The macabre pogram of "ethnic cleansing campaign" which has
been recently unleashed by the majority Dimasa tribe against
the indigenous Hmar tribe in Cachar and North Cachar Hills require
immediate attention. For some time the Dimasa tribe has been
pursuing their savagery activities with the support of its militant
group, the Dima Halam Daoga (DHD), and the instigation of their
myopic politicians to achieve narrow selfish ends at the expense
of other indigenous tribes. The Hmars are demographically a minority
in North Cachar Hills but had played in the past a key role in
the political process as they are better educated.
However, once the majority Dimasas launched a political movement
to create a homeland after their tribe, intolerance has become
their political slogan and the situation has become worse with
the formation of its militant wing, Dima Halam Daoga (DHD) which
has adopted unkempt barbaric measures to enforce its political
will. Apparently, one of its political methods is to intimate
its political opponents and spread terror amongst the minorities
so that they flee their ancestral hearths and homes in and around
Cachar and N.C.Hills. Now, these Hmars who are pushed out of
their indigenous settlements are seeking shelter in the adjoining
states of Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram etc. For this, the DHD
deliberately and fanatically spawned the ugly doctrine, "Might
is Right", and further adopted the unimaginable practice of killing
and plundering. They also, in doing so, upheld the self propagating
belief that what they are doing is right. This is undeniably
evident from their perfectly monitored pogrom of "ethnic cleansing
campaign", which is also acknowledged and reported by the ‘Assam
Tribune’, BBC, et al. In the process, the fundamental rights
of the minority Hmars has been seriously violated and trampled.
This has resulted in the displacement of several Hmars from their
homes and villages. The Hmars were compelled to live with the
painful truth of being refugees in the land of their birth.
The ongoing "ethnic cleansing campaign"
pursued by the Dimasas has to be dealt with immediately by the
state government as it is increasingly assuming an entity without
a soul, without a heart, which, at the same time, has given them
an assumed right to ignore, exempt, and supersede not only the
fundamental rights of the individuals, but of the minorities.
The pogrom is also an attack on the existence of the diverse,
plural and secular structure not only in Assam and the North-eastern
states, but also in India as a whole. If terrorizing is seen
to be the privilege of the majority, where, then, will the Hmars
of Cachar and N.C.Hills go? With their wounded rights and proscribed
security, the Hmars have little to hope for.
One of the saddest part of this immoral
and unhuman "ethnic cleansing campaign" has been the fog of lies
and distortions that has enveloped the reporting in various local
and national newspapers as if their reports were monitored by
the perpetrators of ethnic cleansing and their self-serving politicians
who have adopted ethnic pogram as a threshold to their political
goals and ends.
It is high time the State Government
as well as Central Government have to step into it and stop the
carnage in the interest atleast of national integrity and cohesion.
They should not remain a spectator as any inaction on their part
amounts to either supporting the mayhem or avoiding their responsibilities.
The longer the campaign continues, the more Hmars will suffer
the dreadful consequences. Who knows, after the Hmars, the other
vulnerable minorities – the Nagas, Kukis, etc., will come under
the same evil design. Such dreadful realities as this should
not be allowed to continue.
For any government turning a deaf ear and a blind eye to such
an evil certainly amounts to failure to assume its responsibility
to protect the rights and security of the minorities. It also
amounts to endorsement of the political game of the Dimasas,
that might be adduced as a justification to the ongoing "ethnic
cleansing campaign". It is widely believed that the whole propaganda
of the campaign is to do away with the population of the minorities
from Cachar and N.C.Hills, and the first chapter has been directed
against the Hmars, who comprised the most educated and advanced
among the numerous tribes living in North Cachar Hills. The creation
of Dimasa Homeland need not be at the expense of the minorities
in the District. This requires immediate intervention of the
Assam government to set its house in order. The pogrom should
be stopped immediately and the victimized Hmars who lost their
lives and homes should be resettled and rehabilitated. Inactivity
on the part of the State and spread of misinformation in collusion
with DHD-Dimasa politicians will only further aggravate the situation.
The State has to immediately take-over its primary
and inescapable responsibility of protecting the right to life,
liberty, equality, and dignity of all who constitute it. It is
also the responsibility of the State to ensure that such rights
are not violated either through overt or covert acts of aggression,
or through abetment or negligence. It is a clear and emerging
principle of human rights jurisprudence that the State is responsible
not only for the acts of its own agents, but also for the acts
of non-State players acting within its jurisdiction. The State
should, in addition, be responsible for any inaction that may
cause or facilitate the violation of human rights.
Confronted with an unequal adversary, the Hmars
have no alternative but to defend themselves with all the means
they have to escape the pogrom. In the face of a collapsed system
and shattered order which has been further deteriorated by the
unprincipled campaign of ethnic cleansing, the Hmars of Cachar
and N.C.Hills are fleeing their hearths and homes while the State
government snores. How long will this situation continue?
* The writer is based in JNU, New Delhi and can be reached at [email protected]
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