This news report was published on Oct 29, 2009 in The Sentinel Arunachal
Senior politicians had confirmed before the Assembly elections that, unlike in previous years, they would be held in a free and fair manner in Tirap and Changlang districts because the NSCN higher-ups had decided to keep out of the entire electioneering process and had accordingly conveyed this good news to them. However, that was not to be.
Now every one of them agrees that either the lower-rung cadres of the two warring factions of the NSCN had decided to have their own way in these districts, or that the higher-ups of the outfit had tacitly asked the cadres to steer the electioneering in their own way. And to make the irony of this travesty of the process that much more poignant, the intimidations, threats, kidnappings of party workers etc., were just being witnessed by the Election Observers and District Electoral Officers in awe. They dared not to intervene. And as if to put their predicament under wraps, one of them, the DEO of Tirap to be precise, chose to write a festive article called ‘Chunav-Tyohar’ to mock at the antics of the local political leaders. It was not for nothing that a certain MLA -elect has had to seek clarifications about what the Tirap DEO actually wanted to convey through his article.
But then, a thorough review of the exercise in the two districts by the three lead actors - NSCN top-brass, the Government of Arunachal Pradesh and the Government of India – is urgently required for them to understand and brood over as to what went wrong and why. Could it be that the ‘command and control’ structure for which the two NSCNs are so famous, has developed serious fault-lines so that the lower cadres could defy their leadership?
And if one were to go by the Tirap-Changlang scenario, NSCN’s recruitment strategy may have back-fired. Most of its cadres in Tirap-Changlang are local recruits. Apparently, the local recruits defied the diktat of their NSCN bosses and participated in electioneering process driven solely by tribe and clan affinities, and of course, the gun. Thus, despite ‘no interference’ message from the top, they participated in their individual capacity using the NSCN tag. Doings of cadres in this election signal greater danger for NSCN higher-ups than to the local community or even to the local political leaders. It is established beyond doubt that within the NSCN team, they have a set of cadres, who do not identify with their ideologies and greater goals - right or wrong. But it is also a fact, as confided by a couple of political leaders who contested this election, that this new trend caught them off-guard. And a couple of them were honest enough to admit that repeated pleas were made to ‘higher-ups’ of NSCN, through ranaphio (NSCN-appointed interlocutors in villages) to withdraw the lower cadres but with no result.
And, as the old story goes, in this situation too both the Central and the State governments were just mute, helpless spectators, trying to look the other way. Helplessness of government agencies, especially the security forces, which are supposed to provide security and to ensure internal peace, were exposed during the last parliamentary elections when a gun-fight broke out between the Isaac-Muivah and Khaplang factions of NSCN in a village called ‘Lapnan’ of Tirap. Lapnan is a hamlet with about 1000 people. There are eye-witness accounts which vouchsafe that, during one such gunfight, a security force jawan was seen supplying arms and ammo to one of the factions! The villagers had to run for their safety as the fight raged on. After the last shot was fired, villagers returned only to discover ashes in place of their hearths and homes.
It is no wonder, therefore, that on safety-security issues, the villagers seem to have given up hope on police and army as their saviour. This also explains as to why they had dealt with the lower cadres of NSCN in the manner they did in Khonsa (West) Assembly segment. In one particular incident, few a locals snatched away the assault rifles of two ultras, blank fired, emptied the rifle and thrashed the cadres before dumping them half-dead.
A local youth of the area said, "Practically, the State run police can’t match the better trained and much better equipped force like NSCNs. Common people understand that it is pointless to look up to the ill-equipped State police to confront or contain the ultras." Perhaps the Arunachal Government and its forces could find some solace from such sympathy from villagers! And one would obviously wonder if this ‘sympathy factor’ could be the reason why the ruling party could coolly walk away with all the five seats in Changlang and six of the seven in Tirap!
People at the moment are asking the new government to come clean on the entire episode with a white paper on ‘Department of Tirap-Changlang (DoTC) and its efficacy’. It is high time, every paisa of the crores of rupees that are being pumped into the two districts through the DoTC every year ostensibly for development, was accounted for, as the National Investigation Agency is doing in the case of the NC Hills district of Assam. This is all the more required because one does not see the results of the much-vaunted interventions as shown in official documents, on ground in the hills and valleys of Tirap and Changlang.
