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01/02/2010: "‘Nagaland and India never shared a common history’ morungexpress"

‘Nagaland and India never shared a common history’ morungexpress

Dimapur, December 30 (MExN): Iconic former Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru too had a red time on the Naga political issue, according to president of the NNC Adinno Phizo. According to the NNC chief, Nehru ‘ranted’ his displeasure against discussing the Nagas’ demand for independence, during a meeting in Delhi in 1959.
In a note from the NNC president today, Adinno narrated how one of India’s greatest statesmen lost his cool: “Nagaland and India never ever share a common history. It makes no sense whatsoever for anyone to imagine that Nagaland ‘demands’ independence from India. Nonetheless, out of the blue the late Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, at a meeting in Delhi with a visiting three member Naga delegation led by the President of the NNC, AZ Phizo, on 11 March 1952, ranted, ‘Whether heaven falls or India goes to pieces and blood run red all over the country, I don't care! Whether I am here or anybody comes, I don't care! I will not discuss Naga independence with the Nagas!’”
By all accounts, Adinno stated, the assertion still resonates among Indian leaders to this day and Delhi stays “spellbound.” Since Jawaharlal Nehru ordered the India army to “crush them” and invaded Nagaland in 1954, over 100,000 Naga civilians perished at the hands of the Indian army, the NNC chief stated.
On a gentler side, the NNC president has extended New Year greetings “as Nagaland see out a semblance of peaceful 2009 and look forward to the year 2010.” “We thank the Almighty God for sustaining Naga nation at all times. Our people are certain that God has a purpose for the people of Nagaland, even then, some Naga people including some clergymen, vainly worship money and man,” she stated.
“Come the New Year! Our irrepressible Naga people will as always look on the bright side because the people of Nagaland are born free. Inspired by the political vision of the father of Naga nation, our people unflinchingly uphold 16 May 1951 mandate together with the yehzabo of Nagaland, and not in spite of, as certain quarters obscenely harbor, that Nagaland exist today,” the NNC president stated.
Solution hope for Naga issue

