The Outsider Syndrome: ‘Us’ and ‘Them’
To say that the news from Meghalaya’s Garo Hills is disturbing is to make an understatement. It reminds one of the bad, dark days in Assam, Manipur, Jammu and Kashmir, in the Punjab: ordinary workers lined up and shot; others attacked in the dark of night (in a sudden assault by a mob, you can’t identify the assailants). The trigger was the alleged rape – subsequently described as a molestation of a mentally challenged girl by non-tribals in Tura. That set off a set of rioting and violence in which at least one person was killed, dozens injured while some 4,000 fled. A curfew was clamped on Tura, the second largest town of Meghalaya, after Shillong and the bastion of three redoubtable Sangmas, (the late) Capt. Williamson (arguably the founder of Meghalaya and its first Chief Minister), Purno A (former Speaker of the Lok Sabha and one-time Chief Minister) and Dr. Mukul , the current Chief Minister.
To make matters worse, most of the victims appear to be members of the ‘minority’ community. With the departure of thousands of non-tribals from Tura, the town’s markets have all but shut, the supply of dry fish, a Garo staple, has vanished, vegetable prices have sky-rocketed (onions selling at Rs. 80/ per kilo, I am told) and construction workers who build the houses, shops and roads as well as domestic workers too have left. Over the past years, extortion by armed groups has become extensive.
A complex but functional society, a quiet land where people are calm, gracious and hospitable, where they have for long lived and worked together has been disrupted, again. It will take weeks, perhaps months, for the situation to limp back to a real peace and a real normalcy and for those who have fled to return. Some of those who have been wounded may not come back; they may be too frightened by their experience.
Those who are to blame for the assault on the girl must be dealt with the full force of the law. But the moment that people take the law into their own hands, fuelling ethnic and religious tensions, the situation goes out of control. Obviously, these problems have been building up for some time. I recalled the report of an effort to molest a handicapped girl over a month ago in Tura. This followed the series of horrific rape incidents, one when over a dozen youths (many of them juvenile) raped a school girl elsewhere in the Garo Hills; the case is in the courts. Then the alleged molestation and rape of two sisters by Nurul Islam, a police inspector, in Ampati town; the incidents took place first in the police station and at their home, according to officials. Islam apparently escaped or was allowed to flee by his subordinates when he was taken to Tura after crowds in Ampati bayed for his blood.
But now, as suspicion, anger and mistrust grows – let us remember that ill-will does not grow on one side alone. The other side also exists; those from the ‘other’ have feelings, families, friends. They would also nurse grievances and bitterness. They will be sharing their stories. Some may be nursing other feelings too: of retaliation and revenge. This is important to nip in the bud. Otherwise the cycle of violence will go on and on. We need to recognize that the ‘other’ community or person transforms into a ‘local’ or part of their home community when they move across boundaries of nation, state and district to their own locations. What would happen if the districts adjoining Meghalaya decided to call for a rasta roko or a chakka jam for a week? How, then, would people manage on either side?
Business on both sides, the lives of ordinary people on either side especially the daily wage earners, would be hurt; those needing medical attention, or to go to educational institutions or to go to jobs, would not be able to make it. One recalls the nearly six-month road blockade of Manipur by Naga groups, aided by the Nagaland Government, when the redoubtable Th Muivah, leader of the NSCN (i-M) was prevented from visiting his home in Ukhrul by the government in Imphal. Prices of consumer items skyrocketed but the Meiteis managed because they grew their own rice and vegetables and other staples. More recently there’s the example of the confrontation in Golaghat district between Nagaland and Assam over a border dispute when an Assamese farmer was killed.
These incidents as well as the displacement of Rengma Nagas from Karbi Anglong following an alleged ‘quit notice’ issued by an armed group, the Karbi Peoples’ Liberation Tigers (KPLT) should also give us cause to ponder on a few issues which affect us regularly. Residents of at least two Rengma villages have moved to a relief camp at Chokihola near the Golaghat border. But what is striking about this situation is that the KPLT has denied issuing any such threat. So, did people leave out of fear or because a rumour had been fuelled? In addition, the Morung Express of Dimapur writes that the area is so isolated and the people so poor that “they have no mobile phone coverage and no electricity and the 25-kilometer or so of road to Tseguchangri from the nearest police outpost – Chokihola police station – takes more than three hours by car.”
It is worth asking our MLAs and state Ministers from that district why these conditions exist and have been tolerated for so long? We should remember that the longer such inequity persists, the greater and swifter the lurch towards radicalization; the Maoists will find such territory readymade for their lethal brew. There’s no point blaming them or others if conditions worsen; they would have only taken advantage of conditions manufactured for them by the failure of government, governance and political institutions. What have the elected representatives and the government officials done about it? What are the plans to improve the situation? Is there a deadline? If so, what is it? What has especially the Karbi Anglong Autonomous District Council, which has been in place for decades, done, especially with the extensive Central funds it receives?
We live in a time when not a day passes without charges being hurled about by one political party or organization against other groups, be they of a different ethnic hue or ideology, Bangladeshis, illegal immigrants and aliens.
And just when one situation seems to improve in our complex land, there’s a jolt and a new set of issues, conflicts and problems emerge from another area. These are the indicators of fragile communities, societies and states, when despite the overwhelming presence of force on the side of the Government, it is unable or unknowledgeable to weave in the networks, connections and conversations that make it possible to nip the problems in the bud. The trouble in the Garo hills is not a series of isolated incidents; they are a reflection of a larger problem facing the North-east and the core of governability, not just governance – these range from the patronage of political biggies to various groups, including the armed factions, of the powerful coal mafia that fuels exploitation of coal, forests and other natural resources and has politicians and officials on their sides.
Settlements with armed groups may be a way forward. But we have to move beyond the politics of manufactured consent for these represent short-term goals. They do not resolve the complex problems of ethnicity and land alienation, of identity, boundaries and borders.
For these, we have to delve deeper, involving community leaders, researchers and unprejudiced minds, developing public dialogues and discussions, helping one side to understand and respect the other. Not by threatening with a mailed fist or by bowing on bent knee.
By the Brahmaputra – By Sanjoy Hazarika
http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/showpage.asp?id=jun2613,6,435,129,981,873