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Asia Sentinel - 31 August 2009
Indias seven difficult northeastern provinces
The seven states of Northeast India, connected to the mother country only by a thin strip of land that abuts West Bengal, have been in turmoil since India won independence from Great Britain in 1947. The region's 50 million people are a sea in which at least 39 armed outfits swim, fighting for demands ranging from sovereignty to self-rule.
It is this region more than any other that felt itself the unwelcome focus of an essay on a Chinese website in August by a Chinese political scientist named Zhan Lue that argued that India could be split into 20 to 30 nation states by pushing for the local aspirations of indigenous communities including the Assamese, Nagaz, Kashmiris and Tamils. They hardly need China's help.
Alienated from the mainland and surrounded by Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Burma and virtually bifurcated by the presence of Bangladesh, the seven states have lost at least 10,000 dead due to insurgents or to counter-insurgency operations controlled by the Union government in New Delhi. In addition, fear psychosis has remained intact since the 1962 Sino-Indian war over India's objections to China's occupation of the uninhabited Aksai China region, considered a strategic link between the Chinese-administered territories of Tibet and Xinjiang via China National Highway Route G219.
The people in the region witnessed a Chinese juggernaut that crossed India's easternmost state of Arunachal Pradesh and marched into Assam. In a war fought under harsh conditions, sometimes at elevations up to 4,250 meters (14,000 feet) the Indian army, overwhelmed by a massive People's Liberation Army invasion, were forced to give way all the way to the busy town of Tejpur, some 250 km east of the Assamese capital of Guwahati, before the Chinese suddenly deserted the location and declared an unilateral ceasefire.
The war took thousands of lives from both the sides. The US government came to India's support, flying in supplies to India and threatening Beijing to force the Chinese to withdraw their army from Indian soil despite India's official policy of non-alignment. India's relations with China have been periodically tense ever since, with Beijing continuing to argue, sometimes more heatedly than other times, that Arunchal Pradesh is a part of Tibet and hence belongs to them.
Nearly a century and a half before China's 1962 incursion, the region was invaded by the Burmese army, which was later defeated by British forces in 1826 to preserve it as a part of the greater Indian territories. The separatist groups and their sympathizers argue that Assam and the rest of the Northeast were never a part of India before the Yandabu Agreement which the British forced the Burmese to sign at that time.
With freedom in 1947, the Northeast came under Bharat (greater India). A magnificent region, it consists of dramatic mountains and some of India's most famous rivers, particularly the Brahmaputra and the Barak. It is the home of the Kaziranga Wildlife Sanctuary. It is often described as having more folklore and tradition than any other region in India.
But there are individuals and communities in the region who even today prefer not to identify themselves as Indian. So when Zhan Lu argued that india cold be splintered into 20 to 30 nation states and eventually supporting the insurgent groups of the country, the Northeast expressed shock and anguish. After an initial silence, the Indian foreign ministry in a statement clarified that 'the article in question appears to be an expression of an individual's opinion and does not accord with the officially-stated position of China on India-China relations conveyed to us on several occasions.'
The statement issued on August 10 however cautioned that opinions and assessment on the state of India-China relations should be expressed after careful judgment based on the long-term interests of building a stable relationship between the two countries.'
There are five major groups fighting for various causes in the region. The most important is the United Liberation Front of Asom, followed by the Dima Halong Dauga, the National Democratic Front of Bodoland, the National Socialist Council of Naqalim and the United People's Democratic Solidarity, all fighting low-intensity wars of liberation. The other 35-odd are an alphabet soup of causes and crusades, some so obscure that authorities are unable to identify them.
All too often, journalists have taken the brunt of the violence. A total of 22 editors and reporters have been murdered in the region since 1991, when Kamal Saikia, and editor , was killed for criticizing the ideology of ULFA. Assam's hundreds of journalists, who are paid almost nothing and have almost no job security, have been the target of their frustrations. However, not a single perpetrator has ever been booked under the law.
