Mizoram shock Kerala 3-1 in Santosh Trophy

SILIGURI: Mizoram stunned five-time champions Kerala 3-1 while Maharashtra beat Uttarakhand 3-2 on the opening day of the Santosh Trophy football tournament final round at the Kanchenjunga Stadium on Monday.

Lalzofolai, Zico and Ronald scored for Mizoram in the Group A match which was locked goal-less at half-time. Nasaruddin pulled one back for Kerala, who were also the runners-up in the last edition.

In another Group A fixture, Maharashtra got the better of Uttarakhand in a tightly-contested match.

Allan Dias (37th minute), Mohammed Shabaz (43rd) and Santosh Koli (88th) scored for Maharashtra.

For Uttarakhand, Ashok Singh (19th) and Sher Singh (68th) found the target.

Ten teams have been divided into two groups of the five with the top two sides from each group advancing to the Semifinals.

Group A has defending champions Services, last year's runners-up Kerala, Maharashtra, Mizoram and Uttarakhand. Group B consists of 31-time champions West Bengal, Punjab, Railways, Goa and Tamil Nadu.

The final is slated to take place on March 9 at the same venue.

Kuki outfit waits for new govt

By KHELEN THOKCHOM

Imphal, Feb 25 : After waiting for nine years in vain for the start of a political dialogue, the Kuki National Organisation (KNO) is ready to wait further, but for not long after the installation of a new government at the Centre.

“We are committed to peace and settling our issue peacefully. The present government at the Centre is indecisive and incompetent. We have waited long enough. But we will continue to wait till a competent government comes up at the Centre,” Seilen Haokip, spokesman for the organisation, said today.

The organisation is an umbrella body of 17 Kuki militant groups waiting for the start of a political dialogue after signing a suspension of operations agreement. Nearly 2,000 cadres of the groups are now at various designated camps.

The organisation signed an SoO first with the Union home ministry in 2005. The state government joined the process in 2008, making it a tripartite agreement.

The KNO observed its 27th raising day at Kholmun ground at the district headquarters of Churachandpur today.

The president of the organisation, P.S. Haokip, in his address spoke about the need of building and strengthening a “Kuki nation”, while cautioning the Centre and the state government of dire consequences for their delaying tactics in settling the Kuki issue.

The organisation is fighting for a “Kuki nation” within the Constitution.

While talking to reporters on the sidelines of the well-attended programme, Seilen did not conceal the organisation’s displeasure at the talks delay.

The Congress could suffer a major setback if the KNO groups decide not to vote for the party in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. The groups have strong presence in Kuki-dominated areas of the hills in Manipur.

At present, the Outer Manipur parliamentary seat is represented by Congress MP Tangso Baite.

Though Seilen clarified that the organisation had not taken any decision to boycott the party he made it very clear that the KNO groups had lost faith in the Congress.

“We want to maintain the status quo. Let a new and competent government come up in Delhi. Let’s wait till that time,” Seilen said.

Asked about the demand by the United Naga Council for an alternative administrative arrangement for the Nagas in Manipur, Seilen said there should be a tripartite solution for three communities — Kukis, Nagas and Meiteis.

In his address on the opening day of the Assembly today, governor V.K. Duggal mentioned about signing of an SoO agreement with the KNO and the United People’s Front, another umbrella body of eight Kuki militant groups.

He, however, did not say anything about start of a political dialogue. Duggal said there were 60 militant groups in Manipur and the government would continue its endeavour to bring the groups back to mainstream.

RPF stand

The Revolutionary People’s Front (RPF) today denounced the ongoing peace talks and ceasefire with militant groups in Manipur as an attempt by the Centre to wipe out the “revolutionary” groups.

“On one hand, they honk of peace talks and dialogue and on the other hand they also blatantly increase militarisation of the region. This twin process is a complete story of India’s long-term strategy to subjugate and wipe out the revolutionary movement of Manipuris,” RPF president Irengbam Chaoren said today.

In his message on the eve of the RPF’s 35th foundation day, he said the dialogue between armed groups and Centre was used as an instrument to shield their “hidden agenda” to confuse the people in the name of peace and prosperity.

Such dialogue could never bring freedom and independence, Chaoren said.

In another development, the UNLF rejected the appeal by joint secretary in Union home ministry, Sambhu Singh, to armed groups of the Northeast to give up arms and come back to national mainstream. The UNLF said Singh’s statement was to mislead the international community on the “struggle by the people of the region for their right to self determination”.

How to talk about Indian racism

By ARUNI KASHYAP

Photo: R.V. Moorthy

In light of the recent attacks on people from the northeast, here are a few guidelines.

Quite a bit has been focused on the whys and whats of this curious beast called Indian racism that we have started to acknowledge only in recent years. But increasingly, because of the shrill cacophony of people who don’t want to accept that we are racists, it has become impossible to talk about it. Indians are not racists, are we white? There is no racism towards people from the northeast; even people from ‘Madras’ were targeted years ago! For better, healthier, safer conversations, we need to have some guidelines.