- Nagaland celebrates New Year’s eve with unity call while Arunachal observes Faith Day OUR CORRESPONDENT The Telegraph
Kohima, Dec. 31: The governor, chief minister and the Opposition Congress in Nagaland have greeted the people of the state with the dawn of the New Year expressing hope that 2010 would bring a tangible result to the unresolved Naga issues.
Governor Nikhil Kumar, chief minister Neiphiu Rio and PCC president K.V. Pusa, while sending their greetings to the people, called for united efforts to hammer our a solution for the Naga political problem.
They said only through unity a solution could be reached.
“It is our hope that the dawn of 2010 brings peace to our state and progress and prosperity to our people,” Pusa said.
The New Year is always welcomed with renewed hope, which can only be fulfilled by working together with resolve and dedication by all sections of Naga people, he added.
On this occasion, the PCC president called on the Naga people to take a pledge to strive towards building a strong, united, peaceful and prosperous Nagaland.
“The several challenges in our state, including poverty, illiteracy, ill health, unemployment and terrorism, should be addressed on a priority basis with the co-operation and support of every Naga, so that Nagaland takes its rightful place in the world. This is the time for all Nagas to unite as we share a mutual responsibility to stand together, in our struggle for solution to our pending issues. Let us work for the better avenues where Naga people could march ahead with the rest of the world community,” Pusa said.
The Naga National Council, a Naga outfit operating from London, called upon the Centre to rise above diplomatic mediocrity and address the long-drawn Naga political problem.
Sending out her New Year message to the people of Nagaland from her London home, the president of the NNC, Adinno Phizo, said the 1964 ceasefire created condition sufficiently conducive to bilateral talks, but the Centre cynically availed the opportunity to exploit the vulnerable section of Naga society.
“The failure to reach an agreement had inevitably turned the conflict into the longest unremitting ‘international war’ (1954-2010) in modern time,” she said.
Asserting that Nagas would not deflect from upholding freedom, the NNC called upon Naga youths to look ahead to take responsibility in “national affairs”.
From hope to despair in the northeast ICT by IANS
By Syed Zarir Hussain and Sujit Chakraborty
Guwahati/Agartala, Dec 31 (IANS) For the eight states in northeastern India, 2009 will go down as a year that promised to bring an end to nearly three decades of insurgency but ended with more bloodshed and misery.
Assam and Manipur continued to be in the limelight for the wrong reasons - at least 50 explosions in the two states in 2009 and more than 200 deaths besides several attacks on security forces.
And this despite the tremendous optimism at the dawn of 2009, with a firm commitment by both the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and the Assam government to help end one of the region’s bloodiest insurgencies.
“I wouldn’t say 2009 was a very good year but it wasn’t a bad year either,” Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said.
The only silver lining in Assam was the arrest of four top ULFA leaders - chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa, deputy commander-in-chief Raju Baruah, foreign secretary Sasha Choudhury and finance secretary Chitraban Hazarika.
There are hopes that these four leaders may be able to push the deadlocked peace process forward from within Guwahati jail.
“It is for the government to create a congenial atmosphere for peace talks,” rights leader Lachit Bordoloi said. But despite the gloom, there is a ray of hope in Assam.
There is nothing of the sort in Manipur. Anarchy overtook the state of 2.4 million people.
Militants killed government officials and Hindi-speakers, triggered explosions, kidnapped people for ransom, and extorted money even from temples. Educational institutions have been shut since September.
Attacks on people from outside the state, most of them Hindi-speaking daily wage earners or doing petty business, are on the rise. Twentynine people have been killed in 2009 including three in separate incidents in the last week of the year.
Educational institutions have remained closed since Sep 9 with students on the brink of losing a vital academic session.
The indefinite closure of all schools and colleges was called by the All Manipur Students Union (AMSU), demanding the resignation of Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh following the alleged extra judicial killing of a youth in July.
Nearly four months down the line, the Manipur government has failed to break the impasse.
In Nagaland, the peace talks with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) made no progress in 2009. Clashes between the two rival NSCN factions (one led by guerrilla leader S.S. Khaplang and the other by Isak Chishi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah) claimed at least 25 lives in 2009.
“There is a general sense of despondency in Nagaland with no forward movement in peace talks,” said T. Ao, a church leader.
Malaria and meningitis proved deadlier than militants in the three states of Tripura, Meghalaya and Mizoram.
Malaria claimed over 600 lives in the three states while meningococcal meningitis virus killed 285 in Meghalaya and Tripura. Close to 2,000 people became victims of this viral disease in the two states.
Meghalaya topped the list in malaria deaths with 325 casualties followed by Mizoram (119) and Tripura (62). There were also scores of malaria deaths in Assam and the other states in the region.
Apart from infectious diseases, the controversy over uranium mining in Meghalaya hogged the headlines this year. Following a series of protests by green groups and political parties, the state government has put on hold infrastructure development work in the area where uranium is proposed to be mined.
The powerful Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) had been leading the movement against the state government’s decision to allow the Uranium Corp of India Ltd (UCIL) to carry out Rs.209-crore development projects in 422 hectares of the uranium-rich areas of West Khasi Hills in southern Meghalaya.
The Tripura government was able to tame to a large extent three decades of violent insurgency, and did well in the hustings too. Despite huge setbacks in Lok Sabha elections in its other strongholds West Bengal and Kerala, the state’s ruling Left Front in Tripura retained both seats in parliament, and did well in panchayat polls.
But the much-awaited repatriation of about 35,000 refugees of the Reang tribe from Tripura to Mizoram remained in limbo. The refugees are unwilling to return to their homes in Mizoram until they are assured security and are given financial assistance by the Mizoram government.
Mizoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla could only say: “A ‘road map’ for the repatriation has been prepared and it was approved by the union home ministry.”
