Search for Peace with Justice: Issues Around Conflicts in Northeast India Search for Peace with Justice: © North Eastern Social Research Centre, Guwahati, 2008. Issues Around Conflicts in Published by Northeast India North Eastern Social Research Centre 110 Kharghuli Road (1st floor) Guwahati 781004 Assam, India Telephone: (0361) 2602819 Fax: (0361) 2732629 (Attn NESRC) Email: [email protected] Editor Walter Fernandes Website: www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/NESRC Cover Design: Kazimuddin Ahmed Panos Southasia 110 Kharghuli Road (1st floor) Guwahati 781004 Assam, India North Eastern Social Research Centre Printed by: Saraighat Laser Print Guwahati Silpukhuri 2008 Guwahati-3 About the Authors Acknowledgements Dr Walter Fernandes is Director, North Eastern Social Research Centre, Guwahati. Email: [email protected] With a sense of gratitude I present this book to the public of Prof. M. N. Karna former Professor and Head, Department of Sociology, the Northeast as a tribute to all those who are involved in peace North Eastern Hill University is at present with the Department of initiatives and struggles for justice in the region. It is an outcome Sociology, Tezpur University, Assam. Email: [email protected] of several seminars and discussion sessions organised as part of the peace initiatives programme of North Eastern Social Research Dr Nani Gopal Mahanta is Reader, Department of Political Science and Centre (NESRC). The programme as well as this book were Coordinator, Peace and Conflict Studies, Gauhati University. Email: sponsored by CRS, Guwahati. In the name of all the authors and [email protected] participants at the seminars I thank CRS, particularly Enakshi Dutta Ms Rita Manchanda works with the South Asian Forum for Human and Mangneo Lungdhim for this support. Rights, New Delhi. Email: [email protected] I would be failing in my duty if I failed to thank all those Dr Thomas Menamparampil, SDB, DD, a scholar on North Eastern who joined us in organising these seminars, especially Tezpur culture, is Catholic Archbishop of Guwahati. Email: [email protected] University and Martin Luther Christian University, Shillong. Four of the papers published in this book were presented at the seminars Ms Binalakshmi Nepram Mentschel, foundress of Manipuri Women Gun they organised. I am grateful to Michael Kolb of Marquette High, Survivors’ Network and founding Secretary General of Control Arms Milwaukee for his help in editing and to Dr Sanjay Barbora of Foundation of India is also author of two books on armed conflicts in South Asia. Email: [email protected] Panos Southasia for his suggestions. All the staff of NESRC deserve a special mention, especially Ms Gita Bharali, Anamika Deka and Prof. Esther Syiem is Head, Deparment of English, North Eastern Hill Manisha Kalita. University, Shillong, Meghalaya. Email: [email protected] Prof. David R. Syiemlieh, formerly Head, Department of History, is Guwahati Dr Walter Fernandes at present Controller of Examinations, North Eastern Hill University, International Peace Day 2008 Director Shillong, Meghalaya. Email: [email protected] Dr. Lucy Zehol is Reader, Department of Anthropology, North Eastern Hill University, Shillong, Meghalaya. Email: [email protected] Table of Contents Chapter Author Pages Acknowledgements 1. Conflicts and Search for Peace Walter Fernandes 1 with Justice in Northeast India : An Introduction. 2. Conflicts amid the Historical M. N. Karna 18 Experiences of Identity, Nation and the State in North Eastern India. 3. How Conflicts are Reflected in Esther Syiem 28 Literature: Transcribing Troubled Realities in the Written and the Oral. 4. Lessons from Conflicts and Peace David R. Syiemlieh 36 Initiatives: A Historical Review 5. Ethnic Tension and Conflicts: Lucy Zehol 44 North Eastern Experience. 6. The Role of Land in Ethnic Conflicts Walter Fernandes 66 in the Northeast. 7. Armed Conflicts and Small Arms Binalakshmi Nepram 85 Proliferation in Northeast India Mentschel 8. What Makes Assam A Perpetual Nani Gopal Mahanta 97 Conflict Zone? Going Beyond Management to Conflict Transformation. 9. The Role of Religious Leaders in Thomas Menamparampil 118 Peace Initiatives. 10. The Role of Civil Society in Peace Rita Manchanda 146 Building References 164 2 Search for Peace with Justice in NE India Manipur. From that vantage point she studies some more specific areas of conflict, particularly the immigration issue. 