The border fencing conundrum in Mizoram

- The insensitivity of the Mizoram government is deplorable -

By Paritosh Chakma

The Chakma tribals in Mizoram are in awkward situation, thanks to the ongoing border fencing along the Mizoram-Bangladesh border. According to the Ministry of Home Affairs’ Annual Report 2008-2009, fencing of 150.15 km stretch out of the total 352.33 km sanctioned in Mizoram has been completed.

As many as 35,438 Chakmas from 5790 families in 49 villages, i.e. 49.7% of the total Chakma population, will be displaced. Their land, homestead, garden and forests have been acquired by the state government of Mizoram under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. In all land acquisitions across the country, the State has always employed arbitrary methods. Notably, the Mizoram government through its gazette notification issued on 27th October 2006 (Issue No. 272) under the Land Acquisition Act had warned that “All persons interested in the said land are hereby warned not to obstruct or interfere with any Surveyor or other persons employed upon the said land for the purpose of the said acquisition” (Clause 3 of the notification).

Protests by the Chakmas can be dealt with firmly on the ground of “obstruction” or “inference” by the protestors to the fencing activities. This takes away the democratic right to protest peacefully against injustice, if any. Of course, there have been lots of injustices.

The victims have been alleging discrimination in payment of compensation. While some have only received in thousands (below 1 lakh), some others have managed to get as high as thirty lakhs or a few even above. How these people got so high whereas some got extremely low has not been explained. Yet, some have informed me that they have not got any compensation despite losing their fertile lands or gardens. One of my friends told me his name was okeyed by the surveyors and he did produce his land document but he came to know from insiders that his name is missing from the final list of beneficiaries. He is contemplating legal action and I support him very much. This means that there is simply no iota of transparency, openness and fairness in the delivery of compensations. Often, in such environment there is high chance of corruption among officials and others. And, Lal Thanhawla administration which has promised clean and good governance must take notice of this.

As for the prospect of resettlement and rehabilitation there is complete darkness. The fencing affected people who are really innocent and ignorant about the affairs of the state (displacement is new phenomenon to them) keep on asking me on the phone whether I came to know anything from the Ministry of Home Affairs in Delhi about R & R. The state government of Mizoram has never cared to assuage their feelings of insecurity or alienation. In fact, district level officials have been suggesting that there may not be any R&R and the victims will have to rebuild their lives with the compensation money they have been provided. This struck fear in the hearts of the Chakma victims as majority of them have consumed up their compensation money, and they have now been living in penury.(To know more in this regard, read another report: Let the Chakmas live in peace; give them the respect they deserve )

In comparison, other state governments are better. At least they think the people who are affected by the border fencing are their own. The state government of Meghalaya had even suspended the fencing works in response to the protests from the victims and this provided itself and officials of Border Management to investigate the grievances expressed by the affected people. Nothing of that sort has happened in Mizoram. On 1 September 2009, Tripura Chief Minister gave an assurance in the State Assembly that all the displaced families (7,997 families) will be provided proper rehabilitation in the state (The Sentinel, 3 September 2009). He was replying to a query by an opposition Congress MLA. Compare this with the position adopted by the Mizoram Home Department with regard to the Chakmas: “It may be mentioned that those families placed on the other side of the Fencing Line may not be called 'displaced' since the Fencing Line is not the boundary of Indo-Bangia Border.” How funny! Does the Mizoram government trying to say that the fencing affected people will not be provided any rehabilitation?

Such insensitivity on the part of the Mizoram government is highly deplorable. Although about half of the Chakmas in Mizoram will be displaced, Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla, or his predecessor Zoramthanga of MNF,  has never made any policy statement in the House or elsewhere. No peoples’ representative including the two Chakma MLAs in the House has raised any concern for the would-be displaced Chakmas. Instead the Chakmas have been kept guessing in the dark.