Over 35,000 Reangs have been sheltered in six north Tripura camps since 1997 after they fled Mizoram following ethnic clashes with the majority Mizos.
The visit of the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama was the highpoint in Arunachal Pradesh, with the high profile visit heightening tensions between India and China.
Meanwhile, trade between India and China at the Mathu La border point in Sikkim saw business worth Rs.9 million. In 2009, trade was the highest since the border point reopened in 2006, after being closed for 42 years.
Fissiparous federalism? Indian ExpressShiv Visvanathan
Federalism in India is seen in terms of ‘The mistakenness of the concrete’. One visualises Centre-State situations as if they were tangible objects like a cake. One can almost visualise portions being moved from one side to another. This idea of cutting a cake or a sense of a visual balance creates a misleading sense of the idea of the federal.
Currently federalism is a whole created out of dualisms. Centre and State are constructed as opposites. Responsibility becomes a division of powers. The whole relationship is visualised like a social contract, a fixed rule game, which privileges some forms of thought. Balance is crucial and any attempt to give more powers to the State is seen as fissiparous. Secession, segmentation, rebellion are seen as violations of the federal code. Similarly, over-centralisation is seen as tyranny, except while thinking about sovereignty. In this sense, federalism becomes a mechanism for sustaining the nation state, especially the national security state. Since the nation state is seen as invalid, anything that disturbs its sense of order and classification is regarded as taboo.
This essay would like to argue that the metaphors with which we like to think of the federal are outdated. Bad metaphors make for bad politics. Take geometry as geography. The idea of centre and periphery creates the sense of the marginality of the outer, instead of the diversity of the whole. Every centrifugal moment becomes a questioning of a centre that cannot hold. Politicians then follow the metaphors in their head and take police action accordingly.
Before we think of Telangana or Chhattisgarh can we think of alternative metaphors? This suggestion might seem remote and academic but I think the politics of the future will be determined by new ways of thinking. There is an inherent confusion in political theory between size and scale. Size invokes quantity, space, homogeneity and an idea of bigness. In the idea of size, critical thinking creates de-centralisation as a form of down-sizing. Small is seen as empowerment, and also beautiful. It is the entertaining world of Gulliver where we alternate satirically between the Lilliput and the Brodbignag. One often forgets Swift’s narratives were a critique of the Royal society as a mode of scientific thought.
But both science and politics have grown today and have realised the wisdom of savants like D’arcy Thompson and Leopold Kohr. For them, it is the genius of scale we must understand.
Scale is about the politics and biology of levels and levels are not homogeneous. Here notions of dualism and hierarchy lead to the diversity of polyarchy. Such ecological systems think of size but through the diversity of qualitative levels. Unlike de-centralisation which divides power, polyarchy does not replicate the same solution. Each level represents a separate universe that dovetails into the next. Diversity in decision-making is essential for problem solving. Once we redefine the problem, the demands on problem solving are different. When the Centre refuses to respond, the predictable answers were secession, separatism and the epidemic of fissiparous tendencies that came in the wake of Nagaland, Kashmir, Khalistan or the demand for small states from Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Telangana. But in the moment of victory, these states merely replicate the same mentality. The rhetoric of small is beautiful eventually becomes a need for alternative bigness. Everyone wants a capital like Hyderabad. Soon we replicate the same bureaucratic mentalities and the battle of tweedledum and tweedledee continues elsewhere.
One can witness this in two ways. One is the sons-of-the-soil syndrome, where nativism insists on priority for ‘natives’. It packs a bully boy rhetoric which creates a politics of the outsider as a perpetual scapegoat. The Thackerays’ in Mumbai and the Shiv Sena exemplify it. The other is Jharkhand, where a new state only means a transfer of rapacity. Patna yields to Ranchi as the new site of corruption. One separates in order to mimic the corruption one should have fought. The question we have to ask is — can democracy make the grids of federalism more supple and muscular?
If democracy defines federalism as a social contract, then federalism becomes a rigid rule game. If democracy is read as populism, we get a situation like Telangana. One hunger strike blackmails an entire system of politics. Let us be clear, fasting and hunger strike are two separate systems. A hunger strike is a threat, an instrumental way of achieving a politics. It is a refusal of dialogue. The body is a mere tool for a political function. Fasting seeks harmony. It is accompanied by prayer not threat, conversation and not a refusal of dialogue. Between the fast and the hunger strike, stands a world, the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, called ‘negotiations’.
Negotiation, for Derrida, implies ‘the impossibility of stopping, of settling into one position’. It is the mobility between several positions, places between which a shuttle is needed. Federalism has to be a negotiation and not a social contract, a to and fro between positions, places and choices. Negotiation does not freeze choices and that happens when the language of time enters the text of federalism along with space. The territory then becomes ecology. Power can be seasonal. It is the politics of diversity rather than homogeneity. Unfortunately, a search for the small that mimics the uniform offers little. Substituting politicians does not change the dismal logic of current politics. If the various parts of Andhra Pradesh — Telangana, Rayalseema and the coastal districts were to federate in a different way around agriculture, watershed management, education or even the future of craft technologies, a different variety of experiments rather than an atlas of neglect would have been created. We need different geometries for understanding. The current politics can either create an indifferent or empty Centre, enacting a form of federalism where the whole is less than the sum of the parts. It is time for a different form of thinking to invent a way out of trouble. A politics of populism is stale. Unless we relive our keywords, violence and intolerance are the only predictable answers to any request for difference.
About The Author;
Shiv Visvanathan is a social scientist

