THAILAND

Confrontation between Shinawatra government and opponents spinning out of control

The latest face-off in the streets of Bangkok between the Yingluck Shinawatra government and its opponents, led by Suthep Thaugsuban, a former deputy prime minister, resembles to the tee similar developments in the past that resulted in the ouster of the rulers of the day. They began on November 25 to compel the government to step down on two grounds - one, for large-scale corruption and two, for paving the way for the return of Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister and brother of the current one, who had been sent packing into exile in Dubai by the military in 2006 following a similar public agitation against his financial shenanigans.

At first the protesters peacefully occupied buildings that house the ministries of finance, home, agriculture, transport and tourism. The agitation then took a turn for the worse on Sunday when they attacked the government's headquarters with rocks and petrol bombs. That provoked the police to open fire. The government has now been all but paralysed. Tourism and exports - mainstays of the economy - have suffered.

Meanwhile neither the government, nor the protesters who belong mainly to the country's urban elites, are in a mood for compromise. A secret meeting between Thaugsuban and the prime minister in the presence of military commanders hasn't resolved the deadlock. This incentivises the latter to step in - after getting a nod from the revered king Bhumibol Adulyadej - to ensure that the country doesn't slide into protracted civil strife. This is a cause for grave concern for Thailand's friends in its immediate and extended neighbourhood - including India - given its economic and strategic significance in the region.

Thailand court orders PM Yingluck Shinawatra to step down over transfer of civil servant

Will deepen political crisis 
    In ordering Thailand’s Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to step down over the transfer of a senior civil servant, the country’s constitutional court has exacerbated the political crisis plaguing the Southeast Asian nation. In 2011, Thailand’s then National Security Council secretary general Thawil Pliensri had been transferred to another post. In any democracy such transfers are routine and within the remit of the executive. Thus the court’s ruling that 
Pliensri’s transfer was not in accordance with ‘moral principle’ and 
hence Yingluck and nine of her cabinet members should step down is harsh. This will only lead to greater polarisation of Thai polity and electorate. 
    The Thai political crisis has its genesis in the 2006 ouster of then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a military coup. Thaksin and his sister Yingluck draw their political support from Thailand’s vast rural constituencies. In fact, at the heart of the political crisis lies a vicious class struggle between Thailand’s rural folk and the country’s urban elite. For the last eight years, both sides have held massive protests and counter-protests. In such a scenario, any move against one camp is bond to be perceived as biased. For example, Yingluck has also been indicted over a government rice-subsidy scheme that proved to be costly. But this was a policy decision that was popular among Thailand’s farmers. Should Yingluck be impeached over the scheme, it would not go down well with government supporters. 
    The fact remains that Yingluck’s Pheu Thai government was democratically elected on the strength of popular mandate. Already pro-government red-shirt protesters have warned that attempts to oust Yingluck could lead to a civil war. Given Thailand’s volatile politics, the need of the hour is sincere attempts at national reconciliation. For that to happen all stakeholders must engage in dialogue. 
Democracy needs rules Sanjiv Shankaran 
    Democracy can work only if all stakeholders 
commit to follow some rules, even if they do not like them. The validity of the logic that underpins the decision of Thailand’s constitutional court to direct Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and a few cabinet ministers to step down is irrelevant. What matters is that the court’s decision be followed. If it is not, democracy in Thailand, which is already under strain, will be jeopardised. Democracy needs to be supported by robust institutions. The judiciary is a key institution in a democracy and an attempt to weaken it will eventually harm democracy. 
    Thailand’s democracy has been jolted over the last eight years, beginning with a military coup against former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006. Yingluck, sibling of the former prime minister, who currently heads Pheu Thai party, has had an antagonistic relationship with the opposition. Antagonism between the two sides has deeply divided society, leading to violence and blockades of government offices for months on end. Even the snap elections that Yingluck tried to hold this February were disrupted and finally annulled. The annulled elections underscore the extent of the logjam in Thai society. In this context, it is important that institutions which underpin democracy receive support all around. It seems the only way to gradually get all sides to allow the country to function normally. A court decision which asks a prime minister to step down is bound to be subject to intense scrutiny and questioned. However, viewing it as a judicial coup does not help Thailand. Accepting the verdict is the first step towards restoring normalcy. Yingluck may disagree with the verdict that she acted illegally, but she should realise that accepting it with good grace is in her country’s best interest.

