North-East paradox: Why the historical Glory is suffering! National Integration remains a crucial issue in India, notwithstanding the fact that we boast of a civilization, which is nearly 5000 years old. India’s ancient, unique and great culture and civilization has been a great unifying factor. The variety of life here makes a complex but wonderful and a whole pattern.The Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Parses etc., live here in harmony and trust. India’s great cultural and historical heritage is common to all the people and citizens of the country. The one greatest virtue of Indian culture has been its abiding tolerance and respect for others. The unity of North-East India faces grave challenges today. First, regionalism is gaining ground in India. A large number of regional parties have come into existence it is generally seen that these parties prefer regional interest to national interest. At times, we have witnessed conflicts and disturbances. Certain anti-national and external forces try to disrupt’ the unity of the country by encouraging communal feelings and sentiments. It leads to intolerance, disharmony and, lawlessness among the masses. There has also been an increase in riots, violence and killings of innocent people. Secondly, separatist tendencies are developing among certain sections the people who demand separate homelands. Thirdly, despite our Constitution having declared India as a secular State communal riot erupt every now and then and pose a threat to the unity of North-East India. Fourthly, casteism and linguism are also affecting the unity of the country Caste factor also plays a great role during the elections. Despite a shared culture of so many years, linguistic diversities have often generated tensions and conflicts amongst different communities threatening the fabric of national unity. The same holds good for regionalism exacerbated no doubt by inequitable development amongst different regions of the country. The age –old caste system has also contributed in no small measure to weaken the bond of unity. Most of Our very politicians are corrupt than the word corruption itself. They often rely on empty promises to mislead the innocent masses to win their mandate for power just to become “Greedy rulers” to amass wealth to the detriment of the socio-political and economic well-being of the good people of this country. Our so-called leaders do not think twice about the harmony of the country when it comes to grinding their axe. Playing vote-bank politics, they have always tried to create animosity between different religions. Circumstances in the theatres of conflict in India’s Northeast go against the general presumption of a direct and self-evident conflict of interests between the government and its various agencies, on the one hand, and the terrorist groupings, on the other. A complex collusive arrangement between various legitimate power elites and terrorist groupings exists in every single terrorism-affected State, and this arrangement facilitates a continuous transfer of resources into the ‘underground economy of terrorism’. In contrast to the common perception of terrorist activity as violent confrontation with the government, there is a more insidious subversion of the established order through a consensual regime against a backdrop of widespread breakdown of law and order, and terrorist groupings have demonstrated their preference towards ‘systemic corruption’, rather than the dismantling or destruction of the prevailing political order. The press is still under words to feel the responsibility and in realizing their definite role. The Indian democracy suffers from growing personality cult. Although in parliamentary democracy large number of ordinances is promulgated every year but due to the failure in actual implementation, very often opposition criticized that in India ordinances are promulgated just as a matter of routine. Such criticism cannot be ignored in one word; rather the system needs to construct properly to develop the process of administration in an organized manner. Not only at the centre, is the state of affairs same in state level also! The emerging characters of electoral politics have made matters worse. Communal Hindu parties apart, even the ruling Congress Party, professedly secular, has, since independence, had a dualistic character. The secular strain in the Congress was represented by Nehru but the communal strain was also present in the form of Patel, Indias first Deputy Prime Minister, and was more pronounced at the provincial level. Nehrus stature kept the communal strain in check, but in the seventies, the party machinery has been taken over by the new generation of leaders, whose power and mobilization is based less on secularism or socio-economic programs and more on exploiting caste and religious divisions at the local levels. The higher recent incidence of Hindu-Muslim riots has a good deal to do with this new phenomenon. Corruption prevails at the apex of the tower of Indian politics. Corruption by a public servant on the other hand amounts to treason against the country; every single corrupt act by public servants costs the country its development. Corruption in arms procurement by the armed forces