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07/11/2008: "NBCC flays ‘gun power’ ideology By NPN Nagaland Post"



NBCC flays ‘gun power’ ideology By NPN | Nagaland Post

Dimapur10/07/2008 Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) general secretary Rev. Zhabu Terhüja has reaffirmed the church’s “abhorrence” against factional killings, made public on several occasions, which he blamed on the ideology of the NSCNs that “power flows through the barrel of the gun”.
In a statement, he said unless this belief was recanted, killings would continue.
He said the national workers have “great political aspirations” also appreciated by all, though many of the political issues remained addressed. However, he said the present strife and enmity “have retarded the progression and have shattered all hope of the future.”
Rev. Zhabu affirmed that “killing brings only curse”. He said while all Scripture were written as inspired by the Holy Spirit; the commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill’ in the Ten Commandment was written by the finger of God Himself. Therefore, he said, killing was “a serious matter that invites the wrath of God” He said while people and organizations across the land endeavored to bring an end to factional killings, the NBCC regretted that when leaders of different factions “were prayerfully exploring ways” for reconciliation; killings and a high degree of destruction took place in Vihokhu on June 26,2008. He said the incident defied all spirit of goodwill and therefore, the NBCC strongly denounced the June 26 incident.
Press Release July 11, 2008
The government of India was blamed by NSCN for being insincere while dealing with the Indo-Naga political issue. Serious commitment was found lacking on the part of India, and that caused the delay in bringing the peace talks to a meaningful level.
Ironically, the state administration under the direction of Nagaland state government is adopting the same attitude by applying different yard-stick while going headstrong with the notorious "flush out operation" in Dimapur. The indignation of NSCN cannot be faulted. And when things started going too far the Naga Army is forced into action but conscientiously.
The attack by Naga Army against the hide out of the reactionary forces located at Diphupar is a direct out come of the double standard policy of the Dimapur administration. The Deputy Commissioner's pretentious seriousness just faded after his operation flush out evicted the NSCN members but allowing reactionary forces of Azheto-Mulatuno-Kitovi group to be stationed there at Diphupar area and other places from where all the criminals activities like abduction and extortion are conducted. It was a long wait but the wait cannot be extended for too long lest the public nuisance created by this group takes for a more dangerous turn.
There is no running away on the action taken by the NSCN against the Azheto-Mulatuno-Kitovi group why the state police forces turn a blind eye to the presence of their Highway Command in the house of Maj. Atoshe at L khel, Diphupar? The NSCN have acted with a very clear conscience when the Dimapur administration failed to apply the same yard-sticks. When dealing with NSCN members the police acted with promptness and faithfulness. But in the matters of Azheto-Mulatuno-Kitovi elements, the police intelligence went out of action or simply directed to go slow by the top level officials. But NSCN cannot afford to go slow, and will never go slow to defend people's interest.
The irony of the situation is that everybody talks about ceasefire ground rules implementation. But nobody ask who will implement it and how. Not by Government of India agency alone can ceasefire ground rules be implemented if NSCN is not taken account. Otherwise, the ground rules remains in name only. Let the government of India treat the Ceasefire rules with a heart of sincerity to make it more meaningful. The state as well as Central government should take serious note of the duplicity in the matter of ceasefire rules. Issued by: MIP/GPRN.
Press Release July 11, 2008
To react to any incident from Communal and individual angle when the issue in focus is the direction of the NSCN, is ill-motivated with the intention to flare up sentiment against the NSCN with communal venom added to it, and victimizing certain individual without any tangible reason attached. As a matter of reality, to mislead the people on the unfounded ground is the main target of the concern group who has gone to the extreme of resorting to undesirable reaction. Unfortunately, the communal fraternity will become the victims of this false propaganda.
In the operation against the 'Highway Command' notoriously operated by Azheto-Mulatuno-Kitovi group, the mention of Major Viyito by Hokato Vusshe is irrelevant and out of the context. Maj. Viyito was never on the scene on the day of the attack. More over, it does not warrant pinpointing any individual. It is the responsibility of the GPRN to do away with any anti-social operation.
Significantly, the maturity of the Naga people should be rationalized and not allowed themselves to be carried away by such misleading utterance. Let no Naga be so naïve to fall victim to the deceitfulness of Azheto-Mulatuno-Kitovi group. The public have had enough of this group's big mouthed habit to cry foul against NSCN. But the natural course of justice is already in the making, and the attack against the Highway Command is part of the process. People's interests should not be sacrificed at the hands of the forces with destructive agenda in the making.
Three more fall to bullets morungexpress
Dimapur, 10 July (MExN): A cadre of the “NSCN/GPRN” was reportedly abducted at around 5:30 AM by a group of about 5 to 6 armed men this morning from his residence at New Thilixu. The cadre was later found shot dead at Diphupar ‘B’ Ikshe village junction, by the police. The deceased has been identified as one Wankan son of a Yargam of Nutong village. The deceased bore a bullet injury on the back of the head. In a similar incident, one DT Haokip son of a Mangjahao of Saikul village in Senapati district was abducted from his residence at Nagarjan at around 8:00am and was later shot at Diphupar ‘B.’
The victim also bore a bullet injury on the head. DT Haokip is believed to be from the (KRA) Kuki Revolutionary Army and was its “finance secretary” till he was captured by the NSCN (IM) in 2008, which he later joined as “joint secretary”. He was reportedly apprehended by the “unification” and was reportedly at the Vihokhu camp till it was overrun by the NSCN (IM). According to police both cases are suspected deaths of the ongoing factional hostilities between the NSCN (IM) and the “NSCN/GPRN”.
Further, at around 9:30 pm another body was recovered by the police at Gorapati, near Dillai Gate. The deceased has not been identified by the police and is lying at the Dimapur Civil Hospital. According to the police the deceased was shot in the head and 2 empty case of bullet was found along with one live round. According to the police, a driving license was recovered with the deceased that had the name “Yarkhu” but the police claim that the identity did not match the profile of the deceased.
3 bodies recovered By NPN | Nagaland Post
Dimapur10/07/2008 Dimapur police Thursday recovered 3 dead bodies from different locations of the city. One Wangkam Konyak, a “Leacy” in the NSCN (K) was reportedly kidnapped by NSCN (I-M) activists from his residence at Thilixu New at around 4:30 a.m and later shot at near Daeshin Academy School Diphupar ‘B’ village at around 6 a.m.
Police quoting the victim’s wife said five armed NSCN (I-M) activists drove up to the residence in a Maruti van and kidnapped Wangkam. Police also said the victim who bore a bullet wound on the head was still breathing when they found him near Daeshin Academy. However, Wangkam succumbed to injuries later at Dimapur Civil Hospital.
In another incident, police recovered the body of a person later identified as one DT Haokip, son of Mangjahao Haokip of Saikul village, at Sovima village area at around 3:30 p.m. Police said the victim who bore a bullet mark on the fore head with both hands tied, was earlier abducted from Nagarjan.
Police also recovered the dead body of a former NSCN (I-M) activist identified as H Yarkao alias Felix at Shiv Mandir Gorapatti near railway track at around 8:20 p.m. Police said the victim was shot twice on the head.
Naga forces comb jungle for Jewel men OUR CORRESPONDENT The Telegraph


