Law of the other in India’s Northeast

By Prasenjit Biswas,

The history of displacement and dispossession is re-enacted for the victim-survivors of Bodoland riots. Implicitly proscribing them from returning to their homes by asking for their valid land documents, the government is also disqualifying them both from being recognized as a victim and from being a legitimate citizen of this country.

In a moving testimony, one of the survivors among the the thrown outs of ‘Special Guwahati bound train from Bangaluru’ incident in North Bengal, Sheikh Saddam, a resident of Hailakandi of Assam recalled how mere mention of their intent to return home for Eid got ten of them pushed out of the running train. Hailing from the Northeast and yet treated as an other or different, the victims’ identity became the marker of difference for punishing them. While many of the Norteasterners from other parts of the country experienced racial otherization, the same is repeated in relation to an ‘internal other’. In another heartbreaking incident, an established businessman in Mizoram, who migrated from Silchar in the early eighties and got married with a Mizo woman and remained as head of a family for two decades with a ten year old daughter is forced divorced by vigilante groups. The vigilante group dictated separation for the Mizo woman and her daughter Julian from their alien husband and father. Such a heartbreaking enforced divorce presumably sets an example for any ‘Bhai’ or outsider suspected to be an ‘illegal immigrant’. The difference of language, culture and religion with the added marker of being a Bengali Muslim or being from the plains can invite subjection to a legal or extra-legal procedure. In the process, many Bengali Muslim and Hindu Indian citizens are turned into ‘D’ voters and even pushed back inside Bangladesh, some of whom later were restored their Indian citizenship after a painful legal battle.

Right groups such as Citizens’ Rights Preservation Committee (CRPC) working in Assam has found an utter intransparency and shady dealing by the Police to suspected ‘illegal immigrants’. Not only many genuine Indian citizens are sent to detention camp, but many of the detainees there also are declared Bangladeshis in an ex-party manner. The recent edition of Foreigners’ (Tribunal) amendment order,2012 makes it mandatory for any person issued a summon to prove her Indian citizenship to come with all the proof within maximum ten days. Right groups worry that how can such a person produce certified copies of voters’ list of past years such as 1971 in such a limited time period? Even an application for certified copy takes a minimum of a month. This leaves open the possibility of many more ex-party judgements declaring a genuine Indian citizen to be a foreigner. Within the provision of Foreigners’ Act,1946, only the suspect has to prove her citizenry while any misplaced intent of the accuser remains unimpeachable. Right groups now fear that foreigners tribunal with its latest amendment would go into declaring lakhs of suspected Indian citizens of Bengali origin as ‘foreigners’ in ten days time without any time for adjudication and then they will be pushed back through the border with Bangladesh. This opens up a legalized and juridified process of dispossession of the ‘internal minorities’ living as ‘other’ in Assam’s multi-ethnic social space.

When the major ethnic students’ and youth bodies of the Northeastern region are coming together for a greater pan-ethnic solidarity for driving out the ‘illegal immigrants’, the state of fear among the minority Bengali population of lower Assam is rising. Even those who have been living in Bodoland districts for a century and possess valid land documents live in a fear of being dispossessed. The depressive effect of riots and killings this time is that many of the old settled families are selling their properties and looking for a safe shelter. Living in perpetual fear of being declared as stateless and deported makes an exception to their constitutional right to life and livelihood.

The situation is fully exploited by the Hindu right in spreading fear among the Hindu population by creating a situation of Muslim backlash. On 28th August last, the day of the bandh, the right Hindu forces mobilized a section of Bengali Hindu community to keep their shops and establishments open in Assam’s Barpeta road area that resulted into some death, clash and arson. The strategy of the Hindu right has always been to organize a Muslim backlash by way of provoking them to attack and then use such attacks as their ploy to launch an all out attack on Muslim minorities. The fact finding team from CRPC after august 28th violence in Barpeta road that left a few hundred people belonging to Hindu Bengali community homeless came to the conclusion that the clash there has been an outcome of the ploy to organize a Muslim backlash for not joining the bandh call by AAMSU.

This planned division between Bengali Hindus and Bengali Muslims by the Hindu right gels well with what the ethnic students’ bodies of the region cry out in the name of protection of ethnic and tribal identity. An idea of ethnic identity is constructed on the basis of a possible loss of identity if it is outnumbered by settlers. A conflation between Indian citizens and Bangladeshi immigrants is played out here to otherize any non-ethnic non-tribal citizenry. Within this, if it is Bengali Muslim, they become the most vulnerable, closely followed by Bengali Hindus as well. The whole propaganda against Bangaladeshis target the Bengali speaking population as possible suspects. Due process of law is curtailed in order to differently apply law to the so called suspected Bangladeshis. Seemingly the rights guaranteed by national and international law in the case of suspected Bangladeshis is overruled by some fiat or diktat of executive without allowing any judicial review of the procedure adopted in such cases.