has potential to weaken the country’s defense preparedness. Corruption in business deals like the one in 2G spectrum allocation can cause a huge loss to the exchequer, increase the tax burden on the people. Corruption in handling agricultural products can cause inflation, lead to steep rise in food prices, make basic food not affordable to the poor. Corruption in mining ministry can allow a few to loot the entire natural resources of the country and sell of the precious ores mindlessly, thereby depriving the country of those resources in the future. Take Iron Ore for instance, its mindless mining and exports at throw away rates today, will cause the country a lot in the next 50 years when we will have a huge requirement to build a great infrastructure in the country, but have no ore left and will have to import Steel at huge prices from other countries. So, in general, Corruption at public offices causes a huge setback to the overall development and security of the country, and should be punished on the lines of treason against the country. Alas to say; migrated people, brokers, criminals were started to dance on the parliamentary floor of India. Whatever may be the source of this migration, it seems that it is gradually leading to a significant change in the demographic character of the affected areas. Sentiments of common people were being hunted in different steps. Although the multi-ethnic social base that has historically evolved in Assam stood on the way of making Assam a nation province for the Assamese, following the rules of the game of carving out provinces in independent India based on ethno-linguistic identity, ethnic Assamese elites vigorously strived for it. The expediencies of electoral politics as well as the aspiration for making Assam a nation province for the Assamese led to the widening of Assamese linguistic identity in order to accommodate the Muslims of Brahmaputra valley as well as the tea tribes within the fold of Assamese nationalism. Muslims of Assam were rechristened as Na Asamiya (New Assamese) and encouraged to barter their identity for security by way of reporting Assamese as their mother tongue in census returns in order to strengthen the claim to make Assam the nation province for the Assamese. It may be pointed out that, at this stage, the Congress-led ruling elites in Assam tacitly encouraged the immigration of Muslim Bengalis from East Pakistan. As the immigrant Muslim Bengalis readily shifted their ethnic identity in favour of the Assamese, they became useful not only as a ‘safe vote bank’ but also to realize the majority claim of the Assamese (Das: 2001a). Many debates have been raised on the struggle and the identity of the tea garden labourers in Assam as an aftermath of the incident at Guwahati on November 24th, 2007. In the media it was portrayed as an age old enmity between the Assamese and the labourers. The incident is also seen as an ultimate expression of the inbuilt prejudice and class hatred which marked the approach of a sizable section of Assamese middle class towards the tea garden labourers (Gohain December 8, 2007). The civil society in the state acted with alacrity and condemned the incident with one voice while at the same time asserted that the November 24 incident should not be viewed as an Assamese-Adivasi clash (Misra, December 22, 2007). Although, the incident of 24th of November, 2007 was condemnable in every sense and every news paper, electronic media and civil society organization expressed deep concern about the community but the larger debate over the issues of the socio-economic development of the tea garden community in Assam has not come out in the context of the rise of Adivasi identity politics. Demographically, Tea garden labour community of Assam represents around 20% of the total population of the state accounting more than 45 lakh tea garden labour population in the state and is one of the biggest contributors to the organised workforce as well to the economy of Assam both directly and indirectly. About 17 percent of the workers of Assam are engaged in tea industry. Among them, around 50% of the total workforces in the tea gardens in Assam are women. Politics in the Northeast are not based on democratic norms as understood in the western- model democratic system. The democratic system which they practice is very different from this model. Though in one sense the tribal societies are truly democratic; they have characteristics of a strong cohesive community in which every member of the tribe lives and works for the entire tribe. The rise of corrupt, greedy and power-hungry elite is more the product of the distortion of the India democratic system as practiced here. Concept of private property is relatively new in these areas. The economic structure was relatively simple. Every one in the tribe and the village contributed one’s bit in fighting the tough battle of survival. The village was a self-sufficient unit. The traditional system of ‘gaon bara’ tells its own story. This traditional system exists even today in Nagaland and some other areas. However, it has lost much of its shine. There has been steady erosion of this once strong institution due to many factors; the most important being its virtual replacement