Rupam Baruah, a political scientist based in the Assamese capital of Guwati, said in an interview that What is amazing, the Chinese writer echoed the language of ULFA in the article.
Now banned as an insurgent group, ULFA was established in 1979 with the aim of making Assam a sovereign country. After three decades of armed movement, however, the outfit has lost its support base among the Assamese community primarily because of its disruptive and inhuman activities. ULFA has opposed elections in Assam but they have lost the electorate. Although the group seeks to prevent celebration of India's Independence Day on August 15 and Republic Day on January 26, they are largely ignored by citizens who defy their diktats.
Recent media reports that ULFA leaders have sought refuge inside China have been taken seriously by analysts. After Bangladesh and Burma turned hostileto the ULFA, analysts say, the leader Paresh Barua began to seek relationships with with the Chinese government. The ULFA chief Arabinda Rajkhowa even wrote an official letter to Beijing few months back asking support for their armed movement.
Amid the debate, both the Indian and Chinese soldiers as usual observed India's I-Day at the city of Bumla in Arunachal Pradesh on August 15. A special border personnel conclave was organized in which a Chinese delegation was led by Colonel Yang Zijing reaffirmed the commitment on both the sides to strengthen friendship and also maintain peace and tranquility along the international border.
That India wants to maintain a warm relationship with China was articulated by New Delhi's another significant initiative to honora Chinese scholar and Indonologist, Ji Xianlin, who has immensely contributed by translating various Sanskrit texts into the Chinese. Honoring Ji Xianlin with India's third highest civilian honor, the Padma Bushan, was a major initiative by the Indian government, argued Jiang Kui of Beijing University, who also said in a telehone interview that it would make a lot of difference in the way many Chinese look at India hereafter.
Thus Xhan Lues wish for an insurgency to break up China appears to be little more than a fantasy. But, given the instability in the poverty-stricken region, far from Delhi, which has ignored it to its detriment, it is a dangerous fantasy that gives encouragement to the flock of insurgents.
Asia Sentinel - Does China Have Designs on a Troubled Area?
Asia Sentinel - 31 August 2009
Indias seven difficult northeastern provinces
The seven states of Northeast India, connected to the mother country only by a thin strip of land that abuts West Bengal, have been in turmoil since India won independence from Great Britain in 1947. The region's 50 million people are a sea in which at least 39 armed outfits swim, fighting for demands ranging from sovereignty to self-rule.
It is this region more than any other that felt itself the unwelcome focus of an essay on a Chinese website in August by a Chinese political scientist named Zhan Lue that argued that India could be split into 20 to 30 nation states by pushing for the local aspirations of indigenous communities including the Assamese, Nagaz, Kashmiris and Tamils. They hardly need China's help.
Alienated from the mainland and surrounded by Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Burma and virtually bifurcated by the presence of Bangladesh, the seven states have lost at least 10,000 dead due to insurgents or to counter-insurgency operations controlled by the Union government in New Delhi. In addition, fear psychosis has remained intact since the 1962 Sino-Indian war over India's objections to China's occupation of the uninhabited Aksai China region, considered a strategic link between the Chinese-administered territories of Tibet and Xinjiang via China National Highway Route G219.
The people in the region witnessed a Chinese juggernaut that crossed India's easternmost state of Arunachal Pradesh and marched into Assam. In a war fought under harsh conditions, sometimes at elevations up to 4,250 meters (14,000 feet) the Indian army, overwhelmed by a massive People's Liberation Army invasion, were forced to give way all the way to the busy town of Tejpur, some 250 km east of the Assamese capital of Guwahati, before the Chinese suddenly deserted the location and declared an unilateral ceasefire.
The war took thousands of lives from both the sides. The US government came to India's support, flying in supplies to India and threatening Beijing to force the Chinese to withdraw their army from Indian soil despite India's official policy of non-alignment. India's relations with China have been periodically tense ever since, with Beijing continuing to argue, sometimes more heatedly than other times, that Arunchal Pradesh is a part of Tibet and hence belongs to them.