First, apologise on behalf of militants and xenophobic groups for targeting ‘outsiders’ in Meghalaya, in Assam, in Arunachal or any other places that “sound northeastern”. Only after that, you will earn the right to talk about the racism towards northeasterns. Otherwise, no one will listen to you. Don’t try to drive home the point that Reverse Racism is a myth, and is a term that has always been used by privileged groups to deflect conversation about racism.

If you are a person from Arunachal or Manipur or any other state beyond Bengal, always carry a map with you. Nowadays there are smartphones where you can download Map-apps. If you look closely in the markets of Chawri Bazar or Connaught Place, you will also find pocket atlases. You will need those, because when you explain racism, you will have to first locate for your audience where the northeast is.

Aside: Never dye your hair. You might get beaten to death. Even if you do, and if someone makes a comment about your hair, you should remain quiet. Don’t vindicate their suspicion that you are the beast from the jungles of the northeast by speaking up. In fact, by the time you even start talking about how raced communities have always been viewed as Submissive Children and are put to place (by beating to death) when that role is violated, you might have at least a broken arm or a leg if you are lucky. In modern India, it is difficult to sport blonde, red, or brown hair if you are from the northeast.

When people call you chinki, you should smile and try not to react; because if you do, you will be branded as an “oversensitive northeastern”. After all, there are jokes on Punjabis too, why should you feel offended? Don’t try to debate with them that cracking a joke about the funny, jolly, Punjabi and the fish-loving, Marxist Bengali is not the same as cracking a joke about the dog-eating, rhino-rearing, sexually-promiscuous, drug-addicted northeastern. Clearly show that you are also guilty of racism. Never even try to prove that racist slurs against a historically marginalised and raced group of people used by the racist group and the epithets and stereotypes used by the raced group are racially unequal.

Do not try to remind anyone that ‘even you are racist towards outsiders in Assam and Meghalaya’. These are Conversation Blockers. If you do, you will be reminded that you are anti-Indian and that is why you deserve to be governed with laws such as AFSPA that allows your lovely sainik bhaiyon to shoot at sight, rape at will, arrest without warrant. Never try to tell anyone that those laws are undemocratic and turns you into unequal citizens with lesser civil rights because then you will be reminded how we have always been the (non-submissive) Problem Child of Mother India and the cane called AFSPA is required to keep us in a straight line like schoolchildren attending morning assembly.

Lastly, always remember to use words such as “remote”, “far-flung”, “new heart of darkness” and “conflict-ridden” when you start talking about Northeast India or racism towards it. If you don’t start the conversation that way, no one will understand you. They will think you are talking about China. Or Vietnam. And yes, always carry your passport around. If you don’t have one, apply for one ASAP.

Aruni Kashyap is the author of The House with a Thousand Stories.

Why do Japanese people wear surgical masks? It’s not always for health reasons

By Casey Baseel 
 

Like kimono and T-shirts with English writing (sometimes vulgar, sometimes comical, always unintelligible), the number of people you’ll see in Japan wearing surgical masks is pretty surprising. Sure, Japan is a hard working society, and the spread of productivity-sapping sickness is always a concern at schools and workplaces, but that doesn’t seem like reason enough for the proliferation of facial coverings that sometimes has Tokyo offices looking more like an operating room.
Health concerns are only part of the equation, though, as recent studies have revealed multiple reasons people in Japan wear masks that have nothing to do with hygiene.

Until recently, masks were primarily worn by people who had already come down with an illness. If you were feeling under the weather but couldn’t take the day off, common courtesy dictated that you cover your mouth and nose with a mask, so as not to breathe your germs all over you class or office mates or fellow commuters.
Things started changing in 2003, though, when medical supply maker Unicharm released a new type of mask specifically designed for hay fever sufferers. Until that point, most masks had been made of cotton, with an inner pouch into which gauze was placed. After taking off the mask users threw out the gauze, washed the cotton mask for reuse, and restuffed the pocket.
Unicharm’s anti-hay fever masks, though, were made of non-woven material, which was more effective in blocking pollen. They were also completely disposable and could be cheaply bought in bulk. This new type of mask was a game changer, and business research firm Fuji Keizai now says non-woven masks account for 86 percent of the market today.

The introduction of these cheap, easier-to-use masks also made it more practical to wear one in order to prevent getting sick in the first place. Commuting in Japan often means spending an hour or more pressed up against your fellow passengers on a train or bus, and not everyone has the good manners to put down their smartphone and cover their mouth when they cough or sneeze.

Sales figures show that use of masks has more than tripled over the last decade, with particularly large spikes caused by influenza outbreak fears in 2009 and worries over micro particulate matter following the earthquake and nuclear accident of 2011. Estimates for fiscal year 2013 value Japan’s mask market at 23.9 billion yen (US$229.8 million).
But as masks provoke less and less surprise, some people are using them for purposes that have nothing to do with physical health.
One 46-year-old mother, who herself wears a mask every day in the winter to prevent getting sick, says her high-school-age daughter wears one for a completely different reason. “She puts on a mask and sticks headphones in her ears so that people won’t bother her. It makes it harder for them to start talking to her.”
Juvenile psychologist Jun Fujikake has made simmilar observations. “When we deal with others, we have to judge whether to do things like smile or show anger,” he explains. “By wearing a mask, you can prevent having to do that. The trend of wearing a mask to prevent directly dealing with other may have roots in the current youth culture in which many of them are more accustomed to communicating indirectly through email and social media.”