Kohima/Guwahati, July 10: For the first time, security forces in Nagaland have launched operations in the forests of the state adjoining Assam to flush out militants belonging to the Jewel Gorlosa faction of the Dima Halam Daogah. The operations were launched last night. The DHD (J) militants are taking shelter in camps in the Athibung forest in Nagaland’s Peren district along with militants of the Khaplang faction of the NSCN.
Sources said the decision to launch the operations against the Dimasa militant group was taken yesterday following discussions between the two state governments hours after the outfit ambushed a CRPF patrol, killing one jawan and injuring four.
Sources said hundreds of jawans of the army, Assam Rifles and India Reserve Battalion were deployed in the jungles at the tri-junction of Assam, Nagaland and Manipur.
Maj. Pallab Choudhury, public relations officer of the inspector-general of Assam Rifles (North), said the operations are on to track down the militants taking shelter in the jungles of Athibung along with cadres of National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang).
“We have raided some of their camps, but the militants escaped,” the PRO said.
He said a combined force of the army, Assam Rifles and IRB are still on the job to flush out the rebels from the thick jungles despite incessant rainfall.
He said DHD(J) rebels escaped into the bushes before the security forces could reach the camps. “We know the militants are still in the area,” Maj. Choudhury said.
The NSCN (K) denied that it was sheltering members of any militant outfit in its camps. But sources said there were about 150 DHD (J) cadres in Athibung. The cadres have sneaked into Nagaland to escape army operations in Assam.
Security forces said taking advantage of the ceasefire in Nagaland, several outfits operating in other northeastern states are taking shelter in the state with the help of the Naga outfits.
The security forces also warned the NSCN factions not to host members of other militant outfits in their camps.
Several cadres of Manipur and Assam-based militant outfits like the PLA, UNLF and both factions of the DHD were arrested from Nagaland’s commercial capital Dimapur and its neighbouring areas in the past couple of months. The DHD (J) publicity secretary, Paiprang Dimasa, too, was arrested last month from a hotel in Dimapur. Issued by: MIP/GPRN
NSCN-IM strikes A day after losing two of its members to its rivals, the NSCN (I-M) today struck back by gunning down two NSCN (K) rebels in the 4th Mile area of Dimapur.
Police said the two were first abducted and then shot. Their bodies were later recovered from the same area.
In protest against the spate of killings in and around Dimapur, the Western Sumi Students’ Union has called a 12-hour Dimapur bandh tomorrow.
The union said Naga militants were violating human rights and the government, whose basic duty was to protect its citizens, was doing nothing about it.
It said the recent chain of events of gross human rights violations has became a threat to the lives of all individuals. The bandh, which will be from 6am to 6pm, will affect Manipur too.
Resentment against violence growing in NSCN & NNC Church and China fomenting violence in Nagaland Nagarealm.com

In the process Naga society has suffered a huge loss in terms of life and property without any gain. If various survey reports informed through media from time to time pertaining to the adverse psychological effect on adolescent mind of young generation of insurgency affected communities are correct, the vital section of victim society is very badly affected.