Thai recipe for a coup

The unrelenting stand of anti-government protestors in Thailand appears increasingly like an open invitation to the country’s non-democratic forces to step in and take charge. The protestors, banded together as the People’s Democratic Reform Committee, have already won several rounds in their seven-month battle against the Pheu Thai party, but their demand for “reforms” before another election is held has an all-too familiar ring: in Pakistan last year, a cleric rallied followers and laid siege to Islamabad to demand that the elected government be dismissed and a caretaker government of unelected people be appointed to rid the system of corrupt politicians before elections were held. It is a measure of how matters have changed in both countries that the Pakistani establishment did not succumb to the temptation, but Thailand may be fast sliding towards it. Last year, in an effort to calm down protestors, Yingluck Shinawatra, who became Prime Minister in 2011 after leading the Pheu Thai to victory three years earlier, downgraded her government to a caretaker and announced early elections in February. Though the opposition Democratic Party claims it has nothing to do with the street protests, it boycotted the election. Pheu Thai won but the victory was annulled by the Constitutional court. Ms. Yingluck remained caretaker, but was last week removed from office by the same court on charges of misusing the powers of her office. The verdict has polarised the country further, with pro-Shinawatra ‘red shirts’ convinced there is a witch-hunt against the party and its leadership. The new caretaker Prime Minister, Niwattumrong Boonsongpaisan, wants to hold a planned re-election on July 20, but the protestors, led by the former MP Suthep Thaugsuban and the Democrats, are firmly against it.

The larger battle behind the crisis is between the royalist-military establishment and urban elites represented by the Democratic Party, and populist forces unleashed by Pheu Thai whose political power is located in the rural areas. The prolonged showdown has had its impact on the economy: investors are losing confidence, more tourists are staying away, affecting a mainstay sector, and the growth rate has been revised downward twice since November. The King and the Royal Thai Army have stayed away from playing an overt role or taking sides in the developments so far, but if the impasse continues, voices that are now calling for a military intervention will grow louder. That would be a step in the wrong direction. The political leaders would be far better off reaching a compromise.

RIVER WATER DISPUTES

Mullaperiyar: a matter of judicial overreach

This article will argue that the latest judgment of the Supreme Court on the Mullaperiyar dam case, and the earlier judgment of 2006, are in error, in the sense that they go beyond the judicial domain, but first a few clarifications are necessary.

One, there is no doubt that there is an inter-State dispute in this case. This then will come within the purview of either (the general) Article 131 or (the specific water-related) Article 262 of the Constitution. This is not a case that falls under Article 262 or the Inter-State Water Disputes Act 1956, amended in 2002. The Periyar is only marginally an inter-State river, i.e. a very small portion of the catchment falls within Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu’s rights over Periyar waters arise not from this fact, but from an agreement between the Madras Presidency and the princely state of Travancore in 1886. It follows that this case falls not under Article 262 but under Article 131, and the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction in such a case cannot be questioned.

Secondly, it is not the purpose of this article to defend the Kerala Act which has been struck down (in so far as it relates to this dam). When a decision given by the Supreme Court under an existing law or provision of the Constitution is considered by Parliament to have public policy implications, it is not uncommon for legislation to be passed changing that law or amending that provision of the Constitution (prospectively). It is needless to say that law or amendment will again be subject to judicial review. These are not the questions that arise in this case. What the Court’s latest judgment says is that the 2006 judgment had given a determination on a fact in dispute between the two States, and that one of the parties cannot pass a law that goes against that determination. This article merely takes note of this. (Incidentally, the judgment also rejects the application of the Precautionary Principle. If that principle cannot be invoked in the case of a dam that is nearly 120 years old, in what case can it be invoked?)

Thirdly, this article will also refrain from examining whether the old 1886 agreement was fair to Kerala, whether Kerala has a legitimate grievance, whether the beneficiary areas in Tamil Nadu had other options for meeting their genuine needs, and so on.

