Break-Up India Article Was Part Of Chinese Military Spywar

By Subir Bhaumik

Almost coinciding with the 13th round of Sino-Indian border talks (New Delhi, 7-8 August, 2009), an article (in Chinese language) hasappeared in China captioned `If China takes a little action, theso-called Great Indian Federation can be broken up. It was written byone Zhong Guo Zhan and Lue Gang and it appeared on the website of China's International Institute for Strategic Studies, that is www.iiss.cn . The article has now been removed after furious Indianprotests, but not before the article was reproduced in several otherstrategic and military websites of the country. It targetted the domestic Chinese audience but was also meant to sent strong signals to India - if you get too close to the US and become part of its anti-China designs, China can create huge problems for India.
There are hardly any think tank in China that is not linked to some government branch or the other. Independent think tanks dont exist in China. So let us see where the IISS, whose website ran that "splitIndia" article that created such a flutter in India, is placed in the Chinese hierarchy. All available information suggests that it is partof the Second (Intelligence) Department of the PLA General Staff Headquarters. The second department is responsible for collecting military information and it runs the scores of Chinese military attaches at Chinese embassies abroad as well as several clandestine special agents sent to foreign countries to collect military information. It also produces the analysis of information publicly published in foreign countries.
The Second Department oversees military human intelligence (HUMINT) collection, widely exploits open source materials, fuses HUMINT, signals intelligence (SIGINT), and imagery intelligence data, and disseminates finished intelligence products to the CMC and other consumers. Preliminary fusion is carried out by the Second Department’s Analysis Bureau which mans the National Watch Center, thefocal point for national-level indications and warning. In-depth analysis is carried out by regional bureaus.
Although traditionally the Second Department of the General Staff Department was responsible for military intelligence, it is beginning to increasingly focus on scientific and technological intelligence in the military field, following the example of Russian agencies instepping up the work of collecting scientific and technological information from the West.
The research institute under the Second Department of the General Staff Headquarters is publicly known as the Institute for International Strategic Studies; its internal classified publication MOVEMENTS OF FOREIGN ARMIES [WAI JUN DONGTAI] is published every 10 days and transmitted to units at the division level. The Second Department of the PLA General Staff is headed by a very aggresive officer, Lt General Xiong Guangkhai. So when a research institute under such an officer talks of breaking up India, there is no way Delhi could wish it away. Let us see the salient points that the controversial article made.
According to the article, if India today relies on any thing forunity, it is the Hindu religion. The partition of the country wasbased on religion. Stating that today nation states are the main current in the world, it has said that India could only be termed now as a 'Hindu Religious state'. Adding that Hinduism is a decadent religion as it allows caste exploitation and is unhelpful to the country's modernization, it described the Indian government as one in a dilemma with regard to eradication of the caste system as it realizes that the process to do away with castes may shake the foundation of the consciousness of the Indian nation.
The writer has argued that in view of the above, China in its own interest and the progress of whole Asia, should join forces with different nationalities like Assamese, Tamils, and Kashmiris and support the latter in establishing independent nation-states of their own, out of India. In particular, the ULFA in Assam, a territory neighboring China, can be helped by China so that Assam realizes its national independence.
The article has also felt that for Bangladesh, the biggest threat is from India, which wants to develop a great Indian Federation extending from Afghanistan to Myanmar. India is also targeting China with support to Vietnam's efforts to occupy Nansha (Spratly) group of islands in South China Sea. Hence the need for China's consolidation of its alliance with Bangladesh, a country with which the US and Japanare also improving their relations to counter China. It has pointed out that China can give political support to Bangladesh enabling the latter to encourage ethnic Bengalis in India to get rid of Indian control and unite with Bangladesh as one Bengali nation; if the same is not possible, creation of at least another free Bengali nation state as a friendly neighbour of Bangladesh, would be desirable, forthe purpose of weakening India's expansion and threat aimed at forminga 'unified South Asia'.

