How does Bangladesh figure in India's Look East Policy?

By Wahiduddin Mahmud

India is looking for new economic frontiers in the East. In the face of continuing stalemate of WTO negotiations, countries are looking for alternative or parallel arrangements. The past decade has seen the flourishing of many such initiatives. As an emerging global economic powerhouse, India would obviously not like to be left behind.

There is the American-led 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in which neither India nor China plays any part; but both the countries as well as Japan are involved in the ASEAN-led 16-country parallel initiative called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RECEP). The outcome of these initiatives will depend on factors that go much beyond the nuts and bolts of trade into the realm of geopolitics.  It thus makes sense that India is looking for alternative routes to link with the ASEAN, which is currently the focus of India's so-called Look East policy.

But while pursuing the big ideas of economic partnerships, it would be a folly for India to lose sight of what can be achieved nearer at home. To start with, one could argue that India's Look East policy needs to look first within its own borders, so that its east and north-eastern parts can both be a vehicle and a beneficiary of the policy. Connectivity and economic integration with Bangladesh becomes important in that context. Consider this fact: most of the 30 border districts of Bangladesh – out of a total of 64 districts -- are among the most economically disadvantaged areas of the country. The Indian districts bordering Bangladesh are similarly lagging behind. Clearly, the cross-border economic synergies due to geographical proximity are not being fully exploited.

The potential of turning geography to economic advantage is obvious. This sub-region provides the land corridors for connecting India to East Asia, such as through the proposed trans-Asian road and train links. But beyond that, the connectivity is also important for providing access to seaports. The hinterland of Kolkata and Chittagong ports can extend beyond Nepal, Bhutan and the seven sister states of northeast India to large parts of inland China. As China's manufactures move inward, it is exploring backdoor routes, such as reviving the old Silk Route and looking for new ones. That is why Bangladesh in particular would like to see the success of the initiative called BCIM-EC, the acronym for Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar economic corridor.

There has been much talk about transit facilities for Indian goods through Bangladesh. The issue has been narrowly focused in terms of transit of goods only and not as part of sub-regional economic integration through which a number of things can happen. For example, supply chains can be developed to use the resources of the Indian north-eastern states by setting up labour-intensive processing industries in Bangladesh – say, by Indian investors – and exporting the products worldwide through Chittagong port or to the rest of India. These may not be as big ideas as India's current Look East policy in terms of priority of the Indian policymakers at the centre; but the potential economic dividends can be high for Bangladesh and the North-eastern states of Bangladesh.

The sub-regional integration can also benefit Kolkata –a city that has not clearly lived up to its full economic potential, mainly because of its remoteness from the major Indian economic hubs.
For the same reasons, the South Asia Growth Quadrangle (SAGQ) comprising Bangladesh, eastern India, Bhutan, and Nepal deserves more attention and should be part of India's Look East policy. The region, compared to SAARC, enjoys geographical proximity, economic complementarities, and socio-cultural similarities favouring greater economic integration. Previous studies have concluded that power trading within the SAGQ sub-region would confer major benefits on all four countries.

Realising that potential of economic integration will need huge investments in infrastructure. Scarcity of land in Bangladesh and the governance problem of implementing large projects are additional hurdles.  The newly created Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) initiated by China has immense developmental promise for infrastructure development in Asia, particularly by bringing together the two Asian giants, China and India, and by providing China an institutional mechanism to deploy its large pool of accumulated reserves.

The main economic logic of India's Look East policy lies in the fact that South Asia generally has been left behind in the race to integrate into global supply chains, which is a particularly dynamic segment of world trade. India has seen an upsurge of its trade with some of the south-east Asian countries after it implemented the free-trade agreement with the ASEAN in 2010. The question remains whether there will be similar enthusiasm in India for fostering comprehensive regional economic integration with its immediate north-eastern neighbours.

The writer is Chairman, South Asia Network of Economic Research Institutes.
(Extracts from the speech delivered at the “Kolkata Dialogue” of the Look East Economic Summit organised by Indian Chamber of Commerce in Kolkata, January 9, 2015.)

Mizoram: Unsettled Peace

By M. A. Athul

The 20-year long insurgency in Mizoram (1966-86), led by the Mizo National Front (MNF) was resolved as far back as in 1986, and the State has, since, been at peace in terms of that stream of insurgency.

Nevertheless, the ethnic polarization and tensions provoked by the MNF insurgency continue to trigger occasional violence linked to a range of other armed groups, some of them located in and operating from neighbouring States.

On February 2, 2015, suspected armed militants of National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and Bru Democratic Front of Mizoram (BDFM) abducted 22 people from an area close to the Indo-Bangladesh border in Mamit District of Mizoram. Sources disclosed that around 10 militants armed with sophisticated weapons later released 20 of them, while holding back two hostages - Hokum Singh and Mohammad Buizul Islam. The hostages are employees of the Border Roads Task Force (BRTF).

On February 1, 2015, the Mizoram Police and Assam Rifles, in a joint operation, arrested two arms dealers from Vanzau village in Champhai District near the Indo-Myanmar border. One M2 carbine along with two magazines and a 9mm pistol along with a magazine were seized.

These incidents reflect the continuance existence of forces, though miniscule, inimical to enduring peace achieved in the State. Mizoram boasts of being the most peaceful state in the entire North-eastern region, barring Sikkim which has never witnessed any insurgency in its history.

According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) database, Mizoram has recorded at least 46 insurgency-related fatalities since 1997, including 15 civilians, 22 Security Force (SF) personnel and nine militants. The trend of low to zero fatalities recorded after 2007 continues, with no fatalities in 2013, and two in 2014. On October 15, bodies of two non-tribals, suspected to be those of a truck driver and his helper, both believed to be from the Kamrup District in Assam, were recovered from Tuikhurhlu in Aizawl District. No further detail is available in this regard.

The State had last registered an insurgency-related fatality in 2011, that too of a civilian, when a member of the Bru community was shot dead by suspected United Democratic Liberation Army (UDLA) militants at Thinglian village of Kolasib District on July 17, 2011.

Other parameters of violence like explosions, arsons, abductions-for-extortion, also registered a marginal increase through 2014, as against the preceding year.

Three explosions were recorded in 2014, as against none in 2013. In one such incident, on January 30, 2014, an explosion took place near the State Assembly Secretariat in Aizawl, the State Capital. On February 20, 2014, an explosion took place at Borabazar area in Aizawl city. Again, on August 1, 2014, an explosion took place near the residence of Mizoram Parliamentary Secretary for Home in Mission Veng locality in Aizawl. No casualties were reported in any of the three explosions, though damage to property did occur.

Meanwhile, two instances of abduction were reported through 2014. On June 14, 2014, three traders and their driver were abducted by NLFT militants from Phaileng village in Mamit District. Subsequently, on October 10, 2014, suspected NLFT militants abducted 15 persons from Amchurmukh, near Rajivnagar, in Mamit District. Four of them were released on the same day. The remaining 11 persons were released on November 7, 2014. Initially a ransom amount of INR 3 million was demanded by abductors, which was later reduced to INR 1.1 million. It is not clear if the ransom was paid or not.

In 2013, two incidents of abduction had been reported.

Apart from the Tripura-based NLFT, the Hmar People's Convention-Democracy (HPC-D), a group demanding self-government in the north and northeast of Mizoram, remains active in the State. Significantly, on February 21, 2014, Mizoram Police confirmed the arrest of five suspected HPC-D militants from Parvachawm area in Churachandpur District of Manipur for their involvement in the explosion near the State Assembly Secretariat on January 30, 2014. On November 10, 2014, the Border Security Force (BSF) stated, "At least 55 camps of northeast India militants are still functional in different parts of Bangladesh and opposite to Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Assam's borders with Bangladesh." Mizoram faces a residual threat from such groups.

The unresolved challenges of the State were compounded by the continuing activity of arms smugglers who use Mizoram as a transit point. According to SATP data, at least four incidents of recovery of arms and seven arrests of persons engaged in such traffic, occurred through 2014, as against two such incidents and four arrests in 2013. In one such incident on November 6, 2014, Mizoram Police recovered 19,300 detonators from two suspects, from the border village of Zokhawthar in Champai District. On further investigation another suspect was arrested from an unspecified location on November 6, 2014.

Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) racketeers have also been using the State as a transit point. In 2014, at least two incidents of recovery of FICN were reported as against none in 2013. In one such incident on October 4, 2014, BSF and Police recovered FICN worth INR 184,000 in the denomination of INR 1,000 at Tlabung Market in the Demagiri area of Lunglei District and arrested two suspects, Chandalay Chakma and Taranga Mohan Chakma. Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of BSF [Mizoram and Cachar Frontier], Satish Budakoti, stated that FICN was brought from Bangladesh to Demagiri in order to take them to the interior areas. On December 1, 2014, Dinesh Kumar Upadhyaya, Inspector General, BSF, stated that BSF's Mizoram and Cachar Frontier units recovered FICN worth of INR 513,000 in 2014.