▼ Kind of makes you miss the good old days, when kids didn’t need to rely on props or technology to show how sullen they were.

But the recent surge in masks’ popularity isn’t entirely the result of a desire to give people the cold shoulder. On the contrary, an increasing number of people are using masks because of their desire for warmth.
Japan gets pretty chilly during the winter. Thankfully, the layered look is definitely in, and as the temperature drops, you can bundle up with tights, undershirts, sweaters, parkas, gloves, scarves, and caps. One thing that’s hard to do, though, is keep your face warm.
Granted, you could always pick up a ski mask at the sporting goods shop, but effectiveness aside, you’re going to get some strange looks wearing one anywhere other than on the slopes. But since Japanese society has already gotten used to people wearing surgical masks outside of the hospital, you can safely put one on to keep your nose and cheeks warm without attracting any attention.

▼ Having your glasses steam up is a small price to pay to keep your lips warm enough that you can move them.

Not only have masks become so commonplace that wearers aren’t seen as unattractive, some people are finding fashion and beauty uses for them. One professional model interviewed by reporters says she often slips on a mask after washing off her makeup at the end of a photo shoot, in order to keep her au naturel face hidden from the public. Even women whose livelihood doesn’t depend on looking their best at all times are finding masks to be a handy for those times when they need to dash out to run errands and don’t feel like spending a half-hour putting on blush and lipstick first.

▼ This woman could have a moustache, for all we know.

Some people even see masks as a fashionable accessory. An online search for masuku bijin or “beautiful masked girl” will bring up hundreds of results, and an increasing number of companies are offering masks with floral, polka dot, and even houndstooth patterns, not to mention jet-black ninja-style masks for guys.

There’s even a mask whose seller claims it’ll help you lose weight. Cosmetics maker T-Garden has jumped into the mask arena with its Flavor Mask. Not only does it feature a pretty-in-pink design, each disposable mask comes infused with the scent of raspberry, which T-Garden says will boost your metabolism.
We’re not entirely convinced about the scientific soundness of their promise, and from an armchair psychology viewpoint, it seems like a food-based fragrance is going to do more to ramp up your appetite than your metabolism. Still, like any mask it should help prevent you from passing a cold around, keep your face a little warmer, cut off unwanted social interaction, and preclude the need to wear extensive makeup, none of which is necessarily diminished by its calorie-burning quackery.

▼ If you absolutely have to buy snake oil, you may as well get the nicest-smelling kind.

Source: Yahoo! Japan
Top image: Tumblr
Insert images: Seesaa, Blogspot, Loving Your Child, Nifty, Ameba, Ladypop, Amazon

The War On Men: 10 Ways Masculinity is Under Attack

And why the elite – not women – are to blame

By Paul Joseph Watson

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Men are facing a full frontal assault on their rights, health and culture like never before. The war on masculinity has never been so brutal – but it’s not a war being waged by women. The attack is coming directly from the top, as the establishment desperately attempts to emasculate and disempower men in order to force women to be more dependent on the state, thereby enabling more power to be centralized and aiding the growth of big government.

Here are ten ways in which the state has declared war on men and masculinity;

1) Falling Fertility

Sperm counts amongst men have significantly decreased over the last half century and particularly over the last 25 years. In some European countries, sperm counts have dropped by as much as a third since 1989. Part of the fall can be explained by exposure to pesticides, endocrine-disrupting chemicals like Bisphenol A, and the many other artificial horrors that increasingly pervade our water and food supply. Many have made the connection between falling sperm counts and the open calls by innumerable elitists to drastically reduce world population by as much as 95%. Research shows that underpopulation, not overpopulation, will be the major demographic crisis of the 21st century as a result of humans failing to achieve the replacement rate of 2.1 children.

2) Chemical Warfare “Feminizing” Boys

Exposure to phthalates, which are found in many plastics, is “feminizing” boys by blocking normal male testosterone and causing genital abnormalities, according to scientists. “Boys exposed to high levels of these in the womb were less likely than other boys to play with cars, trains and guns or engage in “rougher” games like playfighting,” according to a BBC News report. According to Elizabeth Salter-Green, director of the chemicals campaign group CHEM Trust, phthalates are a true “gender-bender” because they lead to a reduction in “male behavior”.

