24 July 2021
The South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) is a Colombo based regional organisation. Its Bureau consists of many knowledgeable individuals from the region. However, it is doubtful if they exercised oversight on a public statement put out in the name of the organisation dated 9 July 2021. The public statement titled, ” SAHR Is Deeply Concerned For The Myanmar Nationals Fleeing To India And Their Impact On The Host Community” (see full text at https://www.southasianrights.org/sahr-is-deeply-concerned-for-the-myanmar-nationals-fleeing-to-india-and-their-impact-on-the-host-community/ ). It is dated 9 July 2021 and was brought to SAHRDC’S notice on the afternoon of 21 July 2021.
The statement does no credit to a regional human rights group whose bureau has many individuals of substance on it. It is evident that none of them vetted or edited the statement before it was put on their website and sent out publicly representing the organisation’s viewpoint on a major regional issue.
The first paragraph itself is jarring. “ … SAHR is further concerned of the impact of the influx of refugees on the host community in the northeastern states of India.” Clearly, the draftsperson, to be charitable, has little information on the situation that exists on the ground in the three states where the arriving refugees from Myanmar presently are
The host communities in Mizoram, Manipur and Nagaland have been generous to a fault. They have not been complaining. The only ones complaining are in the main, those who take their cue from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs in New Delhi. Please see:
1. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/guwahati/mizoram-ready-to-welcome-refugees-from-myanmar-says-cm-zoramthanga/articleshow/81240111.cms
From the Chief Minister of Mizoram as above to the powerful Mizo students’ organisation, they were happy to host the refugees. See below:
The Mizo are not a rich community, but in the best Christian spirit, they were willing to share their meager loaves with their Chin brethren from across the border in a spirit of giving and sharing as the parable from the Bible goes.
3. https://www.telegraphindia.com/north-east/mizoram-mp-conveys-concern-over-myanmar-refugees-to-delhi/cid/1809745
The average Mizo was happy to raise the resources for the refugees by passing the hat, holding concerts and going door to door for donations. The State government was happy to help even though it has financial constraints.
Please also see:
https://theprint.in/india/why-mizoram-sees-myanmar-refugees-as-family-close-ethnic-ties-that-have-survived-a-border/627009/
https://www.thehindu.com/society/the-mizos-and-myanmarese-share-deep-cultural-bonds-that-go-beyond-the-citizen-refugee-divide/article34391179.ece
Popular support for the refugees is evident. Manufacturing narratives that the refugees are considered a burden in these states is a ploy by the Union government to initiate a push back policy in tune with the exclusivist policies of the current Hindutva dispensation.
The second paragraph is even more curious. “It is reported that approximately 16,000 people from Myanmar are being sheltered in the three Indian states of Mizoram, Manipur and Nagaland. The official numbers have not yet been revealed and it is expected there will be more people entering India through the 1,600km long porous border.”
The SAHR statement admits that there are no official figures. Yet it conjures up a figure of 16000! A widely read news portal in Northeast India, quoting police sources said that 5600 refugees had come over from Myanmar till the last week of May 2021.
This is reiterated in https://thediplomat.com/2021/05/over-6000-myanmar-nationals-in-indias-northeast/.
Up to the middle of June 2021, the number had increased to 9, 247. See:
Interestingly, the Organiser, the mouthpiece of the Hindu fundamentalist, Rashtriya Sevak Sangh (RSS) put the number of refugees in Mizoram at 15000 in May 2021!
See: https://www.organiser.org/Encyc/2021/5/24/Over-15-000-Myanmar-refugees-are-now-residing-in-Mizoram-Centre-informed.html.
In Nagaland, the number of refugees is negligible. According to the Chief Minister, a few come routinely across the border to buy medicines and seek treatment and go back. The Nagas in Myanmar are at peace with the Myanmar military.
There are reports of about 1000 refugees mostly Myanmar resident Kuki camped in Indian Kuki villages near the Moreh border in Manipur. A grand number of seven ethnic Burman refugees were allowed to go to Delhi following Manipur High Court orders. See https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/4/myanmar-nationals-given-safe-passage-to-delhi-to-seek-un-refuge.