The tough stand taken by Smt Indira Gandhi after the collapse of Cease-fire Agreement, 1964 and signing of Shillong Accord 1975 under compelling circumstances to avoid the further loss of Naga lives, caused despair and delusion in some hardcore demagogues in Naga guerilla camp. The violent killings between warring factions in Nagaland find some similarity to what has already happened in other parts of the world or in some states of our country as well. The Christian countries helped the Naga insurgency through their churches planted in every nook and corner of Nagaland. But this game plan could not succeed. It is very often stated that nearly 40,000 Nagas perished in this fight, some with security forces and mostly with rival factions.

The tough stand taken by Smt Indira Gandhi after the collapse of Cease-fire Agreement, 1964 and signing of Shillong Accord 1975 under compelling circumstances to avoid the further loss of Naga lives, caused despair and delusion in some hardcore demagogues in Naga guerilla camp led by Phizo from his London abode under the banner of Naga National Council (NNC). This discontent mounted when Phizo refused to disown the Shillong Accord 1975, the signatories of which included his own brother Kevi Yalie. The church failed in their endeavour for this crisis management. The Christian supporters in Christian countries could also not vent a tangible ray of hope of materialising the NNC’s declared dream-Naga sovereignty. Because of this, a section of NNC guerilla leaders disenchanted with Christian model of solution or crisis management, opted for communist model.

These disillusioned NNC leaders crossed the international border and sneaked into Chinese territory via Burma, now Myanmar. It is not that they had come in China for the first time. Earlier also, they had got arms training in China. But this time, they had come with a view to adopt a communist model of creating mayhem and to acquire matching arms training and psychological war-fare. While doing so, they, the frustrated block, might have, thought to muster pro-active support of China while the remnant NNC under Phizo would command the support of Christian countries through Michael Scott, Billy Graham and other foreign missionaries. The detractors of Phizo and his NNC perhaps thought that Christian forces mobilised by Phizo and communist forces to be mobilised by discontented group then under training in China, could join together against India. In fact, Smt Indira Gandhi had said during six rounds of talks in 1965 that she was prepared to give anything except sovereignty but NNC leaders refused. They did not mention anything about greater Nagaland. After their training in guerilla war-fare with special thrust on mountain and jungle fight, a separate guerilla organisation coined as National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) was formed in 1980 under deep influence of Chinese communism with Isak Chishi Swu (a Sema Naga from Nagaland) as its chairman, S.S. Khaplang (a Hemi Naga from Myanmar) as its vice-chairman and Thuingaleng Muivah (Tangkhul Naga from Ukhrul district of Manipur). When they sneaked into Bharatiya territory in Nagaland, a fierce fight between NNC and NSCN was the order of the day. This slaughter drama was also enacted in Naga inhabited areas of Myanmar.

The church and priests were the first causalities. Several churches were demolished and many Padris were killed. These factional fights were regularly reported in local English weeklies. Though NNC was under Christian doctrine and NSCN was under communist influence, there was a section of guerillas in both the camps—NNC and NSCN—who had some quantum of influence of native ethos though dormant in their mind during eighties and nineties. This dormant influence of native Naga ethos handed down from generation to generation by Naga forefathers appears being revived and rejuvenated now. This section of Naga society found in NNC and both the NSCNs are presumably realising that by experience it appears to them that neither Christian model nor communist model has succeeded in resolving the problem. And in the process Naga society has suffered a huge loss in terms of life and property without any gain. If various survey reports informed through media from time to time pertaining to the adverse psychological effect on adolescent mind of young generation of insurgency affected communities are correct, the vital section of victim society is very badly affected.

They suffer a loss of enthusiasm to advance and climb up. In Nagaland, it is equally applicable to Naga youths of both the genders. Naga mothers and sisters are worst sufferers. The independent thinkers, writers, reputed persons in the field of journalism and selfless Naga social workers (but never the NGO owners) though Christian by faith, have started preparing the profit and loss statement of adoption of Christianity followed by Naga insurgency. When they notice minus return against huge investment in terms of man, money, religion, culture and native ethos, they get bemused and disheartened. This type of independent thinkers are also in NNC and NSCN. This native Naga doctrine is also a force to reckon with. Thus, the present factional fight is not so simple to analyse. This is a tri-dimensional ideological war between Christianity, communism and native Naga doctrine. Nobody in the world can sail two boats at a time. But Nagas wish to sail three or more boats at a time. They wish to prove to be a devout Christian to please Christian countries; they want to prove that they are also staunch followers of communism (Maoism) to please China; they do not want to antagonise Hindustan as well because they will starve without the help of Hindustan. At the same time, they wish to preserve Naga identity.