The punch line in the article has been that to split India, China canbring into its fold countries like Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan, support ULFA in attaining its goal for Assam's independence, back aspirations of Indian nationalities like Tamils and Nagas, encourage Bangladesh to give a push to the independence of West Bengal and lastly recover the 90,000 sq km. territory in Southern Tibet.
Wishing for India`s break-up into 20-30 nation-states like in Europe, the article has concluded by saying that if the consciousness of nationalities in India could be aroused, social reforms in South Asiacan be achieved, the caste system can be eradicated and the region can march along the road of prosperity. The Chinese article in question has outraged readers in India after it was summarised by a well known China expert D S Rajan.
The External Affairs Ministry has also protested but without much impact. It has generally been seen that China is speaking in two voices - its diplomatic interlocutors have always shown understanding during their dealings with their Indian counterparts, but its selected media under its military set up is pouring venom on India in their reporting.
There is no doubt that the IISS article was part of China's psychological war against India. For some time, China has been very upset with India's growing strategic relationship with the US. I would say this is China's way of telling India not to go too far with the US.
We saw this kind of warnings appearing in the select Chinese media for about a year or two, warning India to "stop backing the Tibetan counter-revolutionaries" or face the consequences. Then came thet hunderous punch of 1962.
So if you see a smoke rise from China, be sure the fire is not toolong in coming.

။ Photos : BBC News, AP, Sikkim News, Wu Qiang (Xinhua)

( Subir Bhaumik is the BBC's East India Correspondent and a known military intelligence observer )

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North East India's Horrible Human Rights Record

By Subir Bhaumik

The 23rd July incident in the heart of Imphal is an absolute shocker. Former PLA rebel Chongkham was killed in cold blood and now six police commandos, who were responsible for his death, have been merely suspended after an extraordina series of photographs were published in the Tehelka sequencing the events that led to Sanjit's killing. The publication of the photographs comes days after Human Rights Watch published a highly-critical report into the conduct of the Indian police in which it highlighted the use of extra-judicial killings.
The pictures, published in the respected Tehelka news magazine, appear to show the sequence of events leading up to the shooting dead of a former militant, Chungkam Sanjit, and the aftermath of the encounter. The body of a pregnant woman is also shown; police later claimed she had been killed in crossfire with Chungkam. According to the official police account of the incident, which took place on 23 July, police were frisking people in the tourist city's Khwairamband Keithel market when they spotted a suspicious youth and challenged him to stop. In the police version, Chungkam pulled out a gun and fled, firing into the crowd. They claimed he was finally cornered in a pharmacy and was killed after refusing to surrender and opening fire with a 9mm Mauser pistol, which was purportedly recovered from his body.
But the pictures taken by a local photographer who has not been named by the magazine for his own protection appear to tell a rather different story and expose the lie of the police, proving they are not merely killers but liars as well. Chungkam is first seen standing next to the pharmacy alongside a number of heavily armed commandos (Pic-1). Far from opening fire and fleeing, he instead appears calm and is seen walking away with one of the commandos. There is no sign of any weapon in his hands. Another picture (Pic-4) shows a commando drawing a pistol and Chungkam is then seen being hustled into the pharmacy. In the last frame in which he is still alive, he still shows no sign of resistance. The next picture (Pic-7) shows him being dragged out by his feet and he is then dumped in the back of a pickup truck. The dead woman's body is also partly visible in a later frame.
Earlier this week a report by the New York-based group Human Rights Watch accused security forces in Manipur of widespread malpractice, including the use of torture and extra-judicial killing. The report claimed one officer told a researcher he had been ordered to commit an "encounter" killing. "I am looking for my target," the officer allegedly told HRW. "I fear being put in jail, but if I don't do it, I'll lose my position." Meenakshi Ganguly, Human Rights W'atch spokeswoman in India, said there had been a history of extra-judicial killing in Manipur which had to be tackled by the central government.
In Assam, the verdict of Parag Das' killing was another shocker. The accussed went scot free because the CBI had filed such a weak case. No wonder, the government always call for a CBI killing because it serves two purpose - it cools down public anger (as if CBI is the march of God on earth) and it finally helps the cover up. Manipur chief minister Ibobi Singh says he can order a CBI enquiry into the Sanjit killing - that is what the Assam government did when Parag Das was killed in cold blood. We can see what has come out of it - a clean chit for the killers. They have been let off.
That is why I was very suspicious when the Assam government ordered a CBI enquiry into the 30th October serial bombings, after its own police had done such a good job with the enquiry. I am aware of the enquiry - R Chandranathan may not be the most popular police officer in Assam because he does not call up the press to leak stories, as many others do, he may not also be a great field officer to handle law and order but he is a first rate investigator and a top class expert on Islamic movements. Now after he had come to clear conclusion about who had perpetrated the 30 October bombings, why did the case had to be handed over to CBI ? Perhaps to cover up some elements of the conspiracy which might upset some big people in power.
All said and done, it was important that the killers of Parag Das are brought to justice. He was not an armed militant, he was incapable of killing anyone. If the Indian state have to combat the ideology that Parag Das advocated, they would have to fight him at the level of argument. Not kill him. Because by killing him, one can not destroy the idea Parag Das advocated . Also take the case of Swadhinata Phukan (Real Name : Kabiranjan Saikia). He was no killer but a old-school Asomiya romantic. But he was killed in cold blood after arrest. Nobody wins a battle - certainly not a war - in this business of insurgency or counter insurgency unless you fight the idea, that the opponent of the state advocates. Fight the idea, not the man - that's what is needed. And if India has to display that it is a true democracy, unlike China, it has to ensure it fights the forces of separatism in Northeast at the level of politics, by argument, by convincing people that India has a future and independent small states like Assam dont have one. This is not a battle that can be won by guns. And it is too important a battle to be left to generals and police chiefs. There have been numerous incidents of human rights violations in Assam and Northeast India during the past twenty or more years. India, although lauded as the largest democracy in the world, has a consistently poor record in terms of human rights violations. Places where people have been tortured, maimed and killed by the Indian army, paramilitary forces, and the police on numerous occasions are primarily in Kashmir, Punjab, Assam, and the Northeast India. This must stop if we have to convince the world we are a democracy - merely holding elections does not make us a democracy.

