The North East is not just one land, one people, one issue. It is home to many peoples and nations, each with their own history, culture, language, and political aspirations. It is in their distinctiveness that they are dependent upon each other for their present and future existence as a region. While they have each journeyed in their pursuit for humanization, they have in varying degrees and forms engaged with the government for their rights. The people of North East have articulately asserted diverse forms of how to best reclaim, exercise and develop their capacity to determine their aspirations. The richness of their cultures is best demonstrated through the spectrum of alternative structures they aspire and envision for.
It is a matter of empirical fact that the confrontation between State and People of the North East has been manipulated into a confrontation between People and People, breaking down the organic and historical relationship they once shared with each other. The monopoly of the State to organize and re-organize territorial space into rigid boundaries for administrative control and temporary appeasement, bypassing all forms of democratic processes and ignoring the histories of the people have been most divisive for the North East.
In essence the State has in the name of territorial integrity negated the rights of people to exist with dignity. It is in circumstances such as these that we come to understand with better clarity that we are in the grip of a system that defines and divides, one from the other through imposed boundaries, which can only be sustained by the use of force and containment, thereby, denying all of humanity – for both oppressed and oppressors alike. It is here that we recognize the means of State violence as a reactionary means to quell a people’s aspiration.
Such intentions ignore Judge Hardy Dillard’s opinion in the Western Sahara case that “It is for the people to determine the destiny of the territory and not the territory the destiny of the people.” The rationale of State territorial integrity is not an end in itself and neither is it absolute because when the ultimate purpose of territorial integrity, which is to safeguard the interests of the peoples of a territory, is violated, the question of a people’s human security should take precedence. The right to self-definition is essential to human security and hence, it is for humans to decide which identity they prefer, unless of course they are constrained by superior powers to do otherwise.
In the final analysis, suppression, structural violence, militarization, psychological warfare, tokenism, divide and rule and draconian laws such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act have proved counter-productive in North East. Such policies have sustained the cycle of violence, which is destroying human life, with far reaching consequences on future generations. Although the root causes of conflict may differ extensively from one people to another in the North East, they are faced with common issues and struggles of freedom and dignity. It is therefore time for the people of the North East to engage in honest dialogue on how to create a secure and peaceful region based on respecting each others political rights.
This is a revised editorial that was first published in 2016.
