Time to defeat NSCN designs on Arunachal

[Published in The Sentinel ARUNACHAL (www.sentinelassam.com/arunachal/) on March 1, 2010]


As the top NSCN leaders arrived in Delhi to take forward their ‘peace talks’, it is time the government and the polity spared some thought for the victims of NSCN’s design for ‘Greater Nagalim’, especially in Tirap and Changlang districts of Arunachal Pradesh. For the discerning Arunachalee, there is not much of a difference between China’s claim over Arunachal’s territory and that of the NSCN. But the silence that greets NSCN’s actual attempts to grab the State’s territory in stark contrast to the vociferous protest against China’s diplomatic hulla-golla, makes it that much more deafening. After all, as Arunachalee Indians, NSCN and its ideology are against ‘one India’ concept as its demand for Independence is yet to scale down.

It is intriguing to note that on one side, NSCN is engaged in cease fire and peace talks for more than a decade now, but on other hand, during this same period NSCN has been ruthlessly asserting themselves in Arunachal Pradesh, which has manifested into illegal activities including kidnapping, extortion and arms training of Arunachalees. Another unknown facet to the world and mainland Indians is the boundary dispute with Assam for years. Although the horse shoe is considered a talisman, yet horse shoe-shaped geographical map of Arunachal does not have same talismanic effect on its citizens. Thousands of kilometers along the foothills of Arunachal are in a horse-shoe shape touching Assam at every inch, and every inch is a trouble spot. Burning down of houses, bringing down of infrastructure, physical assault on Arunachalees and harassments of commuters is a common phenomenon along the inter-state boundary towns despite agreement to maintain status quo. Nobody owns up the responsibility to solve the boundary dispute.

Emergence of a new school of thought seems to be more accurate in pointing out that Arunachalee political leaders have been using problems with NSCN to claim benefits under security related expenditure (SRE), 100% funded Central special scheme for modernization of police force, etc. Additionally, it is pointed out by many in private conversations that problem with Assam government is an alibi to hide the wrong-doings and therefore government would want this stalemate over boundary to continue. One visit to towns and villages within 20-30 kilometers inside, from the imaginary boundary line, Arunachal side would tell tales of backwardness: work departments can’t construct infrastructure because of legal intricacies involved. Therefore, even in the 21st century, there are hundreds of villages, which are devoid of road, electricity and other modern amenities. For want of roads, there is no conveyance movement to these villages that could carry rations provided under PDS, which has resulted in starvations in these hamlets. Cascading effect of such apathy is that government officials also do not wish to stay there hence anarchy prevails in absence of administrative mechanisms. Such events have emotionally enraged the Arunachalees especially in Siang and Subansiri belt, which is now referred to as Taniland so much so that NSCN is taking advantage and has been rousing rebel groups under its guidance on both banks of river Brahmaputra - on one side, National Liberation Council of Taniland (NLCT) and on other side Arunachal Naga Liberation Front (ANLF).

Pain and agony is not so much against NSCN or Government of India or Assam but the very thought of the reality and realization that government of Arunachal and Arunachalee public are too subservient to assert its political rights and self respects that we rightly deserve but have been denied for long. In a sense, such ‘peace-talk’ is an opportunity for state government and civil society to let known the plight of Arunachalees at the hands of ultras such as NSCN and paternalistic Assam government. Therefore, time could not have been better than this to draw national and international attention on the plight of Arunachalees since media world over has been following the peace talks between GoI and NSCN.

It is only a wishful thinking that a group or groups should have gone to New Delhi to register its protest against Naga peace talks in a similar scale to the protests by AAPSU against Chinese claims over Arunachal. Arunachalees must stop Central government from ignoring this small but strategic State with geo-political importance in the light of continued Chinese claims over it as well as ‘gateway State’ to the South East Asian market in near future. Time is ripe for tough political negotiators to take centre stage but would we ever get to see one in Arunachal?