Ethnic strife between Bru tribals and Mizos continues to simmer, occasionally manifesting in violence. In one such instance, on January 14, 2014, at least 2,423 Bru tribals from at least three villages in Mamit District fled to Tripura, after the Mizo Zirlai Pawl (MZP, Mizo Students' Association), a powerful student body, started a mass 'voluntary search operation'. After the exodus, the Mizoram administration agreed to provide security to Bru families in the western part of Mizoram to prevent more Brus from leaving.

Further, the repatriation of Bru refugees, who had been sheltered in Tripura since 1997, resumed in 2014. On January 30, 2015, Mizoram Home Minister R. Lalzirliana stated that the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had agreed to organise a final six-month repatriation process for internally-displaced Bru tribals, after which all those who do not return home from Tripura would be removed from Mizoram's electoral rolls and further relief to them would also be stopped. Official records show that almost 4,000 Bru families, who have voting rights in Mizoram, continue to live in the relief camps in Tripura. It has also been decided that, in the interim, Tripura, where many of displaced Brus live in six relief camps, would improve living conditions there and double the current financial aid allotted to each displaced Bru tribal.

Meanwhile, the law and order situation in the State gives serious cause for concern. Significantly, the rate of crimes registered under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in 2013 stood at 165.6 per 100,000 population, much higher, for instance, than in the insurgency-afflicted states of Manipur (126.3), Meghalaya (121.1) and Nagaland (52.6), according to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) Data. NCRB data also showed that Mizoram, with a tiny population of 1.016 million, recorded 27 murder cases, 19 cases of attempt to murder and 89 cases of rape during 2013. Though NCRB data for 2014 is yet to be published, the Crime Branch of the State Criminal Investigation Department disclosed that Police Stations and outposts across Mizoram registered 45 murder cases, 23 cases of attempt to murder and 125 cases of rape through 2014.

A crisis of drug use also afflicts the State. Mizoram has one of the highest reported incidence of Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in India, with at least 4,169 Human Immuno Deficiency Virus/ (HIV)/AIDS infected people. Recent studies have shown that almost one third (31.8 per cent) of HIV infections in Mizoram are among injecting drug users. According to Mizoram's Excise & Narcotics Department (END), as against 36 drug related deaths in 2013, year 2014 recorded 38 deaths. In fact, an August 20, 2013, report noted that, in a span of two decades, from 1984 till August 7, 2013, Mizoram recorded 1,241 drug-related deaths. The drug which caused the maximum damage was Proxyvon/Parvon Spas. In 2014, END officials seized 10,289 capsules of Proxyvon and 18,874 capsules of Parvon Spas, adding to the seizure of 2,440 Proxyvon capsules and 2,87,923 capsules of Parvon Spas in 2013. It is useful to note that insurgents in the Northeast have long used drug money to arm and fund their operations.

Mizoram with its literacy rate of 91.91 per cent, well above the national average of 74.04 per cent, has the potential to be the powerhouse of development in the region. It has a vast potential for energy production, including a hydroelectric power potential of 4,500 MW, of which just 0.7 per cent has yet been harnessed. Governance and administration remains abysmal, and a virtual 'dole economy', overwhelmingly financed by the Centre, continues to exist. More than 28 years after the end of a virulent insurgency in the State, there is still little evidence of the promised 'peace dividend' in terms of any dramatic development in the State.


The writer is a Research Assistant at Institute for Conflict Management

Beyond The Oath

YAMBEM LABA REPORTS ON THE GOINGS-ON AT THE REGIONAL INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL SCIENCES, IMPHAL, WHICH RESULTED IN THE BOMBSHELL DROPPED BY THE CENTRE

A visit to the director’s office at the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences in Imphal is akin to visiting an ultra high security zone. You go past unarmed guards provided by an agency and then you enter a fortified area complete with sandbagged posts manned by the CRPF wielding automatic weapons. Past that you are greeted with signs that read “Visitors not allowed beyond this point” and then you get to the ante room and find Manipur Rifles personnel armed with AK-47s — the personal security detail of the director. The aura of the institute being an advanced centre for medical sciences seems to have been lost somehow.

It is now a premier centre for medical sciences and draws students from across the North-east region save Assam. It celebrated its 43rd foundation day on 14 September and has so far produced 2,904 doctors and 1,053 specialist doctors. Today it has 418 undergraduate students, 414 postgraduate students, 161 BSc nursing students and 95 pursuing a degree in dentistry on its rolls. It also has 24 different departments dealing in subjects as diverse as anatomy and otorhinolaryngology and provides service and care to patients who flock to fill the 1,071 beds available. Last year, it catered to 43,317 in-house patients while another 299,178 were treated as outdoor patients.

Initially, it began as the Regional Medical College funded by the North Eastern Council but was converted into a Centrally managed institute under the Union ministry of health and family welfare in 2007 with a board of governors headed by the Union health minister as chairman and the Manipur chief minister as vice-chairman. Its executive council is headed by the Union health secretary as chairman and its director as member secretary. With such a vast infrastructure and an even more impressive management set-up, one would be coerced into thinking that all is and has to be well with its affairs. On 14 September 2010, Professor S Sekharjit Singh was appointed its director of by the UPA-II set-up in Delhi.

Then on 25 August the bombshell arrived from Delhi in the form of an order signed by a deputy secretary in the Union health and family welfare ministry which stripped Sekharjit Singh of his post and Professor Chongtham Arun Singh of the Department of Orthopaedics was asked to take charge as director until further orders. The drama began unfolding bit by bit, revealing murky business at the Rims where Singh and his caucus functioned much beyond the Hippocratic oath. First, he refused to recognise the Centre’s order stating that a director cannot be removed just like that and he bolted his door and bolted. The Centre then advised Dr Arun Singh to take police help, break open the door and assume charge, which he did the next day. Sekharjit Singh then attempted to take the help of the judiciary and moved Manipur High Court, but Justice N Koteshwor turned down his appeal for a stay on the dismissal order. Then he, accompanied by his son and daughter, both medical doctors, left the state and has not been heard of since.

In the meantime, the CBI had earlier registered a case against Sekharjit Singh on charges of corruption relating to irregularities in the purchase of dental chairs and other misappropriations. On 23 May this year, the CBI furnished the FIR copy to the District and Sessions Judge, Manipur East, and earlier it had also earlier registered a case against Dr L Fimate,  Sekharjit Singh’s predecessor.

Then the CBI, which hitherto in Manipur had only been dealing in murder cases, decided to go a step further and raided the official quarters of Sekharjit Singh and nine other places, including his wife’s and daughter’s houses. The seized items included documents, laptops and computers that were said to have revealed a wealth of information but the most damning of all seems to be a letter alleged to have been written by Sekharjit Singh’s  wife to the president of Manipur’s BJP unit asking him to return the Rs 1 crore paid earlier to forestall the impeachment move and the CBI raids. This amount seems to be a pittance for a man said to be owning three houses in Manipur and others in Guwahati, Kolkata, New Delhi and Bangalore and is said to have paid Rs 4 crore to the personal assistant of then Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad for his appointment as Rims director.

But what Sekharjit Singh did goes much beyond the records on the CBI files. For instance, he recruited 121 nurses against 71 sanctioned and advertised posts. The bribe fee was said to have hovered around Rs 15 lakh each for the first 71 and Rs 25 lakh apiece for the remaining 40. And although he tried to get post facto sanction for the 40 seats from the executive council, he failed but they continue to be on the rolls and received salaries till date. He also managed to turn the Rims into a hotbed of corrupt contractors, most of them said to be relatives of his wife.

He went on a spree of digging drains and constructing walls all around and even stripped the wooden planks of the Gymkhana, paved it with cement and again installed teak flooring — all on contract. He also decreased the retirement age of the heads of departments from 65 to 62 years to enable his wife to head the department of anatomy.

When the Nursing College was established, he appointed her principal and when protests arose he made her the advisor of the college, overriding the principal. What was shocking was the manner in which he treated 47 men and women hired as daily wage workers who were being paid a paltry Rs 3,000 a month. The women were utilised by his wife as domestic help and have not been paid for the last five months while their salaries had been withdrawn. And often it was his wife, referred to as “Madam”, who would dole out their salaries at her residence — not in cash but in the form of Amway products for which she is today a platinum card holder agent.

According to Chongtham Bijoy Singh, who resides in the village adjoining Rims and had spent the last three years chronicling Sekharjit Singh’s misdeeds, the man was trying to behave as a despot and his wife, Damayanti, acted as if she was a reincarnate of Imelda Marcos.

Professor Chongtham Arun Singh acknowledged to The Statesman the public perception of Rims being in the centrestage of corruption and added that while he did not know how long he would be holding the office, he pledged to bring about transparency in all spheres of life at Rims, which, he hoped, would mitigate the apprehension of the public in days to come. For now, his morning walks have been rendered impossible because of the bevy of security guards detailed for his protection.