3) Degradation of Positive Masculine Role Models

Whereas 50 years ago, advertising, Hollywood and television was filled with examples of positive masculine role models that young men could look up to, today’s entertainment industry routinely portrays men as clueless and bumbling oafs at best (think Homer Simpson, Everybody Loves Raymond, Married With Children) or at worst as aggressive sexual predators. Since advertising is primarily aimed at women, men in commercials are also now routinely depicted as either being emasculated losers or stupefied morons. Young men consuming this content grow up thinking that it is acceptable and even encouraged to aspire to these character traits. In doing so, they are robbed of their natural masculinity and find it extremely difficult to attract well-rounded women, who are rightly disgusted by such behavior. The entertainment industry is largely controlled by men, again underscoring the fact that this assault is a top down trend that has little or nothing to do with the gender war.

4) Metrosexual Malaise

Second wave feminism was a creation of the establishment itself and at its core has little whatsoever to do with genuine concern about women’s rights. Radical feminism deliberately confuses gender roles and makes young men apprehensive about exercising their masculinity for fear of being seen as overbearing or aggressive towards women. This has contributed to an entire generation of “metrosexual” men who are promiscuous, unwilling to commit to a relationship and unable to fulfil a women’s basic needs for healthy companionship, destabilizing society and making it more difficult for women to find suitable long term partners with whom to have children.

5) Cultural Marxism

Establishment-controlled second wave feminism also advances the doctrine of cultural marxism, which claims that oppression emerges from patriarchal society and culture, and not the state. Governments love cultural marxism because it absolves them of blame. The true source of all oppression has always been the state, but by blaming it on men or western culture in general (which is primarily shaped by men), the state hides its own responsibility.

6) The ‘Men are Paid More’ Myth

The establishment promulgates the myth that men are paid more than women because of discrimination, feeding into feminist doctrines about patriarchal systems oppressing women in the workplace. In reality, the “wage gap” of around 19 per cent between the two sexes in the United States is explained by a number of reasons that have nothing to do with discrimination, including the fact that men work more hours and men seek less desirable jobs that pay higher. As a result, men account for 93% of workplace deaths despite being only 54% of the workforce. 94% of workplace suicides every year are also men. The establishment buries these shockingly high male workplace fatality figures because they completely contradict the myth that the jobs market discriminates against women.

7) The “Privilege” Trap

Statists, collectivists and their mouthpieces in the media and the establishment claim that western men (in particular white men) cannot express a valid opinion on any issue related in any way to a “minority” (such as feminism or immigration) because they have “privilege”. The “privilege” talking point is a stunt through which liberals and feminists attempt to shut down free speech. In essence they are asserting the ludicrous notion that a man’s viewpoint has no value because of the color of his skin, his gender or his country of origin. This is an inherently racist position, yet it is routinely used by leftists to shout down their ideological adversaries and silence male voices.

8) The Legal System Discriminates Against Men

In both divorce and child custody proceedings, it is widely acknowledged that courts heavily favor women and discriminate against men. Men are routinely hit with onerous alimony payments even if women are capable of working and earning a good paycheck. Men only receive custody of their children in around 10 per cent of divorce cases in the United States. The ironic thing about this system is that it has primarily been instituted by other men, emphasizing again how the war on men is being waged not by women, but by the primarily male-dominated establishment itself.

9) Masculinity as a Dirty Word

Dissident feminist Camille Paglia recently wrote a Wall Street Journal piece in which she warned, “What you’re seeing is how a civilization commits suicide.” Paglia was referring to how the emancipation of masculine virtues by the establishment threatens to create massive destabilization in society due to less and less men being able to fill traditionally “masculine” roles in the jobs market. Paglia points to schools cutting recess, the effort to deny the biological distinctions between men and women, and the left’s characterization of controversial opinions as “hate speech” as examples of how masculinity is being deliberately eroded. “Masculinity is just becoming something that is imitated from the movies. There’s nothing left. There’s no room for anything manly right now,” warns Paglia, adding that young men have, “no models of manhood.”

10) Domestic Abuse Against Men

Whereas women have numerous safety nets to turn to if they become victims of domestic abuse, men have virtually none, despite the fact that domestic abuse against men is a huge and growing problem. In the UK for example, 44 per cent of domestic abuse victims are male, while more married men suffer abuse at the hands of their spouse than married women. While domestic abuse against women is constantly highlighted by the mass media, domestic abuse against men is a complete non-issue.

Conclusion

A totalitarian society can only survive if the male population has been gelded, emasculated and disenfranchised. With this natural bulwark against tyranny removed, the elite can centralize power and pursue collectivist tyranny unopposed. This is why men and masculinity are under assault on every level – and why both men and women should join forces to fight back against this common enemy.

Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/paul.j.watson.71

Pushed to the boundaries: The Brus of Mizoram

By Furquan Ameen Siddiqui

When Lalnunpuia, who lives in Damdiai village in the Mamit district of Mizoram, heard about a mass search operation being organised by the Mizo Zirlai Pawl (Mizo Student Association), he sent his wife and four children away to Assam. He was afraid a crisis was looming; that, like in 1997 and 2009, thousands of Bru tribals would be forced to flee their homes in Mizoram.