။ Photos : Tehelka, Reuters and AP

( Subir Bhaumik is the BBC's East India Correspondent and a known Northeast India specialist )

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All Tripura Mega Quiz : Now A Local Festival

By Subir Bhaumik

Guwahati, 31 July :
Quiz as test of knowledge or as infotainment is available all over, but you have to come to Tripura to see Quiz as a local festival.
In its fourth year now, the Tripurainfo 'All Tripura Mega quiz' isonly getting bigger and bigger - more contestants, bigger audiences, more sponsors and ever-greater impact in society.
For the organizers, managing more than five hundred contestants and a full house at the spacious Town Hall is not easy. More so, because the audience is vociferous, often excitable, very involved in the proceedings and often as well informed as the contestants.
It is a challenge for us, the quizmasters. Three of us who run thistruly Mega quiz have to be on our toes for twelve hours (9 to 9), because even a minor slip, could mean big trouble.
What helps is all three of us are homegrown people, we know the audience, the people, the state. I belong to one of the oldest Tripura families and I am proud of my roots, though I don't live here anymore. My BBC job has taken me away from the state. Abhijit Bhattacharya is a superb science teacher who has made a great career in teaching and training with his School of Science. Again, he is an Agartala boy. Jayanchandran Panicker is from Kerala but he grew up in Agartala where his father taught physics in the local MBB college. He now practices medicine in the state. We complement each other's strengths and weaknesses.
The challenge is even greater for the anchor of the event, Subhrajit Bhattacharjee - because he is the lone anchor of the whole event. So while the quizmasters get some rest between their sessions, Subhrajitis the lone ranger, the man for all seasons.
The team of scorers and the Info volunteer team handling the event logistics also get no rest for twelve hours but they keep smiling. Our physical fitness and mental agility is tested to the limits. But thew hole Tripurainfo team rises to the occasion as one.
We are also learning - all the time. The regulations are evolving through experience. And the contest is getting bigger and better. So when we get a tie for the top positions - for the first, second and third place - we think on our feet and decide how we resolve the deadlock. That happened this year. The top two teams were tied at seventy points, the next two at fifty-five. All Tripura Mega quiz 2009 was indeed turning out to be the "battle of Stalingrad" as I predictedhalfway through the contest when that great battle of second World Warcame up for reference.
The audience was vocal and noisy, but they helped us with ideas on how to resolve the deadlock. It was a football style tie-break that was used to decide the winners. It was heart-break for some - comeuppance for others, those who made it. But the audience loved the tension, the uncertainty and finally the best team won.
But the mega quiz is no longer a test of knowledge or infotainment in Tripura - it has become a local festival for a large number of people. It makes page one news, it makes it to the TV bulletins. That rarely happens in any other state - surely not in the northeast.
Whole families turn up to celebrate the great contest of knowledge - and many go back happy, not only because they win prizes at audience rounds or their boys and girls win the contest, but because they love the sparring, the "rapid-fire" and the brain teasers that we throw atthem.