with the so-called modern democratic institutions. The duality in the administrative and political system has also created serious problems. The formal structure has all the trappings of the modern system, but lacks substance. The concept of rule of law on which all the democratic institutions rest is very different in the tribal societies. All functionaries of the government are expected to favour their own tribe members and not members of other tribes even in doing so they violate the “rule of law”. The members of their own tribe are more equal than the others. Every one is not equal before the law as understood in these societies. Outsiders will remain as outsiders even if they have lived in the area for centuries The Assam-Bangladesh border areas, it is unlikely that any anti-infiltration measure would meet with success without taking them into confidence (Das: 2006). Thus, a fair deal to the existing Muslim population can only prevent the unfair immigration, which the ethnic Assamese views as the threat to their identity. “(Edited Source from Gurudas Das,Article on ethnicity) Besides resolving the Muslim question, polity management in Assam has to be inclusive so that minority tribal and non-Assamese ethnic groups can play some role in decision-making. Practice of consociational democracy (Lijphart: 1989) instead of electoral democracy based on majoritarian principle may be an option to accommodate the interests of the smaller identities in a multi-ege, Nalbariethnic society like Assam. Report says; for the last three decades Indias north-east has witnessed various forms of unrest, conflict and violence. In Assam, the regions largest and most populous state, these were manifested in an anti-foreigner movement, insurgency and ethnic violence. In the tribal-dominated hilly states of Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, the secessionist movement took violent turns aggravated by army operations.Nagaland, like the seven other states that are clubbed together as the North-East, does relatively well compared with the country average in terms of literacy rate (71% for male and 61 for female; all-India percentages are 75 and 54) but, like the others, suffers from an unusually high percentage of school drop-outs. In these villages, scattered across the rugged Naga hills that lie between the plains of lower Assam and the frontier with Myanmar, it is the girl who is most likely to drop out of school and least likely to return. It is very difficult to answer whether the politicians and bureaucrats have been aware of the proper implementation of millennium development goal in case of India like developing countries. TMF Global Monitoring Report 2011 highlighted as “The number of people living on less than 1.25 a day is projected to be 883 million in 2015, compared with 1.4 billion 2005 and 1.8 billion in 1990. On the contrary the existing picture shows progress is very slow and targets are missed. Among developing countries 45% are far from meeting the target on access to sanitation, 39% and 38% are far from the maternal and child mortality targets respectively. Same is the case all over the world in most of the developing countries socio-economic imbalance revealed the gradual inconsistency under such consequences. The educational goal under MDG 2000, September is also proved to be very tough challenge to fulfill. How the millennium development goal likes: Fulfillment of universal primary education and Gender equality maintenance on high and higher education can be implemented in actual sense? The higher education MDG emphasized on the end of gender disparity within 2015 from education sector. Question arises here is it possible to achieve the MDG in educational sectors in Assam and North-East region? Answer to this question is not an easy task to deliver in indicating a positive direction! If we look from theoretical perspective it can be revealed that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are an internationally agreed set of goals for human development, drawn from the 2000 Millennium Declaration. The 2015 deadline for the achievement of the MDGs is looming, but progress on some goals is far too slow. Let us have a look upon such questions in the context of Assam and North-East region. What are the barriers to progress? What are the policies, the approaches, the programs that will bring about the transformative, root and branch change that is needed to propel us towards the MDGs? The scenario in the context of the Northeastern States of India, despite the rich natural resources and central assistances, development is still a far cry; though the magnitude of funding from the Centre is ever increasing, corruption and mismanagement are rampant adversely affecting development. Education is the backbone of national development and is widely accepted as an instrument of social change. India has been an active partner in the worldwide movement for education for All that began in 1990 followed by Millennium development goals. In the education system of the North-East several academic experiments have gone through the current session. It is not a matter of take opposite stand to such experiments. But it is too important to create the platform first to introduce such