Author:  Suhas Chakma
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: August 27, 2012
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/item/52291-minorities-commission-trivialises-the-conflict.html 

The panel hyped up communal tensions at a time when the local and the national Press and the State authorities had consciously tried to keep religion out of the confrontation. Worse, panel members made irresponsible remarks

The exodus of about 20,000 Indian citizens from various parts of the country to their homeland in the North-East and the failure of the Government of India to book the rumour-mongers will remain as shameful episodes for those who value the bonding between India and its citizens who are of Tibeto-Mongoloid origin. This exodus will have the same place in history as Nehru’s famous farewell speech once the Chinese captured most parts of Assam in 1962. The exodus is reminiscent of the flight of Indians from Uganda following a diktat of Idi Amin in the 1970s. But the Indian state remains a mute witness. At every stage, authorities across the country have failed to respond with the alacrity that is needed and the silent exodus continues unabated, off and on.

Following the riots, the All India United Democratic Front left no stone unturned to portray the local conflict as a communal one. The politicians who visited Assam conveyed the sentiment surmised by President Pranab Mukherjee. In his Independence Day address, President Mukherjee stated: “Our minorities need solace, understanding and protection from aggression.” The reference to the ‘minorities’ is obviously to the Muslims. Mr Mukherjee failed to note that the feeling of being in a ‘minority’ is all pervasive in Bodoland. The Bodos, who are about 35 per cent of the population, feel they are the minority, while the AIDUF has been demanding dissolution of the Bodoland Territorial Council. The Adivasis and the Koch Rajbongsh too have the same feeling of being minorities. The Assamese and the Hindus also feel that they are in a minority. But the statement of Mr Mukherjee officially confirmed that only Muslims were the victims of aggression. This was a sure way to raise anger amongst the radical Muslims against the people of the North-East.

As the exodus of people from the North-eastern region increased from the southern States following the attacks in Pune and a very violent protest in Mumbai, the National Commission for Minorities released its report on August 16, 2012, with the conclusion that “the conflict was unequal because the Bodos had left-over arms from the Bodo Liberation Tigers (AK47 etc). The Muslims are very poorly armed in comparison. There can be grave danger in future in case militant jhadi outfits from the rest of the country start supplying lethal weapons in this area.” The NCM was hyping communal tensions at a time when the local and the national Press and the State authorities have consciously not been exposing the religion of those killed or displaced in an attempt to contain communal tension.

The NCM has failed to respect its mandate, which is the protection of religious minorities only — Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Zoroastrians (Parsis) and Jains. Under the National Commission for Minorities Act, only religious minorities are recognised. At least 15 per cent of the Bodos are Christians and, therefore, these Bodos would fall within the ambit of the NCM. The NCM instead has chosen to club all the Bodos together while describing the Muslims as ‘minorities’. This extrapolation of ‘ethnic minorities’ not defined under the NCM Act is legally untenable. If the NCM were to extrapolate ‘ethnic or linguistic minorities’ beyond its legal mandate, it should have examined the plight of the Koch Rajbongshis and Adivasis, with the latter being divided into various ethnic groups, faiths and languages. This is not mere semantic, as the Bodos have been asking as to what was being done by the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes that is supposed to protect the rights of the Scheduled Tribes — the Bodos. Again, it is not an easy task for the NCST as the Adivasis are recognised as Scheduled Tribes elsewhere except in Assam. The NCM has over-simplified a very complex local issue and acted irresponsibly on the matter.

There is no doubt that the recent conflict is not only directly related to illegal immigration from Bangladesh. If illegal immigration had been the sole cause for the violence, there would not have been any riot between the Bodos and the Adivasis who were taken as tea plantation workers as early as the 19th century. The local tensions over land and dominance by different communities often erupt into major riots. A minor clash between the New Year revellers belonging to Rabha and Garo communities on the night of December 31, 2010, engulfed Assam and Meghalaya borders into flames and 50,000 people were reduced to destitute overnight. There were a series of events in the current conflict that the State failed to respond.

This does not in any way mean that the problem of illegal immigration does not exist or that it is a trivial issue just because the BJP and the Sangh Parivar have raised it. Mr Mukherjee too joined this bandwagon and called for a revisit of the Assam Accord when nobody knows better than him that illegal immigration remains the most contentious issue in the North-East.