Gogoi assures dignity to ULFA leaders GUWAHATI, JAN 2 (AGENCIES):

In an apparent bid to pacify the anger of arrested ULFA leaders, who had resented handcuffing, Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi has assured that they will get due respect.
Earlier, jailed ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa had said: “Peace talks cannot be held with handcuffs on and for talks we need to be free.” Rajkhowa repeated his demand when a leader of Peoples Committee for Peace Initiative of Assam (PCPIA) Lachit Bordoloi met him in Guwahati jail recently.
Rajkhowa, along with nine others, including deputy chief of ULFA’s military wing Raju Barua, surrendered in Meghalaya on December 4 last year.
Reacting to Ulfa chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa’s recent statement that talks were not possible in handcuffs, Gogoi today said, “If they agree to talks, we will talk to them with full dignity. One of the good signs is that even militant groups are realising the futility of an armed struggle and many such outfits have already entered into ceasefire agreements with the government,” he said.
The chief minister said: “When we talk, we will do it with full dignity. Till now, we have not received any formal communication from the jailed ULFA chairman for talks.” Gogoi added: “If ULFA commander-in-chief Paresh Barua comes for talks, it’s good. Till now, only the followers have come. Barua is still outside our net.”
“Yes we are getting some positive response from the Ulfa leadership minus Paresh Barua, but unless we get a formal communication from them nothing can be said,” Gogoi told reporters.
He said though Ulfa commander-in-chief Paresh Barua was yet to express his willingness for talks, efforts are on to bring those Ulfa members who are believed to be close to Barua to the negotiating table. Gogoi had recently said that a dialogue could be possible even in Barua’s absence.
The chief minister ruled out talks on sovereignty. “There is no point wasting time (on talks for sovereignty). The elections have proved that people have rejected the sovereignty issue.”
Gogoi added that there is growing realisation among ULFA cadres about the futility of carrying on with the armed struggle.
“Now more and more people are speaking out against militancy, which is also a very positive sign,” Gogoi said. “I am glad that despite having myriad problems such as insurgency, bandh culture, flood and erosion and ethnic clashes, Assam is today moving forward on the path of progress,” he said.
Describing 2009 as a mixed year for Assam, Gogoi said the situation was bad in North Cachar Hills district and Bodo areas at the beginning of the year but gradually the situation started to improve and today it is almost stable.
“It is time for peace to prevail in the state. Insurgency has pushed Assam backward. Violence has won nothing and only caused misery to the common people,” the chief minister said.

