OTHER MINORITIES
What concerns the Mizoram Chakmas is not the declaration 'Mizoram is for Mizos' by the Mizo Zirlai Pawl (MZP) but the support extended to these communal forces by State Congress leaders and the State Government. As a result, the non-Mizo and non-Christian ethnic group the Chakmas have become the target of the MZP, says a Chakma Jatiya Parishad (CJP) memorandum submitted to Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao on November 23, 1995). The Congress Government of Mizoram has decided to start deportation of foreigners from December 5. A special task force has been constituted by the State Government for this purpose. The issue was taken up during an all-party meeting organized at the behest of Chief Minister Lalthanhawla in early 1994.
On September 26, 1994, the State Electoral Office had declared January 26, 1950, as the ent-off year for identifying the foreigners. This was later changed to 1956. The activists of the MZP and the Mizo National Front (MCF), both anti-Chakma organizations, have been deputed to identify the alleged foreigners. This is an unprecedented measure in post-Independence India.
The names of thousands of Mizoram Chakmas, including those who served as returning polling officers, have been deleted from the voter list. MNF and MZP activists even burnt the Aizwal District Election Office in December, 1994 to delete the names of Chakmas from the electoral rolls and portray the Chakmas of Aizwal as foreigners.
Earlier, on August 29, 1992, Mizos attacked the Chakmas at Marpara, Nava and Avapui villages under Aizwal district, in the presence of the Mizoram police and the Border Security Force personnel. No one was, however, prosecuted for killing a resident of Nava village and burning 257 houses of the Chakmas. Proper compensation was not paid to the affected people.
In recent months, the atrocities have increased manifold. The allegation that Chakmas are foreigners is baseless. After the annexation of Lushai hills by the British in 1891, the boundaries were revised in 1900 and a strip on the eastern side of the then Chittagong Hill Tracts district, including Demagiri, was transferred to the Lushai Hill district. During the Lushai expedition... in the mid-19th century, the British used the Chakma inhabited areas to bring the Lushais- the present Mizos under their control. The historical animosity between the two tribes was intensified when the MNF targeted the Chakmas during the insurgency, for allegedly helping the Centre.
In 1972, the Union Government awarded the Chakma Autonomous District Council (CADC). However, 70 per cent of the Chakma-inhabited areas were kept outside the jurisdiction of the Council. As a result, the majority of the Chakmas have been denied the constitutional safeguards. The Chakmas-inhabited areas outside the CADC have remained under-developed since 1947.
"The Mizos call the Chakmas "Takkams' - objects for slaughter. We are ill-treated in the buses and the market places. Now the MZP activists harass our women and plunder our villages on the excuse of identifying foreigners," says CJP president B.B. Chakma. "There is tremendous pressure on the Chakma leaders, irrespective of their political affiliations, to boycott the next general elections and intensify the demand for a union territory to get rid of discrimination by the Mizos once and for all," he adds.
For six years now, the Chakmas of Mizoram have been demanding a union territory. Pursuant to a memorandum submitted to the then Prime Minister V.P. Singh on September 17, 1990, Mizoram Government asked the CJP to submit boundary lines of the union territory, they wanted. In the Rajya Sabha on May 13, 1992, the then Minister of State for Home Affairs M.M. Jacob stated that the "Mizoram Government is of the view that this demand is not justified as the Chakmas of Mizoram already have an Autonomous District Council.
With the general elections round the corner, the Mizo politicians are trying to whip up anti-Chakma sentiments. The Congress has also joined the refrain. However, if the Chakmas, who are traditionally Congress supporters, boycott the elections, the MNF will most probably upset the Congress applecart.
(Source: The Pioneer, 3 Dec., 1995)