Fourthly, it must be noted that this is not a water-sharing dispute. Tamil Nadu’s claims over Periyar waters arising from the 1886 agreement are not being disputed or repudiated.

The issue in question

The issue here is only whether the dam is safe enough to be filled to the level that Tamil Nadu desires, or whether Kerala’s fears are justified and the water level must be kept lower. On this, the Supreme Court has given a verdict in favour of Tamil Nadu. That may be a right or wrong view, but the question is whether the safety of a dam is a matter for judicial determination. The dam will not become safe because the learned judges say so, and it will not become unsafe if the learned judges consider it unsafe. (One is reminded of the English legend of King Canute and the sea.) This is clearly a matter for expert determination. If all the experts agree, then there is no need for a judicial determination. If there is a difference among the experts, then it is surely not for a judge to say which view is right.

In this case, the Supreme Court has gone by the findings of a Committee appointed by it. It was only by assuming that the safety of a dam was a matter on which it could make a judicial pronouncement that the Court proceeded to appoint a Committee. That assumption was questionable and so was the appointment of the Committee. When the case came before it, the Supreme Court could well have said “This is not a matter for a judicial determination. Please consult the experts and then take an agreed decision.”

Difference among experts

The fact is that there continue to be differences among experts. The Committee appointed by the Supreme Court might have come to a certain conclusion but other experts could have a different view. What does one do in such a case? There is really no alternative to an agreement between the States, however hard that course might be. The two States could have appointed a joint Expert Committee and gone by its findings. The Inter-State Council, a constitutional body, could have taken up the matter and tried to bring about a settlement. Eminent persons in both States could have tried for a rapprochement. Given a modicum of good sense, the two sides might have accepted the recommendations of such a group. They might even have been persuaded to accept voluntarily the arbitration of a joint expert body. The crucial words here are ‘agreement’ and ‘voluntarily.’ The one course that ought not to have been followed was adjudication by the Supreme Court on the safety of the dam. One wishes that the Supreme Court had refused to entertain the case and pushed the two States to talk to each other.

Even at this late stage one fervently hopes that the two States will see wisdom in exploring different options and arriving at an agreed settlement.

SC quashes Kerala dam law

In a vindication of Tamil Nadu’s stand on the Mullaperiyar dam, the Supreme Court on Wednesday declared unconstitutional a law passed by Kerala in 2006 to prevent the neighbouring State from raising the water level in it from 136 feet to 142 feet.

A Constitution Bench comprising Chief Justice R.M. Lodha and Justices H.L. Dattu, C.K. Prasad, Madan B. Lokur and M.Y. Eqbal, in its 157-page judgment on a suit filed by Tamil Nadu in 2006, stopped Kerala from carrying out any repairs on the dam structure. The Bench said an empowered committee appointed by the court found the dam safe. Investigations, tests and studies led to the conclusion that there was no need to depart from the view taken in the 2006 judgment on the dam’s safety. The Bench said: “The Kerala Irrigation and Water Conservation (Amendment) Act, 2006, is unconstitutional and ultra vires in its application to, and effect on, the Mullaperiyar dam.”

Lessons from Mullaperiyar

The Supreme Court’s verdict in the Mullaperiyar Dam case is largely a reiteration of its findings in a February 2006 judgment on the height and safety of the dam and is consistent with its earlier pronouncements. Two decades ago, the apex court struck down a Karnataka law that sought to nullify the interim award of the Cauvery Tribunal, and now, the Court has invalidated a Kerala amendment to circumvent the 2006 judgment, allowing the raising of the storage of the Mullaperiyar Dam from 136 feet to 142 feet. The dispute was between Kerala’s stand that the dam built in 1895 is not safe enough to store water above 136 feet and that there should be a new structure, and Tamil Nadu’s position that it is structurally sound and needs only strengthening, not replacement. The judicial outcome has some valuable lessons for our quasi-federal polity. First, it proves that unilateral action in inter-State matters is ill-advised. Secondly, it shows the courts are able and willing to adjudicate impartially on sensitive issues with political overtones that could inflame regional passions. Therefore, merely harping on “protecting the rights” of one’s own State to the detriment of another is not an option. The verdict sends out a message that rights crystallised by judicial orders cannot be abrogated by legislation.