။ Photos : Tripura Info and Parthajit Dutta

( Subir Bhaumik is the BBC's East India Correspondent and a quizmasterin All Tripura Mega Quiz )

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Tipaimukh Dam : Hidden Facts Cause Concern

By Subir Bhaumik

Bangladesh has raised major objections over the 1500 MW Tipaimukh hydro-electric project. River experts in that country fear that this project could be another Farakka type disaster for them as it could reduce the water flow into the entire Meghana river system. The whole of Sylhet region and adjoining areas could suffer desertification, these experts argue. In fact the Bangladesh government has been studying the downstream effects of a Tipaimukh Dam-break since 1992-94, when India first conceived the project In the Flood Action Plan (FAP) 6 as part of the North Eastern Regional Water Management Plan of Bangladesh, the scenario of a dam failure at the Tipaimukh Dam project was investigated by hydraulic and environmental experts in the context of a comprehensive flood action plan for Sylhet district.
Bangladesh also studied the Cachar plain irrigation project downstream of the dam planned by NEEPCO. Regulation of the Barak’s flow by the Tipaimukh Dam would provide NEEPCO with the opportunity to irrigate the Cachar Plain and this is exactly what NEEPCO proposes to do. Since the Cachar plain irrigation plan involves the loss of water downstream, it is a matter of concern to Bangladesh, particularly its northeastern region about the extent of water diversion a continuous basis during the six dry months (November through April).

Bangladesh is therefore well within its rights to be worried about two possible consequences of the Tipaimukh project - loss of water in the Meghana river system that could lead to desertification of the entire Sylhet region and a worst case scenario of a dam failure that could devastate the lower riparian areas of Barak and Surma valley. Northeast India is one of the ten most earthquake prone zones - so a dam failure scenario should not be treated lightly. If the Sylhet region looses water resources and suffers desertification, there could be a rise in illegal migration into Assam and Meghalaya.
So though the a part of the Assam - the Barak valley in particular - will benefit from the irrigation and flood control component of the Tipaimukh project, the state as a whole will have to take a holistic picture of its interests. And in that holistic picture, the possibility of increased illegal migration caused by possible desertification of Sylhet region should be factored in.

Having said that, it is also true that the hue and cry over Tipaimukh has resulted from the compulsions of Bangladesh's domestic politics. The Islamist political opposition in Bangladesh is trying to derive much political mileage from the Tipaimukh controversy - and they will keep doing this because they have no real issue now to corner the ruling Awami League. The BNP's flip-flop on the Tipaimukh is interesting. Once a decision to send an all-party delegation to Tipaimukh was taken in Dhaka, the BNP backed out and said its representatives will not be part of it. Even the Jamait-e-Islami has decided to be part of it. But the proposed visit of the parliamentary delegation has been put back for reasons better known to the powers that be in Dhaka. The Opposition's huge defeat in the parliament electios and their failure to take much advantage out of the BDR mutiny has made Tipaimukh an attractive issue for them to try and cash on. But If we leave this aside as normal compulsions of domestic politics in Bangladesh, it still falls on India to take a lower-riparian neighbour like Bangladesh into confidence when we plan such huge projects like Tipaimukh. Unless we do that, we not only create additional difficulties for our friends in Bangladesh, like the Awami League, because we end up providing political handle to the Islamist forces who want to fish in troubled waters.

