Tawang Yatra: A movement against Chinese dominance

 

Guwahati (Oct 10): Sonam Tsering, has never seen his mother land yet but dreams to be in Tibet. "If not me, at least the upcoming generations will breath the free air of their native land" said Tsering, "To live in Tibet with full dignity, we have been struggling more than half a century and will continue till our last breath, and even after…through our future generations".

With this spirit as their driving force, 40 other Tibetans and 35 Indians from 8 different states of the country, including spiritual leaders and senior journalist is all set for the first ever, "Tawang Yatra" from Guwahati on Wednesday. The rally that started from Bisnu Nirmala Bhawan and organised by the Bharat-Tibet Sanyog Manch, aims at creating awareness amongst the masses against China's dominance over the Tibetan people and its indifferent policies towards India, While addressing, the rally Indresh Kumar, patron of the forum, describes the rally as a 'rising of a section towards injustice and barbarism'.

"This is not just a rally or journey but an initiative to tell those, who have conquered peace loving Tibet and now are claiming many parts of India to be theirs, that injustice will no more be tolerated" said Kumar. Kumar who is also one of the participants of the rally said, "By visiting Tawang we Indians want to tell China that Tawang is a part of India and will always be so".

The journey has been divided into 5 parts and the participants will stop at different places to generate awareness amongst the people about the issue. Kumar was also of the view, India is responsible for the present condition of Tibet and Tibetans and it is hence the duty of this country to provide full support to them.

"History is evident that the first prime minister of India regarded Tibet to be a part of china due to lack of knowledge. Then no support was provided to the Tibetans and their county as it was regarded to be a part of china, and not as a separate country, alleged Kumar.

"This horrible mistake must be salvaged, it can only be done by helping Tibetans gain independence". He said that the condition has turned so grim that china is claiming many parts of India to be theirs. Mahesh Chadda, the convenor of the programme informed that starting from this year, 'Tawang Yatra' will be organised every year henceforth.

BTAD rehab faces document hurdle

 

Amarjyoti Borah & Anamika Talukdar, Guwahati /Bijni (Oct 10): Months after violent clashes forced nearly five lakh people into refugee camps in the Bodo belt, the Assam government has been able to identify only 19,000 affected families with fully valid documents, who could be rehabilitated during the first phase of the rehabilitation process.

There are still over one lakh families in relief camps awaiting rehabilitation. At a meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM) on the BTAD clashes, headed by Assam revenue and disaster management minister Prithibi Majhi, and the BTC authorities at Dispur on Wednesday, the Assam government said that by October 31 all the 19,000 families will be rehabilitated.

Among these 19,000 families only around 250 have been rehabilitated in Chirang. BTC chief Hagrama Mohilary, however, expressed reservation over this announcement by the Assam government and said that it will not be possible to rehabilitate more than 8000 of these families within the time-frame set by the Assam government.

Mohilary also added that there will be further scrutiny of the documents of these 19000 families and didn't rule out the presence of illegal migrants within these families. After the two-hour meeting on Wednesday, Majhi said that the second phase of the rehabilitation process will start soon, and will involve those families who are genuine Indian citizens but who don't have land in the BTAD.

"We expect the process to start from October 17," said Majhi. Mohilary added that "the Assam government will prepare a new format for the second phase, and once both the Assam government and the BTC authorities agree to it, the process will start".

"This will basically include families who have been residing for a long time in the BTAD and have valid documents and also names in the voters list, but don't have land," added Mohilary. Speaking to Seven Sisters Post, Assam government spokesperson and agriculture minister Nilomoni Sen Deka —who is a part of the GoM —said that if anyone is still left after the second phase of rehabilitation, the Assam government might consider forming a committee to look into the issue.

In Bijni, the resettlement of camp inmates by verifying documents has turned out to be cumbersome process for the administration. Out of total 24 thousand camp inmates, only 300 have been able to produce land documents along with other valid ones.

The identification of the patta holders, displaced during the recent group clashes in the Bodoland Territorial Administrative Districts (BTAD) area was done by the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) authorities for the purpose of rehabilitation.