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To know more about the situation of Chakmas in Mizoram, please read "Mizoram: Minority Report" by Paritosh Chakma, The Economic & Political Weekly, 6 June 2009 Issue

Nepal’s language imbroglio

By - Suhas Chakma, Director, Asian Centre for Human Rights

Nepal’s Vice President (VP), Paramananda Jha’s decision to take his oath of office in Hindi was greeted with near apoplexy by the political establishment in Kathmandu. The Supreme Court (SC) of Nepal instructed the VP to retake the oath in Nepali by 4 p.m. on Aug. 30 2009. VP Jha has refused to take fresh oath. Nepal is in a major political and constitutional crisis.

Speaking as a member of an indigenous group — the Chakmas — and as someone who has spent a lifetime defending minorities and indigenous communities, I find much of the argument very familiar. The undertone of the debate in Kathmandu seems clearly premised on a fixed idea of what is, and what is not Nepali. This sits on the exclusionary idea that Hindi is an Indian language and all that infers about many people of the Tarai.

Read the full article: Nepal's Language Imbroglio, The Kathmandu Post, 3 September 2009

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Mizoram: Brutal torture kills a 13-year-old Mizo boy in a Children's Home

By Paritosh Chakma

I learned with horror and pain that a Mizo boy identified as Lalnunpuia, son of Rinsanga of Chaltlang Lily in Aizawl, was on last July 13 tortured to death by the caretakers at Herald for Christ’s Children Home at Lungleng, about 15 kms north of Aizawl. The only fault of the ill-fated child, who was barely 13 years, was that he had allegedly ragged another boy junior to him. The deceased was accused of being indiscipline and hence, "punished" by the workers of the Home. But he was beaten up so brutally and inhumanly that he died hours later in the same day.

As it happened every time someone was beaten to death, the authorities of the Herald for Christ’s Children Home tried to cover up the incident and defend the accused. The Home’s authorities initially stated that the child had died of asthma and heart problem. But the photographs published in a local newspaper “The Aizawl Post” dated 16th July 2009 indicate brutal torture on the boy. This concurs with the claim of the boy’s parents that he had been tortured to death.

The Herald for Christ’s Children Home is a recognized intitution under the Social Welfare Department of the government of Mizoram. The act of torture to the point of death constitutes the most serious violation of human rights. The government of Mizoram must take adequate measures to arrest the perpetrators and they must be brought to justice, whoever they are and whatever connections they have, if any, with higher authorities including, of course, politicians.

The death of Lalnunpuia should also serve as a wake up call for the government of Mizoram which should immediately activate all its mechanisms to monitor the conditions of all such Homes/detention centres wherever children are being given shelter/detained - be they private or government-run. It is the duty of the State to protect the rights of every child.

Article 191(1) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child states that "States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child."

During investigation/monitoring by officials, no leniency must be shown to the concerned officials of the Homes/detention centres if any failings on the part of the insitutition is noticed. Any inadequacies must be immediately addressed; every worker or official of such Homes/ detention centres must be held accountable for his or her actions of ill treatment against any child. Any complaint or allegation must be promptly investigated and its findings made public along with the action taken report. Only this will help prevent further abuse of children or deaths of children in Children's Home.

Every child has his/her rights. Let every child bloom to the fullest and for that matter, he or she be allowed to grow in an environment free from torture or torturous conditions.

The Changed World

(A poem byParitosh Chakma)

When I was a child
And visited my grandparents’ house
Twenty miles away
Down the river - winding and mild:
I found the pebbles
On the river beds
so beautiful,
The songs of the birds
so soothing,
And, the foams that danced on the tiny waves
so mystic.

My mind travelled in wonderlands
On the wings of the wind,
So thrilling was the splash of the oar
That my heart did soar -

For, every splash it made
Took me nearer to grandparents’ house.

Now, twenty years later,
I still love to visit my grandparents’ house
I still love the birds, the pebbles and the river;
Only no longer I hear birds sing carefree,
Nor do the foams dance on the waves
For me
The pebbles no longer attract me
During my journey to grandparents’ house
Twenty miles away
Down the river.

I know why birds can’t sing carefree songs, or
Waves can’t dance or pebbles won’t silently lie.
They see and feel the changed world too!
The river silently flows -
But there’s sadness and anger in her heart
At the sufferings of the people who live on her lap.

