The MHA letter: Will it solve the problem or stir up a hornet's nest ?
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: June 07 2012 -

Justice for Loitam Richard - Demonstration at Guwahati on 03 May 2012 :: Pix - Athokpam Romendro

Of late, one important development that had been overshadowed by other pressing issues in hand was the letter sent by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs to all the States and Union Territories to book offenders guilty of atrocity against people from North East under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

Although Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and Union Home Minister P Chidambaram have earlier tried their level best to brush aside the issue of racial discrimination against the people from North East, the letter has come not just as an acceptance of this fact, but also as a reassurance from the Government of India that it means business when it comes to protection of the people from the North East from racial discrimination and other related crimes in other parts of the country.

As we have pointed out through this column earlier, one does not have be necessarily attacked physically to be a victim of racism, using threatening or abusive language to degrade someone on the basis of their origin itself constitute hate crime.

But people from the North East have always been at the receiving end of such racial discrimination and verbal abuse in other parts of the country, so much so that they have come to identify themselves with certain derogatory names given to them.

That is why the letter of the Ministry has made it clear that even calling a person from North East a 'Chinki' could end up cooling one's heels behind the bar for five years with no anticipatory bail under the provisions of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act,1989. And, in case the police fail to act on a complaint, he/she could be imprisoned for a term not less than six months but extendable upto one year.

No doubt, it is a positive move on the part of the Government of India to recognize the issue of racial discrimination against the Northeasterners.

In the letter, MHA Joint Secretary (Centre-State) S Suresh Kumar admitted that sizeable number of people from North Eastern States who are residing in metropolitan cities and other major urban areas of the country for education and employment do face abuse in major cities and feel secure.

However, it is unfortunate that the Ministry assumes that most North-Easterners living in major cities of the country belong to the Scheduled Tribes /Scheduled Castes communities, and accordingly the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, which envisages to prevent atrocities against scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, has been invoked to book offenders guilty of atrocity against Northeasterners.

So, whether the Act would be applicable to other Northeasterners belonging to general communities or not, needs to be elucidated. Moreover, implementation of the Act, especially in the major cities, which apart from being rare, is going to be a real challenge.

From the past records of its implementation, it was only under the iron-fisted rule of Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh that the provisions of the Act have been used vigorously and as many as 6,272 offenders were booked in 2010 alone (according to National Crime Records Bureau) as against just 16 persons in Delhi in the same corresponding year.

While such legislation may be essential to deter offenders from committing crimes against Northeasterners, we only hope that it would not alienate them further and become target of ridicule.

To prevent such unwanted consequences, what the Government of India can do is to sensitize the "mainstream" people on the issues of North East. To begin with, what about inclusion of chapters related to North East region and its people in the academic syllabus of schools and colleges?