[Assam] From the Sentinel -Letters to the Editor 17/05/2010

[Jyotirmoy Sharma]

Who is Chauvinistic?

It is unfortunate that Bodo Women Justice Forum (BWJF) president
Anjali Daimary is trying to give a communal colour to the entire
episode of the arrest of her brother Ranjan Daimary, the chairman of
banned NDFB who is the prime accused in the October 30, 2008 serial
bomb blasts case and other heinous crimes including the Bhimajuli
massacre of innocent non-Bodos. It is understandable if she was acting
as a sister, but it is indeed reprehensible that she chooses to do so
in the capacity of a ‘human rights activist’ representing a ‘justice
forum’.

It is surprising that Anjali Daimary voices her grave concerns only
when the human rights of members of one particular community are
affected, but shies away from upholding the very same rights when it
affects people other than her own. The clashes between Bodos and
Muslims and between Bodos and Adivasis led to the displacement of
thousands of people in Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon districts in 1993,
1996 and 1998, and in Barpeta district in 1994, which led to the
displacement of more than 3 lakh people belonging to Bodo, Muslim and
Adivasi communities. Majority of these people (primarily Muslims and
Adivasis) are languishing in temporary camps, and their children are
growing up without basic education and health care. These human
tragedies involve larger humanitarian issues, but Ms Daimary has
refrained from voicing concerns and demanding justice for these
people. Is it because they are non-Bodos? Will she be vocal enough to
ask the Congress-BPF government to make the Justice Haque Committee
Report on the Bodo-Muslim clash public and demand justice for
thousands of the displaced people?

She talks of Assamese chauvinism, but she has failed to voice out even
once in regard to Bodo chauvinism and discrimination meted out towards
non-Bodo indigenous communities such as the Koch-Rajbongshis, Rabhas,
Kalitas, Asomiya Musalmans etc in the BTAD area in regard to their
land rights, employment opportunity, safeguarding their identity,
political representation etc, even though racial discrimination
against them continues unabated. Has she ever questioned as to why the
Koch-Rajbongshi community, with a population almost equal to, if not
more than, the Bodos in BTAD does not even have one representative in
the executive council. Is it not Bodo chauvinism?

What is also interesting to note is that Anjali Daimary is blaming the
very government, in which BPF, a political party of the Bodo people,
is not only the main coalition partner of the Congress, but has
sizeable clout. What stops her from voicing or exercising pressure on
the BPF to withdraw from the government?

Martin Luther King had rightly said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat
to justice everywhere.” To my mind a true human rights activist should
be a humanist and should voice against injustice anywhere and to
anyone irrespective of any community, class, sex, religion etc, and
not take side which borders on radicalism.

Agni Rabha,
Bongaigaon.