Nagas being subjected to untold trauma, 'heavy' mental burden: Global rights group

Counterview Desk
The International League of Peoples' Struggle (ILPS), with presence in 40 countries, even as strongly condemning the "murder" of 15 coal miners and injuring 11 more by the Indian army in Mon district, Nagaland, has said it is "joining" its network, Naga Peoples Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR), adding, it supports the Naga peoples, the people of India’s north east and all lovers of peace and freedom in calling for the immediate repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), 1958.
Releasing a statement by NPMHR, it said, AFSPA is sought to be implemented by the Government of India in Northeast States allegedly enabling Indian army’s "massacre of indigenous peoples and citizens with impunity." Calling for justice for all the "victims" of the Indian government, it has floated an online petition to repeal AFSPA to seek international solidarity.

NPMHR statement:

Ever since military aggression and occupation of the Naga homeland in 1954, civilians and common Naga people have been the target of the Indian army and the para-military forces. Armed with Draconian and inhuman legal immunity by the Indian Parliament, the Government of India continues unabated to kill civilians and common people at any time and at any place of its conveniences. Our women folks were stripped of all human dignity by the armed forces of the world’s largest Democracy, India.
They are being raped, tortured, made to give birth publicly with no more human dignity left and are being subjected to live lives of untold trauma and heavy mental burdens. The Indian State does not spare any of its armed tools and occupational instruments to extinguish the Naga spirit of human dignity and spirit of equal human brotherhood. The world is prevented from knowing these ceaseless state-sponsored crimes against the Naga people and against humanity.
The reign of the Indian State-sponsored terrorism and war waged on civilian population is yet again showcased when the best-trained Indian elite forces butchered a group of humble people returning to their homes in a truck from their work places. The well-trained Indian army personnel engaged their most sophisticated firearms to kill them as if the simple, humble and bread-earning villagers were diseased and had to be culled.
Are the lives of the Naga people less than the lives of other fellow human beings? This evil act of the Indian government through its military forces once again reveals its true intent of owning our land after exterminating our Naga people.
Our people at all times seek to live in peace with all other people. Our history tells that we have never waged war on any people even in the days of old. We are being denied to live lives of dignity, to exercise our rights and are now being driven to live in fear. The Government of India, time and again, wages war against our Naga people. The actions of the Indian State upon our people are no less than the erstwhile apartheid. No power on earth had ever succeeded in subduing our Naga spirit.
We, the Naga Peoples’ Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR), resolutely condemn the genocide committed upon the humble working-civilian villagers. We squarely hold the Government of India with all its draconian and fascist laws responsible for letting loose their dogs of war to maul to shreds the innocent villagers of Oting who have committed no crime whatsoever except commitment to humbly earn their livelihood with dignity and honor. Even at this moment when we are making this Statement, the Indian military and paramilitary forces are still engaged in their mayhem of killing the civilians in Mon Town.
Our anguish is unspeakable at this moment of grief. Our hearts go to the families of the slain innocent villagers. The NPMHR stands with them all and shall walk with them through thick and thin.

Comments

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

1857 War of Independence... when Hindu-Muslim separatism, hatred wasn't an issue

"The Sepoy Revolt at Meerut", Illustrated London News, 1857 By Shamsul Islam* Large sections of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs unitedly challenged the greatest imperialist power, Britain, during India’s First War of Independence which began on May 10, 1857; the day being Sunday. This extraordinary unity, naturally, unnerved the firangees and made them realize that if their rule was to continue in India, it could happen only when Hindus and Muslims, the largest two religious communities were divided on communal lines.

N-power plant at Mithi Virdi: CRZ nod is arbitrary, without jurisdiction

By Krishnakant* A case-appeal has been filed against the order of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) and others granting CRZ clearance for establishment of intake and outfall facility for proposed 6000 MWe Nuclear Power Plant at Mithi Virdi, District Bhavnagar, Gujarat by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) vide order in F 11-23 /2014-IA- III dated March 3, 2015. The case-appeal in the National Green Tribunal at Western Bench at Pune is filed by Shaktisinh Gohil, Sarpanch of Jasapara; Hajabhai Dihora of Mithi Virdi; Jagrutiben Gohil of Jasapara; Krishnakant and Rohit Prajapati activist of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has issued a notice to the MoEF&CC, Gujarat Pollution Control Board, Gujarat Coastal Zone Management Authority, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and case is kept for hearing on August 20, 2015. Appeal No. 23 of 2015 (WZ) is filed, a...