We will also have to take care of Manipur's interests. Manipur will get only 42 MW of electricity from the first two units of the project that will generate 500 MW. For that, it will have to loose 293.56 square kilometres of land due to submergence by the dam reservoir - of which 4760 hectares are gardens and 2053 hectares are fertile ricelands. is that not a huge price to pay for such meagre electricity ? The project may also end up dividing upstream and downstream communities - the former obviously upset with loss of land where their ancestors lay buried and where their livelihood will be at stake, the latter obviously looking at immediate benefits like flood control and irrigation which will augment their agricultural capabilities . Manipur has faced the Bosnian symdrome for a long time - and the federal government and its agencies have fuelled this ethnic divide, sometimes backing the Nagas, but sometimes backing Kukis to combat the Meitei rebel movement. If Tipaimukh ends up aggravating these ethnic divisions any further, the federal government should give the project a serious rethink. It is always important that such development projects are planned with political insights - so that the interests of all the communities within a state, the interest of all the states and that of our neighbouring country Bangladesh is taken care off. Much as war is too important an issue to be left to generals alone, hydel projects are too important to be left to engineers alone.

■ Photos : Reuters, Firoz Ahmed, Mustafiz Mamun and Bangladesh PID

( Subir Bhaumik is the BBC's East India Correspondent )

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Lalgarh : Maoist Road To Kolkata

By Subir Bhaumik

India's Maoist rebels wanted to seize the embattled forest enclave of Lalgarh in southwestern Bengal because they saw it as their first major "base area" in the state of West Bengal. This is why they have even described Lalgarh as the "second Naxalbari". Since November last year, the Maoists have slowly but steadily dug their feet into tribal-dominated Lalgarh. The Left Front led state government had lost complete control.
But why would Lalgarh be so important to be Maoists, as much as to equate with Naxalbari. Naxalbari was the site of India's first peasent uprising inspired by Mao Zedong Thought, an uprising that started the process of an armed Maoist movement that spread across India like wildfire. Though Naxalbari is now inhabited by struggling tea workers and smugglers trading in contraband with neighbouring Nepal, it still inspires all those who believe in a Maoist revolution in India.
The only thing that is common between Naxalbari and Lalgarh is that both have predominantly tribal populations who are alienated and have not benefitted from the land reforms of the Marxist government. The tribals in Bengal’s Junglemahal area (in which Lalgarh falls) have been completely alienated because in the last 30 years, they have got nothing from the Communist coalition government here. The Communist rulers have taken the tribals for granted. The Indian Left, specially the CPI and the CPI(M) had never understood the tribes , the power of ethnicity. Not withstanding the 1973 Prakash Karat thesis on "Language and Nationality Politics in India", perhaps written as a student leader in Jawaharlal Nehru University. The Maoists have been different. Slowly but steadily since the crushing of the first Naxalite movement, the Maoists have clawed their way back as an effective political force by playing on tribal anger across India's huge tribal heartland in central India. Today they are a powerful force in the entire Chotanagpur plateau where much of India's mineral wealth is located. I saw this process start when I visited Bastar in 1982 as a cub reporter. I did write a piece "Red Star over Bastar" which was syndicated in dozens of newpapers by Richa Features run by the late Janardhan Thakur.
Maoist leader Kishenji claimed in a BBC interview that the mass movement in Lalgarh against “oppression of the establishment Left and its police” has given them a major base in West Bengal for the first time since the Naxalite uprising was crushed in the mid-1970s. We have 1,100 villages with us in the movement. The resistance they have offered in the face of massive state-led coercion has given us much hope, as did the mass boycott of the parliament polls in the area,” he said. “For the first time since the Naxalite movement, we have struck a place which is the weakest spot of the state and which automatically makes it our stronghold.” That is why the Maoists - who have already established their influence in eastern and central India - were keen to hold on to Lalgarh as their “first major guerrilla zone” in Bengal. “It was not a liberated area, as has been wrongly referred by the media. But it was surely emerging as an effective guerrilla zone, where we could undermine if not fully drive away the state,” says Kishenji (real name : Koteswara Rao, a former Calcutta Tramways employee).
If Lalgarh was secured as a base, the Maoists could then spread their influence elsewhere in Bengal. Lalgarh is important for the Maoists because they are now keen to regain their influence in West Bengal. They were already getting some sympathy from a section of the intelligentsia that is disillusioned with the ruling left after police excesses in the land rights movement in Nandigram. Besides, they could also penetrate the disgruntled industrial workers unions which were upset with the Left’s support for capitalism. Winning over the Bengali middle class through the intelligentsia and the industrial workers are key elements in the new mass line that the Maoists adopted in their last party congress. Kishenji has said that by the time of the 2011 Bengal state assembly polls, they will have a major presence in Kolkata. So Lalgarh for the Maoists is a halfway house to the big city.
But some feel the Maoists overplayed their cards by striking at security forces and CPI(M) activists in Lalgarh in May end. When the police was thrown out, alarm bells rang in Kolkata and Delhi. That set the stage for the massive security operation to recover Lalgarh and reaffirm administrative control there. Since the Maoists have now been projected as the number one security threat for India by prime minister Manmohan Singh, the new Congress led government could ill afford the brazen takeover of Lalgarh by the Maoists. Regardless of their angst with Bengal's ruling Left.

