Three regional parties are in news these days.
Two from Nagaland - NDPP and NPF - all set for a merger.
There is a mix of gimmick, political compulsion or more of a legal matter and frustration over non-performance especially on Peace parleys. Everything working.
The third outfit is NPP of Conrad Sangma - incumbent Meghalaya chief minister and like his Nagaland counterpart is also a BJP ally.
A central empowered committee of the Supreme Court this week recommended a penalty of Rs 150 crore on the University of Science and Technology in Meghalaya’s Ri-Bhoi district for allegedly encroaching forest land.
The panel alleged that the university was built on 25 hectares of encroached forest land. It recommended that the entire area occupied by the institution and surrounding buildings be “fully restored” to forest within a year.
Porous borders among different states :
Regionalists in North East India have fought Congress in their own way. But mostly they were conventional ways -- and confined to electoral politics and defection games.
But with the BJP around; the nature of battlefields and the battles themselves have changed.
But how 'deep' is Lotus party penetration ?
The northeastern part of India, which houses the nation's four Christian-majority states, often witnesses violent clashes. And religion is not the reason.
It's generally about 'us and they'. Ethnic clashes as was witnessed in Manipur between Meiteis and Kukis in 2023. In other states in the past - the general problems used to be natives fighting or rather chasing away the 'outsiders' - the plain manu in Nagaland or Vai Naupang in Mizoram.
Besides Manipur; there was violence reported not long ago when people savagely clashed on the border of Assam and Mizoram states.
The issue was about encroaching upon lands.
Of the seven states in the region, we know four Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Mizoram continue to clash with Assam on their borders.
Christians form 80 percent of the population in three of those states, while they number only 30 percent in Arunachal Pradesh but are the most numerous religious community.
A devotee carries a girl dressed as Hindu goddess Durga for rituals during the Durga Puja festival at the Kamakhya temple in Guwahati in Assam state in 2020. (snap UCAN News/AFP)
All four states were part of the undivided Assam state until the government carved them out as separate states at different points in time.
However, one allegation remains in many places boundaries were not clearly defined. Assam has no dispute with Manipur and Tripura, two princely states that joined the Indian union.
Hence, it is childishly silly to expect or even imagine that the complex intra-state boundary issue will be resolved so easily. In contrast, these have remained live wire for more than five-six decades.
In simple words; emotive tribal-non-tribal ethnic identities and sectarian Christian-non-Christian feelings further complicate the situation.
In Assam, there is a serious Hindu-Muslim paradigm as well.
Analysts also say that 'some land' remained as no man's land in thickly forested areas when the new states were carved out. The borders between Assam and other states are mostly imaginary lines. Of course, these change with time as deforestation and human habitation extends.
The fact of the matter is 'porous borders' among different states in India and proximity to development-starved countries like Bangladesh and Nepal have facilitated a large inflow and outflow of people.
These have disturbed the demographic pattern in most states, often putting locals in conflict with people from other states.
In Assam; a notorious character from Nepal had emerged as a key political player in the corridors of power.
Most serving and even retired government officials avoid going on the record while speaking about these sensitive border issues believing that they may get into trouble with the government or ethnic groups.
The sensitive inter-state boundary disputes in the region are often seen and dealt with using ethnic, tribal, linguistic and religious communal prisms. Thus, we should not be surprised that each state and respective local police would have different versions of any incident of violence or group clashes.
In Manipur, in some areas - during 2023 conflicts even CRPF allegedly failed to protect some ethnic groups and in the end Assam Rifles had to come to the rescue of helpless people. The argument being - the CRPF is controlled by state administration and hence could not function professionally and effectively.
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| Deserted House in Manipur - Due to 2023 violence |
The absence of development along the boundaries and in far-flung areas also remains a challenge.
It is a puzzle to many northeast watchers why such pockets in remote areas along state boundaries, which are susceptible to communal and ethnic clashes, are often left inaccessible.
Among communities, for reference we can show Mizoram has issues with Bru tribal people from neighboring Tripura.
