Is Just- democracy in peril?

Politics and Ethics of Assam Riots

The communities of North East India (NEI) are fleeing from their respective work and living places with clueless and anxious faces in jam- packed special exodus trains. They had moved over to the other parts of India for education and employment. The NEI communities have been under apathy and discrimination by the mainland Indian politicians. The NEI region is still found underdeveloped in the midst of rich natural resources, challenged by insurgency as response to political pressure. There have been cross border infiltration by the citizens of the neighboring countries.

The mass exodus is a fall-out of the recent violence in Assam. This particular violence was between the Bodos (a native tribal community) and the infiltrated communities and recent settlers who marginalize the rest of the local ethnic communities. Media reported that the violence took 77+ lives and damaged several crores worth of property that triggered panic, insecurity and mistrust among the communities. Around 400 rescue camps were set all over Assam for over 5,00,000 people. Interestingly, for a few days even the aid agencies were suspected and were not allowed to serve the tarnished communities with food, water and medicine.

It is unfortunate that some of the “mainland’ political parties and media interpreted this violent event as ‘communal’ and as if it were between two communal or religious groups. They started playing a ‘blame game’ between political parties. For the State and those political parties the victims of the riot are ‘vote bank’. So, they play a mild and balanced role to satisfy both groups and treated this as a ‘law and order’ issue.

This violence is multifaceted: it is about ethnicity, identity, border, land and resources, exclusion, political power, economic, development, minorities, and electoral politics issues. The living space of the ‘Bodos’ and local ethnic communities are shrinking every day due to settlements by the infiltrators from neighboring country. It is a policy issue of the State(s).

Obviously, such unethical and irresponsible behaviors of the political parties result in greater harm and left a scar on the nation and its unity, on people trusting the State machineries for protection of life. Its failure would lead to more incidents as Assam. Amending and executing the constitution and policies of the State on this issue would have been more appropriate. But the State looks at itself as a political party and fail to respond to peoples aspirations. When people lose their confidence in the State they respond on their own style. The agitation could be seen as against the State and its policies too. But, the basic ethic of any state is to win the confidence of people and work for their welfare. Even after several assuring statements from the Prime Minster, respective Chief Ministers and other Community leaders, the NEI communities started fleeing towards their homelands for their safety.

The State machinery may be efficient in handling the post-conflict situation effectively but not the pre-conflict situation. So, it the time for States to re-organize their mechanisms to give confidence to the people who are in panic situations as beforehand responses.

There is another possible reason for the NEI communities not having trust in the Government. But they have been discriminated and treated as second class citizens. A structured and perpetuated hate campaign is initiated by the right wing fundamentalists. Several young girls were sexually abused and several are attacked, some to death. The local police and administration did not identify themselves with them to assure their safe stay. They were called and addressed as ‘chingies’ and ‘junglies’. The society at large has not given enough attention and considered them as they are part of us and our country.

It is interesting to observe a political shift among the right wing groups. They initiated the massive hate campaigns and later became the saviours of the NEI by distributing food and water to the fleeing communities while they are on trains. They even floated the idea that a foreign agent triggered the issue. Actually most of the attacks on NEI were carried out by the Indian right wing ideologists. It is a classical example of political opportunism.

Political parties should also take responsibility for such chaos and confusion. Reclaiming confidence should be the prime motive of any political party. Now they have gone to the level of blaming a foreign hand on the issue. This may help the ruling parties to silence opposition parties blaming them on any issue but this would not solve the problem at all. The States and the political parties have to come together and work on a common agenda of Unity of the Nation by forgetting their differences.

This issue and the nature of such violence have to be differently viewed and addressed. Initially the Law and Order approach would help the state to bring normalcy; but for the future course the states and political parties would jointly involve in solving the problems and find mutual and consensual solutions between the groups that are in conflict and fight for their cause. Priorities could be set to solve the problems politically and socially than through arms.

The role of media needs a greater attention. In many cases instead calming the issue, sensational reporting creates unnecessary panic and fear among the people. It has caused distrust among communities at large.

It is the duty of the entire human community and peace-lovers to work together in handling the issues. The NGOs and People’s groups, Civil Society Movement should be together to work on Peace and Development. A long-term peace should be the vision. It is time for us to design our development programmes that integrate and inbuilt peace and harmony into (y)our developmental programmes. The resource sharing partners should emphasize on this. As we involve in interfaith and inter religious dialogue let us promote the inter-tribal and inter-ethnic groups dialogue. Facilitate them to accept and understand each other as they are instead just working on economically self-reliant.

All Faith Based Communities (FBOs) should check aggressive proselytitation campaigns and turn them into campaign for inter-tribal or inter-ethnic groups dialogue. Facilitating such dialogue should be the mission agenda of every faith groups of those regions.

One cannot either ignore or sideline the role of the public and civil society. The entire community should see any conflict as (y)our issue since we are part of these conflicts. We may not directly involve in them but our presence should be felt at large. Every citizen should have a breath of peace and unity. So, let us together inculcate the culture of peace and harmony in the society at large.

Finally it needs a concerted effort of the State, political parties, organs, FBOs, NGOs and Civil Society groups and people to address issues related to peace and harmony in the society. None of the single organ can achieve this alone. This particular issue may be due to migrants and settlers. Help the State to come-up with a strong, relevant and practical policies on infiltration, migration, land, natural resources, livelihood and related issues identified locally. Be a watchdog and force the State to implement them appropriately without any bias. Make the State to lawfully and morally commit to such policies.

Unless all are together, the divisive forces whether it is internal or external will take over the issue and achieve what they want. Let all us forget our indifferences and be together for Unity, Peace and Harmony.