■ Photos : AFP, Reuters, Naxal-Watch and Arpan Mukherjee

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(Subir Bhaumik is the BBC's East India Correspondent)

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Lalthanhawla's Singapore Bomb On Racism

By Subir Bhaumik

Did Mizoram chief minister Pu Lalthanhawla cross his Laxmanrekha at Singapore this month when he spoke at the the local Waterweek festival ? I would imagine, the answer is yes and no. We have no transcript of his speech - or a written copy, so Lalthanhawla can always say he was misquoted by the media - the usual escape route for publicity-seeking politician who shoot their mouth a bit too far. But Indian diplomats in Singapore do confirm that much that has been attributed to Lalthanhawla was actualkly said by him. The Mizoram chief minister, whose Congress party staged a grand comeback by sweeping the state assembly polls this year, said three things, according to the diplomats who were present. He said people from Mizoram and Northeast were victim of discrimination elsewhere in India, that people elsewhere in India did not even think they were Indians and that he was as much an Indian as anybody else in this country. He somewhat overstepped his limits when he used the word "racial discrimination" to describe the troubles people from Northeast faced elsewhere in India.
I see nothing really wrong with his remarks. It is true most of our Mongoloid-looking brothers and sisters are not seen as "proper Indians" elsewhere in India. Many in Delhi or Bombay or down south would mistake them for being Nepalis or Chinese. They also face a lot of trouble in places like Delhi, where a large number of Northeastern girls have been raped, molested or taken advantage of. Their distinct and somewhat westernised lifestyle and clothes often give our "mainland" brothers the wrong impression - that they are easy to have. And they face this because they are seen as different. It is a lot of ignorance and quite a lot of bias that goes to create such a situation. Even Shahrukh Khan understood (In Chak De India movie) this problem when he potrayed the trouble faced by the two tribal girls from Manipur in his world-beating Indian woman hockey team - initially these two girls were told by the heavy and huge Punjabi defender that they should have learnt Punjabi before they came to Delhi.
The neglect of Northeast by successive Indian government is further compound by the way the people of mainland India look at the region. So Lalthanhawla clearly spoke the truth when he said that he was seen as a Nepali down south and that he was as much Indian as anybody else. What he perhaops did not say but could well have is that he had to pay the price of being an Indian - specially as a Congressman in the days of the MNF separatist insurgency when Mizos loyal to India were killed or harassed.
But Lalthanhawla made the mistake of context. He said all he did before an international audience and in the context of the racist attacks on Indian students in Australia.
The Australians deserve the strongest condemnation for what is happening in that country and it is not expected that a senior Indian politician, wherever he comes from, will help them get off the hook by an off-the-cuff remark. Lalthanhawla and many, many of his Mizo brothers, one must remember, are beneficiarcies of the Indian system. He has been the chief minister and scores of Mizos now man important positions in Indian bureaucracy, police and other public services and the armed forces.
But I have a much bigger criticism to make. Lalthanhawla should look within his own society in Mizoram to see how racism pervades his own state. The Mizos fought India for twenty years to get freedom. They finally settled for a separate state. But look at the way they treat their own minorities - the Chakmas, the Brus and the rest.
That is what late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi reminded MNF chief Laldenga in 1987 when Laldenga pushed for abolition of the Chakma district council. "If you Mizos want justice from India, give justice to your own minorities, the Chakmas," Rajiv Gandhi reminded Laldenga. Look at what is happening to the nearly 30000 Brus (Reangs) who have been driven out of Mizoram by the likes of the Youngnmen Christian Association - for nearly twelve years, successive Mizoram governments have refused to take them back saying they were not Mizoram residents. That is a big lie. I was in Tripura and witnessed personally the first exodus of the Brus when they first started fleeing West Mizoram into Tripura's Kanchanpur area in October 1997. I know for a fact that most of these Brus are long term residents of Mizoram. But Lalthanhawla's predecessor Zoramthanga clearly told me in a BBC interview in 2002 - "These Brus are Reangs, they are from Tripura, they have their Rajas, they are not Mizos.
Ofcourse they are not Mizos. But who said all residents of Mizoram have to be Mizos. They are Lais, the Maras, the Chakmas, the Brus and the Chins in Mizoram - they are not Mizos but they are residents of Mizoram. No Mizo political party has any sympathy for them. All Mizo political leaders behave as if these minorities dont deserve even the right to stay in Mizoram. Government employees there can strike off the name of even a former Chakma minister of Mizoram government S.P.Dewan from the voter's list.
The minority grievances against Mizo racist domination gave way to greater unity among themselves and their organisation even demanded the creation of a Union territory in South Mizoram by uniting the Pawi, Lakher and Chakma district council.
So Pu Lalthanhawla, before he started blaming India for not doing justice to Northeast, should get his act together on the minority issue and give justice to the Chakmas, brus and the rest of the non-Mizo minorities. Charity, Pu Lalthanhawla, begins at home. Take back the Brus from Tripura and give them back their lost homes before you blame Indians for "racial discrimination" against Mizos or Northeasterns. Atleast mainland Indian people can be blamed for ignorance when they think you are Nepali . But Mizos know their minority - and the chief minister should take the lead in giving them justice if he feels so strongly about racial equality.