Officials and even police from both sides blamed each other and claimed that people from the other side violated the status quo norms.
The dispute between Mizoram and Tripura is over Phuldungsai village, which both states claim as part of their territory. Trouble started after the non-Christian Bru tribal group wanted to set up a temple in the area. Some years back, there were serious clashes along the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border in the Behali reserve forest, killing at least 10 people and injuring eight.
From time to time, things also have worsened after armed insurgent groups of various tribes in different states have meddled in such conflicts with their guerrilla warfare.
Mizoram, the homeland of Mizo tribesmen and women practicing Christianity, was part of Assam until 1972 when it was separated as a federally ruled territory and later a state.
In 2021, after the clashes between Mizoram and Assam (whose people are Bengali-speaking Hindus and Muslims), the opposition blamed Assam's ruling party, the pro-Hindu BJP. They also blamed the Mizoram state government, run by the BJP and Mizo National Front (MNF) alliance.
"What kind of an alliance is it where two alliance partners [BJP and MNF] are warring over land at the cost of innocent people?" asked former MP Sushmita Dev, who was then chief of the women’s wing of Congress.
She has since then joined the Trinamool Congress.
Violent clashes along the border areas keep happening at frequent intervals. Still, no serious efforts have been made since the 1960s and 1970s when separate provincial divisions and statehood were granted to them. In fact, statehood came at different times. For instance, Nagaland became a state in 1963 but Mizoram had to wait until mid 1980s.
Some disputes date back to the British era of 1875 when a notification was issued separating Mizoram, then called Lushai Hills, from Assam. Assam state officials, Mizo people say, have tried to impose a government notification of 1933, which is not acceptable to them.
The primal fight for dominance over land refuses to die. But are these primal emotions kept open, and sometimes wounded, to politically manage and control communities?
India to tighten foreign funding, social workers upset
Foreign donations doubled in the past decade but organizations have not used them for their registered purposes, goes a refrain. Several Christian social workers in the northeast have also decried the government's move, saying that FCRA norms have been stringent in India. The government has "misused" it to discriminate against charity organizations run by religious minorities.
Some years ago, an influential US-based Christian donor called Compassion International was forced to stop its Indian operations.
Since it came to power in 2014, the Modi government has been enforcing FCRA provisions rather harshly, said Jewel Marak, a social worker in Shillong in Meghalaya.
In 2018, Baptist World Alliance chief Reverend Paul Msiza could not attend the 150 years of celebrations of Christianity in the Garo Hills in Meghalaya after the government denied him a visa.
The Modi government canceled the FCRA licenses of about 10,000 organizations in 2015 alone - within a year of its coming to power.
It included funding agency Ford Foundation and the global environmentalist group Greenpeace. However, leading Catholic organizations have been cautious in their reactions to the proposals.
Amitabh Behar, CEO of Oxfam India, spoke against the move.
"Devastating blow. Red carpet welcomes for foreign investments for businesses but stifling and squeezing the non-profit sector by creating new hurdles for foreign aid which could help lift people out of poverty, ill health and illiteracy," he had tweeted then.
A social worker in Christian-dominated Nagaland state said the government of India exhibits hypocrisy.
"They want foreign corporate investment but no charity?"
A government statement explaining the FCRA amendment's reasons said the annual inflow of foreign contributions has almost doubled between 2010 and 2019. But many recipients of foreign contributions have "not utilized" the same for the purpose for which they were registered.
A right-wing Hindu intellectual, S. Gurumurthy, has said that -- "the so-called social entrepreneurs can't get dollar-rated salaries, five-star accommodation and executive class travel and a posh office and secretariat."
The fight is thus often between BJP and the local parties - struggling as ever but in more ways than one.
Another Congress neta-turned regionalist Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barma of Tipra Motha is speaking about "Thoko Bangladesh". He has his compulsion too.
"The Chittagong port is essential for economic survival .... not Tripura (alone) but whole of north east".
He is being pragmatic to a large extent; but he is also being more than a BJP kind of nationalist.
ends
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