The world knows if Northeast India is giving a referendum, they will want to join elsewhere given the ethnic unrest in India is 10x worse than China. Who are you trying to kidding here?
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India’s Northeast: How a Troubled Region May Be a Global Flashpoint
In the world's largest democracy, recent fears of pogroms and ethnic violence have highlighted just how fractious and febrile India's social makeup is.
By
Ishaan Tharoor @ishaantharoorAug. 22, 2012
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Anupam Nath / AP
Migrants from the northeastern Indian states disembark from a train departing from the southern Indian city of Bangalore after arriving in Guwahati, in Assam state, on Aug. 18, 2012
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In the world’s largest democracy, recent fears of pogroms and ethnic violence have highlighted just how fractious and febrile India’s social makeup is. Rumors circulating last week of planned attacks on migrants from the Indian Northeast saw tens of thousands of Northeasterners in some of India’s main cities cram onto trains bound for their remote homelands. The “exodus” — as it was branded in bold block letters by the Indian media — followed earlier incidents of ethnic strife in the northeastern state of Assam, where members of the indigenous Bodo tribe clashed with Bengali Muslim settlers, driving hundreds of thousands of Muslims out of their homes. Mass SMSes, emails and posts over Facebook and Twitter warned of (and, in some cases, encouraged) Muslim reprisal attacks on Northeasterners in cities like India’s tech capital, Bangalore, as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan drew to a close, sparking a nationwide panic.
The threat, it seems, has subsided in the past few days, with many of those who fled now returning to their livelihoods in Bangalore and elsewhere. The government, even backed by the Opposition, has made the right noises, appealing to national solidarity, condemning attacks on all sides and assuring minorities of their safety. Officials predictably pointed the finger at internet troublemakers across the border in Pakistan; the Indian media is now wringing its hands over the pernicious effects of social media and the threat of further “cyber terror.”
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MORE: Fearing Attacks, Thousands Continue to Flee Bangalore)
But as the hysteria ebbs, serious challenges remain. The seven states of the Indian Northeast, a vast, rugged appendage off the Indian mainland suspended between China, Bhutan, Burma and Bangladesh, are among the country’s most impoverished and least developed, and are still beset by myriad ethnic insurgencies. Elsewhere in India, Northeasterners, many of whom look closer in appearance to neighboring populations in China and Southeast Asia, face daily, casual racism. The success of Northeastern athletes such as the Olympic medal winning boxer Mary Kom offers small moments of acceptance for a region that is often met by the rest of India with blithe ignorance. “It is not so much about whether I feel Indian or not, but whether people feel I am Indian or not. I constantly have to prove my Indian-ness,” says Yengkhom Jilangamba, an academic based in New Delhi who hails from Manipur, a state on the border with Burma. “It is traumatic, it makes you angry and sometimes you just shrug it off, but it is always there with you.”
The alienation felt by many Northeasterners is in part a consequence of the region’s distance — both geographic and cultural — from the rest of the country. The lands that it comprises fell under British colonial rule in the mid-19th century and eventually were amalgamated into a pluralist, polyglot newly independent Indian republic. “It’s the most complex place in Asia,” says Sanjoy Hazarika, chairman and director of the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research in New Delhi. “You have 220 ethnic groups packed into a triangular shape of land linked to India by just a tiny corridor.” But, says Hazarika, a legacy of poor governance, weak local leadership and volatile, violent politics has seen it lag drastically behind the rest of the country. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act, the same draconian military law that New Delhi has in place over restive Kashmir, is in effect over stretches of the seven northeastern states where numerous fractured, armed, anti-government movements still operate. A climate of apprehension and insecurity has stymied development, prompting hundreds of thousands to seek employment in India’s main cities.
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MORE: India Continues to Grapple with Fallout from Assam Violence)
“The complexity of the region continues to confound the bureaucrats and politicians in Delhi,” says Hazarika. This year’s violence in Assam between the indigenous Bodos and Bengali Muslims was hardly anything new. Similar clashes have taken place for decades; for some Muslim communities in Assam, a whole generation has grown up in refugee camps. The Bodos and other groups in the region — as well as the main opposition party, the Hindu nationalist BJP, in New Delhi — complain of illegal immigration of Bengali Muslims from Bangladesh, which, they say, has been encouraged by various governments to create blocs of voters permanently in their debt. Yet like the Bengali-speaking Muslim Rohingyas facing persecution in nearby Burma, many of these Muslims know no other home than Assam and India. “It’s more difficult to actually resolve issues related to land resources and ethnic tensions than it is to make a hue and cry about illegal immigration,” says Hazarika.
For some Northeasterners, disillusionment has set in. “The authorities are to blame here. They failed to learn a lesson from previous incidences of violence,” says Ritupan Goswami, a researcher at the Council for Social Development, a New Delhi-based NGO, who is originally from the Assamese capital, Guwahati. “Given the current situation I think secession from India is better for the people. I for one do not consider myself an Indian national—rather an Assamese national.” Secession, though long the rallying call for an array of distinct separatist groups, each championing their own ethnic fief, is not in the cards, nor necessarily a popular aspiration.