The writer is based in Imphal

India’s Gateway To The East

By G PARTHASARATHY

Given the shared heritage, there’s tremendous potential for New Delhi to push its economic interests with Yangon

In the minds of New Delhi’s elite, India’s South Asian neighbourhood is made up solely of the seven members of Saarc, even though we share no land borders with three of them. We tend to forget that four of our north-eastern States — Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram — share a 1640 km land border with Myanmar. Not only is Myanmar a member of Bimstec, the Bay of Bengal grouping linking Saarc and Asean, it is also our gateway to the fast growing economies of East and Southeast Asia.

While successive leaders of Myanmar, who are devout Buddhists, have looked upon India predominantly in spiritual terms, as the home of Lord Buddha, they recognise that an economically vibrant India provides a balance to an increasingly assertive China. Sadly, we have not been able to take full advantage of either our shared Buddhist heritage by facilitating increased pilgrimages, or used our economic potential effectively to promote our interests.
Changing situation

Ties between India and Myanmar have quietly blossomed over the past two decades. The respective militaries and security agencies of the two countries have facilitated cooperation across the border. This has led to effective action against cross-border insurgencies and narcotics smuggling. Myanmar’s information minister recently reiterated his government’s readiness to crack down on Indian insurgent groups such as the ULFA (Assam), PLA (Manipur) and NSCN-K (Nagaland). India, in turn, has acted firmly against Myanmar insurgents entering its territory.

Myanmar has moved steadily in easing the rigours of military rule since the elections that swept President Thein Sein to power in 2011. The military still has a crucial role in national life, as negotiations are on to achieve a comprehensive ceasefire with 16 well-armed insurgent groups drawn from ethnic non-Burmese minorities. This is no easy task, but is a prelude to negotiations on the highly sensitive issue of federalism and provincial autonomy for ethnic minority areas.

After years of bonhomie during military rule, Myanmar’s relationship with its largest neighbour China is under strain. China’s Yunnan province borders the sensitive and insurgency-ridden Kachin and Shan states in Myanmar.
The China factor

China has helped significantly in building Myanmar’s infrastructure and equipping its military. India’s fears of Chinese bases in Myanmar were not borne out. But differences between China and Myanmar have grown recently, especially on large projects like the Myistone dam, which had to be junked, and a proposed railway line to connect Yunnan to the Bay of Bengal. There is growing opposition to Chinese projects in copper and nickel mining. The sentiment is that China has taken Myanmar for a ride regarding an oil pipeline linking Yunnan to the Bay of Bengal port of Kyaukphu.

There are concerns over Chinese involvement with insurgent groups such as the Kachin Independence Army and the United Wa Army. Despite this, border trade across the Yunnan-Myanmar border is booming, reaching $4.17 billion in 2013, against a mere $35 million border trade across the India-Myanmar border, though the “unofficial trade” (smuggling) across this border is estimated at around $300 million annually.

India’s former Ambassador to Myanmar VS Seshadri has authored a report spelling out how India has been tardy in building connectivity through Myanmar to Thailand and Vietnam and securing access for our landlocked north-eastern States to the Bay of Bengal. Our border trade regulations are formulated by mandarins in North Block and Udyog Bhavan who have no idea of the ground situation. They could learn a thing or two from China’s pragmatism — the manner in which it treats the markets with its neighbours not as foreign, but as extensions of its own markets. Opening up such trade will also enable our north-eastern States to meet their growing requirements of rice at very competitive rates.

Unless we learn to look at our neighbours the way China does, bearing in mind the inherent strengths of our economy, we can never match the economic influence of China on our borders in the North-East. The new minister for north-eastern affairs VK Singh has served at length in the North-East. It is hoped he will liberalise procedures and permit trade across borders with Myanmar in currencies traders mutually agree upon. Vehicles should move freely across the borders on roads through Myanmar, to Thailand and Vietnam.

Moreover, the “Kaladan multimodal corridor” linking our north-eastern States through the port of Sittwe in Myanmar will be useful only if Sittwe becomes the key port for India-Myanmar trade. India has done remarkably well in human resource development projects in Myanmar. It has played the lead role in the establishment of the Myanmar Institute of Information Technology, an advanced centre for agricultural research and education, an agricultural university and welcomed many Myanmar professionals for training in its medical and engineering institutions.
Tardy record

But we would be less than honest if we did not admit that in project and investment cooperation, our record has been tardy. After having secured exploration rights for gas in the Bay of Bengal, we conducted our project planning and diplomacy so clumsily that we did not have a strategy ready for taking the gas to India through a pipeline across Myanmar and our North-East, or for transporting it as LNG. China deftly stepped in and took away all this gas by expeditiously building a pipeline to Yunnan province.

In the mid 1990s, Myanmar offered us hydro-electric projects with a potential of over 1,000 MW across rivers near our borders. We took years to scrutinise these projects, which companies in South Korea earlier offered to construct. After nearly two decades we backed off. Our private companies too not been able to avail offers of land for plantations across Myanmar.

India was offered hundreds of acres of land for agriculture and for bamboo plantations for making paper pulp, close to its borders. Two private sector companies signed MoUs with Myanmar counterparts. But Myanmar officials found our private sector to be more bureaucratic than our government. India lost access to huge bamboo resources which went to a Thai company that clinched a deal in weeks — something our companies could not achieve for nearly two decades.

The writer is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan

Running Like The Wind

By Sudipta Bhattacharjee

There is a jinx on Mizoram. Or rather, its picturesque Raj Bhavan. Why else would four people in a row opt out of its gubernatorial joys in a matter of weeks?

Situated in the heart of the state capital, Aizawl, the Raj Bhavan, more compact than its sprawling counterparts elsewhere in the region, was built in 1899. Since then, it has undergone structural changes, but continues to hold pride of place, surrounded by the secretariat and the legislative assembly on the northern side, Republic Veng (a civilian residential area) on the east and a small children’s park, maintained by the forest department, to the west. It is certainly not this panoramic campus that is making governor-designates resign in a hurry.

Shortly after the National Democratic Alliance came to power, there began a scramble for resignations by governors appointed during the United Progressive Alliance regime. B.L. Joshi (Uttar Pradesh), Shekhar Dutt (Chhattisgarh), M.K. Narayanan (West Bengal), B.V. Wanchoo (Goa), Ashwani Kumar (Nagaland), V. Purushothaman (Mizoram) and K. Sankaranarayanan (Maharashtra) set the trend, followed by Sheila Dikshit, who was appointed the governor of Kerala in March, just ahead of the Lok Sabha polls and months after losing power in Delhi.

When Purushothaman left Aizawl, Kamla Beniwal, who had a running battle with Narendra Modi when he was the Gujarat chief minister, was shifted from the western state to Mizoram. After the NDA government came to power, she was sacked her for ‘misuse of office’ and Sankaranarayanan was chosen. He publicly criticized the decision. “[The president] has all the powers to transfer a governor, but then I thought it is not convenient... I decided not to go to Mizoram,” he announced.

Big mystery

The next name to do the rounds was that of Sheila Dikshit. First she met the Union home minister, Rajnath Singh, and the president, Pranab Mukherjee, in Delhi on hearing the plans to transfer her to Mizoram, and said she would resign if the government took such a decision. Last week, Dikshit resigned, claiming: “I did what my heart said I should do.”

While Mizoram awaits a new entrant to grace its Raj Bhavan, the Union minister of state for home, Kiren Rijiju, has hit out at the governors who refused to be transferred to that state. Hailing from Arunachal Pradesh, he has taken the matter to heart. In a recent interview, he said: “It is a very emotive issue for me. When a person is posted to the Northeast and he refuses to go there, that person loses the moral authority to speak on equality in the country. If people like governors and IAS and IPS officers will only choose serving in metropolitan and comfortable cities, then they don’t deserve to be in their position.” He added that such people should “apologize to the nation and to the people of the Northeast.”

Postings in the region are often considered a ‘punishment’ because of problems of militancy, lack of infrastructure and facilities as well as the difficult terrain. But Mizoram has been an “oasis of peace” since 1986. It has an airport nestled amid blue hills, a fairly decent road network and a friendly people. Its Congress government is headed by a veteran leader, Lal Thanhawla, not known for crossing swords with the occupant of the Raj Bhavan. The state is culturally resplendent and unlike others in the region, dissidence, horse-trading and the juggling of chief ministers (situations when the governor galvanizes into action) is almost non-existent.

With no visible reason thus far to not accept the gubernatorial post, one wonders if the two historic wooden cannons, installed in 1979 at the gate of the Raj Bhavan, hold any clue to the mystery of the reluctant governor.

What Course Must India’s Rice Import Take?

By Tejinder Narang

Importing rice for Tripura and Mizoram doesn’t seem easy, but it is also a $450 million opportunity for trade.

For the first time, FCI is compelled to import rice for the north-eastern states of Tripura and Mizoram, owing to temporary interruption in railway lines rather than lack of availability of rice. Monthly consumption of these two states is 40,000-50,000 tonnes, or about half a million tonne per annum.