Nearly a century and a half before China's 1962 incursion, the region was invaded by the Burmese army, which was later defeated by British forces in 1826 to preserve it as a part of the greater Indian territories. The separatist groups and their sympathizers argue that Assam and the rest of the Northeast were never a part of India before the Yandabu Agreement which the British forced the Burmese to sign at that time.
With freedom in 1947, the Northeast came under Bharat (greater India). A magnificent region, it consists of dramatic mountains and some of India's most famous rivers, particularly the Brahmaputra and the Barak. It is the home of the Kaziranga Wildlife Sanctuary. It is often described as having more folklore and tradition than any other region in India.
But there are individuals and communities in the region who even today prefer not to identify themselves as Indian. So when Zhan Lu argued that india cold be splintered into 20 to 30 nation states and eventually supporting the insurgent groups of the country, the Northeast expressed shock and anguish. After an initial silence, the Indian foreign ministry in a statement clarified that 'the article in question appears to be an expression of an individual's opinion and does not accord with the officially-stated position of China on India-China relations conveyed to us on several occasions.'
The statement issued on August 10 however cautioned that opinions and assessment on the state of India-China relations should be expressed after careful judgment based on the long-term interests of building a stable relationship between the two countries.'
There are five major groups fighting for various causes in the region. The most important is the United Liberation Front of Asom, followed by the Dima Halong Dauga, the National Democratic Front of Bodoland, the National Socialist Council of Naqalim and the United People's Democratic Solidarity, all fighting low-intensity wars of liberation. The other 35-odd are an alphabet soup of causes and crusades, some so obscure that authorities are unable to identify them.
All too often, journalists have taken the brunt of the violence. A total of 22 editors and reporters have been murdered in the region since 1991, when Kamal Saikia, and editor , was killed for criticizing the ideology of ULFA. Assam's hundreds of journalists, who are paid almost nothing and have almost no job security, have been the target of their frustrations. However, not a single perpetrator has ever been booked under the law.
Rupam Baruah, a political scientist based in the Assamese capital of Guwati, said in an interview that What is amazing, the Chinese writer echoed the language of ULFA in the article.
Now banned as an insurgent group, ULFA was established in 1979 with the aim of making Assam a sovereign country. After three decades of armed movement, however, the outfit has lost its support base among the Assamese community primarily because of its disruptive and inhuman activities. ULFA has opposed elections in Assam but they have lost the electorate. Although the group seeks to prevent celebration of India's Independence Day on August 15 and Republic Day on January 26, they are largely ignored by citizens who defy their diktats.
Recent media reports that ULFA leaders have sought refuge inside China have been taken seriously by analysts. After Bangladesh and Burma turned hostileto the ULFA, analysts say, the leader Paresh Barua began to seek relationships with with the Chinese government. The ULFA chief Arabinda Rajkhowa even wrote an official letter to Beijing few months back asking support for their armed movement.
Amid the debate, both the Indian and Chinese soldiers as usual observed India's I-Day at the city of Bumla in Arunachal Pradesh on August 15. A special border personnel conclave was organized in which a Chinese delegation was led by Colonel Yang Zijing reaffirmed the commitment on both the sides to strengthen friendship and also maintain peace and tranquility along the international border.
That India wants to maintain a warm relationship with China was articulated by New Delhi's another significant initiative to honora Chinese scholar and Indonologist, Ji Xianlin, who has immensely contributed by translating various Sanskrit texts into the Chinese. Honoring Ji Xianlin with India's third highest civilian honor, the Padma Bushan, was a major initiative by the Indian government, argued Jiang Kui of Beijing University, who also said in a telehone interview that it would make a lot of difference in the way many Chinese look at India hereafter.
Thus Xhan Lues wish for an insurgency to break up China appears to be little more than a fantasy. But, given the instability in the poverty-stricken region, far from Delhi, which has ignored it to its detriment, it is a dangerous fantasy that gives encouragement to the flock of insurgents.
Asia Sentinel - Does China Have Designs on a Troubled Area?
