Delhi fiddles while the northeast burns
Tarun Vijay
September 07, 2007
Visiting Nagaland makes you feel different. You have to procure an inner line
permit to enter. The permit demands to know why I am going there, where I shall
stay and to be sure about my credentials I needed a guaranteer to vouch for me,
my safe conduct and return within the stated period. Issued by the deputy
commissioner' s office this permit is governed under the Bengal Eastern
Frontier Regulation Act 1873. Yes, 1873.
The British left India in 1947. We are celebrating the 60th anniversary of that
freedom obtained after our motherland's division and the massacres that
followed. Still, I needed a permit, something that the British began to isolate
these regions in the name of 'protecting' the local indigenous people. The same
procedure is also in vogue in Arunachal Pradesh.
So, we, legitimate Indians, are required to obtain a permit -- another name for
a 'visa' -- but these states are reeling under the heat of illegal Muslim
infiltrators from Bangladesh, who, obviously do not need to get an permit to
enter, buy land, marry local girls and become so dominant that even the state
authorities feel afraid to oust them.
Arunachal Pradesh's student bodies recently compelled Chief Minister Dorjee
Khandu to take action against the Bangladeshis. So what did he do? He pushed a
couple of thousands to Assam and the matter ended. In Assam it created a
furore. The Muslim bodies, specially the All Assam Minorities Students Union,
threatened to oust Hindus from Muslim majority districts like Dhubri, Goalpara
and Barpeta, so Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi 'certified' that all those
ousted by the Arunachal Pradesh government are Assamese and shall be
accommodated in Barpeta!
The situation is so serious and Delhi's apathy so mindboggling that the people
have lost all hope. The All Assam Students Union, which spearheaded an
unprecedented movement in the 1980s to oust Bangladeshi infiltrators, has in
utter desperation said that in the next ten years Assam may have a Bangladeshi
chief minister. Strong and alarming words indeed. But neither the media nor the
political parties paid any attention.
Assam has been transformed beyond recognition. The state's cultural identity is
symbolised by the great reformer and rejuvenator Srimat Sankar Dev. His
birthlace in Dhing, near Bardowa, is a must-visit pilgrim centre for every
Assamese Hindu. Now the Dhing assembly constituency has 90.02 percent Muslims.
No prizes to guess how this Hindu pilgrim centre became a Muslim majority town
because of the Bangladeshi influx.
Assam's latest political star is Maulana Badruddin Ajmal, a perfume tycoon, who
formed a new political party, the United Democratic Front, in 2005 and won 10
seats in the 2006 assembly election, surprising everyone. Previously he used to
remote control other secular parties. Now he has taken the reins in his hands.
Assam and other northeastern states have become more volatile than Kashmir, but
Delhi's page three media and corrupt polity don't see beyond their immediate
concerns.
After Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, it is Nagaland's turn now. Bangladeshi
jihadi factories supplying men and material are creating havoc from Itanagar to
Kohima and Hyderabad. They are there before everybody's eyes, yet no government
has shown a steely resolve to identify them and send them back. Aliens are
turned into voters for political gain. The lines dividing traitors and patriots
are getting blurred. Patriotic people need permits, they are made to live a
refugee's life, but aliens feel quite confident and vocal to aggressively enter
our country, bomb it and yet find sympathies in the corridors of power.
In Nagaland, people are sandwiched between the insurgent groups and the
Bangladeshi influx. The headquarters of the National Socialist Council of
Nagaland (Issac-Muivah group) is in Hebron, 30 odd kilometres from Dimapur.
Everywhere, while going to Kohima one can see posters demanding 'quick results
of peace talks' and a greater Nagalim which they want in the name of Christ --
a separate independent country. According to government sources there are about
75,000 Bangladeshi Muslims in Nagaland today.
I had come to attend a seminar organised by a daring tribal organisation, the
Janajati Vikas Samiti, which had invited about 80 participants from the
northeastern states. Nagaland Home Minister Thenucho inaugurated the
conference. Former state secretary C M Chang headed the organising committee.
It was incredible to see so many tribal leaders engrossed in what can be termed
a free discussion on the problems Nagaland faces -- Bangladeshi infiltration
being the foremost.
Minister Thenucho was forthcoming and said this problem has to be seen as a
demographic invasion. 'The Naga people may be soon reduced to miserable
sufferers by these infiltrators, who may appear as an asset for providing cheap
labour and easily available hands for menial jobs. But look what they have done
elsewhere and there is no guarantee that they will not do the same here. Today
they work as labourers; tomorrow Nagas will have to work for them, if we do not
stand up and say no to them,' the minister said. He was serious.