CBI moves Interpol on Daimary Spl Correspondent Assam Tribune
NEW DELHI, Jan 1 – The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has moved Interpol against chairman of the anti-talk faction of National Democratic Front Bodoland (NDFB), Ranjan Daimary for his involvement in the serial blasts in Assam. Official CBI sources said during investigation into the serial blasts of 2008, it came to light that the blasts were carried out by the NDFB, a banned extremist organisation. Six accused persons have been arrested and thirteen are absconding, some of who are suspected to be taking shelter in the neighbouring countries including, chief of the extremist organisation.

The matter has been taken up with Interpol and Bangladesh, sources said.

The CBI’s latest move is expected to put further pressure on Daimary to surrender and join the peace process. Likely issue of Red Corner Alert against the Daimary would seal his fate and seriously restrict his movement. The elusive Bodo militant leader is known to shuttle between Bangladesh, Thailand and China.

Already on the run following a crackdown by the Bangladesh Government, Daimary is also reported to have fled Bangladesh, though there are unconfirmed reports of the chairman being held by security agencies in Bangladesh.

Sources said the Special Task Force (STF) Zone of CBI, New Delhi, which probed the serial blast case, completed its investigation within six months.

The CBI had registered nine cases in the aftermath of serial bomb blasts in Assam. At least 88 persons were killed and 540 were injured and property worth approx Rs. 2.91 crore was destroyed in four different places ofAssam. After completion of investigation, charge sheet was filed in the court of Special Judicial Magistrate (SJM) for CBI cases at Guwahati on May 25, last year.

Though the initial needle of suspicion pointed towards the involvement of the Huji militants, role of NDFB and ULFA emerged following a probe.

The first of the 13 bombs went off underneath the Ganeshguri flyover, followed by explosions at Deputy Commissioner Court complex, Paltan Bazar and Fancy Bazar in Guwahati. Around the same time, bombs also went off in crowded market places of Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon and Barpeta districts.

Gogoi renews talks offer to ULFA Staff Reporter Assam tribune
GUWAHATI, Jan 1 – Renewing his appeal to the banned ULFA to sit for a dialogue sans the issue of sovereignty, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today said that the spontaneous participation of the people in successive polls over the years was a clear mandate against a sovereign Assam. “Discussing sovereignty is out of question, and the people have also rejected the idea. We are ready to hold talks on every other issue,” Gogoi said at a press conference, adding that he had been receiving ‘indirect signals’ but that a ‘formal communication’ was yet to come from the outfit.

Claiming that the State’s economic management in the past few years had been among the best in the country, Gogoi said that the decision to provide Central scale to the employees incurring an additional yearly expenditure of Rs 4,500 crore testified to the huge improvement in finance and its management.

“The State was in a very bad shape when we took over charge in 2001. We stabilized it during the first few years and then accelerated the development process. There was substantial progress on different fronts such as road connectivity, health and educational infrastructure, employment generation and poverty alleviation,” he said.

Unveiling the Government’s agenda for the year, the Chief Minister said that health, education, agriculture, connectivity, social welfare and employment generation would continue to be the priority areas. There will be special schemes for the poor and the marginalized including farmers, weavers, village artisans, agricultural and other unorganized labourers, and tea tribe workers.

Gogoi also announced that an act would be enacted to protect agricultural land from alienation and conversion besides preserving the sanctity of tribal blocks/belts as a matter of policy.

Gogoi revealed that Rs 100 crore would be spent for setting up employment-oriented educational institutes. Another amount of Rs 400 crore will be utilized on rural development and employment-oriented schemes.

Some of the initiatives announced included a separate rural development authority, a housing scheme for the poor including flood and erosion-affected people, a rural employment generation scheme, skill development centres in each block, formation of growers’ societies for eliminating middleman, special schemes for meritorious students of poor families, and a climate change commission.