“Many people began leaving in early January when tensions started to escalate. The women and children were sent away. Only the men stayed back,” said Lalnunpuia, a former militant with the Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF). Lalnunpuia’s story is a common one among Mizoram’s Brus, a people who have been in conflict with the majority Mizos and who, in the last 17 years, have lost their homes, lands, and even the hope of a brighter future for their young.

The latest incident
The latest episode in the ongoing conflict came last November, two days before the Mizoram assembly elections, when Bru militants allegedly belonging to the Bru Democratic Front of Mizoram (BDFM) and helped by members of the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) abducted three young men. On November 23, Sanglianthanga (27), a Mizo, was driving telecom executive Deep Mondal (25) back to Mamit from Tuipuibari, a Bru village inside the Dampa Tiger Reserve in western Mizoram, near the Bangladesh border. After spending the night in the remote village, which is around 80 kms from Mamit, the nearest town, the two men had started back early in the morning. Somewhere between Tuipuibari and Damparengpui, another Bru village inside the dense forest, armed men forced the duo out of their vehicle. They also abducted Lalziamlana, another Mizo driver, on the same stretch of seasonal road that winds through the forest.

Conflict reignited
The incident reignited the long-standing conflict between the Mizos and the minority Brus — one that has been smouldering for the last 17 years. Enraged by the abduction of the Mizos, several protests spearheaded mostly by the powerful NGOs MZP and the Young Mizo Association (YMA) were organised throughout the state. The MZP and the state’s taxi drivers and the pickup drivers associations also started a remna kawngzawh or peace march from Aizawl to Tuipuibari demanding the release of the three men.
On December 6, the militants demanded a ransom of ` 50 million from the telecom company for which Mondal, a Bengali, works. No ransom demand was made for the Mizo men. Fearing retributive violence and a repeat of the bloody ethnic clashes of 1997 that displaced thousands, over 4000 Brus then fled to neighbouring Assam and Tripura. The incident, like many others in the northeast, hardly made it to the national media’s news tickers.

Brus living in Tuipuibari and Damparengpui allege that around 100 young Mizos accompanied by police officials came to the villages ‘enquiring’ about the abducted Mizos. In early January, Mizo NGOs called for a meeting in Aizawl, the state capital. Subsequently, local village headmen were threatened with dire consequences if they did not ask the militants to release the Mizos. “They said there would be bloodshed,” one of the village leaders said. MZP president C Lalhmachhuana, who met this reporter at his office in Treasury Square, Aizawl, denies that his organisation was involved in the mass search operation or in threatening Bru leaders.
Kidnap update
After spending nearly two months in captivity in the jungles of eastern Bangladesh, the two Mizos were released on January 21 this year. Two days later, the YMA warned of a massive search operation if the third captive, Deep Mondal, was not released immediately. Mondal continues to be held captive.

History of the conflict
In a letter dated February 10, sent to the National Human Rights Commission, the Home department of the Mizoram government listed the reasons that led to the original conflict between the Mizos and the Brus. According to the document, the Brus — recognised as Reangs as per the Constitution (Schedule Tribes) Order, 1950 — fled persecution in the erstwhile Tippera kingdom (now divided between Tripura and Bangladesh) to arrive in Mizoram in the early 1940s. “Brus have always been outsiders and can never be a part of the larger Mizo culture,” says Lalmuanpuia Punte, who was MZP’s president in 1997.
The roots of the current conflict can be traced to 1994, when a political party called the Bru National Union (BNU) was formed to promote the tribe’s welfare. In September 1997, at a conference in Saipuilui village in Mamit district, the BNU adopted a resolution to demand for an Autonomous District Council (ADC) for Brus in the western belt of Mizoram. Mizoram is predominantly inhabited by Mizos. Other tribes in the state include the Hmars, the Lai and the Chakmas, each of whom have their own ADC. Interestingly, though the Brus are the largest minority in Mizoram their demand for an ADC went unheeded. “What was wrong with that demand?” asks Elvis Chorkhy, chairman of the Bru Coordination Committee that has been working with the government to repatriate the Brus. “Was it so unconstitutional as to lead to the physical torture and harassment of the Brus?”
Curtailing militancy
Mizoram has always been projected as an island of peace in the northeast. However, the establishment of the Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF) led to growing militancy in the post-1997 period. In the eight years of its existence, the BNLF was involved in extortion, abducting several Mizos and killing security personnel. Things came to a head with the murder of a Mizo forest official in the Dampa Tiger Reserve. Widespread ethnic violence followed, with reports of arson, killing and rape by the Mizos. The brutality forced about 50,000 Brus to flee to Tripura.
The Mizos say the Bru exodus of 1997 can be traced to a ‘circular’ signed by Bruno Msha, who was then the Bru Student Union president and is currently the general secretary of the Mizoram Bru Displaced Peoples’ Forum (MBDPF). Dated March 1998, the ‘circular’ asks all Bru headmen to evacuate their villages and leave Mizoram because of a possible clash between Bru militants and Mizoram security personnel. Msha, who denies signing any such document, claims the story is a Mizo attempt to blame Bru militants for the exodus.
Each side might apportion blame to the other but ultimately, the ethnic violence of 1997 pushed many Brus into relief camps in a remote part of Tripura that borders Mizoram and Bangladesh.
Militancy was finally contained when BNLF’s 195 cadres surrendered in 2005. The laying down of arms came after the Mizoram government — dominated by Mizos — promised to repatriate Bru refugees. “With security concerns of our officials and the locals, we couldn’t start the repatriation process early. We had to wait till the Bru insurgency ceased,” said Lalbiakzama, joint secretary of the home department overseeing Bru rehabilitation.
The state government met with more success when they convinced 804 cadres of the breakaway faction Bru Liberation Front of Mizoram (BLFM) to surrender. The BDFM still exists but the government refuses to accept that it is a legitimate body, choosing instead to call its members Bru goons.