■ Photos : Survival International, Biplob Rahman, Unicef and PTI

(Subir Bhaumik is the BBC's East India Correspondent and a known Northeast India specialist)

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Paresh Barua Should Learn From Prabhakaran's Death

By Subir Bhaumik

Kolkata, 29 May :
Paresh Barua has recently hailed Prabhakaran as one of the greatest revolutionaries of all time, a great freedom fighter whose example will continue to inspire all who fight for freedom. It is natural that Barua will say all this because the ULFA has not only been influenced by the LTTE's example but have actually got a lot of help from the Tamil Tigers. LTTE Colonel Rajan first visited the ULFA camps at Lakhipathar and Saraipung and advised Paresh Barua on how he should fight the Indian army . That was the time in the late 1980s when an Indian military offensive against the ULFA was looking imminent. It is also not known to most of Indian intelligence and police who loudly boast of knowing everything about the ULFA that Prabhakaran put Paresh Barua in touch with some arms dealers of Tamil origin in Southeast Asia , so that the ULFA could access the thriving weapons blackmarket in Southeast Asia .
Some of the top arms dealers in Southeast Asia are people of Tamil origin -- the Karikal Muslims. Karikal like Pondicherry in South India was a French colony until 1952 and its large Muslim population are traders who went and settled down in French Indo-China in large numbers . Those of them who nsettled down in Cambodia had strong connections with the Khmer Rouge -- and Prabhakaran started using them for securing a steady supply of weapons and ammunition when he fell out with India and Delhi send the IPKF to tame the Tamil Tigers. Some of these people were introduced to Paresh Barua and through them the ULFA got access to fresh supplies of Chinese weapons because the Khmer Rouge had strong connections which was picked by these arms traders from Karikal.
Barua learnt much of his global networking -- on the arms procurement front, on the financial front, on the political liasion front -- from Prabhakaran. My good friend Bertil Lintner, one of the best journalists based in Southeast Asia and who knows the insurgents based in Thailand better than anybody , told me that he once saw Paresh Barua and a senior LTTE leader dining in a Bangkok restaurent . When he asked Barua , the ULFA senapati told him -- "Our relations with LTTE runs deep." Now Lintner is famous for the 2200 kms foot trek he undertook through the rebel held areas of North Burma in 1985 -- and that is when he met Paresh Barua in the camp of the Kachin rebels who were training the new recruits of the ULFA. So Lintner knows Barua very well and once when Lintner was dining in my Calcutta house, I got a call from Paresh Barua asking me to pass on the phone to Lintner -- from what I could gather, they were trying to set up a meeting in Bangladesh or Bangkok.
But Paresh Barua should know that there are two types of revolutionaries -- the ones like Prabhakaran who fight and die a bitter end because they cannot compromise and there are the ones like Nepal Maoist chieftain Comrade Prachanda who would know when to compromise , who are pragmatic (bastabadi) and who would not try to come to power only through the barrel of the gun but may also use other less v iolent means to achieve their objective.
It is entirely upto him to decide whether he wants to be a Prabhakaran or a Prachanda. But he has to ask himself a question and seek a clear answer -- what use it is to die for a cause if you can live to serve it . Prabhakaran should have realised he can never get his independent Tamil Ealam if India did not back him. Using India's desire to find a durable solution to the Tamil problem, he should have found the best possible deal for his people -- complete autonomy including local police (where his guerrillas could have been absorbed) . If the Sinhalas were not sincere and the deal failed, he had the option of resuming an armed struggle but Prabhakaran never gave peace a real chance. Instead he went against India and by killing Rajiv Gandhi made sure his people would never get Indian support. The Bangladeshis in 1971 were smarter -- they got full Indian support to gain independence and only after that have they dared to disagree with India or oppose it. Prabhakaran tried to take on India before his Ealam was a reality -- and after what he did , India saw to it that Ealam was never a reality.