Ethnic student and youth bodies of the region passionately argue about encroachment of tribal land by illegal settlers in Bodoland areas. In many of the tribal blocks and belts of Assam as well as in river islands, the rise of a land-market created the difference between the ‘resource-owning’ and ‘resource-using’ communities. The legal bar on owning land is now held against the non-land-owning and resource-using communities to make them ineligible even to be a citizen by connecting them with ‘illegal immigration’ and its attendant legal arbitrariness. To dispel such a fear of the other, strong protective discrimination combined with a sensitivity towards the dignity and right of the immigrant Other needs to be reframed in the sphere of law and politics. The governing ethnic elites must recognize this simultaneous need of openness and closure. The current turn towards regional re-ethnification of homelands in Northeast then would become inclusive and democratic. It will auto-correct the failing law of the land as well as the fear of the Other.

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Dr.Prasenjit Biswas is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at North Eastern Hill University, Shillong. He is also Director (Research), Barak Human Rights’ Protection Committee, Silchar.

After Norway, Britain rocked by western barbarism

By Soroor Ahmed, TwoCircles.net,

Within a fortnight of July 22 Norway massacre, multi-culturalism is once again being held responsible for yet another form of violence in the West. Great Britain exploded following the killing of Mark Duggan, a Black, in the Afro-Caribbean pocket of London on August 4.

While Anders Behring Breivik of Norway wanted to get Europe rid of Muslims and stall the “invasion of Islam”, in United Kingdom the killing on suspicion sparked off yet another row over mutli-ethnicity.

Surprisingly, when Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old electrician from Brazil, was shot dead several times by police on the suspicion of being a terrorist in July 2005 Britain did not witness violence though there was shock and disbelief everywhere as the incident took place a few days after a terror attack in that country. Though the British government was apologetic and Brazil expressed anger yet the United Kingdom remained peaceful.

The reason is very much there. Unlike Latin Americans, the population of Black is more palpable, have almost five centuries of history and have their own entity. They have their own newspapers and can organize and rightly or wrongly, retaliate and indulge in arson and looting.

The arsonists not only targeted Whites, but also the people of Chinese, Turkish, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi origin. But what is surprising is that many Whites were also seen indulging in large scale loots of shops and property and violence. What prompted them to go on rampage? So the opponents of multiculturalism have been deprived of the argument that it is simply ‘civilized’ Whites versus ‘barbaric’ Blacks or Whites versus non-Whites in the West.

The right wing apologists of Anders Behring Breivik in the West as well as East have been accusing Islam and Muslims for the spread of violence in their part of the world, but once again they were shocked to find that both the killer and the killed––that is the police and Mark Duggan––belong to the same faith, and has nothing to do with Islam. Not only that it was Haroon Jahan and two other Muslims, who laid down their lives saving the people in Birmingham.

The xenophobics in the West hate the outsiders even if they have been living there for generations or centuries. Many among them view them as a parasites who get unemployment allowance and all sorts of facilities and in return indulge in crimes.

There may be some truth in such feelings. But when one digs deep into the history one finds that these outsiders have not come on their own and settled in United Kingdom, United States or other parts of Europe clandestinely. It is the rulers of the West who themselves took the Africans and Asians to their respective countries and colonies for their own purpose.

First the Blacks were shepherded from West Africa to the new world of America as well as England five centuries back. They were treated worst than beast, forced to clear the huge jungles; make the land cultivable, lay the roads and later railway tracks and work in mines in the most inhuman condition. In fact they were used as cannon fodder in the wars in the wild west and in icy cold north when the fact is that these Blacks were brought from hot climates of Africa.

The whole of new world was made inhabitable for the White migrants from Europe to settle. Thus, these Black slaves were used to lay the foundation of what later came to be known as the modern United States of America. The contributions of Blacks in making it Super Power can never be denied though they hardly get any credit for it.

Much later, Africans and other Asians were taken to United Kingdom and other European countries to work in those sectors of the industries where the western countries were facing serious labour shortage.

Many early migrants, even Mirpuris from Pakistan, who were displaced after the construction of Mangla Dam in PoK in 1960s, worked in mines and other menial jobs to overcome the labour crisis in that country.