Hurdles to repatriation
Though the state government acted swiftly to rehabilitate militants who surrendered, the process to bring back displaced Brus took much longer. The first Road Map was chalked out only in 2009, four years after the militants kept their side of the promise. A meeting held in November 2009 to discuss the implementation of the road map, attended by representatives of MBDPF and surrendered BNLF and BLFM members was a failure. “The Bru leaders made impossible demands. They wanted cluster settlement in large Bru villages with at least 500 households and the settlement of all families in Mamit district, which the state government couldn’t agree to,” said Lalbiakzama.
Then, on November 13, three days before the process began, suspected Bru militants shot dead a 17-year-old Mizo boy from Mamit. A fresh spate of ethnic attacks ensued in which the Mizos reportedly burnt down around 500 Bru houses in 11 villages across two districts. Some Bru villagers say Mizoram police personnel instigated the mob to attack them. The incident pushed around 5,000 Brus to flee with more than 2,500 taking shelter in Tripura’s camps. MZP and YMA leaders allege that the Brus burned their own houses to defame the Mizos.
After the derailment of the first repatriation attempt, the Mizoram government prepared Road Map II to rehabilitate the fresh migrants after the 2009 incident. A visit by the then home minister P Chidambaram to the camps in 2010 expedited the process. “I will be coming again to ensure that all of you return to Mizoram,” he said before leaving.
Things, however, continue to look bleak for over 35,000 people still stuck in the forgotten camps of Tripura.

The delayed homecoming of the Brus
The sleepy town of Kanchanpur in northern Tripura lies about 45 kms from the Mizoram border. 17 years ago, thousands of Brus fleeing attacks from Mizos took refuge here. Many crossed the border on foot. The displaced Brus put up temporary shelters on the lower tracts of the Jampui hills that separate Tripura from Mizoram and Bangladesh. Today, there are over 35,000 Internally Displaced Persons languishing in the seven camps spread over the region. Here, scores live amidst filth and human waste with small mountain streams being the only source of drinking water.

A report by the Asian Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Network says ‘The ration quota is so inadequate that Brus do not report deaths as it means a further reduction of the rations’. The abject conditions and the lack of employment and education have made the camps a good recruiting ground for militants. Many young Brus have missed out on education and cannot even get job cards under central government schemes. “This is why we are asking for a Primitive Group Program and a development council which will look after the upliftment of the community once it is repatriated,” says Bruno Msha of the MBDPF.

Adults get a cash dole of Rs. 150 per month and 600 gms of rice per day while minors get half that amount. This is much less than other internally displaced groups like the Kashmiri Pandits and even the Sri Lankan refugees in Tamil Nadu have received in the past. Leaders of the MBDPF maintain that unless compensation is increased, no one will go back. Both the home department and Mizo organisations, allege that any attempts at repatriation are foiled by the staging of untoward incidents. The Bru side alleges that it is a conspiracy by Mizos who don’t want Brus to return. With only 5,627 people rehabilitated until last October, the Mizoram government has a mammoth task on its hands. “It has become necessary to remove those camps and resettle the displaced. We are losing precious time and a generation of kids is losing their future. The process needs to be expedited,” said Chorkhy.

Requiem for Nido

On the Lynching of a North-Eastern Indian Student in Delhi

By A K Biswas

Seventeen-year-old Nido Tania, a student from Arunachal, recently fell victim to hate crime in Delhi. The signifies what is fundamentally rotten in the public life of India as a nation. India’s feeble posturing for inclusive policy has remained starkly insufficient to make a dent on its exclusive society. The implications and ramifications of the tragdey befalling the teenager are far more frightening than meet the eye. The so-called mainland in general and the over-hyped Aryavart as the credle of Hindu culture and civilisation in particular is virtually a hell for the people of the margins. The Mephistophelean proclivity of the mainlanders towards the people from the margins has been broadcast through a series of barbaric incidents to prove a point that the latter are unwelcome either in their company or their proximity. And thus a climate of disintegration in the mainland through unbridled intolerance and insensitivity towards the less privileged has been built up that alarms few and those, who, under oaths, are charged with the sacred duty of upholding the sanctity of the Constitution and safeguar-ding the integrity of the nation, strangely  seem unconcerned. A rift with a huge potential to unleash fissiparous tendencies is distinctively in the offing.