"Lalthanhawla's Singapore Bomb On Racism" By Subir Bhaumik

To go to source, click the link: http://subirbhowmikscolumn.blogspot.com/2009/06/subir-bhowmik-returned-from-europe.html

(Subir Bhaumik is the BBC's East India Correspondent and a known Northeast India specialist)
Friday, June 26, 2009

Did Mizoram chief minister Pu Lalthanhawla cross his Laxmanrekha at Singapore this month when he spoke at the the local Waterweek festival ? I would imagine, the answer is yes and no. We have no transcript of his speech - or a written copy, so Lalthanhawla can always say he was misquoted by the media - the usual escape route for publicity-seeking politician who shoot their mouth a bit too far. But Indian diplomats in Singapore do confirm that much that has been attributed to Lalthanhawla was actualkly said by him. The Mizoram chief minister, whose Congress party staged a grand comeback by sweeping the state assembly polls this year, said three things, according to the diplomats who were present. He said people from Mizoram and Northeast were victim of discrimination elsewhere in India, that people elsewhere in India did not even think they were Indians and that he was as much an Indian as anybody else in this country. He somewhat overstepped his limits when he used the word "racial discrimination" to describe the troubles people from Northeast faced elsewhere in India.

I see nothing really wrong with his remarks. It is true most of our Mongoloid-looking brothers and sisters are not seen as "proper Indians" elsewhere in India. Many in Delhi or Bombay or down south would mistake them for being Nepalis or Chinese. They also face a lot of trouble in places like Delhi, where a large number of Northeastern girls have been raped, molested or taken advantage of. Their distinct and somewhat westernised lifestyle and clothes often give our "mainland" brothers the wrong impression - that they are easy to have. And they face this because they are seen as different. It is a lot of ignorance and quite a lot of bias that goes to create such a situation. Even Shahrukh Khan understood this problem when he potrayed the trouble faced by the two tribal girls from Manipur in his world-beating Indian woman hockey team - initially these two girls were told by the heavy and huge Punjabi defender that they should have learnt Punjabi before they came to Delhi.

The neglect of Northeast by successive Indian government is further compound by the way the people of mainland India look at the region. So Lalthanhawla clearly spoke the truth when he said that he was seen as a Nepali down south and that he was as much Indian as anybody else. What he perhaops did not say but could well have is that he had to pay the price of being an Indian - specially as a Congressman in the days of the MNF separatist insurgency when Mizos loyal to India were killed or harassed.

But Lalthanhawla made the mistake of context. He said all he did before an international audience and in the context of the racist attacks on Indian students in Australia.The Australians deserve the strongest condemnation for what is happening in that country and it is not expected that a senior Indian politician, wherever he comes from, will help them get off the hook by an off-the-cuff remark. Lalthanhawla and many, many of his Mizo brothers, one must remember , are beneficiarcies of the Indian system. He has been the chief minister and scores of Mizos now man important positions in Indian bureaucracy, police and other public services and the armed forces.

But I have a much bigger criticism to make. Lalthanhawla should look within his own society in Mizoram to see how racism pervades his own state. The Mizos fought India for twenty years to get freedom. They finally settled for a separate state. But look at the way they treat their own minorities - the Chakmas, the Brus and the rest.

That is what late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi reminded MNF chief Laldenga in 1987 when Laldenga pushed for abolition of the Chakma district council. "If you Mizos want justice from India, give justice to your own minorities, the Chakmas," Rajiv Gandhi reminded Laldenga. Look at what is happening to the nearly 30000 Brus (Reangs) who have been driven out of Mizoram by the likes of the Youngnmen Christian Association ["Young Mizo Association" - editor]- for nearly twelve years, successive Mizoram governments have refused to take them back saying they were not Mizoram residents.

That is a big lie. I was in Tripura and witnessed personally the first exodus of the Brus when they first started fleeing West Mizoram into Tripura's Kanchanpur area in October 1997. I know for a fact that most of these Brus are long term residents of Mizoram. But Lalthanhawla's predecessor Zoramthanga clearly told me in a BBC interview in 2002 - "These Brus are Reangs, they are from Tripura, they have their Rajas, they are not Mizos.