States should not forget that they are successor entities to either princely rulers or the British government, and pre-Independence agreements still survive. There may be scope for revisiting these agreements in a spirit of accommodation and in tune with present-day requirements, but their antiquity or pre-Constitution status can no more be cited as a reason to deny rights flowing from such instruments. Courts have been zealous about equitable distribution of water and seldom countenance attempts at undermining equity. In the Mullaperiyar case, safety, and not appropriation of water, was the issue. The finding that the dam is safe on structural, hydrological and seismic aspects ought to be given the respect that judicial finality deserves. Regretting the rigid and inflexible stand taken by the two parties, the Court has flagged the two alternatives suggested by an Empowered Committee that can be implemented if the two States come to an agreement: a new dam, or a new tunnel at a particular elevation so that some currently unused quantum of water may be evacuated when the dam is under strain. While a new dam may not be feasible in the heart of a wildlife sanctuary, the second option could be considered at some stage in the future so that fears that seem to be widespread in Kerala are set at rest. Until then, the Court’s directives on the reservoir level should be scrupulously implemented.

COMMUNALISM

Hate speeches triggered Assam violence: report

A fact-finding report on the recent violence in Baksa in Assam, released by the Centre for Policy Analysis on Wednesday, has blamed “hate speeches” by leaders for igniting up ethnic tensions in the State.

“On April 30, six days after the polling, Pramila Rani Brahma, an MLA from the ruling Bodoland Political Front party, made a statement that the BPF would find it hard to win these Lok Sabha elections as Muslims of the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts (BTAD) had not voted for its candidate. She has, however, denied this,” says the report.

It also points out an election speech by BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in Dhemaji, alleging a conspiracy to eliminate the endangered rhinoceros in Assam to make way for Bangladeshi settlers.

Based on the report, the CPA has recommended a series of measures, including the appointment of a judicial commission for a time-bound probe, to ensure security and rehabilitation of the victims.

The report quotes the victims as saying that that among the attackers were surrendered militants who had been appointed by the BTAD as local forest guards. “The local security personnel also confirmed that some of the bullets on the victims’ bodies were from official forest rifles and others from automatic weapons,” the report says, alleging that the names of the accused had not been included in the FIRs.

The report recounts previous instances of violence fuelled by ethnic and religious hostilities since the 1979 “anti-foreigners” agitation in Assam in February 1983 and 1987. “The situation changed drastically in 1993 when the government signed the Bodo accord. In 1993, Bengali Muslims were killed and their homes looted and burnt,” says the report, adding that similar attacks happened in 2000 and in 2012.

‘Revisit Bodo accord’

Citing the continual violence, the organisation has recommended that the Bodoland Accord be re-visited as it has become a divisive instrument. It also wants statements of the victims recorded under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code and all persons named arrested. “There must be a time-bound programme to confiscate all illegal weapons in the area,” says the report.

Lessons from Assam’s carnage

The killing of over 30 people, most of them Muslim women and children, acrossAssam’s Bodoland Territorial Area District (BTAD) is a deadly reminder of systematic efforts towards ethnic cleansing that is under way in that area. The National Democratic Front of Boroland (Songbijit), fighting for a “Sovereign Boroland” to be carved out of Assam, remains the natural and principal suspect for the carnage: it was behind the violence between the indigenous ethnic Bodo community and the erstwhile East Bengal-origin Muslims who generally speak Assamese and certain Bengali dialects that erupted in July-August 2012, leading to the killing of more than a hundred people and the displacement of about 4.85 lakh. But the difference this time is that the atmosphere has been vitiated seriously in the context of elections. In a manifesto released for Assam in April, the State BJP unit made a potentially incendiary promise that it would identify and expel all illegal immigrants staying in Assam — but with a caveat. It promised to protect Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and members of the Scheduled Castes who have come there from Bangladesh following “religious, political and social persecution”, and not to treat them as illegal migrants. In such a context, it is hardly surprising that oblique and not-so-oblique statements have been made by different political leaders linking the BJP’s stance on such a sensitive topic, and the recrudescence of violence in the BTAD.

