Guwahati Diary

Oversighted

Crisis of identity is one of the reasons being cited for the severe wave of violence which swept Assam in July last year. One which left close to 100 people dead and several hundred thousand homeless. But Chirang, one of the four severely affected districts of Assam other than Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon and Dhubri, is facing a fresh and unusual identity crisis. This Bodo-dominated dis­trict, carved out of three adjoining districts of Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon and Barapet in 2004, does not find mention in the official website of the Government of India, nic.in. When the district reorganising happened, possibly, no babu thought it prudent to inform their Delhi counterparts to insert Chirang. As a result, if you log on to gov.nic.in and search Assam’s districts, you get 26 names instead of 27. Chirang, the second least populated district with less than five lakh people, is missing.

While one district more or less may not make a difference to many across this continent, the collateral damage of this error is being faced by NGOs, one such being The Ant, its funds being held back by its foreign funder. The reason? The Ant, once located in Bon­gaigaon district, had to perforce “shift” its registered address to Chirang. The Union home ministry, which looks into FCRA fundings to NGOs, has refused to allow the fund transfer to The Ant because the district is “officially non-existent”. How do we release funds if the district where the institution is located is not even recognised by the Indian government, they argue. Incidentally, it is the same ministry which is responsible for adding or deleting names on nic.in. Last seen and heard, the Chirang deputy commissioner, Puru Gupta, who has done a remarkable job of putting his district on the state’s social media map, was trying to connect to Delhi, urging them to amend the oversight.

Many Questions, No Answers

Multiple theories abound over what caused last July’s violence in Assam. None of the 15-odd NGOs, bureaucrats, politicians, Bodo and minority group leaders we met and spoke to seemed to have a ready solution. One commonly expressed wish is: we are hoping that the soon-to-be-released language census throws up welcome statistics which show Bodos back in the majority in our homeland.

Desperately seeking recognition and respect, groups fighting for the Bodoland cause across Assam are now focused on May 12, when they celebrate the memory of the movement’s first two women martyrs and of little Rhomba, arguably the world’s youngest reported ‘martyr’. All of five months, Rhomba died in mourning when her mother, Gaide Basumatary, and another fellow villager, Helena Basumatary, were killed allegedly due to police atrocities two decades ago. Rhomba barely survived a few days without her mother but soon succumbed, prompting the movement to name her as a martyr as well.

Nagaland’s Voter ID Crisis

While Assam is battling identity issues, neighbouring Nagaland has a (voter) identity crisis of its own. Over endless cups of lemon tea, a motley bunch of active bloggers and government servants, all tri­bals from different districts, spoke of the “success” of the recently held assembly elections. The process was peaceful because we had community voting and family voting (in village Tuimei, for instance), they said. Community voting or family voting is when the headman or head of the family comes into the voting booth, alone, and votes on everyone’s behalf. One of those in the room told us how she voted for herself and then walked into the booth again and voted on behalf of her sister, because she “was busy with exams”. This time, the group told us, the voting was seamless. Too seam­less. In one village (Nzauna), the number of votes polled was more than the number of names in the voters’ list. Only if there is one voter-one vote do we face a problem, else it is almost like a live-and-let-live among political parties during the polls.

This reminded me of one of the earliest reality TV episodes on newsmagazine, Newstrack. Firebrand journalist Nalini Singh had showed on camera for the first time how booths were captured in Bihar and votes polled at gunpoint. We surely have come a long way in the last two decades. Or have we?

Culture Vulture Notices and gra­f­­fiti say a lot of a region’s culture. While in Mumbai, we often come across wall paintings warning people to be wary of bogus cops, in Assam, we saw graffiti urging people to say NO TO EXTORTION, NO TO KIDNAPPING AND NO TO MURDERS. And in another case, the police permit issued to us by the Superintendent of Police, Dimapur, for travel across the state of Nagaland requested all agencies “not to harass or detain” us during our tour.

The  most ‘powerful’ address in Nagaland...

...is the soon-to-be occupied official residence of chief secretary Alemtemshi Jamir. His wife, Banou, presently the additional CS, is next in line to the top job. Living under the same roof is their son, first-time MLA and minister Merentoshi.

Senior journalist Shishir Joshi is co-founder of Mumbai-based Journalism Mentor; E-mail your diarist: shishirj AT journalism.org.in