So, where did the magical figure of 16000 refugees come up from ? This was clearly a ploy to scare valley Manipuri of an imaginary ethnic Kuki influx from Myanmar. A careful look at the national and regional media reveals that the usual suspects who are quite willing to take dictation from the spook agencies are working overtime.
The Manipuri people have been generous to a fault. See https://www.article-14.com/post/manipuris-help-myanmar-refugees-ignoring-bjp-order-to-politely-turn-them-away
The three states of Nagaland (215 km), Manipur (398 km), and Mizoram (510 km), which is 1123 kms in total, have a land frontier with Myanmar. These are the refugee receiving states.
There are no reports in the public domain of any refugees from Myanmar in Arunachal Pradesh which has a land frontier of 520 kms with Myanmar. Yet the frontier with Arunachal is added on to the figure mentioned in the SAHR statement. This amounts to deplorable scaremongering – that Myanmar refugee hordes are just waiting to enter and swamp India!
The third paragraph in the SAHR statement is revealing of the lack of understanding of the language of political science in India. No one calls the Union Government, “Federal Government” in political usage. The Union government calls itself “Central Government”, confirming Delhi’s desire to further strengthen the unitary tendencies prevalent in the Hindi heartland. The Constitution of India holds that the country is a union of states.
The fifth paragraph is troubling. It echoes the tripe that the spook agencies and their Hindu fundamentalist masters are putting out. A spectre of fear is sought to be created – that armed groups of indigenous peoples from across the border waiting to enter India! On the Manipur side of the border, in fact, it is the Assam Rifles, one of the Central Armed Police Forces that is known to carry out all kinds of illegal activities in connivance with armed gangs in the region. The Kuki political and Church leadership are aware and concerned about this. However, there is little they can do because of the patronage of the Assam Rifles on one side and the Burmese army on the other side to this lucrative illegal activity. Moreover, the Kuki political leadership lacks the iron political control that the Naga leadership exercises over their armed groups.
The attempt to paint the Nagaland situation with the same brush is laughable at best, and frightening at worst. The SAHR statement seems to have bought the line of the febrile imagination of the security apparatchiks, hook, line and sinker. The Naga Self-Administered Zone is a self-administered zone in the Naga Hills area of Sagaing Region of Myanmar. Their ceasefire with the Burmese army is holding. They have no desire to upset the comfortable lives they currently lead. The writ of the Burmese Nagas in any event does not run amongst the Nagas in Manipur and Nagaland. The National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Muivah) group holds the cards on the Indian side. They presently are at an uneasy peace with India. That the Naga insurgent groups indulge in the narcotics trade is a canard peddled by the Indian spooks for decades. The Baptist Church and the leadership of the NSCN (Muivah) due to their strong Christian faith do not look kindly at the narcotics trade. It is true that the leadership of the Naga insurgent groups in the past facilitated the small arms trade by levying a toll tax on all arms being transported in areas they controlled, However, their involvement in this for many years has been next to nothing, Any keen student of the region will inform you that all the residual insurgent groups, such as the holdout faction of the ULFA and the ragtag Meitei groups, have moved to areas controlled by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). The KIA is a firm believer in the power of the US dollar or the Chinese Yuan. Having the dinero counts, and calls for insurgent solidarity are met by quizzical stares in Laiza. The insurgent groups from the Indian side have very little cold cash presently.
The penultimate paragraph calling for UNHCR access to these three states and the setting up of a “sub office” is evidence, if further is needed that the SAHR draftsperson lives in cuckoo land. UNHCR in India has a timid protection policy even for refugees in New Delhi. Some years ago, a head of the UNHCR mission was given marching orders for having committed the capital crime of attending a seminar in Guwahati! Asking them for greater iniative in the region would keep you perennially rubbing the magic lamp.
As the old English proverb says, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”.