In July-August 2012, attacks on people of the North-East in Bangalore and threat calls to students in Hyderabad forced workers and students from Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and even Goa to go back to the safety of their homes out of an intense sense of insecurity. The State of Karnataka alone had witnessed in two days the exodus of 16,000 North-Eastern Indians.1 This belied the preten-sion and contention of harmony and unity in diversity of India, underlying a deep-rooted malaise. Official figures are always conservative, if not deceptive and less than the actual, if these are not used for bolstering up the image, individual and/or institutional.

People hailing from Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam in quest of avenues for higher or better facilities of education or livelihood face hostilities from the mainlanders. In the 1990s, a North-Eastern girl student travelling by the Guwahati Rajdhani Express to Delhi was outraged in the Munger district of Bihar. A senior Indian Forest Service officer of Madhya Pradesh cadre, a co-traveller, recounted the grim tragedy in writing to the Chief Secretary, Government of Bihar. Glaring incidents of such dimension are galore all over India. In August 2012, Diana Silva, a 22-year-old First-Year MBA student of Amity University and Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma’s niece, committed suicide in her hostel room at Gurgaon after an altercation with a teacher.2
Diana’s friends alleged that a teacher accused her of cheating during an examination and when she protested, the former tore up her answer-sheet. A shocked and humiliated Diana locked herself up in her room and hours later, after a forced entry, the authorities recovered her body. Such teachers are rarely held accountable for their despicable crimes despite complaints to the appropirate authorities. Dons in high temples of learning, who were in occasional media focus for crimes against underprivileged students, have walked free with full impunity.

Chuni Kotal, a Lodha tribal girl, doing M.Sc. (Anthropology) in West Bengal’s Vidysagar University, to cite one instance, was harassed, humiliated and hounded as a member of the criminal tribe in the campus for over three years by one of her teachers, Falguni Chakraborty. Her complaints to the Vice-Chancellor during the period went unheeded. The malefic teacher’s manipulation debarred her from taking the first semester examination. Deeply depressed and frustrated, she ultimately committed suicide on August 16, 1992. The West Bengal Police did not even invoke the provision of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989. Nonetheless retired Justice S.S. Gangopadhyaya, as head of an inquiry commission appointed by the reluctant State Government, gave a clean-chit to Chuni’s tormentor. The Commission observed:

“On a consideration of all the materials on record we are constrained to hold, therefore, that the allegations brought against Falguni Chakraborty by Chuni Kotal were not sustai-nable and further that Falguni Chakraborty never practised nor he had any reason to discriminate against Chuni simply because she was a Lodha. It may be that on occasions Falguni Chakraborty took Chuni to task for her let or non-attendance or for some such reasons. These were mere trivialities which occur as a matter of course between the teacher and the taught without any personal involvement from either side.
“These trivialities were blown big beyond all proportions to transform them into the items of the petition of complaint. On the findings arrived by us, we conclude that the behaviour meted out by Falguni Chakraborty was not as to cause intense mental pain to Chuni so as to break her heart and lead her ultimately to commit suicide.”3