The church leaders were once very respectable beyond doubt. The Christian people were obeying them. They (Naga Christians) genuinely repented for their mistakes in confession services in front of them in churches. But this is not so today. The forced conversion, programmes like Shisha Hoho, the church’s insistence on declaration of Nagaland as dry state and their failure in the following same by themselves, their involvement in Naga insurgency and Naga politics in the state, partisan behaviours, greed of money, lack of spirituality and love for carnal pleasure etc have tarnished the image of Naga, deacons and pastors. Now, they are treated as simply paid servants with assigned duty to conduct church services and speak of Bible. This is the reason any call given by church leaders pertaining even to Naga reconciliation or church programmes is not taken seriously which was not so a decade ago. They have lost people’s trust because they, themselves, don’t follow what they ask others to abide.

Missionary work in Nagaland
With a view to show that they are also very busy in their ‘holy’ work, the church in Nagaland is engaged in training 10,000 Naga missionaries for saving Hindu souls in UP, Bihar, Bengal, Arunachal, Sikkim, Asom, Manipur and neighbouring countries like Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia and China. Same is the case with Naga political leaders. These selfish Naga political leaders are using different underground factions in winning elections and once they occupy the political throne they start repaying them.
Jamir should be asked to pay back money to Goa: BJP Assam Tribune
PANAJI, July 10 – The BJP has said the President should ask the outgoing Goa Governor SC Jamir to pay back the money which he has spent on ‘unwanted’ Delhi visits and other luxuries during his tenure.

“Jamir has been the most expensive Governor. His expenses of frequent Delhi and Nagaland trips, besides, other luxuries were borne by the state exchequer. He should be asked to pay it back,” BJP’s Goa unit spokesman Govind Parvatkar told reporters here.

The BJP had launched ‘Jamir Hatao’ campaign in the state accusing him of acting unconstitutional. The Opposition party had also laid scathing attack on his ‘unwanted expenses’. “We want the President to intervene and probe into his expenses through a proper investigating agency,” Parvatkar said.

Jamir has been replaced by former Manipur Governor S S Sidhu through a Rashtrapati Bhavan order last evening.– PTI
Financial inclusion and microcredit ,Manoj Pant Economic Times
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After Mohammed Yunus received a Nobel prize for his work on micro credit, most would agree that this is probably the only way to bring about financial inclusion of the small and marginal farmers. In India too, budget after budget has announced schemes to this end: from incentivising self-help groups (SHGs) to opening bank accounts for beneficiaries of the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) scheme, to crop insurance, etc. Yet, none of these seem to work effectively and cases of farmer suicides do still crop up in various parts of the country.

Consequently, the recent budget simply decided to write off loans to small and marginal farmers and this “loan waiver” scheme is considered one of the showpieces of the UPA government. Yet, as any follower of the microcredit success in Bangladesh knows, simpler and less expensive schemes do work. So what is the problem in India? In this article I will look here at a few case studies from the ‘newest kid on the block’: the states of the NorthEast region (NER) of India. More specifically, I list here some possible answers based on my recent visit to one of the NorthEast states, namely, Nagaland.

One of the institutions set up to cater specifically to the demands of the NER is the NEDFi (NorthEast Development Finance Corporation Ltd) which, as its web site indicates, is supposed to be “championing the entrepreneurial needs of the NorthEast”. It is now under the administrative control of the department of the NorthEast (DONER). Though it has plentiful funds, it does not seem to have been particularly effective as far the small and marginal farmers of the hill states of the NER are concerned.

The main problem seems to be the location (it is headquartered in Guwahati) which is inaccessible to the small farmer in remote areas of the hill states. What is probably more important (and spelt out in the Vision Document of the NER released recently by the PM), the requirement of the small farmers is for small loans (Rs 60,000 to Rs 1 lakh). Such loans are too expensive for large financial institutions to administer. Speaking more generally, the need in hill states is to take the loans to the farmers via refinancing of smaller financial institutions, NGOs, etc., located in the hill areas. As the Vision 2020 document indicates, there is evidence that NEDFi is trying to refinance a few such institutions.