Now every one of them agrees that either the lower-rung cadres of the two warring factions of the NSCN had decided to have their own way in these districts, or that the higher-ups of the outfit had tacitly asked the cadres to steer the electioneering in their own way. And to make the irony of this travesty of the process that much more poignant, the intimidations, threats, kidnappings of party workers etc., were just being witnessed by the Election Observers and District Electoral Officers in awe. They dared not to intervene. And as if to put their predicament under wraps, one of them, the DEO of Tirap to be precise, chose to write a festive article called ‘Chunav-Tyohar’ to mock at the antics of the local political leaders. It was not for nothing that a certain MLA -elect has had to seek clarifications about what the Tirap DEO actually wanted to convey through his article.
But then, a thorough review of the exercise in the two districts by the three lead actors - NSCN top-brass, the Government of Arunachal Pradesh and the Government of India – is urgently required for them to understand and brood over as to what went wrong and why. Could it be that the ‘command and control’ structure for which the two NSCNs are so famous, has developed serious fault-lines so that the lower cadres could defy their leadership?
And if one were to go by the Tirap-Changlang scenario, NSCN’s recruitment strategy may have back-fired. Most of its cadres in Tirap-Changlang are local recruits. Apparently, the local recruits defied the diktat of their NSCN bosses and participated in electioneering process driven solely by tribe and clan affinities, and of course, the gun. Thus, despite ‘no interference’ message from the top, they participated in their individual capacity using the NSCN tag. Doings of cadres in this election signal greater danger for NSCN higher-ups than to the local community or even to the local political leaders. It is established beyond doubt that within the NSCN team, they have a set of cadres, who do not identify with their ideologies and greater goals - right or wrong. But it is also a fact, as confided by a couple of political leaders who contested this election, that this new trend caught them off-guard. And a couple of them were honest enough to admit that repeated pleas were made to ‘higher-ups’ of NSCN, through ranaphio (NSCN-appointed interlocutors in villages) to withdraw the lower cadres but with no result.
And, as the old story goes, in this situation too both the Central and the State governments were just mute, helpless spectators, trying to look the other way. Helplessness of government agencies, especially the security forces, which are supposed to provide security and to ensure internal peace, were exposed during the last parliamentary elections when a gun-fight broke out between the Isaac-Muivah and Khaplang factions of NSCN in a village called ‘Lapnan’ of Tirap. Lapnan is a hamlet with about 1000 people. There are eye-witness accounts which vouchsafe that, during one such gunfight, a security force jawan was seen supplying arms and ammo to one of the factions! The villagers had to run for their safety as the fight raged on. After the last shot was fired, villagers returned only to discover ashes in place of their hearths and homes.
It is no wonder, therefore, that on safety-security issues, the villagers seem to have given up hope on police and army as their saviour. This also explains as to why they had dealt with the lower cadres of NSCN in the manner they did in Khonsa (West) Assembly segment. In one particular incident, few a locals snatched away the assault rifles of two ultras, blank fired, emptied the rifle and thrashed the cadres before dumping them half-dead.
A local youth of the area said, "Practically, the State run police can’t match the better trained and much better equipped force like NSCNs. Common people understand that it is pointless to look up to the ill-equipped State police to confront or contain the ultras." Perhaps the Arunachal Government and its forces could find some solace from such sympathy from villagers! And one would obviously wonder if this ‘sympathy factor’ could be the reason why the ruling party could coolly walk away with all the five seats in Changlang and six of the seven in Tirap!
People at the moment are asking the new government to come clean on the entire episode with a white paper on ‘Department of Tirap-Changlang (DoTC) and its efficacy’. It is high time, every paisa of the crores of rupees that are being pumped into the two districts through the DoTC every year ostensibly for development, was accounted for, as the National Investigation Agency is doing in the case of the NC Hills district of Assam. This is all the more required because one does not see the results of the much-vaunted interventions as shown in official documents, on ground in the hills and valleys of Tirap and Changlang.
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