However, the process of identification of settlers is becoming difficult for the authorities. Dinulalam Ahmed, general secretary of Relief Rehabilation Demand Committee (Bongaigaon and Chirang) informed that in Bijni subdivision, initially there were 24,000 inmates in 29 relief camps. Out of this, 2,230 inmates were allowed to fill up the form with the valid documents by the concerned authorities.

"It's unfortunate that only 300 inmates were allowed to go to their native places, and the rest inmates were left in a lurch with an uncertain future. We are not being even told why 1,930 inmates were not being shortlisted for resettlement," said Ahmed.

Though most of the inmates claimed to have valid documents, but while visiting 4 such makeshift relief camps, it has been found that they are unable to produce any sort of documents. Some of the locals raised doubts whether the government machinery was systematically leaving the tribal belts and blocks free for illegal settlers.

 

 

Pretence won't Do

The Tarun Gogoi government of Assam is bringing out a white paper on the implementation of the Assam Accord on October 15. ''The white paper will make it clear what the Congress government has done for the implementation of the Assam Accord and what the AGP and the BJP had done. I am not saying that the AGP and the BJP governments did nothing. But we have done more than what they had done while in power... Curiously, the AGP and the BJP forget the issue of illegal influx when they are in power. It is only when they are not in power that they remember the issue,'' said Gogoi on Tuesday while interacting with reporters. What Gogoi has conveniently overlooked is that it is not time to try to score points by indulging in blame game. While it will be interesting to see the proposed white paper, it will be far more interesting to hear what the Gogoi government has done over the last one decade to get the illegal Bangladeshis settled and proliferating in the State detected and deported to their motherland. Until a couple of months back, before the BTAD clashes started, Gogoi had been maintaining that there were no illegal Bangladeshis in the State. But now that the reality is out in the aftermath of the BTAD clashes and that his government is under tremendous pressure from different quarters to accept the fact of illegal immigration from Bangladesh and to act firmly on the issue without any show of pretence, the Assam Chief Minister is talking of the proposed white paper on his government's implementation of the Assam Accord, one of whose clauses is constitutional safeguards for the indigenous people of the State in view of the rampancy of illegal immigration from Bangladesh and the threat posed to the very existence of the indigenous people by illegal Bangladeshi nationals. The white paper to be out on October 15 is a direct consequence of the BTAD clashes, or, rather, the reality brought out by the BTAD clashes. The question is whether the Gogoi government would have brought out any such white paper if the BTAD clashes had not taken place. To put it in other words, no sensible and patriotic Assamese would accept that the white paper could be a consequence of the Gogoi government's sincerity in the matter of the implementation of the Assam Accord. Had it been really so, a white paper on the issue ought to have come up long back — that is, the government ought to have brought out such white paper from its own side without waiting for the unfortunate BTAD clashes to happen. In fact, the fact of the matter is that if the Assam Accord had been implemented with the desired zeal and seriousness, the BTAD clashes would not have happened. It will not do for Gogoi to keep pretending as to his government's sincerity in implementing the Assam Accord and also keep blaming the AGP and the BJP. The question is not what the AGP and the BJP have done. The question now is what the Gogoi government, which has had the rare opportunity to hit a political hat trick, has done to avert violence as the one that has hit the BTAD, and whether such violence could have been avoided if the government had really been sincere in implementing the crucial clauses of the Assam Accord pertaining to the issue of safeguards for the indigenous people of the State. There has also been a hue and cry over the definition of the ''Assamese people'' in relation to the implementation of the Assam Accord. One, in this context, would ask: Why does the controversy as to who is an ''Assamese'' still continue? Why has it been so difficult for the Gogoi government in the past decade of its uninterrupted rule to make a right move in the direction of defining the ''Assamese people''? The issue of xatra lands and forest lands in Assam being encroached upon by illegal Bangladeshis must also be raised as frequently and vociferously as possible because it involves the security of the State's spiritual sites and natural parks. The crux of the matter here is that a firm action on the matter will dilute the illegal Bangladeshi political constituency built over the years with great care and labour, but can there be any compromise on the State's invaluable xatras and forest lands? Not at all. Let the indigenous people make to the Gogoi government things as clear. The indigenous writing on the wall must be clearly visible.

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source:assam sandesh