Spare a thought

We may never be able to name and punish the individuals directly responsible for the recent killing spree in Assam?s Karbi Anglong district. But one thing is quite clear: there is a connection between the political agendas of groups engaged in the early stages of negotiations with the government of India and what the violence has tried to achieve on the ground. The displacement of targeted ethnic groups from their hearth and home in certain areas fits well with what leaders of some ethnic militias seek to achieve at the negotiating table. Given this pattern, many apparently moderate leaders of ethnic movements in the North-east could be accused of complicity with ethnic cleansing. But our legal and political processes do not take the crime of ethnic cleansing as seriously as international law does.

To ensure that such violence is not repeated, it is important to understand the logic of de facto exclusive ethnic homelands that has come to capture the imagination of ethnic militants in the region. Our decision-makers have taken a far too benign view of this phenomenon and given little attention to the long-term costs of perpetuating the idea.

There is now a perception in the North-east that exclusionary ethnic agendas ? no matter how unfair they are from the perspective of other ethnic groups living in the same area ? have a chance of success if there is a demonstrated capacity for sustained political mobilization. And with appropriate positioning vis-?-vis rival ethnic militias, the local counter-insurgency establishment could even become an ally.

Officials who enter into negotiations with ethnic militias do not seem to realize that a demand for a homeland may enjoy the support of a particular ethnic group, but other ethnic groups living in the same area may feel threatened by it. The government?s readiness to concede to such demands has gradually weakened political forces that stand for a more pluralistic form of politics.

This is not the first time in recent years that Karbi Anglong and the adjacent North Cachar Hills districts have seen such mayhem. There has been widespread violence between Karbis and Kukis in Karbi Anglong, and between Dimasas and Hmars in the North Cachar Hills. The two were part of a single district until 1970, and the present conflicts in the districts are related. The Mikir Hills district was renamed Karbi Anglong in 1976. The Dimasas are a minority scheduled tribe in Karbi Anglong, but constitute a majority of the tribal population in North Cachar Hills district. The demand of the Karbi ethnic militia, the United Peoples Democratic Solidarity, for a homeland for the Karbis, and the demand of the Dima Halam Daogah for a ?Dimaraji state? ? and the efforts to rename the North Cachar Hills district ?Dima Halili?? provide the backdrop to these episodes of ethnic violence.

But a homeland for one ethnic group often translates into second-class citizenship status for another, even though materially one may be no worse off than the latter. Homeland demands in the North-east therefore inevitably invite conflict. Ethnic militias seeking a homeland come in conflict with groups that are seen as obstacles to the demand. That was the source of the Dimasa-Hmar violence of 2003. The Dimaraji envisioned by Dimasa activists is not limited to North Cachar Hills district. It extends to areas in neighbouring Karbi Anglong and Cachar districts, and it also includes Dimapur, the commercial centre of Nagaland.

DHD activists have reportedly encouraged and facilitated new Dimasa settlements in the Dhansiri and Kheroni Charali area in Karbi Anglong. There were signboards proclaiming Eastern Dimaraji in these areas. These moves led to significant tensions between Dimasa and Karbi militants prior to the recent outbreak of violence. The government of India?s decision, following the ceasefire with the DHD, to set up one of the designated camps for DHD militants in this area, became a source of irritation for Karbi militants. Indeed, according to several reports, militants housed in that camp were responsible for some of the most gruesome killings of Karbis.

Like the DHD, the UPDS too has signed a ceasefire agreement with the Centre in 2002. As it often happens in such situations, it produced a dissident faction. Members of the anti-talks factions, now known as the Karbi Longri North Cachar Hills Liberation Front and the Karbi Longri North Cachar Hills Resistance Force, appear to be major players in the revenge attacks against Dimasas as well as in earlier outbreaks of violence against Kukis.

Certain peculiarities of property rights in the hills of north-east India give ethnic militias unusual capacity to change demographic realities on the ground. In places that are designated as forest areas and in lands that are set aside for shifting cultivation, there is considerable fluidity in settlement patterns. Many groups may have settled and begun to cultivate such lands relatively recently. Since these people do not have legal papers to prove property rights ? and in any case, most of these lands have not been surveyed ? ethnic militias seeking to displace them can do so with relative ease.

The only security that such a group can get is from an ethnic militia of its own. The government is not in a position to defend their property rights, especially since the settlement itself, say in what is technically a forest reserve, may be illegal.

Thus, whether a particular population is indigenous to an area or not often becomes a highly contested issue. At the root of the Karbi-Kuki violence of 2003 was the Karbi view that Kukis are an immigrant community occupying their land. While Kukis living in the Hamren subdivision of Karbi Anglong are indigenous, say Karbi militants, those living in the Singhason-Khonbamon Hill range of Diphu subdivision are recent migrants from Nagaland and Manipur.

Yet the latter group of Kukis cultivate a highly-valued commercial ginger crop that not only finds its way to other parts of India, but has invited recent export orders from as far away as Germany. But Kuki farmers today are too scared to go to their fields. Plans to set up ginger candy and ginger paste producing plants in the area have been shelved. The economic costs of the violence accompanying homeland politics can be quite high.

As the plight of these ginger growers highlight, responding to ethnic militancy and meeting the challenges of economic development of the North-east are not separate issues. By giving in uncritically to the demands for ethnic homelands we have encouraged more such demands, leading to more ethnic violence. By giving a short shrift to the democratic value of equality among citizens we have risked making the North-east permanently ungovernable.