Indian Railways is commencing gauge conversion of a 220-km track from Assam to Agartala (Tripura) from October 1, 2014, while the highways in the region are in a shoddy state. Imports for the next two years—about 1 million tonnes—through alternative routes are a necessity rather than an option. Also, due to absence of trucking-worthy cross-border routes, imports may have to be diverted through the Chittagong port in Bangladesh.

The current cost of procuring Indian rice is R2,755 per quintal and despatch expenses are R3,200 per quintal to Tripura from north or south of India. It totals R59,550 per tonne, or about $975, as against the $375-385 per tonne landed value of 25% broken Myanmar rice if supplied through Yangon port to Chittagong. After accounting for unloading at Chittagong, transit storage, shortage, demurrage, road transport of about 200 km to Agartala, financing charges, etc, it should not cost more than $450-460 per tonne delivered at the FCI depot in Agartala. A 0.5 million tonne import will be approximated at about $225 million (R1,370 crore) per year versus the R2,977 crore incurred under local arrangements. The apparent cost saving is 55%. But it is going to be logistical and procedural nightmare to handle this import.

FCI is attempting to engage three PSUs (PEC, MMTC and STC) for this import while they are not well-versed with the scope of the work involved. Normally, these PSUs finalise bids, contracting and shipments to Indian shores, hand over grains to FCI and transfer payments to foreign suppliers. But, in this case, Indian PSUs may not be able to deal effectively with customs/phyto-authorities of Chittagong, handling agents and transporters of Bangladesh. Port authorities in Chittagong can delay berthing/discharging vessels for India-bound cargo due to their own local priorities. Trucks can be in short supply as a 25,000-tonne parcel requires 2,500 trucks (10 tonne per truck). Agreements by rice handling agents or transporters may be breached. Pilferages may be attempted both during storage and transit. Even Bangladesh’s own wheat imports have 2-3% short-landing as a routine occurrence, for which they deduct payments of shippers.

There is no government company in Myanmar that can transact 0.5-1 million tonnes of rice; private players of Myanmar lack export financing and are happy doing container business. Myanmar’s annual rice export is around 8,50,000 tonnes. China is currently a major importer of its rice. If India chips in with its annual demand of 5,00,000 tonnes, rice prices can witness steep rise. FCI may, therefore, include other origins like Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia for evaluation of bidding and provide an option to supply these origins if commercial feasibility from Myanmar is eroded.

Global rice traders who can participate in this import are based in Singapore, Dubai or Bangkok. But will they be ready to undertake comprehensive operation for shipping rice from Myanmar or elsewhere, clearance at Chittagong, and then arranging despatches to Tripura at “fixed cost” to FCI/PSUs? That alternative must be explored.

There are three options for the government. First, import through PSUs if they are prepared to perform totality of operation themselves by disbursing actual expenses incurred by them. Second, let PSUs configure the bidding process where the foreign suppliers takes the full obligation at a “fixed price” for origin at Myanmar or elsewhere, for delivery at Agartala and builds in the risk premium for Bangladesh while the PSUs disburse the amount to them in two stages. Third, FCI issues a global tender in which PSUs and other foreign sellers bid and compete for delivery at Tripura from any origin and any route at a fixed price. The assurance of Bangladesh giving transit facilities to the Indian government must form an integral part of the tender document. The second alternative may be more practical.

The combined business of about two years is about $450 million and its extension to third year cannot be ruled out. The quantum and pace of import tendering depends upon urgency at Tripura and commercial considerations. Will overseas rice traders see this as an opportunity?

The author is a grains trade expert.

Give Manipur its Life Back, And Irom Sharmila Her Freedom

By Shiv Visvanathan

Freedom fighter: Irom Sharmila is the most Gandhian figure of this generation

Often a phase, a body, a story of a person hangs like a question mark over a nation; stating things in a way which is unique.

When a young woman called Irom Sharmila decided to fast over a decade ago, the Indian state misread her acts.

They thought they would outlast her, out-think her, slander her, but every shed has a genius which can outwit a coercive state. Over 10 years, Irom Sharmila became a symbolic foil to Army rule, to a state which could not think beyond the Army for any act of policy.

Recently, the District and Sessions court Judge A. Guneswor Sharma ruled that Irom Sharmila could not be arrested because hers was not an act of suicide. Sharmila was fasting but she did not refuse forced feeding. The same judge released her only so that the state could arrest her again.

Normalcy

Reasons of state are more compulsive than reasons of humanity or judgment of law. A fragile woman threatened a nation state and the latter, like a Puglian dog does the predictable, re-arrests her before the people can sense her sense of freedom. Irom Sharmila is the most Gandhian figure of this generation. Like each Gandhian she is uniquely different. She does not weave, she does not spin, the only threats on her are the plastic tubes stuck into her. Her regimen is as rigorous as an ashram dweller, but her home is a hospitable bed guarded by security forces.

Yet there is a joy and laughter no security force can suppress. She openly claims that she is no martyr, no fundamentalist, dying to sacrifice her life, for her life is too precious for that. She wants AFSPA to end so she can marry the man she loves, engage in ordinary things which can make life so meaningful.

She claims she just wants to return to the normalcy of living and refuses to be a monument or a statue to some cause. All she is saying, simply like Simone Weil in Manipur, is: "I have no right to enjoy life when that normalcy, that dream of walking and living without constraint or fear is not available to my people."

She is right. AFSPA is a draconian band against normalcy, a way of freezing life, at 4pm. So that the Army and insurgence can take over Manipur by 6. At 4 you can sense the tension, shops start shutting down, watch woman packing the bundles because the streets have to be deserted at six. This is the obscenity Irom is protesting.

Once you unleash an Army against your own people , the Army gets brutalised and citizens become more vulnerable, democracy dies a ritual death every day, and Delhi does not even give it a footnote as it is obsessed with security. What we have here is an apolitical impasse between an Army that will not risk its soldiers without AFSPA, which gives the demonic powers, and a woman who claims that a people deserve the normalcy of life, livelihood and living.

Over 10 years since her fast began, the struggle of Irom Sharmila reflects a deep need for change in Manipur

One has to go beyond the frozen script. Politics needs the humility to admit it has emasculated the lives of people, not only torturing innocence but destroying the innocence of Manipur. To re-arrest her is the knee-jerk act of a knee-jerk society. India as a society and the BJP as a new regime has to realise first that AFSPA is not the only solution and secondly, it distances other solutions.

Tyranny as order is not an act of problem-solving and sensitive judges and intelligent officers have realised this. I am not quoting seditious documents but reading from the Justice Jeevan Reddy report which needs a second look and time-bound application.

We need peace, and we need to realise that the last thing India needs to do is to behave like Israel and Gaza strip. As a nation, we have to realise law and order is a loaded term. It can be insensitive for the security forces and yet it can also be a beginning of grumbling, but welcoming normalcy.

Today, AFSPA has almost become a frozen contract between the Army and insurgence to freeze politics. Irom's rearrest merely confirms this.

Let us realise that Narendra Modi cannot relate to SAARC till he renews the border areas in the North-east. The two cannot be isolated. To even think so is silly. This is a domain which will open further as a new railway line will be built across Manipur, all the way to Burma and Thailand.

Support

The government has to realise that it is not the middle class in Delhi that wants change. The people in Manipur also do. It needs the humanity which realises that the brutalisation of Manipuri students in South Delhi and devastation of the state may both come from the suppression of Manipur.

Many experts and Army officers will tell you over tea that, "these people are different. They don't understand democracy". Irom's fast is an answer to such illiteracy.

It is the simple wisdom of a woman telling the Army, telling the insurgence that there is a world of life and living beyond them. If that is sedition, let me call it the highest form of patriotism, a patriotism which is a toast to life and which is intensely life giving.

One realises that politics is the art of the possible. Army officers often confess that they can't send the bodies in without AFSPA. I realise that the Army is only the wing of the state. All Irom's fast is asking for is return to politics and to citizenship.

A continued state of emergency desecrates the society and democracy. And this we cannot allow. This is the content of her appeal. It's a prayer to return the normal everyday to Manipuri life.

The writer is a social science nomad

Cowards Against The Brave

By Garga Chatterjee

It is not accidental that there are four lions staring down at anyone who might take the Satyamev at face value.


 

Certain truths are always hidden from public attention. Hence, beyond the affected victims, they do not form a part of public memory. In the year 1966, when the Indian Air Force was bombing large parts of Mizoram, including the present capital city of Aizawl, many Mizos were desperately trying to seek refuge to save their life. The sanitised term “collateral damage” was not in vogue back then.
Those were not the days of precision bombing. That there is no such thing called precision bombing even now is evident from Gaza to Baghdad, where those who claim precision in targeting undesirables provide a rich harvest of dead non-combatants.