The Assam Police have put the blame on the NDFB (Songbijit). Meanwhile, survivors claimed to have identified some of the attackers as surrendered militants of the erstwhile Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT). The Bodoland People’s Front (BPF), formed by former leaders of the BLT, that holds the reins of the Bodoland Territorial Council, is also a coalition partner of the Congress in Assam but has indicated it might team up with the BJP, post-election. Significantly, BPF legislator Pramila Rani Brahma had alleged that its candidate for the Kokrajhar constituency was likely to lose as a majority of Muslims did not vote for him. The constituency has about six lakh Bodo voters, nine lakh non-Bodo voters, and four lakh Muslim voters. Narrow election-related interests have complicated the situation, yet it is important that the investigating agencies are able to identify the culprits and reassure the migrant communities of the safety of their lives and property. Urgent steps are needed to ensure their security and protection. Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi’s government should be held to account for the repeated failure in checking the violence, even as it remains under the cloud of militancy that looms over the State. For a start, the government should initiate a process of vulnerability mapping in areas that could see further trouble down the line.

Where everyone is a minority

The grim and bloody incidents in the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC), that narrow wedge of land in western Assam where everyone is a minority — or rather a non- majority since their numbers don’t have it — have been aggravated by the verbal violence of our politicians, the blame game and the total incapacity of the State government to deal with existing conditions.

For the second time in less than two years, thousands of Muslims and smaller numbers of Bodos are fleeing their homes, frightened by their complete vulnerability to gun-wielding terrorists, the nightmare of seeing loved ones, ranging from infants to elders, butchered in front of them and, perhaps worse still, the fearful knowledge that the government can’t protect them.

Today, the capacity of the Congress-led government in Assam to ensure the protection of minorities is being gravely questioned. For in every major communal clash or bout of violence in the Bodo areas — 1993, 2008, 2012 and now — a Congress Party government has ruled Dispur.

Complex play of factors

The State government’s seeming failure may be a tipping point for the last round of the Lok Sabha election elsewhere in the country. Ironically, the greatest violence in the country during an otherwise seemingly flawless massive election exercise has been, ironically, in the home area of one of the country’s Election Commissioners, H.S. Brahma, who is incidentally a Bodo.

There is a larger failure here too, of “us,” of civil society, researchers and scholars, the media, despite the courageous and silent role of dedicated activists and groups which have tried for years to reduce the tension between Bodos, Muslims and other ethnic groups in western Assam.

While the State government has directly blamed the shadowy Songbijit faction of the National Democratic Front of Boroland for the massacres, there is, as always, a complex play of factors here.

One is the fact that the militants were under tremendous pressure from security forces since they killed an Additional Superintendent of Police in Sonitpur district. The police went after them with a vengeance, taking down several cadres; one police official believes it is this pressure that forced the faction to hit vulnerable targets, to take the heat off, get time to regroup while also stoking communal fears and exposing the shortcomings of the State government.

In addition, a statement by a prominent Bodo leader, Pramila Rani Brahma of the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF), complicated matters and triggered outrage even from the Congress, the BPF’s coalition partner at the State level. She said (without revealing the basis of her information) that since Muslims had voted against the party’s Lok Sabha candidate, he was unlikely to do well. This has led to calls for her arrest.

Yet, the trail of blood goes back, unlike many other events and challenges in the region — barely 20 years. Before 1993, there had been few clashes involving Muslims and Bodos. Later, an armed group, the Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT), attacked Santhals as well as Muslims. For their own safety, they were placed in relief camps, which again came under attack. Accounts say that not less than 50 were killed in those incidents.

In 2002, there were a series of attacks; in one, non-Bodo passengers were pulled out of a bus and shot. Soon after this, the BLT decided to come to the negotiating table.

The BPF is the party in power in the BTC, which rules the “Bodo” districts. But there’s a major flaw in the system — the BPF doesn’t have control over law and order: the State government has jurisdiction of the police. This is because the BTC was formed under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, which enables small tribes in four States of the north-east to run their own affairs in the manner of an expanded Panchayati Raj system, instead of being completely dependent on the whims of the State government.