One such institution is the Entrepreneur Associates, an NGO located in Kohima, Nagaland. I was able to meet with representatives of two other institutions: Nagaland Development Outreach (a non-profit NGO located in Dimapur) and the Hornbill Finance Corporation (HFC), the only registered non-banking financial institution (NBFI) located in that region. While the NGO is still trying desperately to get funds, I was able to get some interesting insights from Mr Merentoshi Jamir, the executive director of the HFC.
Dog’s life in JNU worth a fine of Rs 2000 only Geeta Gupta
New Delhi, July 10 The authorities at the Jawaharlal Nehru University have expelled a student from the hostel and fined him Rs 2,000 for torturing and killing a female dog in his room on July 8.
Acting Dean of Students’ Welfare V K Jain said, “I have heard the dog was killed in the room by a student and two of his guests. The action taken against him is appropriate.”
The wardens, meanwhile, have prepared a report on what they saw and heard in the early hours of Tuesday. Everybody in the Kaveri hostel was woken up by the animal’s wails around 2 am.
The yelps continued and within an hour they saw blood seeping out of room 248, where the PhD student — 30-year-old Yoronso from Nagaland — stayed. Student Anand Saurabh said, “We demanded that Yoronso open the door. Inside, the animal was lying dead in a pool of blood. Yoronso and his two friends had beaten it with iron rods.” Another student said, “The dog’s head had been smashed and limbs dismembered.”
Senior warden of the hostel Andrew Lynn was not present that night, but he handed the eviction letter to Yoronso on Thursday and asked him to vacate the room by 5 pm.
Professor Jain said Yoronso, in his letter of apology to the authorities, had put forth “self-defence” as the reason. When Newsline tried to speak to Yoronso in campus on Thursday, he scurried away, shouting back that he had to take permission from his lawyer to speak to the media.
The student from Nagaland is in the fifth year of PhD in Political Sciences and was classified as a 9B student — or one who is on extension of a year. He was supposed to vacate the room by Thursday in any case. Students have questioned whether Yoronso had not been let off lightly. Some also said the authorities had at first tried to hush up the matter — removing the carcass and even cleaning the blood.
Meanwhile, animal rights practitioners have moved into campus with some calling JNU a “lawless slaughterhouse”. Lawyer Anjali Sharma of the Citizens for Animals — an association of animal sympathisers — said, “What happened in JNU is an offence under Section 11 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, and Sections 428 and 429 of the Indian Penal Code.” She added the police are also empowered to arrest such offenders without warrants.
NGO Citizens for Welfare and Protection of Animals had filed a complaint with the Vasant Vihar police station, but no FIR has been registered yet. Anjali Sharma said, “JNU is conducting an internal inquiry and once the result is out and a complaint lodged, the police cannot refuse an FIR.” On the other hand, Professor Jain has said the university is open to any legal scrutiny.
Witnesses, activists shocked, varsity says this is a first
“There have been rumours of all kinds, but we can't do anything unless something comes to light. The student has been evicted and slapped with a fine of Rs 2,000. The police will take any action they think is appropriate. This is the first such case that has come to our knowledge”
Prof V K Jain
Acting Dean of Students' Welfare: “When we asked Yoronso to open the door, we saw the dog in a pool of blood battered to death. The three had been beating the poor dog with iron rods”
Anand Saurabh
Resident of the hostel: “I was nauseated at the degree of cruelty involved and still can't sleep. The dog was mercilessly beaten to death, her head smashed with a heavy object and limbs dismembered,”
Student whose room is on the same floor as Yoronso What is JNU? A centre for learning, or a depraved, lawless slaughter house?
Anjali Sharma Lawyer associated with Citizens for Animals
“We even got a signature campaign done and 41 students signed it, recognising the cruelty against the dog. The university authorities did not find it as proof enough for the 'intentional' killing of the dog by those three people. In this case the police have decided not to register an FIR unless the results of the inquiry by the JNU, are known”
Sonya Ghosh Animal rights' activist who lodged the complaint with police
Partition as Conflict Resolution Rita Manchanda Morungexpress
In Southasia, any discussion about partitions immediately conjures up the Great Partition of 1947, as well as the grand narratives of Independence that came to answer the questions, What is India? and What is Pakistan? Partition drew bloody borders that divided sovereignty, and produced a regional system that pitted one state against the other, steadily ratcheting up to a nuclear standoff. Think ‘Partition’, and it raises the spectre of the ‘de-imperialising’ will to divide and quit, of the ‘guilty men’ who ‘decided the destiny of millions without their mandate’. Mention Partition, and it instantly recalls narratives of suffering and betrayal, of the forcible dislocation and disruption of the lives of millions of individuals caught in the vortex of the violent creation of two historic national destinies. Look at the policies of Partition, and what comes to mind is the unresolved ‘minority’ question, as well as the production of a nation in turmoil, as the Pakistan movement implanted itself in a multinational landscape.
The associated assumption here, then, is that Partition in the collective Southasian memory represents the failure of different communities to live peacefully together. Partition’s anxieties and dynamics defined our past, and continue to shape and threaten our contemporary socio-political relations. Consequently, it can come as a shock when such complacent sets of assumptions about 1947 are overturned, as some Southasian scholars are currently attempting to do. Several such attempts came this past March in Kathmandu, at a regional consultation called “A Human Rights and Peace Audit of Partitions as a Method of Conflict Resolution”.
The suggestion is that perhaps Partition has overly coloured the Southasian imagining of partitions in general – solidifying the idea only of a particular kind of violent and malignant process, and of its extremely negative legacy. One such scholar, the Oxford-based Pritam Singh, shaking off memories of the bloody vivisection of Punjab, has drawn attention to the significance of the essential process of partition – ie, of ‘peaceful’ partitions – and of aftermaths not characterised by pathological anxieties.
Some recent examples of ‘peaceful partitions include the separation of the Czech republic from Slovakia, and Singapore from the Malaysian federation, though these were located within very specific contexts. More of an intellectual teaser is the contra-factual speculation about the secession of East Pakistan and the emergence of Bangladesh. The Pakistani scholar feminist Nighat Said Khan argues that if the Pakistan military establishment had accepted East Pakistan’s separation, this would have had the makings of a ‘peaceful’ partition. Implicit in this proposition, is the assumption of political scientists that partition ‘works’ when territorially focused social units are sufficiently distinct, and populations can be separated.
Generally, and especially, from a perspective of human rights and peace, most Southasian explorations of what partitions do to peoples’ entitlements – of security, basic needs, cultural rights and democratic inclusion – have only taken into account the process’s assumed undemocratic and negative consequences. But could a more thorough look at the Pakistan and Bangladesh partitions reveal opportunities for socio-political empowerment, opportunities that had not earlier been available to the minorities of undivided India?