When the Mizos were getting bombed with the kind of discrimination and precision using incendiary bombs that only an Air Force raised on Gandhian ideology can provide, many of the bombed people must have had a lot of thoughts rushing through their heads. It is my suspicion that some of thoughts were not exactly ones of affection towards the Union of India.

Legally, sedition involves incitement of disaffection towards the state. It is not entirely impossible that some Mizo fathers and mothers incited their daughters and sons to be disaffected towards the powers that were bombing them. And in doing so, they became serious criminals under the law of the Indian Union’s land.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi had famously proclaimed that affection for the state (the Union of India in the Mizo case) could not be manufactured or regulated by law. However it is quite possible to create a situation where the grandchildren of bombed people are made to turn out in smart saffron, white, and green uniforms for August 15 festivities in Aizawl.

School children under the watch of armed personnel seem to be a favourite setting for affection manufacturing activities. Smiling children. Happy nation. Waving flags. Zero sedition. No one is a bigger criminal than a state that uses its armed might against civilians it considers to be its own citizens. Incidentally, Mizoram shares a border with the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Some things don’t change – the name of the aggressor and the victim may change.

Like most black laws that an anxious nation-state uses to curb anything that tries to puncture its mythology and glorious creation story, the axe is typically used to shut up those who try to adhere to the official Hindustani slogan “Satyamev Jayate” (truth alone prevails). It is not accidental that there are four lions staring down at anyone who might want to take the Satyamev pronouncement at face value.

Very often, the lions go out to hunt in packs. Too many undesirable people, whose remains will never be found, know this well. That is how much of the instant justice for sedition is meted out. It is only when a relatively powerful person breaks the silence that the lions seem unsure what to do. They roar, but don’t bite.

Recently, there has been uproar against a member of the Indian Union parliament, and said member’s comments are said to have been “seditious.” Kalvakuntla Kavitha, a Telengana Rashtria Samithi member of parliament, allegedly said: “Jammu and Kashmir, and Telangana were both forcefully, and at the same time, annexed to the Indian Union. When I say I feel strongly, it’s because we were both separate countries, but were merged with the Indian Union after Independence. In 1947, we were not a part of India.”

Her father is the elected chief minister of Telengana, a newly established state whose contours resemble in a large way the Nizam of Hyderabad’s erstwhile dominion. Her father’s stature, her MP status, and the reading down of the sedition law in 1962 will ensure that no harm comes to her as far as the sedition case is concerned.

The hunted have always outnumbered the hunters, and anything that puts the focus back on the hunted expands liberty. There is no space for naiveté at the level of a parliamentarian, but even with its cynical calculation and political intent, whatever opening is provided, ought to be cherished and celebrated. Only rarely do the contradictions between the powerful come to the fore – when it comes to the origin myths of a nation-state like the Indian Union.

What is left unsaid in the slogan “truth alone prevails” is “when.” Does truth prevail by its own merit as if my magic, is it allowed to prevail strategically to earn points for openness so that more damaging truths can be suppressed?

Section 124(A) of the Indian penal code deals with sedition. Sedition is a law for the powerful against the powerless, of the anxious against the confident, of fiction against fact, of the rulebook against dreams, of the coward against the brave.

An anxious nation-state fears plebiscites. A humane state embraces the people’s will. People who expose origin myths as well as the crimes of the government under whose jurisdiction they live are typically targeted as seditious. They disrupt the long lullaby of the non-violent creation of India and Indians. To consider a nation-state and its political mythology holy is a slur to the sacred – the kind that predates all man-written books, laws, and constitutions.

We must all be fearful of lions because a beast that has tasted blood does not rest even when it is not in the jungle. The shrillness with which K Kavitha has been demonised only shows the weak and tense foundations of the India-making project. And she hasn’t even gone halfway down the path of the parliamentarian, the departed GG Swell, who showed bomb-covers in the Lok Sabha when patriotic tricoloured lions refused to own up to their aerial hunt in Mizoram. Lions love Section 124(A). As long as the hunter holds sway about the story of the hunt, sedition laws will remain. The browns are an unfortunate people.

Assam Sinks Into Anarchy

A NEW FORMAT NEEDS TO BE DEVELOPED IF BORDER DISPUTES IN THE region CAN NO LONGER BE RESOLVED BY OLD METHODS, SAYS PATRICIA MUKHIM


Any of the North-eastern states have been carved out of Assam, with which state Nagaland, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh have simmering border tensions. While Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh have been, and are at the receiving end of the Assam police in border skirmishes, the people of Nagaland along the borders of Merapani and Golaghat have defended their territory with a belligerence that is unprecedented. They are dismissive of the Assam police’s attempts to cramp their style. In fact, it is interesting to note that the Nagas have been able to inflict casualties on the neighbouring state on several occasions but the latest border flare-up has resulted in a huge toll for Assam.

The chief ministers of Assam and Nagaland, Tarun Gogoi and TR Zeliang,  were summoned to Delhi by the Union home ministry to discuss the matter. Union minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju has been told to sort things out between the two states. Now this is an interesting development. Gogoi is a senior Congress leader and was a Union cabinet minister at one time. That he should be summoned to the national capital and be told to speak to a junior minister could not have been music to his ears. Of late, Gogoi has been at the receiving end of public criticism after the inability of the state police to control mob violence, thereby leading to three unnecessary deaths.

Gogoi has not been on top of thing for some time now. Dissidence within the Congress and the government had gained ground and a leading cabinet minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, resigned in protest after the parliamentary elections when the Congress did poorly. The party high command, however, does not have the grit for any change of leadership in Assam at this juncture, since Gogoi is an old faithful while his bete noire, Biswa Sarma, is a young Turk whom the high command has not learnt to trust.

In any case, the Congress at this juncture is too burdened by its own existential dilemma. It has neither the time nor the inclination to mess up with Congress chief ministers. But this is precisely the problem with Assam. Gogoi is no longer the most popular leader who has the confidence of the public. The election of seven BJP members of Parliament out of 14 was a verdict against the Congress and the Gogoi government and its litany of failings. Barring the voters of Kaliabor, who opted for Gogoi’s son, Gaurav, the large majority of people have no more patience for a government that has evidently failed to provide governance.

Like every other politician in the party, Gogoi, too, is promoting dynastic politics. Gaurav Gogoi, a foreign returned heir to the Assam throne, had contested the parliamentary elections and won the seat despite the general poor performance of the Congress. He is very active on social media and, following his Facebook posts, one can gather that he is not exactly popular among his peers. They are seeking accountability from the father-son duo. They are fed up with the alibis trotted out by the chief minister each time there are incidents of killing and communal violence in Assam. The border skirmish with Nagaland is just one of the many problems Taun Gogoi is facing and it seems like he is a tired man who is fire-fighting on several fronts without trusted lieutenants who can take flak for the government. Add to this the fact that Biswa Sarma could be using his clout to create problems for Gogoi on different fronts.

And while Assam is in a state of near anarchy with the government looking like a lame duck (not taking the blame for what has happened in the state but blaming the Modi government at the Centre for not stepping in with Central forces to control the recent rioting), the Congress is also looking at largescale dissidence in the next assembly elections, due in 2016. Just as the party high command is in denial about most things and has refused to take steps to address the reasons for its recent rout, Gogoi, too, lives in a state of denial about most things happening in Assam and the failure of his government machinery. When he appears on local television channels he is utterly dismissive about the rising tide of public anger against his government and says that other states also have similar problems so Assam does not fall into a special category as far as such problems are concerned. What he has failed to appreciate is that people elect a particular government because they expect it to deliver on a few key areas of their lives such as water and sanitation, safety and security, good communication networks to their villages, agricultural support, etc. These have evaded Assam in the three tenures of the Congress-ruled government and people want change — if only to see whether other parties can deliver. As for the border clashes between Assam and its neighbours, the problem can no longer be allowed to fester. In fact, proper research might throw up interesting evidence about the link between the claims for a greater Nagaland — the long standing demand of the NSCN(IM) and the belligerence of the Naga people settled along the Assam-Nagaland borders. Now that the Modi government has taken over at the Centre, most states want to draw his attention to their long standing grouses.

There is a tendency to push the border talks to chief secretary-level officials of the states in conflict. This has not proved to be too effective, going by the Assam-Meghalaya model that has remained intransigent. Other methods and strategies are needed at this point in time. There have been suggestions from experts in the Central government that disputed areas should be turned into special economic zones, health hubs or educational centres that would benefit people from both sides of the border. This suggestion has not received traction. Perhaps it is time for the Union ministry of home affairs to step in and come up with tangible action plans to avoid future inter-state boundary skirmishes that take a toll on human lives.

People living along the borders often suffer the most neglect since development evades them most of the time. If we look at the Assam-Meghalaya border for instance, people on both sides tend to gravitate towards the state that offers them more options in terms of communication, security and recognition. Meghalaya has not been able to develop roads to take governance to the last mile. The Assam government, on the other hand, has been quite active along the border. It’s a different matter that Assam has settled people of Nepali origin in the Langpih areas and they have taken up very aggressive posturing.

