Ethnicity and conflict in India and Pakistan

Contemporary Review, March, 2003 by Sharif M. Shuja

THE September 11 events and their fallout added to the importance of South Asia. The conflict in Kashmir, sectarian and political violence in Pakistan, riots in Gujarat, and insurgency in Northeast India -- all these issues are relevant as well as important in discussing stability in South Asia. The region has a crucial role to play in the days ahead; the international community is concerned with peace and stability in the region.

The origins of several inter-state disputes in the region, including the China-India-Pakistan boundary question and the Pakistan-India-Bangladesh feuds over sharing river water, are rooted in the colonial demarcation of frontiers. The Indo-Pakistan frontier is too porous for security forces on either side to contain trans-border terrorism or arms and drug trafficking. Similarly, it is virtually impossible to patrol the Indo-Bangladesh border and prevent Bangladeshi migrants from seeking better living conditions in India. Mass influx of illegal migrants can undermine a nation's integral internal security, and the separatist unrest in the northeastern Indian state of Assam is evidence of that.

The porousness of the South Asian frontiers has also become a licence for rival states to sponsor ethnic or terrorist violence across their frontiers through proxies or even by direct means. India has charged Pakistan with training and arming dissidents in the Indian Kashmir and Punjab, while Pakistan has accused New Delhi of aiding Sindhi separatism. The tribal guerrillas in India's northeastern states were originally trained by China, and there are now new Indian allegations of Chinese and Bangladeshi support for the Assamese rebels.

Separatist Unrest and Ethnic Violence in India

Northeast India, known as 'Seven Sisters', comprising seven states -- Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, had never at any time been part of India. All the states here, which in the past consisted of the kingdom of Assam and the princely states of Manipur and Tripura, were formerly independent and then a part of Burma, until the British annexed them at the beginning of the 19th century. At the time of partition in 1947, they toyed with the alternatives of becoming a part of Burma or remaining independent. It was the British who talked them into joining the Indian Union, and some of them felt that they were doing so conditionally, for a period of ten years. In this region, there has been an insurrection going on.

The Nepali-speaking Indians have demanded that the Darjeeling district of West Bengal and adjacent territory be turned into a 'Gorkhaland' state, and Bodo tribesmen have also demanded that a 'Bodoland' state be carved from Assam.

In Manipur, violent terrorist activities have been widespread under the patronage of two 'secessionist' organisations, the People's Liberation Army said to be Maoist and therefore by implication Chinese-inspired, and the People's Revolutionary Army of Kungleipak that drew its support from the Meteis, the tribal people of the plains who represent 60 per cent of Manipur's population and are also found in Assam. In this state, student organisations have been demanding the expulsion of Bangladeshis, Nepalis, Bengali immigrants even from West Bengal and Mizos. Non-Manipuris have become the targets of this violence, and occasionally the troops had to be called in.

In Tripura, the guerrillas of the Tripura Sena resorted to violence because of their resentment against Bengali immigrant settlement that had made Tripurans a minority in their own territory. Nagas and Mizos have fought protracted guerrilla wars against the government to prevent their ethnic identities and their interests from being submerged in an India of 'principal languages'. To keep the peace, the government has realigned state borders in the area with tribal boundaries. A long dispute between the Mizo National Front and the central government was resolved in 1986. Mizoram became a state from Union territory in July 1986. Arunachal Pradesh, the other Union territory of the Northeast, also became a state in the same year. India has been successful in integrating ethnic diversities because it eventually bowed to popular demands for 'linguistic' and 'tribal' ethnic states.

Since independence, the Union government is adopting measures to 'Indianise' the people of the Northeastern region by swamping the area with the maximum number of people from other states. This could damage the very special ethnic, cultural and linguistic entity of the sub-nationalities living in the region. The identity of the Tripuris has vanished and the indigenous Assamese are now engaged in fighting what to them is a battle for survival. Other ethnic groups of the region that can be similarly affected are the Meitis, Nagas, Mizos, Khasis and Garos.

The Indian leaders have failed to understand how the illegal immigration has allowed foreigners to influence the state elections of Assam and, therefore, they have been unable to impress upon the Government of India the actual nature of the Assamese demands concerning the issue of foreigners.