Right Sizing
The international debate on this topic is deeply divided, and the challenge is to avoid the fundamentalism of the steadfastly pro- and anti-partition camps. This means, for instance, bypassing the Delhi-based conflict scholar Radha Kumar’s defining analysis of partitions as inherently leading to new cycles of violence, secessionist struggles and calls for the annexation of territories based on ethnicity. Kumar’s is a thesis animated by a history of partitions that have been imposed as colonial ‘exit strategies’. “The decisions to divide are most commonly impelled by considerations which have little to do with the needs or desires of people who are to be divided,” Kumar has argued. Such is a common perception.
At the same time, could there be another way to look at partition as a rational policy instrument, more in line with Pritam Singh’s suggestion? Balveer Arora, a scholar of federalism, has alluded to India’s national leaders acquiescing to the process of partition in the name of enabling centralised, planned development. Similarly, partition could be a means, to borrow the American political scientist Ian Lustick’s phrase, of ‘right sizing’ the state. A good example of this could be the secession of East Pakistan.
What is necessary in this discussion is an intellectual openness to capturing inherent paradoxes, such as the choice of partition as a policy instrument in the interest of a state’s attempts at integration. Human-rights activist Tapan Bose has argued that the ruling elite of some states, driven by the desire to create strong, integrated states, have incorporated the paradox of partition as a policy instrument to accommodate demands focused on territory, where a certain group could have a degree of self rule. In illustration, Bose alludes to the autonomy arrangements inherent in the 1953 pact on Kashmir between Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah, or Zia ul-Haq’s settlement on Balochistan in 1977.
Partition didn’t stop in 1947. ‘Internal partitions’ have increasingly become the knee-jerk approach to settling what are seen to be ethnic conflicts in the region

This debate is not a mere theoretical one. According to Ted Robert Gurr, the author of Peoples vs State: Minorities at risk in the New Century , domestic animosities (including those between ethnicities) in which the partition of an existing territory is being considered, can be found in at least a quarter of the world’s countries. Increasingly, though, policy thrusts are not towards self-determination and the partitioning of sovereignty, but rather accommodation through power sharing within existing states. In Southasia, while the ruling establishments of Bangladesh and Pakistan have acquiesced to territorially focused arrangements for various degrees of self-rule, the Sinhala-dominated Sri Lankan state has fiercely resisted efforts at any significant federal arrangements for devolving power sharing, let alone for special autonomy for the north and east.