A new format needs to be developed and border disputes can no longer be resolved by old methods. There is need for a new line of thinking. I doubt, however, that the Gogoi government has the time and energy for that. It is fighting too many battles on several fronts and the aggression will only intensify with the onset of the next assembly elections.

THE WRITER IS EDITOR, THE SHILLONG TIMES, AND CAN BE
CONTACTED AT patricia17@rediffmail.com

How Assam-Nagaland Border Dispute Became A People Versus History Problem

By Simantik Dowerah

Shops, offices and educational institutions are open in Assam's Golaghat town as it limps back to normalcy after witnessing major clashes between civilians and police on 20 August resulting in the death of three people and many injured.

Ironically, the clashes happened during a protest against police excess. At the core of these clashes was the Assam-Nagaland border turmoil which got sidelined because the attention shifted to police violence rather than on the contentious border issue.

Today, 780 families of 16 villages at Sector 'B' at Uriamghat in Assam's Golaghat district, whose houses were burnt down by NSCN-KK cadres who illegally crossed over to Assam, lead an uncertain life at the ill-equipped relief camps. They stare at a bleak future as the state government provides no solid assurance to secure them, and their homes have already been destroyed. As of now, they do not have the courage to return to their homes because they fear being targeted by Naga insurgents.
In their latest wave of attack, 16 people lost their lives. This is not first time that Assam has lost its people to Naga miscreants. In two big attacks in January 1979 and in June 1985, Naga militants. allegedly with support from the Nagaland Police killed nearly 100 people in the Golaghat district including Assam Police personnel.

Shops get opened after curfew was relaxed from 6 am to 12 noon in tension-gripped Golaghat on Friday. PTI

Officially, Assam and Nagaland share a 434 km boundary after the latter was carved out as an independent state in 1963. However, Nagaland has been encroaching on vast swathes of land in the upper Assam districts of Sivasagar, Jorhat and Golaghat since then. Over 60,000 hectares of Assam forest land is under the occupation of Nagaland where schools, health centres, churches and other facilities have sprung up with the direct help of the Naga government. Violence is used a method to scare away the residents after which a methodical occupation begins. Helpless in front of the aggressive Nagas and owing to Nagaland's refusal to accept the constitutional boundary, Assam has also knocked on the doors of the Supreme Court but the verdict is still awaited.

"Both the Centre-appointed Sundaram Commission (1971) and the Shastri Commission (1985) had ruled in favour of Assam. But Nagaland rejected the recommendations of both these panels. For administrative convenience, the Britishers had way back in 1925 demarcated a boundary between Assam and Nagaland. But Nagaland started behaving aggressively after the state was formed in 1963. The first clash happened at Assam's Kakodoonga Reserve Forest in 1965," professor in Sociology, Tezpur University Chandan Kumar Sharma told Firstpost.

Different bodies in Nagaland often refer to history to fortify their claim on the land that officially belongs to Assam. But the reference to history is hotly contested.

"The Nagas are seeking a historical boundary but there is no evidence to prove it. The Ahom kings gave land to Nagas for agriculture but the ownership of the land always belonged to the state. During the Ahom rule, the Nagas were entrusted with the responsibility to look after peace in areas which were located further south of the Ahom capital. There is no documentation on the basis of which Nagaland can claim the land as theirs. The border in the days of Ahom rule was not a hard (fixed) one. It was converted into a hard one from soft by the Britishers (in 1925)," Sharma said.

In a memorandum submitted to the Supreme Court-appointed Local Commission on Assam-Nagaland border issue on 20 August 2007, the All Assam Students’ Union (Aasu) also came down heavily on the historical "distortion" of boundary the Nagas were carrying out. It said: "Every year the Naga chiefs with large revenue came down to the Ahom capital to pay tribute. It was then only the Nagas would enjoy products of the khats (land). Unless they came and paid tribute in kind to the Ahom kings, the Naga chiefs were not entitled to enjoy the khat and fishing lake. A refractory chief was not allowed to come down and thus he forfeited the products of the khats. According to the British records, there had been some 25 khats along the foot of the Naga Hills but within the Ahom kingdom.

"It is unfortunate that the Nagas have distorted this historical fact by explaining the khats as "taxes" paid by the Ahom kings, whereas the khats were landed estates, granted by Ahom kings to certain villages or clans of Naga in consideration of services. The khats were cultivated by a class of men called paik who were subjects of the Ahom kings. Even during the British period, the khats were treated as valid revenue grants and were still cultivated by tenants. However, these were managed by the Katakis. These katakis were employed by the British officials as intermediaries in their dealing with the Nagas. In the Ahom period, the Katakis were appointed by the Ahom king. During the British period, the Katakis were appointed by the British. All Katakis were Assamese, not Nagas."

Assam's border plight is not limited to Nagaland alone. Clashes are also common on the Assam-Meghalaya and Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border. On 29 January this year, armed groups from Arunachal Pradesh attacked Chauldhuwa village at Behali Reserve Forest village in Assam's Sonitpur district killing 10 people and injuring eight. Major clashes also occurred at the Assam-Meghalya border in January 2011. The state also shares its boundary with Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura.
Border conflicts that Assam has with most of its neighbours is due to the fact that all these new Indian states belonged to the erstwhile Assam Province. It was created by the British in 1911 after the partition of the Eastern Bengal and Assam Provinces. Shillong was the Assam capital before Meghalaya became a separate state. Assam was first separated from Bengal in 1874 as per the 'North-East Frontier' non-regulation province by the British. Then it became a part of Eastern Bengal in 1905 and became an independent province in 1911.

"Before these hard boundaries were set up to collect tax, the natural resources on the border areas were all common," Sharma said.

"The Britishers began tea plantation in a massive way by destroying vast forest areas. The tea gardens were prohibited areas and no trespassing was allowed. In fact, this was the first step that disconnected the Naga tribes living on the hills from the rest of the population on the plains as the tea gardens blocked most of the paths which were in use to transit between the hills and plains for generations," he said.

Not only had the tea gardens created a gap between the hills and plains but they also made the Nagas realise that by owning tea gardens they had the chance of becoming farm-based entrepreneurs. What the Nagas have been eyeing for decades are also profits from tea farming. Geographically speaking, Nagaland is cradled on the Naga Hills which are part of the Arakan range or Rahkine range. Due to the hilly terrain, farming has always been a challenge on the slopes. In this context, tea cultivation has also made the ongoing Assam-Nagaland border strife an economic one. In fact, many small and illegal tea gardens have already come up in the disputed region under Naga ownership.

Security personnel patrol in the streets of tension-gripped Golaghat town after curfew was extended till 6PM on Friday. PTI

"They are seeking land in the plains. Those who are seeking land in plains for farming are mostly the elite class in Nagaland. In fact, they are allegedly using illegal migrants from Bangladesh as cheap labourers to work in the tea gardens. The Nagas are also shifting their attention away from their traditional jhum cultivation," the professor said.

But this practice has come up with its own set of problems. Now the Bangladeshi population has gradually swelled in the area leading to confrontations between them and the Nagas regarding ownership of land. Add to that jobless workers of nearby tea gardens have also settled down in these places which are largely reserved forests.

"Many Assamese families who live in these reserved areas have lost their property in some other parts of the state due to recurrent erosion and floods. As the government has no rehabilitation policy for them, these people have to fend for themselves," Sharma said.

N Venuh, associate professor in the department of History and Archaeology, Nagaland University shared a different perception on the issue.

"The real people of Assam and Nagaland living in the region do not have any differences on the boundary. It is the increasing number of Bangladeshi migrants and Adivasi immigrants that is causing the problem. Earlier these Adivasis were tenants of the Nagas but now that they have started claiming the land as theirs. Some unscrupulous elements took advantage of the situation and made it an Assam-Nagaland border dispute," Venuh told Firstpost from Lumami in Nagaland's Zunheboto district.

He also blamed the Assam government for allegedly indulging in electoral politics.

"They want these people to settle there and take electoral benefits out of them. They actually want to protect these people at the expense of the original Assamese and Naga people who are the original inhabitants of the region. The real people are very clear about the boundary. The border dispute has been enforced upon us for political reasons. No one from Nagaland is encroaching. In 2007, a joint team of 27 civil organisations both from Assam and Nagaland had toured the entire region and found that there is no dispute on the ground," he said.

However, Sharma did not agree with Venuh that there is no encroachment from the Nagaland side. He pointed out that beyond the economic purview the expansionist mentality of the Nagas, particularly of its insurgents, has become a reason of great concern for Assam.

"The demand for a Greater Nagalim has only found favour from successive state governments in Nagaland. It is a fact that the NSCN cadres, no matter to which faction they belong to, roam freely with weapons and the Nagaland government conveniently looks away. Unofficially, it is quite apparent that the Nagaland government is behind this land gain mission. Unless Assam embarks upon strong policies to protect its borders from encroachments, this would continue unabated. There is also need to stop the appeasement policy towards Nagaland. It is still unbelievable that Assam gifted Dimapur to Nagaland whereas it rightfully belonged to the Dimasa tribe," Sharma said.

