the
Assamese-speaking people.
ULFA is not a new phenomenon. New Delhi has lived with it for the last 30
years. At that time, it signed an agreement with the All Assam Students
Union (AASU), after a protracted agitation, to delete the names of
foreigners, the Bangladeshis, from the electoral rolls and deport them to
their country. ULFA has since then raised the standard of independent Assam
and taken to arms. Practically, no foreigner has been ousted.

*Indiscriminate killing*
What has attracted the nation's attention at present is the indiscriminate
killing by ULFA of labourers from other parts of India, particularly Bihar.
Although the army is in the midst of flushing out ULFA cadres from Assam the
bomb blasts continue to kill a few here and there. Some say that ULFA is
wreaking revenge for the attack that India had made two years ago on their
camps at the foothills of Bhutan with its king's cooperation. The captured
diary by Hira Sarania, a battalion commander of ULFA's army, says: "We vowed
even if it takes 100 years, we will seek vengeance on India."
This may well be true. But there is also a suspicion that Bangladesh eggs
ULFA on to make forays on the population in Assam to create confusion for an
easy assimilation of illegal migrants with the Bengalis living across the
border. Already the Assamese-speaking population in the state has shrunk to
nearly half, 37 per cent. (Assam and other northeastern states have
only a 21-kilometre border with the rest of India as compared to 1,829
kilometres with Bangladeshis.)
No doubt, ULFA has irritated New Delhi so much that it has agreed to supply
arms to even the much-hated military junta in Myanmar to bottle up the
militants. A few years ago a similar joint operation was launched with
limited results. ULFA has in Assam some firm supporters who enable the
militants to go right up to Guwahati to carry out killings even at the
daylight. There is, however, something in the allegation that the Congress,
which rules the state, has connived at ULFA's activities to repay for the
help it rendered to the party during the last election.
Still Assam is the last reliable post of India in the northeast. The state
has not yet forgotten Jawaharlal Nehru's words during India's war with China
in 1962 that "my heart goes to the people of Assam." Yet they have kept
their injured feelings aside to concentrate on development which they
realise they cannot have without the capital from the rest of India. Even
otherwise, ULFA has lost its substantial following after the repeated
declarations to create a sovereign state
which the Assamese do not like. The Assamese generally suspect that ULFA has
close connections with intelligence agencies of Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Manipur is primarily a victim of the army's excesses. The state also faces
the problem of tribals returning to their lands in the plains from where
they were evicted a few years ago. (Tripura could have faced the same
problem but the Bengali-speaking population which has migrated from
Bangladesh is in such a preponderant majority that others have no choice
except to accept the reality). Not long ago when I visited Manipur, I could
see the divide, the youth fuming with anger and discussing ways to retrieve
the land. Alienation between indigenous people and the outsiders has
resulted in clashes, even in large-scale killings.
However, the worst role is that of the army which is trying to maintain
peace. In the name of curbing militancy, it has killed many innocent. Seldom
anyone from the force has been hauled up because it enjoys immunity under
the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958. One woman activist, Sharmila,
has been on a hunger strike since the massacre of innocent civilians by army
personnel some time ago. The agitation is still going on. The army's powers
have not been curtailed, and they include shooting to kill, searching
property without the safeguards available in ordinary criminal law and
arbitrary detentions used to "maintain public order" based on the
"suspicion" of insurgent activity.
The central government appointed early last year a judicial commission
headed by a retired Supreme Court judge to assess whether the special powers
act was necessary and used for legitimate purposes. On both grounds, the
commission found the government wanting. It recommended the abolition of the
act. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promised to implement the commission's
findings. But probably the army has had the last word because the act has
stayed with its injurious fallout.
The Nagas, although a divided house between the ruling Nagas and hostile
underground Nagas are fired by the same ambition to have an independent Naga
state. Their argument is that they were never part of British India and
enjoyed an independent existence. New Delhi has been negotiating with the
main faction, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), headed by T
Muivah for the last few years. But the talks have not brought the government
and the NSCN any closer.

*Another problem*
The NSCN wants India to accept the sovereignty of Nagas with a joint defence
apparatus between them and the Indian army. The NSCN also wants greater
Nagaland, embracing the Naga population in Assam and Manipur. The government
has reportedly offered a special Kashmir-type status within the Indian
Union. The NSCN finds it "too little" but may come round to accept something
like that. The renewal of ceasefire which is almost a decade old hangs in a
balance. If not renewed, the army will have another problem on their hands:
the hostile Nagas apart from ULFA.
What is, however, peculiar to the Nagaland and the rest of states in the
northeast are that people elect their governments every five years and the
voting percentage is around 60. Had there been a strong feeling of
separation there would have been boycott of election or some other way to
register their protest against the present system.
It appears that people in the region ride two boats at the same time:
raising their demand for autonomy and staking their claim to power through
elections. The government is not unduly bothered so long as there is no
ULFA-like disturbance.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://assamnet.org/pipermail/assam_assamnet.org/attachments/20070207/b2877486/attachment.html