A Last Resort
The salience of partition as a rational policy instrument was highlighted in February 2008, when Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia. In response, the US-led international community acquiesced, with just a minority dissenting, including India and Russia. Compare this with the international community’s negative consensus on the splintering ethnic assertions and diffusion into secessionist wars in the former Yugoslavia. Eventually, the international intervention in Bosnia was able to stitch together a volatile federal arrangement. But Radha Kumar has pithily described the 1995 Dayton Accords, which brought an end to the three and a half years of war in Bosnia, as “a peace arrangement that is in reality a partition agreement with an exit clause”. Indeed, the rhetoric of partition is still firmly out of favour at the international level. In 2007, the international response was notably ambivalent towards the proposal by political scientists Edward Joseph and Michael O’Hanlon of a ‘soft partition’ solution for Iraq. This was despite the fact that it came just months before the internationally supervised movement of Kosovo towards independence.
Alongside the confused certainties of current policies opposed to partitioning, sovereignties worldwide are being undermined by a crop of fanciful propositions, in an attempt to draw on history for a way out of current problems. What if colonial Sudan had been partitioned? is one such flight of fancy. What if the partition of Israel-Palestine had been accepted? If the 1905 partition of Bengal had not been undone, would the violence of the 1947 Partition in the east have taken place…? Engaging in such lines of thought offers an alternative way of thinking about partition, which stands in stark contrast to the violence of the unstable partitions of Cyprus, Northern Ireland, Kashmir and Palestine, as well as of the ‘stable’ partitions of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The bruising narratives of these experiences have shaped the current intuitive policy recoil regarding exclusive nationalisms and ethnic partitions.
World War II had left a bitter legacy of the destructive impact of the rational of ‘exclusive nationalisms’ which had provided the ideological legitimation for the German war machine. Post-war, the unfinished partitions of Palestine, Ireland and Cyprus have left a trail of continuing conflict, instability and human suffering. Even the ‘finished’ partition of the Subcontinent, resulting in the emergence of two-plus-one states, has imprinted a lasting image of horrific dislocation and violent disruption, not to mention the hostility between two nuclear states.
Historically, the international community has shied away from supporting separatist movements, especially those that involve the partitioning of sovereignty. Separatist movements have, after all, left the world a legacy of unrecognised partitioned states, which Nicolas Sambanis, the author of Partition as a Solution to Ethnic War, has classified as de facto and de jure partitioned states. The former generally follow ceasefires – think Cyprus-Northern Cyprus, Georgia-South Ossetia, Azerbaijan-Karabakh, Iraq-Kurdistan. In the latter, meanwhile, governance is given over to ‘autonomous’ set-ups – India and Kashmir, Pakistan and Balochistan, China and Tibet, Israel and Palestine, Russia and Chechnya, the UK and Northern Ireland.
On the partitions debate, the academic and policy community generally falls into two opposing camps. Defining the conceptual framework for pro-partition theorists, Lehigh University professor Chaim Kaufmann has argued that “to save lives threatened by genocide, the international community must abandon attempts to restore war-torn multi-ethnic states. Instead, it must facilitate and protect population movements to create true national homelands.” Conflict thus can be seen to produce movement towards ethnic homogenisation, as people flee and seek their own kin. By creating separate countries, partition-secession formalises this process, dividing the belligerents and allowing them to live in charge of their own affairs.
Challenging this set of assumptions is the influential critique of Donald Horrowitz, who questions the partitionists’ presumption of creating ethnically ‘homogenous’ homelands. Horrowitz warns that ‘ethnicised’ politics are likely to lead to extremism. Radha Kumar’s work furthers this line of thought. She rejects the idea that partition can be seen as, essentially, the lesser of two evils, and chooses instead to focus on the violence of millions displaced and demographically cleansed.
Both sides in the new wave of partition theorists sidestep altogether the traditional rationale of partition theory – ie, the right of self-determination – and emphasise instead the humanitarian rationale of partitions as ‘a lesser evil’. In Southasia, government approaches to conflict resolution are in line with this subtle shift in the international discussion over partitions. This new way of thinking turns away from the supposed moral content of partition’s roots in self-determination and state formation, and emphasises instead a view of the process as an option of last resort, during times of humanitarian crisis. However, this line of thought is ideologically weighted towards an understanding of ethnic identity as fixed and permanent, and also presumes that reintegration following a brutal conflict is impossible.
There has been much disquiet, however, over the political implications of policy frameworks that move away from the moral legitimacy of self-determination towards an approach that conceptualises partition as a policy option to address humanitarian crisis. This new direction is seen by many as the by-product of a view that takes the state to be essentially unlinked to the people, and which assumes the presence of hard, unchangeable ethnic identities. Instead, many scholars, such as Sumathy Sivamohan and Darini Rajasingham, have increasingly suggested that greater interdisciplinary approaches are necessary, in order to re-capture the social reality of hybrid, blurred identities, particularly in Sri Lanka.

Democracy Deficit
The revival of policy interest in looking at partition as a method of conflict resolution follows a surge in internal conflicts, which academics tend to categorise as ethnic, ethno-nationalist, sub-national or ‘state formation’ conflicts. From the 1980s, international conflict analysis has been dominated by theorising about ethnic and national conflicts as a by-product of the formation of modern nation states, especially in post-colonial, multi-ethnic, multicultural societies. Giving a radical twist to this, the Swiss social scientist Andreas Wimmer, in Nationalist Exclusion and Ethnic Conflict, argued that in the modernist paradigm of the nation state – the dominant organising formation of society – the production of ethnicity and exclusion is not just a by-product. The modern project itself is founded on exclusion and inclusion, thus producing those who belong to the ‘true nation’ and those who become ‘the other’.
Naturally, understanding the intrinsic nature of a conflict is crucial to developing credible policy options regarding eventual power-sharing arrangements. And the subsequent policy prescription would clearly be quite different if a conflict was to be seen not as a matter of ethnicity but rather as one of democracy deficit. At that point, policymakers would have to expand the democratic agenda, and build a politics of recognition and redistribution rooted in reconciliation and social justice. Such an approach, however, would challenge the current assumption on the part of most partition theorists that ethnic polarisation is the dominant form of political organisation.
In Southasia, the ethno-geographic mosaic should have led the ruling elite to pursue a politics of pluralism and inclusion. Instead, the consolidation of nation states has been by way of majority rule, and structures of governance are by and large those that are centralised, coercive and hegemonic. As a consequence, peoples belonging to minority and indigenous communities are increasingly engaged in struggles against their respective states for recognition of their social and cultural rights, and for redistribution of lands and equality of political participation.
Such struggles have often been articulated (and manipulated) as movements for territorially defined political change, one that is intended to accord an ethnic group or nationality autonomous control over an area in which it resides. The elite have responded with strategies ranging from militarist suppression to constitutionally guaranteed political arrangements for self-rule – in other words, internal partitions. But analysis of four peace accords – in Sri Lanka, Balochistan and the Chittagong Hill Tracts, as well as with regard to the Naga peace process – has found a trend of federal arrangements and territorially demarcated special autonomies being set up to accommodate a newly assertive ‘ethnic’ counter-elite. As these examples show, this process has indeed led to constitutional acts of power sharing, but crucially without a change in the basic undemocratic nature of politics or the democratisation of institutions. These settlements, based on internal partitions, thus need to be understood as both flawed in terms of their ability to stop cycles of conflict, and ineffective in enabling peoples’ entitlements to rights.

