In his address to the Chief Ministers in a meeting on “internal security” convened in January in New Delhi, the Prime Minister delineated three main areas of “threat” and proposed how they should be addressed.  One of the main areas of “threat”, according to the Prime Minister, was “insurgency in the North East”.  He said, “Insurgency in the North-East exploits disparities in income and wealth but it is also sustained by the sanctuaries provided to the leaders of insurgency movements in the neighbouring countries”. In other words, the Prime Minister does not acknowledge any political problem, such as the violation of national rights and human rights in this region. He only acknowledges “disparities in income and wealth”.

The very term ‘North-East’ reflects a Delhi centric outlook of clubbing the numerous nations and peoples inhabiting the present states of Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Sikkim into a single geographical-territorial entity. The inhabitants of these states are peoples, our peoples, who have been living there for centuries. Each of them has their own definite history, traditional habitat, philosophy, culture and language. They live in a vast area bordering West Bengal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, and Myanmar. Amongst them are peoples who have been forcibly divided or displaced from their homelands, following the creation of the present day states of India, Myanmar and Bangladesh.

The peoples of this region fought many heroic battles against the armies of the British colonialists. They were amongst the last of the Indian peoples to be colonised. They fought for the right to rule themselves, to determine their own destiny. Some of these peoples, like the Nagas, were never subjugated by the British.  Manipur had her own legislative assembly at the time of Indian independence, which was dissolved following a “Merger Agreement” that the King of Manipur was forced to sign in Assam, where he was held captive by the Indian armed forces.

The colonial state was a state that facilitated the plunder of the land and labour of all the peoples in the conquered territories of South Asia, negating their national rights. Colonial rule denied the very existence of nations and peoples in India. With the end of British rule in August 1947, there arose the possibility that a new democratic polity could be fashioned, which would recognise the existence and rights of the numerous nations and peoples constituting this subcontinent. This meant that India had to be re-constituted as a voluntary union of nations and peoples, with the union assisting each nation and people and defending it from imperialist threat, and with each nation and people having the right to self determination.

The Indian bourgeoisie that came to power in August 1947 did nothing of this kind. Through diplomacy as well as military means, it subjugated all the peoples who resisted their amalgamation into the Indian Union, particularly in the North-East and in Kashmir. In January 1950, it announced the new Indian Union whose constitution does not recognise even the existence of nations and peoples, let alone their right to determine their own destiny.

This is the heart of the problem in the North East. It is also a central problem for all Indian peoples. The Naga insurgency for redefining the relation between the Nagas and the Indian Union has continued right from August 1947. For over three decades, the different peoples inhabiting the various states of the North East have been waging struggle for their national rights, for a redefinition of the Indian Union which would ensure that sovereignty vests with its constituent peoples. Whatever be the form of these struggles, the political content of these struggles has centred around the question of sovereignty.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, like his predecessors, seeks to deny that there is anything called struggle for sovereignty. In typical imperialist fashion, he dismisses the fighting people as (1) exploiting disparities in income and wealth and (2) using sanctuaries of neighbouring countries. This is a self serving move, aimed at justifying the state terrorism and centralized army rule in the North East. It shows that the Manmohan Singh government has no interests in addressing the concerns of any of the peoples of the North East.

The Indian bourgeoisie is already pursuing what is known as “look East policy”, to open the trade routes to South East Asia. It wants to exploit the resources of Bangladesh, Myanmar as well as other countries, apart from the resources of the peoples of North East. In this connection, it is going to pursue the policy of subjugation of the fighting peoples, as well as bribery or co-option of this or that individual or group into its “development agenda”. This is how it proposes to deal with the ‘disparities in income and wealth’. It is going to put pressure on Bangladesh and Myanmar to assist it in crushing the peoples’ movements. That is what is behind the reference to ‘ sanctuaries provided to the leaders of insurgency movements in neighbouring countries’. 

People’s Voice calls on all Indians of conscience to raise their voices against the central government’s pursuit of a so-called military solution to the struggle for national rights of the different peoples of the North East.  The question of national rights is a political problem.  It requires a political solution, involving all the peoples concerned.

The times are demanding that the fighting peoples unite to build a new, reconstituted Indian Union, wherein sovereignty, the right to self determination, will be guaranteed to each constituent nation and people, and human rights will be guaranteed to all.