Prabhakaran is a genuis in terms of organisation but his military skills were average . He also had no regard for the lives of his guerrillas. Otherwise he would not have thrown waves of Tiger fighters at Sri Lankan military positions at places like Elephant Pass earlier in this decade. That's when the LTTE lost almost one-third of its trained figthing manpower . A general is useless if he wastes his trained manpower on human-wave attacks -- he has to find a better , a more intelligent way of neutralising his enemy. Prabhakaran was deadly terrorist, a tactician, his instincts were sharp , his intelligence was fantastic but he did not marshal his military resources well enough though he must get credit of developing these resources in very adverse circumstances.
If a great revolutionary of a small area like Prabhakaran does not understand the importance of how to handle big powers, if he cannot get his diplomacy right, his objective will always remain unfulfilled . He will end up a great matyr (shahid) but he will get very little for his people who expect some returns for all their sacrifices. Prachanda could have pushed and taken Kathmandu with his Maoist guerrillas because the Royal Nepal Army was demoralised and Kathmandu was encircled on all sides and had no supplies getting through the Maoist encirclement (chakravuyha) . But he did not do it and settled for a UN brokered peace deal because he knew a Maoist push on Kathmandu would lead to Indian and possibly US military intervention. For a revolutionary to realise these greater realities is as important as it is for a doctor to know the whole medical history of the patient rather than concentrate only on the disease he or she is now suffering from. Politics is the art of the possible and revolutions do not attain success unless the leaders get their politics right.

I would repeat that Prabhakaran was a great terrorist organiser who excelled in developed secret networks . But his battlefield skills were average and he lost a lot of his fighters unnecessarily. Paresh Barua does not have an organisation which has people who will stand up to a regular army. Belatedly their incapability to launch effective guerrilla attacks on security forces has forced the ULFA to attack only soft targets -- in short, killing innocent people by bombs. That's one thing he now has in common with Prabhakaran -- both killed a lot of their own people.Prabhakaran started his terror career by killing the Tamil Mayor of Jaffna -- he then killed leaders of all other Tamil rebel factions and spedcially the moderate Tamil politicians. Today, there is a clear political vaccum in Jaffna as a result of Prabhakaran's purges -- purges that resemble Stalin in some ways.
I have no doubt that if Paresh Barua follows Prabhakaran's path and prepares to fight for 200 years , he will ruin Assam. Bhutto promised a 1000 year war with India -- now thirty years after his death, his country is falling apart.Paresh Barua must also realise he does not have an organisation that is anywhere near the LTTE in motivation, training and fighting skills. He must realise he cannot achieve a revolution by managing a group of bombers .With Bangladesh's new government getting more and more hostile to the ULFA (see what is happening to the Chittagong arms case ) , with Pakistan almost falling apart, with the bases in Bhutan gone and with huge pressure mounting on Burma to act against the ULFA-NSCN bases, I dont think there is much left for Paresh Barua. Assam's independence may be close to his heart but is that ever possible ? Unless Barua's politics is based on what is possible, he may end up as another Prabhakaran.

(Subir Bhaumik is the BBC's East India Correspondent and a known Northeast India specialist)

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