The only problem is the Centre does not share their anxieties. Nothing that
binds Naga society with the rest of the country has ever been encouraged and
strengthened. Natwar Thakkar started his Gandhi ashram in Mokukchang but could
never expand his mission of spreading Gandhi's sublime thoughts beyond that.
To be in Kohima is still considered a matter of fear, pregnant with life and
death questions. There is no icon of India that can be seen here. In the early
1980s a Gandhi statue was installed in Kohima, only to be desecrated and
destroyed soon. 'Nagaland doesn't need any Indian's statue' was the decree
issued by the insurgents.
Almost everyone, from IAS officers to traders and teachers, have to cough up a
part of their earnings to the insurgents. Their 'freedom days', 'republic days'
are celebrated in full public view with the media from Kolkata and Delhi in
attendance. Presently there is a ceasefire between the NSCN (IM) and the Indian
Army, but rumours are afloat that this period has been better utilised by the
insurgents to reinforce its battalions with new recruits, procure better
weapons and resources to press for its demand for an 'independent 'Nagalim',
which seeks to 'add' parts of Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh to its fold.
This has enraged Manipuri and Arunachali tribals and a tribal war cannot be
ruled out if the Naga insurgents' demand is given any sympathy.
The press is lively but cocooned in its own world. "We have never been invited
to join any prime minister's party on his foreign visits, Delhi and Kolkata
papers reach us very late, after a day or two, that too the dak edition,' said
Geoffrey Yaden, editor of the Nagaland Post, the main daily newspaper in the
state. "They don't understand us properly, they write to please their egos.
Nobody has the time and interest to understand our people or to make serious
efforts to create bridges and strengthen national feelings here. Are
politicians sitting in Delhi are bothered about us or the nation?" he lamented.
I know it is very difficult to have a Delhi leader or social activist or
cultural tsar to find time for a northeast visit. How many of us would go to
Manipur or Nagaland or Arunachal for a family trip? Do we know that the most
scintillating lakes, mountains, rivers and forests are in the northeast,
bettering even Kashmir's panorama? Unfortunately the northeast has yet to
register in our minds as markedly as Hardwar, Manali, Goa [Images] or
Rameshwaram.
Corruption to the northeast's politicians is 'taught' by politicians in New
Delhi. Even to get a central grant released for these states, central ministers
and their durbaris have to be suitably 'pleased'. The grants that go to the
northeast finally come back in large parts to the Delhi durbar through traders,
contractors, commission agents and sanctioning ministers. The rest is divided
amongst local 'beneficiaries' , including the insurgents.
In view of the infiltration threat faced by Nagaland and other northeastern
states, an observation by E Ramamohan, the former director general, Border
Security Force, who was with me in Kohima, should be an eyeopener. He warns
about the insurgent groups' long-term planning for 2015 -- "Today there are
several Islamic fundamentalist insurgent groups in Assam, all created with the
help of the Director General Forces Intelligence of Bangladesh and Pakistan's
Inter Services Intelligence. The main groups are the Muslim United Liberation
Front of Assam, the Muslim United Tigers of Assam and the Islamic Liberation
Army of Assam... what is most interesting that these Islamic fundamentalist
groups have not started operations so far. Interrogations of the suspects and
intelligence reports have revealed that they are in a preparation phase.
Motivating and recruiting cadres, training them in Pakistan, stockpiling arms
and explosives for the insurgency is their present strategy. The
target is (to launch an assault) in 2015."
Why can't we understand that India shrinks from every inch that is occupied by
Bangladeshi infiltrators in our territory? In less than 100 years India has
shrunk like no other nation on earth.
We lost Taxila, Karachi, Dhaka. Post independence, we lost 1.25 lakh square
kilometres of land to Pakistan and China. Beijing [Images] still eyes Arunachal
Pradesh.
Then Indians lost lands and homes in the Kashmir valley and became refugees for
the 'sin' of supporting India. Now, jihadis, Maoists and church-supported
insurgents want their share. Where will this all lead to? All the power,
position, money and glitter weigh nothing before the question of the nation's
sovereignty and territorial integrity. At least in the northeast, people feel
nobody listens to their woes in Delhi.
Regards,
Vijayan MJ
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