The Sixth Schedule aims to protect tribal rights from encroachment by larger non-tribe groups and is in place in parts of Assam, all of Meghalaya, Mizoram and a part of Tripura.

In 2003, the Schedule was extended to the western Assam plains to create the BTC as part of an agreement between the Centre, the State government and the BLT. The BLT was virtually given an amnesty and morphed into a legal, “democratic” political entity: after some changes, the Bodoland People’s Front was born. The idea was an effort to resolve a bloody armed movement that had taken a toll of hundreds of lives. But to do so, without taking into consideration the overall realities of the region, was a recipe for disaster.

Another major outbreak occurred in 2008 in which both Bodos and non-Bodos including Muslims were rendered homeless and placed in camps. In 2008 again, bomb blasts across the State killed over 100 persons including 80 in Guwahati, the commercial and political heart of Assam; these were attributed to the National Democratic Front of Bodoland, led by Ranjan Daimary, which sought independence from India.

Fallout of manufactured consent

The worst outbreak of violence, in 2012, when over 100 died and about 4.5 lakh were displaced in rioting and killings, was described as the most extensive internal displacement since Partition. A majority of victims and homeless were Muslim; the involvement of the BPF turned up in the arrest of one of its council members, who was accused by witnesses of leading the attacks.

The area’s demography is one reason why trouble will fester rather than abate: it has nothing to do with illegal migration, Bangladeshis, etc. It has everything to do with the fact of how a minority of the population (the Bodos are some 30 per cent of the BTC area) controls the lives and destinies of the others. From an armed group, the BLT became a political party within a larger political process, with access to Central and State funds, power, land and resources. A number of its leaders were once wanted for their role in alleged killings and explosions; when they rose to office, their acolytes benefited. Their opponents, even the moderates within the Bodo community, suffered intimidation, pressure and worse.

An opposition movement has grown that sought to protect the rights of the other groups which do not comprise just the Muslims — there are Assamese and Bengali Hindus, Koch Rajbongshis and Adivasis. Together they make up nearly 70 per cent of the population. Any system that does not guarantee some basic rights to them and protect their interests is bound to fail.

The core of the problems in the north-east, be it in Nagaland, Manipur, Assam or elsewhere, lies in the mobilisation of identity over land, territory and natural resources. Many of the disputes between States, communities and even villages can be traced to this. The same is true of the Bodo areas, where Bodo lands have been encroached and settled upon by others.

There are two issues here: If key problems are to be tackled, then all sides need to sit down together to work out the ways that land and resources can be shared without creating further ill-will. The State government and the BTC have failed to do so. They have failed because they have looked for quick-fix solutions without going deep enough and far enough to meet people’s grievances. The fallout that we see today is that of manufactured consent.

If it isn’t, then Delhi should be worried because this volatile region is in danger again of falling back to the times of earlier troubles. At the State and local levels, governments and policy makers need to involve people working in the field and community representatives in search of answers.

Playing politics

There is a second critical point: if such processes are to gain momentum, then there must be a relentless campaign against terrorist groups. What has filled many with frustration and anger, within the north-east and outside, is the way governments proclaim that they will tackle ethnic and communal violence with a “firm hand”; yet, once the bloodshed is over, the displaced go home and the issues vanish from the headlines, it’s back to business as usual with the criminals, extortionists and their partners in politics and the bureaucracy.

Recent history shows how those involved in the violence are “negotiated” with, in State after State. Settlements reward the perpetrators with even more powers, cocooned by security provided by the State. This is described as part of the democratic process.

I doubt if this will wash any longer: too much blood has been spilt these past years.

In this situation, tossing out the mantra of “Bangladeshi” immigrants as being at the heart of the problem would be extremely ill-advised. Nothing could be further from the truth, so insidiously easy to push, so dangerous to stoke. The Bharatiya Janata Party needs to understand these issues in greater depth before asserting positions which could have devastating consequences on a fragile landscape.