Borders and Belonging
Ultimately, partitions in the Southasian context have shown themselves to be an inadequate means of resolving contemporary ‘ethno-nationalist’ conflicts. The act of partition has indeed devolved power to federal, autonomous and sovereign state units, but these instances have also transferred power and rights from the domain of peoples’ struggles to elite arrangements. In short, partitions have ended up displacing the root causes of conflict.
Moreover, the logic of exclusion underlying partition-based settlements has reinforced ‘insider-outsider’ politics. This can be particularly seen in the Indian Northeast, where the reflexive political call is for autonomy, and the lucrative dividends that can be garnered from engaging in ‘ethnic politics’ have resulted in the relentless reproduction of identity politics. The consequence of this has been more conflict, as well as the production of internally displaced non-dominant communities. Partition and its logic, after all, preclude the possibility of plural cultures.
At the same time, there are significant examples of resistance to the homogenising impact of partitions on the state and society. A good example of this is the Meo, the Muslim Rajput community of North India and Pakistan, which does not fit into rigid categories of religion, caste or territory. Moreover, the lived space of the borderlands challenges our assumptions of the sacredness of borders and of belonging – to states in India or even to national identities of India or Pakistan. Indeed, the very process of engaging in crossborder dialogue has promised to open up new ways of understanding notions of community, state, citizenship and nationality that have long bedevilled the countries of Southasia.
Partition-based settlements to stop ‘ethnic’ conflicts are becoming a dominant approach to peacemaking in the region. Before this is allowed to become entrenched, we need to explore a space between the two current camps in partition theory. Moreover, if we are to avoid the trap of partitions serving the interests of states and not peoples, we need to bring in the perspectives of non-dominant communities and groups, to ensure that the weaknesses inherent in the partition process are shored up. At the core of this attempt needs to be faith in the fact that that conflict is a matter of democracy deficit, not of ethnicity.
Return to Lakhipathar - Pro-talks Ulfa leaders propose designated camps at erstwhile headquarters site & Sadiya OUR CORRESPONDENT The Telegraph


An inside view of the jail at Chapakhowa which has been selected as the designated camp for leaders and cadres of the A and C companies of Ulfa’s 28 battalion. Picture by Pronib Das
Dibrugarh, July 10: Lakhipathar in Upper Assam, which shot to infamy after the discovery of mass graves of Ulfa’s victims in the early nineties, is poised to be back in the news with leaders of Ulfa’s 28 battalion, who recently declared a ceasefire, proposing a designated camp there.
One of the leaders, Moon Borah alias Jiten Dutta, today said they had selected Lakhipathar in Tinsukia district as the outfit had a long history of association with the area before they were evicted by the army in the early nineties.
“We had our general headquarters and council headquarters there at one point of time. The area is in the midst of several villages and it would be an ideal location for our cadres to stay. We have selected a forest range office campus for the camp,” Dutta said. The range office had, till recently, housed an army unit.
The proposed site for the designated camp, if agreed to by the authorities, could see Ulfa cadres roaming in and around Lakhipathar and Saraipung once again. This time, however, instead of “waging a war” against the nation, Ulfa cadres would try to pave the way for an amicable solution to the problem of insurgency through negotiations between the outfit’s leaders and the government.
Dutta, who joined the outfit in 1987, had witnessed the army operations in Lakhipathar, but was not involved in the military action.
“I was the secretary of the Digboi unit then and our responsibility was basically political and organisational at that time,” he added.
The other site proposed by the pro-talks leaders and cadres of the Ulfa for a designated camp is the Sadiya subdivision jail at Chapakhowa, also in Tinsukia district.
Tinsukia superintendent of police Prasanta Bhuyan confirmed that the state government had given the go ahead for this site.
“However, as of now, the proposal of the A and C companies for setting up the second designated camp at Lakhipathar is under consideration and we have not received any approval for that from our higher-ups,” he added.
The police official said the Sadiya subdivision jail and its premises had been renovated according to the government’s instructions. Inaugurated by the then state minister Padmeswar Doley on November 16, 1990, the jail was never used.
During the operations against the outfit, it was used to house the security forces. It was vacated by the army a couple of years ago after the government decided to re-locate the 11 Sikh Light Infantry to Namsai in Lohit district of Arunachal Pradesh from Sadiya subdivision.
The jail has provisions to house around 100 to 120 persons and also has separate provisions for women. “In case the female Ulfa cadres prefer to stay here, they can do so,” Bhuyan said.
Altogether 40 Ulfa cadres from both A and C companies of the 28 battalion will move to the designated camp at Sadiya subdivision jail from Friday, Dutta said.
The public meeting organised by the two companies at Chapakhowa Mukoli Mancha today witnessed a sea of people thronging the venue to listen to the Ulfa leaders. It was presided over by “captain” Mrinal Hazarika, the former commander of the outfit’s 28 battalion.


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