Ofcourse they are not Mizos. But who said all residents of Mizoram have to be Mizos. They are Lais, the Maras, the Chakmas, the Brus and the Chins in Mizoram - they are not Mizos but they are residents of Mizoram. No Mizo political party has any sympathy for them. All Mizo political leaders behave as if these minorities dont deserve even the right to stay in Mizoram. Government employees there can strike off the name of even a former Chakma minister of Mizoram government S.P.Dewan from the voter's list.

The minority grievances against Mizo racist domination gave way to greater unity among themselves and their organisation even demanded the creation of a Union territory in South Mizoram by uniting the Pawi, Lakher and Chakma district council. So Pu Lalthanhawla, before he started blaming India for not doing justice to Northeast, should get his act together on the minority issue and give justice to the Chakmas, brus and the rest of the non-Mizo minorities. Charity, Pu Lalthanhawla, begins at home. Take back the Brus from Tripura and give them back their lost homes before you blame Indians for "racial discrimination" against Mizos or Northeasterns. Atleast mainland Indian people can be blamed for ignorance when they think you are Nepali . But Mizos know their minority - and the chief minister should take the lead in giving them justice if he feels so strongly about racial equality.

In pictures: The life and times of the Chakmas in Mizoram

Chakma dwelling houses

Chakma children, waiting....

Chakma men at work

Chakma women at work

A young Chakma girl with her sibling

A young Chakma boy with his sibling on the back

A young Chakma boy: A burden too heavy?

A Chakma woman selling home-made "rice cake" at market

At a local market in a Chakma village

Fetching water from river

A bamboo raft as mode of travel

A Jhum: traditional and chief occupation of Chakma tribals

Going home

Going to catch fish in the river

A note from the author: Through the above pictures, I have tried to capture the lives and struggles of the Chakma tribals who are very simple people with simple minds and ambitions. All they want are basic facilities which still elude them. These pictures have been captured by me from different Chakma villages/places in Mizoram. Copywrite of these pictures belong to me (Paritosh Chakma). Hence, they can only be used by others after obtaining prior permission.

The Chakmas have their distinct culture, tradition and script. In Mizoram, they live mostly in the Southern part (Chakma Autonomous District Council) and in the western belt, along the India-Bangladesh borders.

Mostly, they live on the river banks. Hence, rivers are crucial for their livelihood, culture and survival. Various modes of transportation are used by Chakma villagers to sail in the rivers – to visit relatives in other villages, to go to market and to go to Jhums (as seen in the pictures above). The only other mode of travel is on foot.

The Chakma tribals are peace-loving souls and they toil really hard in the hills. Their villages are secluded and serene, where time still moves slowly. They are cut off from the hustle and bustle of life. But they are economically very poor and their habitations lacked development. This makes them vulnerable to diseases, illiteracy etc and makes them less relevant to the fast changing times. As their traditional means of livelihood, Jhum, is rapidly dwindling, they fear for their future.

Rs 3 crores border fencing compensation siphoned off in Mizoram?

According to a news item appearing in The Shillong Times dated 22 June 2009, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Mizoram unit filed a complaint with the police alleging that over Rs 3 crore meant for compensating the victims of the India-Bangladesh border fencing has been siphoned off.

The news report stated –

"The Mizoram BJP on Sunday alleged that the compensation meant for affected people of the India-Bangladesh border fencing amounting to Rs 3,02,42,500 has been siphoned off.
State BJP information secretary K Lalchhanhima said the compensation to the tune of Rs 95,87,300 for landowners of Jarulsury-Kukurduley sector had been drawn under 30 fictitious names or land passes, while another Rs 2,06,55,200 for Kukurduley-Borakobakali sector had even been drawn the same way under 60 fictitious names or land passes.

The BJP further alleged that three officials siphoned off the money for their relatives. ''Of the Rs 7,87,70,250 sanctioned, Rs 3,02,42,500 has been diverted, '' he stated

The party had filed an FIR with the Lawngtlai police station, he said and demanded the Congress government to book the culprits and ensure that the money reaches the true landowners."