(Sanjoy Hazarika is director, Centre for North East Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia.)

Bodo hopes and minority rights

With the gunning down of 44 Muslim villagers, including many children, in a matter of 36 hours between May 1 and 2, the Bodoland debacle has now grown into a bigger issue for policymakers, marked by a continuing failure to contain its descent into an ever deeper abyss of violence. The Bodoland Territorial Area District (BTAD) has emerged as one of the most volatile flashpoints of violence in the country with deadly clashes breaking out repeatedly over a mobilisation of identity, territory and resources being linked to claims on political power. The reason for the enduring political failure to prevent the violence lies in the very political-bureaucratic predispositions with which the government has been addressing the complex ethnic and security challenges in the region. With intensified inter-group competition over resources and the subsequent rise of the “son of the soil” doctrine, the escapist measure of the state in “allowing” selective elite dominance in Bodoland was only bound to explode into periodic violence sooner than later.

Behind a political quagmire

The Bodos, who constitute the largest tribal community out of a total of 34 tribal communities in Assam, have been fighting for greater political autonomy since the early decades following independence; this gathered momentum with the organisation of the Plain Tribals Council of Assam (PTCA) in the 1960s and then matured with the demand for a separate State by the All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU) in 1987. According to the 2001 Census, the Scheduled Tribe (ST) population of Assam was 12.41 per cent out of which Bodos are about 40 per cent. But within the BTAD, an area of 27,100 square kilometres (or 35 per cent of Assam), the Bodos constitute less than 30 per cent with no other ethnic group (Assamese speakers, Bengali Muslims, Bengali Hindus, Koch-Rajbongshis) having an absolute majority. The Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) was formed as a special territorial privilege under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution as in the Memorandum of Settlement of February 2003 between the Government of India, the Government of Assam and the Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT). The BTC has 12 electorate members with a reserved Scheduled Tribe seat in the Lok Sabha.

The BTC accord is an official recognition of Bodo political aspirations and promises to “fulfil economic, educational and linguistic aspirations and the preservation of land rights, socio-cultural and ethnic identity of the Bodos” — a special status that the Bodo nationalists claim as their historical due and which others term as a gross violation of equality and democratic rights of the nearly 70 per cent non-Bodo population of the area. This debate needs to come under the lens of history.

In the interest of early colonialism, new reservation policies were introduced to restrain “native” access to valuable forests and to stimulate the clearance of fertile “wastelands” for the setting up of tea estates resulting in an increasingly restrictive regime of “boundaries” that curtailed livelihood options. This colonial enterprise for revenue maximising, also accompanied by schemes like “grow more food,” radically altered western Assam’s demography as a large influx of poor peasants and labourers from Chota Nagpur, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Nepal and Maimansing was engineered in the interest of the colonial economy. Forest reservation policies as well as cross-border migration continued heavily in the first decades of independence. One estimate in the mid-1980s had the tribal population in northwest Assam surrounded by a wealthy forest zone of 3,539.95 sq.km — in formal-judicial terms, more than 80 per cent was inaccessible to them. This entrapment is not only of the community from the resources but is also an entrapment of one community from the other. The fear of all political minorities in Bodoland is a replication of the way the Bodo community was once entrapped (and in many ways continues to be so) which might influence the newly empowered Bodo political elites to create a system that would entrap them. Feelings of relative deprivation through an entrenched minority entrapment could spark off new insurgencies in the BTC/BTAD territory.

In this context, what is significant is growing political assertions by sections of Muslims under banners like The All Bodoland Minority Students’ Union (ABMSU) and ‘Sankhyalagu Aikhya Mancha’ (Minorities United Front). ABMSU has even demanded proportionate employment policies for community numbers and reservation for minority students in medical and engineering colleges in the area. It has also asked political parties to reserve at least three seats for the minorities in those constituencies where they are in an absolute majority.