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MORE: Million Rupee Baby: India’s Mary Kom Could Be the Olympics’ Most Unlikely Champion)
Ninong Ering, a Member of Parliament from the ruling Congress party, serving a constituency in the mountainous state of Arunachal Pradesh, insists most of what ails the Northeast and its over 40 million people can be solved with concerted plans for developing industries and the region’s currently woeful infrastructure. “Our boys don’t really go into [insurgent groups] because they want sovereignty or something like that,” says Ering. “It’s because of poverty. There’s nowhere to go. There’s nothing for them to do here.”
The region’s geo-political relevance cannot be understated. The shadow of China looms large — Beijing still claims much of the territory of Arunachal Pradesh as its own and has ramped up its investment and infrastructure along the contested border with India, while nationalist Chinese websites routinely urge China’s leadership to stealthily wrest the Northeast away from India. Various insurgent groups — from Assam’s ULFA to separatist factions in the state of Nagaland — have ties to a host of regional actors, ranging from sympathetic rebel ethnic militias in Burma to both Pakistan and Bangladesh’s military intelligence agencies. Though far from New Delhi’s corridors of power, the Northeast ought to increasingly preoccupy the concerns of its strategists.
Ering says the central government is on the right track to bringing stability to the region, albeit belatedly. Its potential for hydropower could go a long way in addressing India’s longstanding energy shortfalls. New planned roads and rail lines could restore colonial-era trade links that once threaded India together with Southeast Asia, turning a remote backwater into a continental crossroads. But beyond development, Ering says, other steps can be taken to better integrate the Northeast with the rest of India. “We all go to school and learn about the Indus Valley and the
Mahabharata,” he says, referring to South Asia’s first urban civilization and the ancient Hindu epic. “But there should be something more in our education that makes people understand that, OK, the people of the Northeast may look Chinese or Korean or whatever, but they are Indians. And their stories are India’s also.”
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with reporting by Nilanjana Bhowmick/New Delhi
Read more:
India’s Northeast: How a Troubled Region May Be a Global Flashpoint | TIME.com India’s Northeast: How a Troubled Region May Be a Global Flashpoint | TIME.com
Henryk Szadziewski: 2011: The Uyghur Human Rights Year in Review
Calls for independent and international investigations into Chinese claims of Uyghur terrorism receive very short shrift from Beijing. It therefore follows that whenever a serious incident occurs in East Turkestan (Xinjiang), which Chinese officials blame on a coordinated Uyghur terror threat, skeptics are never far away. That China uses the Uyghurs' Islamic faith to engineer accusations of terrorism in order to justify unremitting crackdowns only compounds the doubt.
The killing of seven alleged Uyghur terrorists and a police officer in a shootout on December 28 in Khotan prefecture ended an appalling year in the region. While Chinese state media reported that those killed were involved in a kidnapping and formed part of a larger group of 15 men who were heading to Central Asia to receive "jihadist training", Western media detailed a divergent narrative. According to local sources contacted by Radio Free Asia, the group, which included women and children, was fired on as they were fleeing China to seek refuge overseas from China's repressive religious policies.
The incident became another example of the lack of clarity in Chinese government accounts of Uyghur terrorism, as well as an illustration of the binary nature in interpreting such disturbing events. What seems to be agreed upon is that another violent and bloody chapter in the region's history has been played out and that we are nowhere nearer to resolving Uyghur issues. This conclusion could also be applied to two violent attacks that happened in the dusty summer streets of Khotan and Kashgar.
On July 18, Chinese official media reported that at least four people died in a clash in the city of Khotan. According to the official Xinhua news agency, "thugs" forced their way into a police station, where they took hostages and engaged in a gunfight that resulted in at least four dead. The World Uyghur Congress stated the shooting took place not at a police station, but in Khotan's main bazaar, when more than 100 local Uyghurs peacefully demonstrated against illegal seizures of land and the forcible disappearances of relatives by Chinese security forces during unrest in 2009. Police opened fire on the demonstrators, leading to a clash between demonstrators and police.
In Kashgar, a series of bomb and knife attacks occurred in the city on July 30 and 31 that left a reported 23 people dead when the dust finally settled. Chinese authorities condemned the attacks as terrorist and fingered the East Turkestan Islamic Movement as the perpetrators. In an interesting subplot to the attacks, a temporary rift opened between longtime friends China and Pakistan when the former suggested that the latter could do better at keeping "Uyghur terrorists" within its borders under control. Although the accusation was quickly denied in diplomatic circles, it revealed an interesting dimension to Beijing's diffusion of blame. Reaction to the attacks from the Uyghur community in exile picked up on this blindness to problems in China's backyard and asked questions as to why Uyghurs in Kashgar would take such drastic actions.
Whereas the official version of the December shootout in Khotan prefecture brought out questions regarding Chinese government accusations of a concerted Uyghur terror network, the suggestion that the Uyghurs involved could have been refugees highlighted a problem escalating throughout the year.
