NE rebel outfits boycott Independence Day, call strike
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, August 11, 2012: As in the previous years, Coordination Committee (CorCom) Manipur, Hynnewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC), Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), National Liberation Front of Twipra (NLFT), Tripura People's Democratic Front (TPDF) and the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) have jointly called to boycott India's Independence Day in the North East region on August 15, and as a mark of solidarity against the alleged Indian colonial occupation and military repression, a general strike would be observed effective from 1 am to 5.30 pm of August 15 in the entire region, the Western Part of South East Asia.

A statement issued by CorCom's Media Coordinator H Poirei said that during these hours, essential services, emergency measures, media and religious activities are exempted from the purview of the general strike.

India's 'Independence Day Celebrations' on the 15th August are imposed, with a dirty politics behind it, to the innocent people of the region through the puppet-governments of the 'states' who are political stooges, tamed and domesticated by Indian colonialism and hegemony.

India was never a country before 1947, when the British left.

This part of the world was merely a geographical expression.

Through a continual process of British colonial expansion, the entire region of South Asia fell into their hands.

British expansionism was not restricted and confined to South Asia alone.

It consumed Burma and the so called North East 'region', the western part of South East Asia.

When the British left, not only the South Asian mainland, but the region also became independent on the 14th and the 15th August, 1947.This loosely administered sub-continent was polarized into two nation-states, India and Pakistan.

Since the very day the British left, Indian leaders launched an aggressive, regional expansionist policy with an imperialist agenda.

Using all possible political machinations, India annexed the whole of the region, a non-Indian territory inhabited by non-Indians.

To materialize her expansionist policy in the region, India uses two types of weapons: first, hard politico-military tools exemplified by administration, armed forces, AFSPA and NIA, etc.; and second, soft socio-cultural tools like education, media, symbols, rituals etc.

Observation of India's Independence Day celebration in the region is such a ritual that can have potent and long-lasting impact on hearts and minds of the indigenous people in injecting Indian nationalism into the core of their souls though outwardly it seems guileless.

"To non-Indian people like us, acceptance of Indian nationalism is tantamount to acquiescence in our imminent national death.

"Their objective is to obliterate our ethnic national identities by disconnecting us from our past, consequently from our present, and ultimately from our future, to graft us onto India's past, present and future, having a sense of community with other real Indians and to manufacture 'viable and usable' human beings out of us, to transform the racially different people from them and 'who have no established loyalty to mother India' into a harmless and homogenized people".

"In brief, India is trying to impose their national identity upon us by assimilating our racially different people and to transform us into a harmless, meek and homogenized people usable to them", the CorCom asserted.

This is their ultimate as well as civilized solution to dichotomy of contesting parallel nationalisms prevailing in the present India.

So, celebrating India's Independence Day is not less than subverting "our own nationalism and committing collective national suicide for a stable and strong India".

People of the region must give a fitting reply to the Indian political entrepreneurs by abstaining from such Indian observations, to unite themselves in grief and defiance.

"We need to dissociate ourselves from Indian national identity that is being forced upon us.

We can celebrate our first independence day only upon getting rid of the Indian rule and restoring our Sovereignty".

"Therefore, keeping faith in the collective strength of our region, we appeal to all our peoples to once again display our solidarity against India, the common enemy, by making the boycott and general Strike a complete success", it concluded.

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