India's neglect of northeast takes
flight By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - On August 15, even as the rest
of India was celebrating the country's 65th
Independence Day, thousands of panic-stricken
people from the northeast who had been working or
studying in Bangalore were fleeing the city.
Rumors of impending attacks - revenge for the
violence unleashed late last month on Muslims in
the Bodo areas of Assam in the northeast - spread
like wildfire via
mobile-phone short message service (SMS) texting
and social-network sites, triggering the exodus.
As the exodus gathered momentum,
Bangalore's railway station was witness to several
near-stampedes as frantic northeastern students,
professionals and migrant workers desperately
boarded trains, pushing their way into overcrowded
compartments to be able to make the roughly
54-hour journey home even standing.
Over a
span of four days, more than 30,000
northeasterners left Bangalore, India's software
hub and the capital of the southern state of
Karnataka. While the panic in this city has
subsided somewhat after authorities banned bulk
SMSs, shut down websites carrying inflammatory
photographs and beefed up security, the cities of
Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Mumbai are witnessing
a similar exodus.
Evidence is growing by
the day that the spread of rumors that triggered
the exodus was part of an organized attempt to
provoke communal clashes in the country. On
Saturday, Home Secretary R K Singh said the bulk
of hate SMSs warning northeasterners of attacks
after Ramadan was sourced from Pakistan.
Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde has
spoken to his Pakistani counterpart, Interior
Minister Rahman Malik, about incendiary
photographs being posted on Pakistani websites and
threatening messages sent to Indian mobile-phone
users. It appears that photos of violence and
natural disasters in such countries as Tibet,
Myanmar and Thailand were morphed and passed off
as violence against Muslims in Assam. These photos
were posted online and forwarded via MMS
(multimedia messaging service).
None of
the circulated images, in fact, were of recent
violence in Assam.
Less than a month ago,
violence between Bodo tribals and Muslims in Assam
left 70 dead and displaced about 300,000. Both
communities suffered but Muslim casualties were
perhaps larger.
The first of the
tit-for-tat killings appears to have occurred on
July 6. According to a preliminary report by the
Home Ministry, the posting of offensive and
morphed content online began around July 13.
Meanwhile, online articles drew attention
to the bias of Indian media and authorities. They
pointed out to readers that while the media were
"excessively preoccupied" with the shooting of
Sikhs in the US state of Wisconsin, the suffering
of Muslims in Assam and Myanmar was not being
highlighted. It was amid online stoking of anger
among Muslims that violence erupted in Mumbai.
A rally called by Muslim organizations in
Mumbai to condemn the killing of Muslims in Assam
and Myanmar erupted in mob violence on August 12.
It left two dead and at least 50 injured, most of
them police. A dozen buses and police vehicles
were torched and a memorial to the unknown Indian
soldier was vandalized.
From that
conflagration flew many sparks. Several
northeastern citizens were attacked in Pune and
elsewhere in the country. As rumors about Muslims
planning attacks possibly after Ramadan gathered
momentum, inflammatory SMSs multiplied. Doctored
photographs that showed hacked limbs and bloodied
faces made the rounds. Before long, the exodus
began.
While foreign elements might have
inflamed communal passions, triggered the threats
and orchestrated the terrorizing of tens of
thousands of people, the local elements that added
fuel to the raging fire cannot be ignored.
A probe is under way to identify who
provoked the protesters in Mumbai. The Raza
Academy, a Barelvi (South Asian Sunni) outfit that
organized the rally, apologized for the violence
but denied it had incited it. Hindu right-wing
parties such as Shiv Sena have blamed the Raza
Academy for the rampage and called for a ban on
the organization.
Others believe that it
was orchestrated by the Assam United Democratic
Front, a party representing the interests of
Assam's Muslims that is a constituent of the
Congress-led government in that state. Some blame
"extremist elements" who infiltrated the rally to
incite violence. Names of Hindu and Muslim
organizations and parties figure among the
suspects.
There are several parties in
India who gain from fanning the flames of communal
tension in the country. Several political parties
eye electoral dividends from communal tensions.
With nine states including Gujarat, Karnataka,
Madhya Pradesh and Delhi due to vote in state
assembly elections this year and next, many
parties will be hoping that communal violence and
polarization will bring them votes of one
community or another.
Events over the past
week are worrying not just for their potential to
set off larger communal conflagrations but also
because they reveal how little trust
northeasterners have in the Indian state.
India's northeast has been racked by
insurgencies for decades. Militarization of
society in the region, its deplorable
infrastructure and poor economic opportunities
have forced millions to leave their homes in
search of better opportunities. They came to such
cities as Bangalore in search of a better future.
Just a narrow sliver of land links the
northeast with the rest of India. And like this
tenuous geographical link is the northeast's
fragile relationship with the Indian "mainland".
Many northeasterners believe that their histories
and cultures are distinct from those of the
mainland. This feeling of distinctiveness coupled
with India's gross mismanagement of its
relationship with the northeastern people, the
economic neglect of the region, and its
heavy-handed approach have deepened the sense of
alienation.
However, over time this anger
with India has subsided somewhat. Many left their
homes and families in the northeast to study and
work in such cities as Delhi and Bangalore. While
they have found better opportunities, they have
been at the receiving end of intense
discrimination as well.
Most Indians know
little about the northeast. School textbooks
hardly deal with its geography, history, heroes or
culture. Even well-educated Indians would be
unable to name all the states in the region. In
the circumstances, negative stereotypes abound.
Northeasterners are often referred to derogatorily
as chinkis or chapta, racist slurs
that were only recently declared a crime that
could get anyone who uses them five years in jail.
Worse, northeastern women are looked upon
as "easy" or having loose morals and frequently
subjected to sexual harassment and violence.
This negative stereotyping is not confined
to the illiterate. Indian authorities are guilty
of it too. In 2007, Delhi police issued a booklet
titled Security Tips for North East
Students, which asked northeastern women not
to wear "revealing dresses" and to avoid cooking
bamboo shoot, akhuni (fermented-soybean chutney)
and "other smelly dishes".
When harassed,
discriminated against or at the receiving end of
violence, northeasterners have rarely gotten
protection from the police. More often than not
the police refuse to register their complaints.
The flight of the northeasterners in the
context of the threatening SMSs must not be seen
in isolation. They fled not just because they were
frightened or anxious parents back home asked them
to return but, importantly, because they had
little faith in the Indian state's willingness to
protect them. Although authorities sought to
assure them of the security measures in place,
these failed to calm their anxieties.
Memories of the discrimination and
harassment they have suffered for years at the
hands of the police in the mainland would have no
doubt been an important factor in their decision
to flee home.
In the wake of the exodus,
the government has banned the sending of bulk SMSs
for the next two weeks and shut down about 150
websites carrying incendiary content. It has
sought Islamabad's cooperation in controlling the
spread of offensive content.
But
importantly, it needs to act urgently to build the
confidence of its citizens in the Indian state.
Sudha Ramachandran is an
independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
(Copyright 2012 Asia Times
Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