It is obvious that both the states are using the circumstances on the border as per their convenience.

"If the both the governments are sincere to resolve the dispute and if they take the real people into confidence the problem should be solved in the future," Venuh said.
But there is a catch. Who are the 'real people'?

Rethinking Impunity

By Bunker Roy

The Centre has not only shown a lack of will and courage to dispense with this act, but even blocked a debate on it.

Why it may be time to revoke the AFSPA in areas like Manipur.

Gandhi (1982), an epic but intimate biographical film, was Richard Attenborough's greatest triumph.
The release of Irom Sharmila from custody and her subsequent arrest have again raised the issue of whether the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act should remain in force in areas like Manipur. For some time, the chief minister of J&K has asserted that his state can do without the AFSPA. In Manipur, Sharmila has been on hunger strike for 14 years, demanding that this controversial and draconian law be repealed.

Neither the UPA nor the present government has paid any heed. What is so special about this law and why are all governments so reluctant to do away with it? It provides the authorities with a shortcut to assume certain repressive powers that are not normally available to them in a democratic society. It gives commissioned as well as non-commissioned officers of the armed forces special powers to deal with law and order situations in areas notified by the Central or state government as “disturbed”. These special powers include the right to use force, even to cause death; arrest without a warrant; destroy shelters, camps, structures, arms dumps; enter and search without a warrant. But neither the AFSPA nor any other law defines what constitutes a “disturbed” area.

The AFSPA, originally intended as a short-term measure, has remained in force for decades in states like Manipur. Despite tremendous public agitation in that state, the Centre has declined to repeal it, even though there is considerable evidence that it has led to gross violations of human rights. A number of committees, like the Jeevan Reddy Committee and the Santosh Hegde Committee, have clearly indicted the armed forces for gross violations of human rights and recommended the repeal of this exceedingly harsh law.

An argument often put forward by the government and army in support of the law is that the Supreme Court upheld its constitutional validity in the 1998 case, Naga People’s Movement of Human Rights vs Union of India. A law may be constitutionally valid, but that is no guarantee against misuse. The Pathribal fake encounter case of March 2000 and the alleged rape and murder of Thangjam Manorama Devi, a 34-year-old Manipuri woman, in 2004 by armed forces personnel are only two of the many examples of such misuse.

The army also asserts that the majority of complaints of human rights violations against its personnel are false. The problem with this type of argument is that most complaints are investigated and tried by the army itself. It has shown considerable reluctance to hand over such cases to the civil authorities or courts. It is only at the intervention of higher courts that the army has been forced to hand over some cases to outside investigating agencies like the CBI.

The AFSPA provides protection to armed forces personnel working under it, as no prosecution can be launched against them without sanction from the Centre. Civil rights activists have often complained that this gives them impunity. This argument is not very convincing because even if this provision is removed from the act, members of the armed forces will continue to be covered by Section 197 of the CrPC, which debars courts from taking cognisance of any offence alleged to have been committed by them without sanction from the Centre.

The Centre has not only shown a lack of will and courage to dispense with this act, but even blocked a debate on it by suppressing Justice Reddy’s report. Last year, the then Union finance minister, P. Chidambaram, even expressed the helplessness of his government to revoke the law because the army was against it. This is a country where the army is supposed to work under civilian control and decisions like imposing or revoking a particular law have to be taken by the government, not by the army. Chidambaram should have found a different argument to explain the Centre’s reluctance.

The army has been deployed to deal with serious law and order situations in this country on numerous occasions. In most instances, it has dealt with the problem without the protection of the AFSPA. It is therefore time the government showed willingness to objectively assess the need to retain this law. It may consider keeping it in operation in states affected by insurgency or terrorism, particularly when the trouble emanates from across the border. However, it may revoke the law in areas that are comparatively peaceful. If the government can think of controlling Maoist violence in some areas of the country without invoking the AFSPA, why can’t it do the same in areas like Manipur?

The writer is a retired director of the Bureau of Police Research and Development and author of ‘Policing in India — Some Unpleasant Essays’

Sedition, Devastation And The Birth Of A Nation

By Garga Chatterjee

In 1966, the Indian Air Force bombed Mizoram, including the present capital Aizawl.

The sanitised term 'collateral damage' was not in vogue then. When Mizos were being attacked with incendiary bombs that only an Air Force raised on Gandhian ideology could provide, many of those bombed must have had a lot of thoughts rushing through their heads.

I suspect that some thoughts were not exactly those of affection towards the Union of India. Legally, sedition involves incitement of disaffection towards the State.

It's possible that some Mizo parents incited their daughters and sons to become disaffected towards the powers that were aerially bombing their town and villages.

In doing so, they became serious criminals under the law of the Indian Union's land. MK Gandhi had famously proclaimed that affection couldn't be manufactured by law.

However, it's quite possible to get the grandchildren of the bombed people to turn out in smart saffron, white and green uniforms for August 15 festivities in Aizawl. Schoolchildren under the watch of armed personnel seem to be a favourite setting for affection photo-ops.

An anxious Nation-State uses black laws to curb anything that tries to puncture its mythology and glorious Creation story. This weapon is typically used to shut up those who try to adhere to the official Hindustani slogan 'Satyamev Jayate' (Truth alone prevails).

It isn't accidental that four lions stare down at anyone who takes the Satyamev pronouncement at face value. Lions hunt in packs. Too many undesirable people whose remains will never be found know this too well. That's the usual method of instant justice for sedition. It is only when a relatively powerful person breaks the silence that the lions appear unsure.

Kalvakuntla Kavitha, Telangana Rashtra Samithi member of Parliament, allegedly said, "Jammu & Kashmir and Telangana were both forcefully, and at the same time, annexed to the Indian Union.

When I say I feel strongly, it's because we were both separate countries, but were merged with the Indian Union after Independence.

In 1947, we were not a part of India." Her father is Telangana's Chief Minister. That, her MP status and the 1962 reading down of the sedition law will ensure no harm comes to her. No parliamentarian is naive, but even within cynical speeches, I would celebrate any opening provided to myth-busting.

Sedition is a law of the powerful against the powerless, of the coward against the brave. A humane State embraces people's will. A brutal State sends in the army.

People who expose origin myths and crimes of the government under whose jurisdiction they live are typically sedition targets. They disrupt the long lullaby of the non-violent and consensual creation and unification of Nation-states. To consider a Nation-State and its political mythology holy is a slur to the sacred ­— the kind that predates all man-written books, laws and constitutions.

The shrillness with which K Kavitha has been demonised shows the tense foundations of the India-making project.

And she hasn't even gone half the way down the path of parliamentarian GG Swell who showed bomb-covers in the Lok Sabha when patriotic tricoloured lions refused to own up to their aerial hunt in Mizoram. I propose a statue for GG Swell. Let's call it the statue of integrity.

The author is a commentator on politics and culture

‘India Needs To Push Connectivity Corridors with Myanmar’

New Delhi, Aug 15 : Key connectivity projects between India’s landlocked northeast and Myanmar, a crucial part of India’s Look East Policy, need to be completed on time to boost trade and partnership between India and the booming Southeast Asian region, especially with China stealing a march, experts said here Thursday.

Releasing a report titled “Transforming Connectivity Corridors Between India and Myanmar into Development Corridors”, officials and experts said that Myanmar, which shares an over 1,600 km border with four northeastern states, is a key part of the development of India’s northeast.

V.S. Seshadri, India’s former ambassador to Myanmar who formulated the report, said the timelines of the Trilateral Highway and the Kaladan Multi-modal projects need to be straightened out fast, especially with democracy striking firmer roots in Myanmar and its economy opening up. Both projects are officially set to be completed by 2016.

He pointed out that land border trade between India and Myanmar is much lower than between Myanmar and China. While formal land border trade between Moreh in Manipur and Tamu in Myanmar and Zokhawthar in Mizoram with Rhi in Myanmar amounts to around $35 million, the two-way trade between Muse in Myanmar and Jingao in China is over $2 billion.

The condition of roads on the Chinese side, in Yunnan province, is also much better with double-laned roads. “China has several 22-wheeled tractor trucks parked on its side of the border which it uses to transport goods to Myanmar that exports mainly agricultural goods like rice,” said Seshadri.

However, informal land border trade between India and Myanmar is thriving with people of both sides, including women, carrying headloads of goods across small river borders. This trade is said to be approximately worth Rs.35,000 million.

Another factor, said Seshadri, is that in Namphalong Market in Tamu in Myanmar, there are around 1,000 shops stocked with goods like toys, confectionery, blankets, agricultural produce. The market is bustling.

But there is no market on the Indian side in Moreh, Manipur. He said that “greater predictability and stability” was required to boost land border trade between the two countries.

