NE rebel groups ban I-Day celebration
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, August 10 2017: Seven rebel outfits namely Hynniutrep National Liberation Council (HNLC), Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP), Kamatapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL), National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB), National Liberation Front Twipra (NLFT) and People's Democratic Council of Karbilongri (PDCK) have called a total shut down in the entire North East region from 6 am to 6 pm of August 15 .

"To resist Indian occupation and hegemony, almost all communities of this WESEA region have risen in arms and armed struggle is still going on.

As a part of this continuing resistance struggle, we declare to ban India's Independence Day celebrations in our WESEA region", said a joint statement .

India had never been a country or a Nation until 1947, when the British colonialists left this part of the world .

During the two centuries before 1947, many regional nationalisms in different parts of this south Asian sub-continent rose in response to the expanding British colonization.

But these regional nationalist struggles had been progressively subsumed under a Pan Indian nationalist movement in tandem with the progress of this colonization culminating into total subjugation of the sub-continent.

Colonialism is the real mother of the present Indian state, reads the statement .

A brand new history of this new Nation was constructed by Indian scholars as a part of what Sudipta Kaviraj called 'the imaginary institutions of India' .

A new Indian sociology, a new Indian anthropology, a new Indian discourse and narrative and a new Indian cognitive paradigm had been crafted through a subtle art of cherry-picking of manufactured facts out of a labyrinth of myths, semi-myths and truths.

Nehru's so-called masterpiece, the Discovery of India is, in reality, the Invention of India.

The past was restructured to shape the present and consequently, the future, it continued .

With the departure of colonial masters, the new country embarked upon an ambitious project of occupation of the rim-lands, through every possible means, political and military.

A beautiful mix of treachery, bribery, deception, cajolery, coaxing, threats and actual military actions was improvised masterfully to expand the new country.

Thus a new India was forged as an unnatural union or as an expansionist freak.

India became a 'prison-house of Nations', it alleged .

The entire WESEA region has been subjected to forceful occupation of the mainland Indian regime .

With the birth of a new State, the on-going Indian Nation-making process has been accelerated with coercive State power, both hard and soft .

It is natural for ultra-nationalistic and over-enthusiastic mainland leaders of a multi-ethnic and multi-national 'State-Nation' like India, to go the extra mile to transform it into a mono-ethnic and mono-national 'Nation-State' as soon historically as possible .

Logical consequence of this Nation-making process is total assimilation of the rim-land non-Indians like the 'Weseans'.

Assimilation is nothing but collective death of assimilated communities, it said .

To perform this jingoistic task, the present Indian establishment uses both violent and non- violent actions.

It has no qualms in using the ultimate forms of violence — like annexation of new territories, State-terrorism under AFSPA, collective fine, rape with immunity etc .

To reinforce their hegemony over the peripheral non-Indians, in addition to the hard violent tools, they use soft ones like education, mass media, films, literature, arts and culture, and symbolic instruments like observation of National days, celebration of National festivals, ritual obeisance to National heroes etc .

The objective is to manufacture consent of the subjugated peoples in an easier way, in order to facilitate assimilation, or in reality, ethnocide of the rim-land Nations.

It is almost impossible to achieve this objective through violence and with other hard tools .

Observation of Indian Independence Day, which falls on the 15th August, is one of such symbolic instruments, sacred and unassailable for mainland Indians, but vicious and malicious to the colonized peripheral non-Indians.

Celebration of such occasions can create a false consciousness of enjoying political freedom in the minds of subjugated people, it added.

Comment