In a report released in September, the Uyghur Human Rights Project documented an upsurge in the number of Uyghur refugees to Europe since the July 5, 2009 unrest in Urumchi. From 50 interviews conducted with Uyghurs claiming political refuge in three European countries, the report documented the deteriorating human rights conditions Uyghurs had fled in East Turkestan, in addition to the difficulties and hardships faced by these asylum seekers in leaving China.
They Can't Send Me Back: Uyghur Asylum Seekers in Europe found that almost without exception, Uyghurs were only able to flee China through bribing a range of corrupt officials.
A growing number of countries surrounding China found it acceptable to forcibly repatriate Uyghur refugees in 2011. Prior to 2011, Uyghurs were refouled from a variety of states in China's vicinity, such as Cambodia, Laos, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Burma and Nepal. In 2011, it was the turn of four other countries. On May 30, Ershidin Israel was forcibly repatriated from Kazakhstan despite an offer of settlement from Sweden. Israel had fled from China on foot in September 2009 after informing Radio Free Asia reporters about the beating to death of Uyghur Shohret Tursun. Tursun was beaten to death in September 2009 while in detention for his alleged involvement in the July 2009 unrest in Urumchi. Chinese authorities accused Israel of involvement in terrorism and demanded his return.
In August, Thailand handed over Nur Muhammed, who had fled after the July 5 unrest, Pakistan forcibly repatriated five Uyghurs, including a woman and two young children, and Malaysia deported 11 Uyghurs.
The five Uyghurs deported from Pakistan were reportedly blindfolded and handcuffed before being forced onto a flight on a Chinese airline departing from Islamabad. Radio Free Asia reported that the five Uyghurs may have been among a group that were on their way from Central Asia to Turkey, where they had hoped to seek asylum.
Malaysian authorities alleged that the 11 Uyghurs deported to China had been involved in human trafficking and were not refugees; however, charges of criminal activity have not been substantiated by evidence. The Malaysian authorities' claims with regard to the deported Uyghurs cannot be independently confirmed, because the UNHCR was not granted access to the men before they were repatriated.
In all these cases nothing has been heard of the refugees since their return to China. In a September 2 Human Rights Watch press release, Refugee Program director Bill Frelick said, "Uighurs disappear into a black hole after being deported to China." He added that "China appears to be conducting a concerted campaign to identify and press for the return of Uighurs from countries throughout Asia...China should stop pressuring other governments to violate the international prohibition against forced return."
With such a long reach across the Asian continent and dominance over society in the Uyghur region, 2012 brings little to dismiss the fear that Uyghurs will find any respite from Chinese government attention, even across international borders. The pressure that China has exerted on surrounding governments to forcibly repatriate fleeing Uyghurs seems ever more irresistible given current political and economic realities. The possible evolution of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization into an economic grouping should keep Central Asian states firmly focused on the assistance China requires to keep activist Uyghurs silent.
Chinese government claims of Uyghur terrorism and the Chinese state's chasing of Uyghur refugees across its borders require a strong international response. More can be done by mandated international agencies and concerned nations in the year to come. Independent investigations of possible extrajudicial killings and refuge from repression for fleeing individuals serve to illustrate to the globe's serial human rights abusers that the international human rights system guarantees the rights of everyone, even those people who exist in the shadows of others.
Heidiminx: Torture in Tibet
For the past two years, I've been actively blogging and documenting my experiences from the Tibetan community in Dharamsala, India.
In this small mountain town, it could be easy to get lost staring at the mountains -- it's serene, but that's not why I came here.
During my first trip here, I picked up a book in the Temple bookstore,
Fire Under the Snow.
I read it in one sitting, and with wet eyes, a stuffed nose, and a nauseous feeling, I evaluated my life. It took minimal time to realize that I needed to change something.
Modern media moves so quickly, and skims over current events so quickly -- it's no wonder that Tibet has to fight to stay in the press. After all, China's illegal occupation of Tibet started over 50 years ago. Mao's 'cultural revolution' was only the beginning of the genocide.
The best I have been able to do is take advantage of information, and try to redistribute it as best I can. I make it a point to address youth, and try to present the information succinctly.
This is the case with my interviews below. They are with Palden Gyatso, an ex-political prisoner from Tibet. I learned his story through his book, but have tried to capture the essence in the videos below. In our 'Walmart' society, I think it is important to hear the stories of those who have suffered in China's quest for capitalism.
The interviews below cover the reason for his arrest, his treatment in prison, the introduction of the electric cattle prod as a torture instrument, and also his thoughts on current political prisoner,
Dhondup Wangchen -- who was arrested, and sentenced to six years, simply for doing what I have done here, conducting interviews.
I encourage you to watch, and share these videos -- knowledge is power.
Want more???
Here's what Tibetans say to India:
.. thats not our rule, its what you agreed in UN, remember?? On?? Ask elders in your family