The former envoy said there was a realization in Myanmar that its western sector, especially Rakhine state that borders India, needs rapid development and that Myanmar “would welcome India taking the initiative in boosting development”.

He also suggested that a broad gauge rail line that is supposed to be built in Imphal by 2018 could be extended to Moreh and then on to Kalay in Myanmar’s Sagaing division with international funding. “It will be a crucial link in connectivity,” he said.

There is a proposal to develop Moreh in Manipur into a major township, equipped with hospitals, educational institutes and banking facilities that would go a long way in boosting connectivity and trade, he said. An Integrated Check Post is set to come up at Moreh by the end of a year.

Besides, Special Economic Zones could be set up in Mizoram and Manipur bordering Myanmar to boost trade, the report by Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS) suggests.

Minister of State for External Affairs and Development of the Northeastern Region V.K. Singh said in a statement that was read out that development of the northeast was “organically and intrinsically” linked with Southeast Asia and that Myanmar was “key to development of the Northeast”.

Sujata Mehta, Secretary (Economic Relations) in the external affairs ministry who read out the minister’s statement, expressed hope that the report would be of enduring value.

RIS chairperson and former foreign secretary Shyam Saran said Myanmar was the gateway to Southeast Asia and shares border with four northeast Indian states.

He suggested that with Myanmar opening up economically and moving towards a democratic framework, India should take prompt action to push through the connectivity projects to transform them into development corridors.

Waiting For The Governor

By Tungshang Ningreichon

Manipur Governor visiting Shirui village in Ukhrul

Our house in the village is like a train with a gap, like a bogey derailed. The gap is the living room that was never built and now it stands as the self styled mud room. The gap speaks of hope that one day the house will be completed. The hope has lasted for more than 15 years!

Our home is simple but aesthetically challenged. It reflects a lack of architectural input and resources. People often mistake it for the village primary school a few meters away, or sometimes for the pastor’s quarter, traditionally built in an ‘L’ shape with many rooms to accommodate guests.

Every time I come home there is new “technology” installed. My father loves to experiment with tools, electronics and machines, turning every room into a store room with wires running all over the house; plug points are dictated by his preference for sitting arrangement while typing. He is, by the way, the best typist I have ever known. When he first tried his hands on the computer, I thought the keyboard would break into pieces with the force he is used to, on old typewriters.

This time there were fancy lights installed in and around the house that took me by surprise when I went to use the washroom. I was not expecting tiny bright diodes to light up my night activity. These fascinating patch-like diodes were fixed on the wall, taped on each end like it was hurriedly done for temporary use. Yet again they reminded me how the genes of style and utility are so far away from each other with men in general, and especially my father, for most houses in Ukhrul have wires and plug points hanging messily over the wall or from one corner, speaking of men and designs.

Every house however has a number of interesting lamps, torch and light tools which are mostly made in China or Burma. For those who can afford it, the inverter is placed somewhere shabbily but owned like the most prized possession. The district, you see, has acute power shortage. These days the power supply is for an hour and a half during the day, and tactically from 10 pm onwards when the town is asleep so that mosquitoes, insects and animals can find their prey and their way home.

In Tamenglong, local organizations had to shut the electricity department to register their protest of the dancing truant lights. People of the district have found better use for the electric wires—they take it home. This is legally called “stealing” and is so rampant that the DC of the town had to convene a meeting to take stock of the situation. Why blame the people for making use of resources around them I say with a smirk.

One of the latest reasons cited for the shortage of electricity is the poor rainfall. By that logic, the God of rain is pleased with selective places in the State where people have been holy enough to receive rain and be lighted while the remaining can compensate with candlelight dinners!

I don’t know if any of the reasons we have been hearing past many years is justified anymore but, in the words of Apou, my “memory bank” does not have any data of ever experiencing 24 hours power supply ever since we lived in the village.

The last time people in Ukhrul had two days of uninterrupted power supply was when the Governor of the State was in town as the chief guest for Shirui Lily week. His visit was such a hit that the Facebook status of my town newsfeeders; Yoyo, Tennoson, Kahorpam and Khanthing, expressed “joy” like receiving rare grace that comes home like the uninvited guest.

The statuses seemed to say that the town is beaming with life and energy and also lack of direction; of not knowing what to do with the suddenness of being lighted!

The celebration however had to end the moment the Governor left. The set up, as I imagine it, is like the lineman was watching from a tower and as soon as he saw the dust and smog off the line of vehicles, he pulled the plug puffing a cigarette, much like how the curtains are drawn after a movie ends...ah, how dramatically he must have switched it off, and for the next two days the town was ‘powerless’. Perhaps the electricity department had to reclaim or make up for its generosity and the quota of the two days of lighting the Governor.

We wait for the Governor and his entourage to visit the town again or, even better, if Narendra Modi comes to see Shirui Lily and tour the villages in Ukhrul... yawn yawn...while my father and families acquire newer tools to light homes and the companies and dealers lick their fingers counting the profits!

**Tungshang Ningreichon is a happy mother from Langdang and writes occasionally for the love of stories, histories and memories.

Strategizing Political Demands of the Kukis in Northeastern India

By Nehginpao Kipgen


       














The leaders of the two Kuki armed groups — the United Peoples' Front (UPF) and the Kuki National Organization (KNO) — are again heading to New Delhi with the hope of materializing a political dialogue with representatives of the central government.

A meeting with officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is likely to take place within the next few days. The meeting will be the first high-level engagement between the two sides under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.

The issue of holding political talk has been dragging on for years. The Indian Army and the Kuki armed groups have observed Suspension of Operations (SoO) since Aug. 1, 2005. A tripartite agreement, involving the UPF and KNO, the central government and the Manipur state government, was formally signed on Aug. 22, 2008. The current one-year-term ends on Aug. 22.

The SoO was possible after the Kuki armed groups accepted former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's appeal for resolving armed conflicts through dialogue. The Congress government agreed, in principle, to initiate political dialogue within the framework of the Indian constitution.

Last year, the Indian government made the assurance that political talk would begin immediately following the winter session of the national parliament. Mr. Shambhu Singh, Joint Secretary (North East), MHA, briefed representatives of the UPF and KNO on the modalities of holding dialogue. However, eight years have lapsed since the start of the SoO, but no political dialogue has materialized yet.

Because of the government's alleged indifferent attitude, the UPF had last year warned not to allow the inspection of its designated camps by government officials if no political dialogue began by Aug. 22. The group also threatened to boycott the Congress party in the 16th Lok Sabha election.

How is the situation of the armed groups and the political atmosphere in New Delhi different from the previous years? Is there any sight of solution to the Kukis political demand under the new administration?

In anticipation of political dialogue with the central government, the armed groups discussed among themselves with the hope of finding a common strategy. However, it appears that they have not been able to reach a consensus on presenting one single political demand.

The UPF and KNO, constituted by over 20 armed groups, have two different political objectives. The UPF demands an autonomous hill state, or a state within a state under Article 244-A of the Indian constitution. The KNO demands the creation of a separate Kuki state.

Another challenge to the solution of Kukis political demand is on the question of competing demands. The Nagas, who form another major ethnic group in Manipur state, also claim the same geographical areas in four hill districts. The National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN-IM) claims Chandel, Senapati, Tamenglong and Ukhrul as their own territories in their quest for greater or southern Nagaland.

New Delhi has had several rounds of political dialogue with the Nagas, particularly the NSCN-IM. These competing demands of overlapping areas have given rise to severe insurgency problems for the past many years.

Knowing the potential consequences of political dialogue between the Kuki armed groups and the central government, the Manipur state government inserted a clause in the initial tripartite agreement, that is, the territorial integrity of Manipur cannot be disturbed.

In light of the recent creation of Telangana state out of Andhra Pradesh despite a strong opposition from the state government, many begin to think that it is not an impossible task to carve out a Kuki state from Manipur.

However, it is important to understand that the Kukis and the Nagas have to reach some sort of understanding, if not agreement, on the question of competing demands in overlapping territories.

Whatever the outcome it might be, it is important that the central government keeps its earlier promises and begin political dialogue with the Kuki armed groups. There has been enough frustration of extending SoO for the past eight years, without achieving any substantive result.

A leader of the UPF in a recent statement said, “There is no point keeping on extending the Suspension of Operation (SoO) every year without engaging in political dialogue...the cadres will get frustrated if this thing continues for longer.”

There is a general feeling among the people of Manipur, including the Kuki armed groups, that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance coalition government would take a pro-active approach to address insurgency problems through political means.

The demand for a Kuki state comprising all the Kuki inhabited areas of Manipur was first submitted to then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on March 24, 1960 by the Kuki National Assembly, a political body formed in 1946.

However, history would not do justice unless the present leaders of the Kuki armed groups formulate a practical strategy by setting aside personal and ideological differences.

Nehginpao Kipgen is a political scientist whose works have been widely published in five continents — Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, and North America. He is the author of “Politics Of Ethnic Conflict In Manipur” published by SAGE from the United Kingdom.