changes in present education system. The fact is that North-East region is still striving with many socio-economic challenges. Superstitions, violations of Human right, Nepotism, social conflict, ethnic imbalance, frequently created disturbance to the region. Poverty health and sanitation crisis is there in maximum rate. Around these loopholes, actual implementation of emerging education system demanding need based academic procedure and educational system in Primary education as well as UGC guided semester system in college level seems to be challenging task? It is easier to outline these problems than suggest what should be done about them. In a situation of mutual distrust, almost any solution will generate controversy. Partisan communal leaders and communal electoral mobilization should be exposed. Aware leadership - political, social and intellectual - has to work for this political reconstruction. Definitive resolution of problems may be inordinately difficult but substantial alleviation is not. So, it is the cry of the hour for level best performances to establish good governance in India. Simultaneously public should pay utmost effort to make themselves conscious politically. At a time when the India-China border dispute is hogging the limelight and causing unease in the Indian establishment, many festering inter-state border disputes in the Northeast that are sowing seeds of discord seem to elude the attention of policymakers at the Centre. As tensions mounted and relations deteriorated, the concerned states tried to resolve the issue by holding negotiations. Unfortunately, negotiations failed and third party intervention was sought to resolve the matter. For instance, in 2005, the Supreme Court had instructed the Central government to constitute a boundary commission to settle various inter-state boundary problems in the Northeast. The Centre had earlier constituted two commissions, the Sundaram Commission (1971) and the Shastri Commission (1985), to settle the Assam-Nagaland border dispute. These commissions failed to resolve the matter as the concerned states did not accept their recommendations. In a significant move, Nagaland, Assam and Meghalaya decided to co-operate with each other to solve their respective border disputes with Assam. They strongly favoured negotiations with Assam and opposed any third party intervention. However, given the track record of such talks, It is time the Centre took a bold initiative to facilitate a fair settlement of the festering border problems in the Northeast.Various groups including in political violence to air their grievances include students, teachers, trade unions and the like. Growing indiscipline and unrest among the student community may take the form of bandhs, lathicharges, gheraos and even stabbing by the criminal elements on the campus. In fact, campus political organizations and trade unions are affiliated to or supported by the national / regional political parties. It is time the Centre took a bold initiative to facilitate a fair settlement of the festering border problems in the Northeast. It can do so by either persuading the concerned states to come to the negotiating table and seek a solution or by constituting a boundary commission whose recommendations would be binding on the parties involved. Needless to say, a quick and speedy resolution of these border issues has become necessary given the Central government’s renewed emphasis on the overall development of the Northeast. This goal can only be achieved by purging strife and promoting greater co-operation among these states to usher in an era of peace and prosperity in the region.Above all, the government as well as people of the North East region should keep their mind with a vision of educational progress, riding over the obstacles of 21stcentury, the concerned government and public should make their mind to achieve the blessings of the century even follow the way of actual consciousness and by implementing the educational policy and progressive scheme in a right direction, suitable to the millennium development goal. On the contrary we should dare to dream of a time, when no students will have to go, in large numbers, to other States for their higher studies; yet, this will be fulfilled only when the educational development of the State’s colleges and institutions-of higher-learning mushroom up, as per the State’s policy. Development should be holistic; there should be an integration of education, social, economic aspects of development along with sufficient allocation of funds for infrastructure building. This is especially essential for North Eastern states of India. References Baruah, Sanjib, 1999, India Against Itself: Assam and the Politics of Nationality, Oxford University Press, New Delhi Das, Gurudas, 1997, Understanding the Insurgency Phenomenon in Indias North-East : An Analytical Framework, in B. Pakem, (ed), Insurgency in North - East India, 1997, Omsons Publications, New Delhi. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Priyanku Narayan Baruah.Lecturer, R.D college, Digboi.8811836885,E-mail:alwayspriyanku@gmail.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Sep 2014 19:39:52 +0000
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