Spirit of leadership vs bondage: Of empowered chairman of 100-acre social forestry coop

By Gagan Sethi* This is about Khoda Sava, a young Dalit belonging to the Vankar sub-caste, who worked as a bonded labourer in a village near Vadgam in Banskantha district of North Gujarat. The year was 1982. Khoda had taken a loan of Rs 7,000 from the village sarpanch, a powerful landlord doing money-lending as his side business. Khoda, who had taken the loan for marriage, was landless. Normally, villagers would mortgage their land if they took loan from the sarpanch. But Khoda had no land. He had no option but to enter into a bondage agreement with the sarpanch in order to repay the loan. Working in bondage on the sarpanch’s field meant that he would be paid Rs 1,200 per annum, from which his loan amount with interest would be deducted. He was also obliged not to leave the sarpanch’s field and work as daily wager somewhere else. At the same time, Khoda was offered meal once a day, and his wife job as agricultural worker on a “priority basis”. That year, I was working as secretary...

Fate of Yamuna floodplain still hangs in "balance" despite National Green Tribunal rap on Sri Sri event

By Ashok Shrimali* While the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday reportedly pulled up the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for granting permission to hold spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's World Culture Festival on the banks of Yamuna, the chief petitioners against the high-profile event Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan has declared, the “fate of the floodplain still hangs in balance.”

Two more "aadhaar-linked" Jharkhand deaths: 17 die of starvation since Sept 2017

Kaleshwar's sons Santosh and Mantosh Counterview Desk A fact-finding team of the Right to Feed Campaign, pointing towards the death of two more persons due to starvation in Jharkhand, has said that this has happened because of the absence of aadhaar, leading to “persistent lack of food at home and unavailability of any means of earning.” It has disputed the state government claims that these deaths are due to reasons other than starvation, adding, the authorities have “done nothing” to reduce the alarming state of food insecurity in the state.

Proposed Modi yatra from Jharkhand an 'insult' of Adivasi hero Birsa Munda: JMM

Counterview Desk The civil rights network, Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha (JMM), which claims to have 30 grassroots groups under its wings, has decided to launch Save Democracy campaign to oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vikasit Bharat Sankalp Yatra to be launched on November 15 from the village of legendary 19th century tribal independence leader Birsa Munda from Ulihatu (Khunti district).

Ground reality: Israel would a remain Jewish state, attempt to overthrow it will be futile

By NS Venkataraman* Now that truce has been arrived at between Israel and Hamas for a period of four days and with release of a few hostages from both sides, there is hope that truce would be further extended and the intensity of war would become significantly less. This likely “truce period” gives an opportunity for the sworn supporters and bitter opponents of Hamas as well as Israel and the observers around the world to introspect on the happenings and whether this war could have been avoided. There is prolonged debate for the last several decades as to whom the present region that has been provided to Jews after the World War II belong. View of some people is that Jews have been occupants earlier and therefore, the region should belong to Jews only. However, Christians and those belonging to Islam have also lived in this regions for long period. While Christians make no claim, the dispute is between Jews and those who claim themselves to be Palestinians. In any case...

Epic war against caste system is constitutional responsibility of elected government

Edited by well-known Gujarat Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan, the book, “Bhed-Bharat: An Account of Injustice and Atrocities on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-18)” (available in English and Gujarati*) is a selection of news articles on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-2018) published by Dalit Shakti Prakashan, Ahmedabad. Preface to the book, in which Macwan seeks to answer key questions on why the book is needed today: *** The thought of compiling a book on atrocities on Dalits and thus present an overall Indian picture had occurred to me a long time ago. Absence of such a comprehensive picture is a major reason for a weak social and political consciousness among Dalits as well as non-Dalits. But gradually the idea took a different form. I found that lay readers don’t understand numbers and don’t like to read well-researched articles. The best way to reach out to them was storytelling. As I started writing in Gujarati and sharing the idea of the book with my friends, it occurred to me that while...

Counterview

Search This Blog