So, the victim of the harrassment was herself responsible for her suicide! When the judge becomes a defender of the criminal, who can punish him? And why on earth should the tormentors of the underprivileged be at all afraid of the law-enforcing authorities? With inbuilt insularity in position, the aggressors of the dignity of the Dalits or tribals have nothing to fear.
The question is not limited to the unfortunate Lodha girl, who was the first-generation learner. The majority of lawyers and advocates, even judges presiding over law courts where victims of atrocities seek justice, have to contend with such men luxuriantly endowed with filial loyalty. Miscarriage of justice in their cases is unfailingly a foregone conclusion. This is why the Dalits and tribals as a whole entertain an overpwoering perspective that they would not get justice if and when the accused belong to the supremacist club as that of their judges.
Since decades North-Eastern Indians have been subjected to persecution and atrocities by the Indian mainlanders because of their different lifestyle, looks, features, cultural traits etc. One cannot readily remember a case involving them in which salutary and exemplary punishment has been awarded to the criminals. The National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, in a report on reservation in the higher judiciary, bemoaned: “Unfortunately the composition of the higher judiciary shows that judges continue to be drawn mostly from the very section of the society which is infected with the age-old social prejudice. In most cases, social inhibition and class interest of such judges do not permit them full play of their intellectual honesty and integrity in their decisions.”4
Profligacy with intellectual honesty or professional ethics never tormented any of them. The acquittal of 26 Ranvir Sena men, convicted for the massacre of 61 Dalits in Laxmanpur Bathe, Bihar, by a Bench of the Patna High Court last year, underlined the same age-old inhibition and prejudice. One of the judges of the Bench is said to belong to the same stock that furnished the recruits of the private militia. Lack of intellectual integrity and honesty failed the judge to recuse himself from the Bench. Besides, why did the government advocates, appearing for the victims of a massacre, not without strong vested interest, fail to agitate the issue of conflict of interest with such a judge sitting on the Bench to hear and acquit the convicts?
Hasn’t Delhi Forfeited its Right to
remain the Nation’s Capital?
The barbarous lynching of Nido has come as the proverbial last straw provoking the North-Eatern Indian students and activists to launch a peaceful and sustained agitation in Delhi against the racial discrimination they routinely face and suffer. Repeated instances of discrimi-nation and intolerance in Delhi alongside other parts of India must be viewed in a broader perspective. A question must be asked: Hasn’t Delhi forfeited its claim to remain the national Capital where Indians irrespective of religion, race, caste, place of birth—Arunachal to Gujarat and Ladakh to Kanyakumari—are unwelcome?
Insecurity coupled with racial discrimination disqualifies it to be the nation’s Capital open to polyglot, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural con-course of the countrymen. Delhi has actually become a haven for the fascist forces, like the barbarian Ku Klux Klan, over whom the writ of the authorities does not run. The political masters and executive authorities have not confronted them with all the might of the state when their victims belong to margins of the society. Their incompetence to put down the dark forces with an iron hand might unobtru-sively engulf the North-Easterners into a centrifugal torrent which ultimately can be a movement for secession from India. The Chinese in the neighbourhood do not lack fanciful designs to make matters worse for India.
Has Caste made the Crucial 
Difference in Attitude?
Following the gangrape and subsequent murder of a paramedical girl student in a school bus in Delhi on December 16, 2012 thousands of women, who were pejoratively described as highly dented and painted5 alongside students, and the common man from all walks of life thronged the streets of Delhi and elsewhere demanding justice. In the Capital they fought with the police, gheraoed Parliament, marched right upto the Rashtrapati Bhavan, had instantaneous audience with the Prime Minister on demand, abused
the Union Home Minister and Delhi Chief Minister, and almost uprooted the Delhi Police Commissioner. It was hailed as the power of the people. At subzero temperature at 3.30 am December 29, 2012, the Prime Minister and the UPA-II chairperson were at the international airport to receive the dead body and pay homage to the departed soul of the gangrape victim brought from Singapore. These were touching gestures of sympathy of the agitationists as well as the authorities. We were reassured of a new era.
Many have noted with sadness the absence as also failure of those agitationists to join in sympathy and solidarity for the North-Eaterners under attacks. [Some students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University did come, however, in the end to express their solidarity with the North-Easterners.] Why have they failed to turn up in their crisis and where have they gone? We know the answer. The caste of the Delhi rape victim made the crucial difference. This is xenophobia. It is immaterial whether the authorities and/or the countrymen of the privileged class agree or not. To the dented and painted agitationists, the caste of the rape victim was the trigger. The deprived, discriminated and marginalised know well why they have no support from the privileged.
Footnotes
1. The Times of India, August 18, 2012, news item captioned “Fresh attacks in Bangalore keep NE exodus going”. The State Home Minister quoted this statistics to the media.
2. CNN-IBN, April 25, 2012.
3. Suman Chattopadhyay, Ananda Bazar Patrika, Calcutta, June 6, 1995.
4. http://ncsc.nic.in/files/Reservatio...
5. “Those who are coming in the name of students in the rallies, sundori, sundori mahila (beautiful women), highly dented and painted,” Abhijit Mukherjee, an MP from the Jangipur seat that the President of India had vacated before his election, told a vernacular news channel.
The author is a former Vice-Chancellor, B.R. Ambedkar University, Muzaffarpur, Bihar. He can be contacted at biswasatulk@gmail.com

Include NE studies in all school curricula, says NESO

Shillong, Feb 22 : The North East Students Organisation (NESO) today demanded that details of the eight states of the region should be included in the school curricula of all state and central boards to check racial discrimination against the people of the region.

"We insist that the Centre take steps to include the North East -- its geographical location, its people, its culture, its ethos etc -- in the curricula of schools of all state and central boards to address discrimination of its (North East) people to some extent," NESO president Samuel B Jyrwa told PTI.

Jyrwa, who led a delegation of student leaders of the eight north eastern states, met Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde in New Delhi and handed over to him a petition also demanding a stringent law to end racial discrimination.

The NESO said the discrimination stemmed from the fact that North East, despite being part and parcel of the country, did not reflect in the school curricula in the whole country.

"Nothing of the north east was even mentioned in the national anthem. Our petition, if agreed, would go a long way towards improving national integration," Jyrwa said.

Angered by the death of Arunachal Pradesh student Nido Tania after he was attacked by a mob in Delhi last month and the subsequent assault on two Naga girls and rape of a minor girl from Manipur earlier this month, the NESO sought short term and long term measures for the Government to take up.

To improve people-to-people contact, the student body suggested the government make a one-time recruitment policy for at least 5,000 Delhi Police personnel in the state capitals in the north east.

"At least one Special Police Station should be established in Delhi for dealing with cases related to racial discrimination and atrocities on NE people, with a provision that it is manned by police officers from NE states," the NESO petition said.