In a sense, the BTC accord justifies that every community with perceived historical roots in a particular place has a right to delineate that “imagined place” and to protect it from perceived “outsiders.” Riots in the Bodoland area have highlighted increasing valorisation of the “son of the soil” doctrine, a doctrine that is the result of powerfully territorialised (ethnic) identities and the enduring but highly selective reaffirmation of “natural” geo-cultural links between ethnic groups and territory. In such an atmosphere, people of Bangladeshi/East Bengal migrant descent bear the brunt of the anger as they are often seen as fake autochthones acting as Indian citizens/locals.

A safety valve that failed

Bodoland is an example where institutions like the autonomous council (as in the Sixth Schedule) have become de-facto tools of political management used to defuse possible dissent against the state. The government invests in group leaders by distributing substantial financial and coercive resources, allowing some form of local autocracy to consolidate power which is aimed at minimising threats to “national security” and “anti-state” violence, even while creating the conditions for the rise of localised violence and corruption. In fact the choice to negotiate with the BLT in 2003 bilaterally and a significant tolerance of BLT ceasefire violations all seem to have been intended to allow the BLT to consolidate local power. Even the interim body created to oversee the first elections to the BTC was headed by former militants. However, observations about the exercise of special political autonomy often show that it has perpetuated local oligarchies and created new elites, often weakening the links between people and political power.

The violent rivalry between Bodo political outfits and gradually emerging non-Bodo political conglomerations is a reflection of this agenda of elite ethnic dominance. It is the proactive defiance and political mobilisation of Muslims against the Bodoland Peoples’ Front (BPF) candidate that had invited the assassin’s bullets. The independent candidate, Naba Saraniya, supported by the Sanmilita Janagostiya Aikkyamancha (SJA), an amalgamation of 20 “non-Bodo” ethnic and linguistic groups based in BTAD, have put up a strong fight against the BPF candidate, Chandan Brahma, while the “Bodo votes” are divided.

Need for radical measures

The first step would be to sweep the region clean by seizing the significant amount of illegal weapons. A more protracted step would be to consider a modification of the BTC agreement. The arrangements now not only give the elites from one ethnic group disproportionate power over the others, but also provide further incentive and a rationale to/for this domination. The alleged involvement of a number of forest guards under the BTC administration along with suspected militants from anti-talks National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB-Songbijit) in the recent killings indicates a flocking of forces under a political agenda of elite dominance.

The BTC accord needs be reworked to expand the democratic ambit of its mandate by making it more accommodative with a greater share and proportionate representation to different communities residing in BTAD. Otherwise, a redrawing of BTAD boundaries by removing areas with a substantial non-Bodo majority seems to be a sensitive but an unavoidable option. It is time the government gears itself up for effective and responsible measures before there is another bloodbath in the region.

(Kaustubh Deka, recently a Public Policy Scholar at The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy, is a doctoral candidate at the Centre for Political Studies, School of Social Sciences, JNU, Delhi.)

SPORT

HC nod for the National Sports Development Code

Code Envisages Fixed Tenure And Age Limit For Officials

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday rejected Indian Olympic Association's plea challenging the Centre's power to legislate sports in the country through the guidelines of National Sports Code. The code is aimed at bringing transparency in the functioning of the sports bodies along with fixed tenure and age-limit for office-bearers. 
    A bench of justice S Ravindra Bhat and Nazmi Wajiri approved the National Sports Development Code, 2011, which barred more than 12 years tenure for the president and more than 8 years for other office-bearers, including secretary and treasurer, in any sports federation. The code has also fixed the maximum age of 70 years to officiate. 
    The code also brings all National Sports Federations (NSFs) availing government grant under Right to Information Act and stresses upon implementation of NADA anti-doping rules coupled with guidelines for holding fair and transparent elections to NSFs. The code also calls for having a proper mechanism to investigate and punish age fraud in sports. 
    The High Court dismissed the contention that sports was a state subject prohibiting the Centre from regulating national sports bodies. 
    “The court reiterates its conclusion that international sports and regulation of NSFs and IOA in respect of the matters which are subject to these proceedings, falls within entry 97 of the First List of the seventh schedule of Constitution of India. The central government can insist upon adherence to these provisions, without the aid of legislation. It is also held that the Sports Code does not violate the freedom under Article 19 (1)(c) of the Constitution. Neither are its provisions arbitrary,” the bench said.