British during their rule in India took a large number of young Afghans and Pushtoons of the NWFP for laying railway tracks and other physical works in Australia in late 19th century.

Now with the development of technology and less reliance on hands there may be large scale reduction in demand of labourers. This may be one of the reasons for rampant unemployment among the semi-literate and semi-skilled later generations of these migrants. Thus they may be more prone to crime and addiction.

The ultra-rightists in the West may see such Africans and Asians as hate objects but the problem with these countries is that they are facing sharp decline in the population of original inhabitants. Aging is another problem with them. If today they discourage multiculturalism they, in the long run, themselves would be the losers.

So, to say that these migrants are burden on the West is oversimplication of history. In the early centuries of their development these slaves were the prize assets for the West. Not only that the Blacks fought all the tough wars for the West. Even in the American War of Independence the British imperialists took a large number of Blacks to fight their war. After the retreat they were brought back to United Kingdom, their pensions were stopped and were forced to beg for their survival.

The Blacks fought two World Wars as well as many other wars as Sikhs, Rajputs, Paithans, Gorkhas, Baluchis, Punjabis etc did for the British empire.

The problem with the Blacks is more complicated than Asians, who at least root for their respective countries of their origin. Uprooted so many times in the last several centuries there is a strong sense of rootlessness among a sizeable section of Black.

Alex Haley’s Roots and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin may help understand the whole psyche of the Blacks living in the United States, and in the same way Europe.

http://twocircles.net/2011aug12/after_norway_britain_rocked_western_barbarism.html

Nitish’s police now beat Mohd. Shamsuddin to death in Muzaffarpur

By TCN Staff Reporter,

Patna: This happens when one goes scot-free after his earlier crime. Unpunished for the brutal killing of four persons in Forbesganj, the Bihar police under the regime of Nitish Kumar seem to have got emboldened. Exposing their brutal face again just two months after the Forbesganj, some policemen in Muzaffarpur on 5th August beat 50-year-old Mohammad Shamsuddin to death in full public view.

A group of policemen of Town and Mithanpura police stations mercilessly assaulted Shamsuddin on the campus of Dharam Samaj Sanskrit College in Kanhauli Dih area of Muzaffarpur town just before Juma Prayer. Shamsuddin stitches clothes in a makeshift shop beside the gate of the college. The cops were brutally beating two youths Mohammad Mohsin and Mohammad Chunnu on the college campus. When they cried for help, 50-year-old Shamsuddin rushed to the spot to rescue them. He objected them for brutally beating the youths. The cops left the youths and pounced on the old man and beat him mercilessly. Shamsuddin suffered head injuries and died on the spot.

According to media reports, Mohsin and Chunnu were sitting at a lahti shop near Madarsa Jamia Nooria Merajul Uloom in Kanhauli Dih when two persons Ranjeet and Pintu from nearby P&T Colony came and asked them to go with them to nearby Sanskrit College. As soon as Mohsin and Chunnu entered the college campus four people, who were already there, pounced on them and beat mercilessly. The four assaulters were policemen from two police stations.

As the news about Shamsuddin’s death spread the villagers gathered and chased the policemen. They managed to flee the spot but the angry villagers set a motorbike of a policeman on fire. The villagers laid the body of Shamshuddin outside the main gate of the college. They condemned police atrocities and demanded adequate compensation and a job for the next of kin of the deceased.

District Magistrate (DM) Santosh Kumar Mall and Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Rajesh Kumar rushed to the spot with reinforcement. They were followed by zonal Inspector-General (IG) of police Gupteshwar Pandey and the Deputy Inspector-General (DIG) of police Bacchu Singh Meena.

According to reports, IG announced that probationary sub-inspector (PSI) Sailendra Kumar Singh of Town police station would be dismissed from police service. A named FIR would be lodged against him and the erring cops, who were with the police team. He added that a speedy trial would be conducted for those found guilty. The DM provided Rs 10,000 to conduct the funeral and other expenses. As the villagers put pressure for more compensation amount the DM is said to have recommended a compensation of Rs 5 lakh from the state government. The DM said he has requested the home secretary, Amir Subhani, to provide compensation as the deceased hailed from a below poverty line family.

http://twocircles.net/2011aug06/nitish%E2%80%99s_police_now_beat_mohd_shamsuddin_death_muzaffarpur.html

Toothless LokPal Bill will once again take India for a ride : corrupt crooks can’t be controlled

It is very easy to deceive the Indians. Particularly those classified as Hindu. Though the SC/ST/BC (65%) are not Hindu and never Hindu, they have been Hinduised (made  unthinking morons) in the past thousands of years under this violent and also non-violent Hinduaisation drive.  The shudra section, forming the fourth order of the chathur varna (caste system) have been also made unthinking fellows.