1. Conflicts and Search for Peace with Justice Then follow three cases studies on conflicts and their causes in Northeast India: An Introduction in the Northeast. Nani Gopal Mahanta studies the situation of conflicts in Assam and asks why what was an identity search Walter Fernandes has turned into an armed conflict turning Assam into a state of ongoing conflicts. He ends his paper by pointing out the pitfalls While in the rest of India the Northeast has the image of in the search for peace and advocates the involvement of many being a zone of conflicts, within the region one witnesses a search more stakeholders, so that the solution to the conflicts might move for peace, a concept whose interpretation changes according to beyond mere absence of violence and address the root causes the stakeholder. The state and non-state armed groups think of of hostility. Walter Fernandes presents land alienation as the peace only as the absence of armed conflict, but most people of main cause of conflicts in the region and studies the immigration the region perceive it as a new society based on justice. Such a and developmental issues within that perspective. Binalakshmi new society cannot be achieved without understanding the causes Nepram Mentschel analyses the role that small arms play in of conflicts and attempting a solution to them. That is what the perpetuating conflicts. present book attempts to do. Some authors try to identify the Finally two writers look at the possibilities of peace. At causes of conflicts in the region and others analyse the processes present negotiations are between the two armed adversaries i.e. required for peace and possible actors in them. They also point the state and the militant groups. Such negotiations can at best out the pitfalls in the search for peace which is a long process of achieve a temporary truce. A lasting solution requires a movement experiments with alternatives to the causes of conflicts. towards a just society. To achieve it the authors show the need for the involvement of more stakeholders. Thomas Menamparampil About the Book speaks on the role of religious leaders in the process leading The nine papers in the book are arranged in three sections. to peace. Rita Manchanda discusses the role of civil society in The first part has four short theoretical papers on conflicts and preparing the ground for the negotiations, in pressurising the peace. M. N. Karna gives a theoretical framework by identifying armed adversaries not to abandon negotiations and to make their the historical experiences of the peoples of the Northeast that have communities an integral part of the search. led to the present-day conflicts. David R. Syiemlieh takes a global view of the processes that have resulted in conflicts and discusses The Background of Conflicts the two World Wars and the Indian freedom movement before The first step in the search for peace is an understanding of focussing on the Northeast. Ethel Syiem studies the conflicts in the processes that lead to conflicts. That is what the four authors the Northeast and in other societies in transition as presented in do by providing the theoretical framework. In his brief analysis literature and analyses the role of the spoken and written word in of the historical experience of marginalisation in the Northeast, the peace process. Lucy Zehol gives the theoretical background of Karna refers to the danger of one region or community or country ethnic conflicts as found in anthropology with special reference to declaring itself the mainstream, thus reducing others to the status of sub-streams. That seems to have happened in the Indian effort Conflicts and Search for Peace with Justice in NE India 3 4 Search for Peace with Justice in NE India to build a nation-state on the basis of one dominant region. shortage of land and other resources caused by the encroachment Forgotten in this effort is the distinction between the people who on their land by immigrants from both within India and from form a nation that gives the community or individual an identity other countries, acquisition for development projects, alienation and the state that is a legal entity with a territory and confers of tribal land to non-tribals, lack of productive investment, and citizenship on the people. As R. N. Datta (1990: 41) said two the perceived or real attack on its identity, every community of decades ago, the danger in India is the tendency of national leaders the region tries to establish its indigenous status and asserts its to speak of “one State, one nation” and “to take the degree of exclusive rights over an area whose first inhabitants it clams to Aryanisation as the measure of Indianisation.” One of its results be, to the exclusion of all other ethnic groups (Bhaumik 2005: is that the identities of the regions that are considered sub-streams 150-152). This intensifies the conflicts. A possible way out of tend to become submerged in the “mainstream”. Karna studies this apparent dead end is the one that Mahatma Gandhi shows. this process in some regions of the Northeast, particularly in His struggle for Indian freedom was marked not merely by its Nagaland, Assam and Meghalaya. non-violent nature but also by his efforts to involve the masses By taking a look at the two World Wars, Syiemlieh shows how and to reach a solution based not on the rights of one side but on minor events can lead to a major conflagration.