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?