THE violence perpetrated on an Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura rally at Agartala on Aug 23 — during which at least six persons were killed and scores injured — by “infuriated locals” even as police personnel were present resulted in strong reactions that ran along ethnic lines. Indeed, the attack served to highlight a recurring issue of who is “local” and who an “outsider” in the context of the tribes and non-tribal populace in the region. Much of the criticism directed against the ruling Communist Party India-Marxist, the alleged perpetrators of this recent violence on innocent indigenous peoples, is based on branding the attackers Bangladeshis who are responsible for upsetting the ethnic and demographic character of Tripura. The rallyists were demanding the restoration of their land, given how they claimed current Left politics remained insensitive to the legitimate aspirations of Tripura’s tribals.

The attack on the Agartala rally is a throwback to December 2007, when an Adivasi rally in Guwahati was set upon and Laxmi Orang was sexually assaulted and stripped, such was the similarity of hatred displayed. However, when the media carried clips of the Guwahati violence probably no one back then put it down to “outsiders” being responsible, as was the case in Agartala. Another parallel could be drawn from the small tribal rally that was “brutally attacked” in June this year outside Manipur Bhavan. They were protesting against three bills that apparently infringed on their land rights.

Such incidents throw up two questions concerning how outsiders are taking away the land and other territorial rights of tribals in various parts of North-east India; and how tribals are maltreated and abused by the dominant ethnic and non-ethnic majorities in Assam, Manipur and Tripura. The deeper question, though, is about the status, recognition and constitutional rights of tribal people in these states that also have a large presence of non-tribals.

In the case of Manipur, there is a paradoxical situation, with a section of Meteis, part of a historic Sanskritisation process since the 15th century, attempting to reclaim their tribal past just as any other tribe of Manipur. Indeed, the narrative of Manipur’s tribals being discriminated against by the dominant political majority would seem to have reached its height going by the bodies of nine victims that are still lying in the Churachandpur morgue for a year now. Tribals are awaiting justice and continue to protest against the Protection of Manipur People’s Bill, the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reform (7th Amendment) Bill, and the Manipur Shops and Establishments (Second Amendment) Bill passed by Manipur assembly. The clash of ideas and identities in Manipur assumed the form of “politics of dead” over politics of protest.

In the case of Tripura, the demographic minoritisation of tribes since the 1971 Bangladesh war has created an immense identity crisis among the indigenous tribals. To add to the woe, the symbols of the erstwhile Tripura royal family of Maharaja Krishna Kishore Manikya, a close friend of Rabindranath Tagore, and their descendants’ palace have been renamed by dropping the original name, “Ujjayanta palace”. Again, the royal palace, named “Neer Mahal” was under illegal government occupation since 1974, as ruled by Tripura High Court, for which the government has had to pay a compensation at the rate of six per cent since.

In stark similarity, the conversion of the Koch kingdom’s royal palace at Coochbehar in West Bengal by the erstwhile Jyoti Basu government into a bus stand evokes similar concern among minorities. Another reason for tribals becoming a minority has been the inclusion of the plains of Dharmanagar up to Churabari in the north, a stretch dominated by Bengalis for many centuries.

In the case of Assam, plains tribes like the Bodos, Mishings, Rabhas, Mataks and Morans on the one hand — who are partly Sanskritised — and hill tribes like the Karbis and Dimasas create an ethnic space of immense depth and diversity. Mingled with these communities is the larger Ahomiya community with an advanced language, culture and literature. Adivasis who were indentured by our colonial rulers for the purpose of tea production as also Bengali Muslims for “growing enough food” in 1930s remain ethnic “others”. Instances of ethnic violence in the Bodoland area, inter-ethnic clashes between Rabhas and Garos and the occasion communal conflagration on religious lines keep the Assam cauldron boiling all the time.

Efforts at peace-making and setting up a permanent process of stability and development emerge as the prime agenda of governance in the context of Assam, but the ethnic situation becomes more nuanced as conflicts over sharing land, water, natural and mineral resources assume critical proportions with multiple players trying to derive mileage from ethnic cleavages.

The situation of distinguishing oneself from the other leads to what a young social scientist once called “politics of distinction”. The entire region shows a tendency toward drawing arbitrary boundaries by separating the insider from the outsider. Ubiquitous outsiders become the punching bag for every instance of malady, as insiders often blink at home-grown lawlessness and passing the buck entirely on to Delhi or the Bangladeshis. There is a strange mix of politics of identity, xenophobia, disturbed demography and ethnic aspirations that often become volatile and create an atmosphere of tension and suspicion. Indeed political parties do play on these situational drifts and shifts in a manipulative manner. Although the experience of tribals being victimised in some states with a mixed populace is a sordid reality, yet politics played along just these lines bring more curse than boon to the region. Playing various identity cards has remained a major source of conflagration and ethnic violence.

Eradicating such a scenario would require major course correction in governance, security and development. Increasing the demand for tribal autonomy as a response to victimisation of tribes and creating more states involving ethno-linguistic identity could be a way out that the Centre will not easily want to consider. But the suspension of positive solutions keeps the pot boiling for politicians, bureaucrats and other vested interests. Another demand arising from the region that has far-reaching consequences is for community ownership over natural resources, which is partly accepted by the present constitutional set up in the form of the Sixth Schedule, even if it is largely left open to extractive economy.

For that matter, politics of identity and distinction could have been handled far better by ensuring institutional care and community-based autonomy that establishes an egalitarian access to employment and economic opportunities for every group. Such policy measures and principles can still work in the North-eastern region as it will find immediate acceptance such that Tripura-, Manipur- and Assam-like conflicts could be avoided.

Continuance of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act cuts into the possibility resolving conflicts consensually. Although no one denies the need for quick response and deployment, yet human right concerns in the context of the North-east cannot be shelved. The larger issue is peace with justice and, hence, the state has to play a positive role in mitigating cases of violation of human dignity and rights by adopting the role of moral saint and not political master.

—The Statesman / India

Published in Dawn, September 21st, 2016