That means over 80% of the Hindu social order can be easily fooled by the upper castes (dwijas),meaning Brahmins, Kshtriyas and Vaishyas

The first person who successfully    fooled the unthinking, poor, gullible masses was M.K.Gandhi. Then came another bogus fellow hailed Lok Nayak J.P. the latest to enter this lucrative business is the Marathi Brahnin, Anna Hazare, also “Gandhian”.

The multi-million dollar   yoga guru, Ramdev Yadav, gate crashed into this field. His yoga clients are the overfed upper castes but they did not join his June 5 Ramlila ground circus in Delhi fearing violence. It is again the unthinking “low caste” morons, made monkeys by the myths manufactured by Brahminism. Ramdev is being groomed by the Hindu terrorist party which wants to seize the initiative taken by the other fake Gandhian who is also close to the Hindu terrorist party.

   Thanks to the “khatri sick” PM’s June 5th midnight foolishness, the two rival “saviours” are merging.

This is an important development in the crisis- ridden history of India manipulated by its less than 3% Brahminical upper castes.

   This is incident clearly proved that the Indian constitution and all the creatures it created, namely parliament, executive, judiciary-have all failed. And this country of 1,300 millions, the   second largest in the world, is being taken hostage by extra-constitutional mischief-makers.

Every effort is being made by the ruling class to bury the LokPal Bill after raising sky high the hopes of the oppressed millions. Both the nakli Gandhi, Anna Hazare, and the “Khatri sick” PM--the two sides of the same coin--are party to the conspiracy which once again took the country’s innocent   millions for a ride. 

If you closely observe, the “Gandhian” Anna’s gang leaders are all urban-based corrupt parasites. Do you remember the same fellows once hoisted the Lok Nayak Jayprakash Narayans(JP)   whose bogus  “Total Revolution” brought the Hindu terrorist party to power? Anna is a great admirer of Gandhi, JP, Gujart’s Modi and Karnataka’s Yediyurappa. This is enough to sum up Anna.

Financial crooks: If the PM and the Supreme Court are so pure and lily white why they should not be subjected to LP probe?   If the PM is so honest, as he pretends, why should he not himself volunteer for scrutiny?

DV was the one and only paper in India to declare that the country’s biggest financial crooks and criminals have all flourishied under the PM.

Swiss bank stolen money:  The one single case of Harshad Mehta is enough to prove our point. Now look. The Supreme Court has been repeatedly asking the govt. to get back the stolen money kept in Swiss Bank. But it is our “Khatri Sick” PM who is side-tracking the issue. The latest proof for this is the govt. appointing an “expert committee” to count the quantum of   money and where it goes funny. This is a typical “Hindu style”. When you want to kill an inconvenient problem, appoint a committee.

The country’s topmost frauds have all kept their stolen money in Swiss banks but the “Khatri Sick” PM is shielding them.

DV never proved wrong: Telecom Minister Raja had repeatedly said he had kept thePMfully briefed at every stage on the spectrum issue. Kalmadi also had kept PM fully informed. But Raja and Kalmadi are sent to jail. Why commission   yet another yoga guru Ramdev (54) darling of the Hindu terrorist party, fraud to say PM should be kept out of the LokPal? The entire economic portrait of the country was painted by him, right from his days as the Governor of the Reserve Bank, then as Financial Minister and later as PM.  All the biggest sharks are sheltered under   his broad wings. Our suspicions and criticisms will continue to stick until the “Khatri Sick” PM and the Supreme Court voluntarily subject themselves toLPprobe.

The ruling class is very effectively shielding us the “Khathri Sick” PM who is the principal cause of India’s fall and fall. DV has been consistently telling it. And we have never proved wrong.

http://dalitvoice.org/Templates/july2011/editorial.htm

Don't repatriate Osama's family: Pakistani panel

By IANS,

Islamabad : An official commission probing the killing of Osama bin Laden has said that the Al Qaeda leader's family members should not be repatriated without their permission.

Osama was gunned down by US commandos May 2 in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad in front of his family members, who are now reportedly in the custody of Pakistani security agencies.

The panel asked the interior ministry and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) not to send back the Osama family, which includes his two wives and six children, the Dawn reported Wednesday.

The four-member commission is headed by Supreme Court's Justice Javed Iqbal