Monday, February 10, 2020
History Headline: Bodo accord follows a series of betrayals
In 1986, the first Bodo militant outfit, the Bodo Security Force (BSF), was born, followed by the Bodo Volunteer Force two years later.
On January 27, the 3rd Bodo Peace Accord in the form of Bodoland Territorial Region was signed, effectively ending insurgency that has lasted years.
In the late 19th and early 20th Century, Bodos and other native communities in Brahmaputra Valley witnessed large-scale in-migration from the then East Bengal and the Central Indian Chota Nagpur region. A British administrator, Sir Edward Gait, predicted in his book A History of Assam that the extinction of the Bodo community was just a matter of time.
It is around this time that a socio-political-religious leader, Gurudev Kalicharan Brahma, started mobilising Bodos and other plains tribes to reclaim their ethnic and linguistic identity. In 1928-29, a Bodo delegation led by Brahma submitted a memorandum to the visiting Simon Commission, demanding a Bodo Regiment in the British (Indian) Army; reservation of seats in Assam’s Provincial Council and local bodies; and the right of Bodos to enlist separately as Bodo in the electoral roll and Census. Many of demands were later conceded through the Government of India Act 1935.
In 1935, the Assam Tribal League won many seats and supported the Gopinath Bordoloi-led Indian National Congress government in Assam. In 1948, through the Assam Land and Revenue Regulation, tribal land was sought to be protected by creating a separate Tribal Belt and Block, a move that led to the merger of the Assam Tribal League with the Congress.
In 1952, two powerful socio-cultural-literary bodies, the Bodo Sahitya Sabha (BSS) and All Assam Tribal Sangha, moved in to fill the political vacuum amongst the Bodos. While in 1963 the BSS managed to get Bodo language introduced as a medium of instruction in schools, the Tribal Sangha stuck to political demands. In the 1960s, with India witnessing the creation of separate states on linguistic and ethnic lines, the Bodos remained hopeful of a state. But while most of the hill districts of Assam were created to safeguard hill tribes, the Bodos, one of the largest tribal groups of India numbering more than four million, were once again forced to take up political demands.
In 1967, the Plains Tribal Council of Assam (PTCA) and All Bodo Students Union (ABSU) were formed, seeking a separate state by the name of ‘Udayachal’ for the plains tribes.
Around the same time, the BSS launched a mass movement seeking that the Assamese script be replaced with the Roman script. The Assam government tried to crush this movement, imprisoning thousands. In 1973, 17 people were killed when police fired on protesters.
This planted the seeds of Bodo militancy. In 1986, with Bodofa Upendra Nath Brahma as president, the ABSU decided to take over the movement for a separate state and called it Bodoland. A mass moment was started on March 2, 1987, which was countered by the Assam Gana Parishad government, then flush with the success of the Assam Accord of 1985.
In 1986, the first Bodo militant outfit, the Bodo Security Force (BSF), was born, followed by the Bodo Volunteer Force two years later. In 1989, a riot in Gohpur area between the Assamese and Bodos led to killing of 550 Bodos while over 75,000 fled to Arunachal Pradesh. This fuelled the divide between the Assamese and Bodos. With law and order collapsing, the Centre deployed the Army across Assam.
On May 1, 1990, ABSU president Brahma died and it started talks with the Government, leading to the first peace accord on February 20, 1993, and a Bodoland Autonomous Council (BAC). However, when not even one of its clauses was implemented by Assam, a section of the ABSU leaders went underground to form the Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT), one of the most ferocious militant groups of our time. In the meantime, the BSF, with camps in Bangladesh, Bhutan and Myanmar, renamed itself the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB).
What followed were gun battles, killings, kidnappings, extortion. All the Bodo areas were brought under AFSPA.
At the time of the 1999 Kargil War, responding to a plea by then home minister L K Advani, the BLT declared a ceasefire, facilitating safe passage for the Army through the Siliguri Corridor that connects Northeast to mainland India. Finally, on February 10, 2003, the Bodoland Territorial Council Accord was signed, facilitating Bodoland Territorial Area Districts. It covered Baksa, Chirang, Kokrajhar and Udalguri districts of Assam.
In 2004, a Suspension of Operation Agreement was signed between the NDFB and the government.
With little emerging out of the negotiations, a section of the NDFB broke the Agreement, and carried out attacks across Assam. Gobinda Basumatary went on to form the NDFB(P), even as a large number of cadres remained with the parent organisation led by Ranjan Daimary.
Daimary led from his hideouts in Bangladesh until he was arrested in 2010, after which NDFB too declared a ceasefire. But again nothing emerged from the peace negotiations. Finally, thanks to protests by the ABSU, the Central and state governments started negotiating with all factions. It was this that eventually led to the signing of the 3rd Bodo Peace Accord, with all four factions of the NDFB surrendering on January 30 in Guwahati.
(Written by Raju Kumar Narzary)
The writer works with the North East Research & Social Work Networking, a voluntary organisation based in Assam
Source: Indian Express, 9/02/2020
Going Through The Experience
Pop a paracetamol pill and in a couple of hours, the fever subsides. The symptom is treated and the patient is happy to see a palpable result. Similarly, as we scurry through life, burdened by the plentiful chores and the external pace set by the fast and furious world around us, ‘ends’ matter and not the ‘means’. Result has to be instant and predictable. We seldom value the process or the experience that an activity gives us. We expect every endeavour to end in incredible wizardry. Suppose we attend a two-day crash course on yoga, we expect all our mental and physical ailments to vanish as if the teacher held a magic wand. The real beauty of experiences like yoga or meditation is the process, and being one with the experience itself. These experiences are meant to be savoured as they prepare us to realise our potential and expand the realm of possibility. Allowing ourselves to ‘be’ in the experience, without pre-setting results and looking for them impatiently, will do wondrous things toward enriching our existence. The possibilities of individual experiences can be myriad. Looking for quick and predictable results can only kill the richness of experience by building frustration and negativity. Results will slowly but veritably manifest like a plant growing, maturing and flowering. The flowering will be so complete and bountiful that the existence will get fragrant and blissful.
Source: Economic Times, 10/02/2020
Friday, February 07, 2020
First Published December 26, 2019; pp. 143–144
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First Published November 13, 2019; pp. 145–157
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First Published November 13, 2019; pp. 158–173
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First Published December 5, 2019; pp. 174–180
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First Published November 22, 2019; pp. 181–208
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First Published November 13, 2019; pp. 209–221
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First Published November 25, 2019; pp. 222–237
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Interrogating Culture
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First Published December 5, 2019; pp. 238–244
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Photoessay
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First Published December 26, 2019; pp. 245–252
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The new surrogacy bill protects the interests of all
It will help childless couples, while ensuring that the surrogate mother, and the child, do not suffer
Research done by the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that in 2010, 48.5 million couples worldwide were unable to have a child of their own. They suffered from infertility, which, the WHO says, is a disease of the reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse. Given the advancements in medical science, couples have been trying different medical solutions to have children.
Over the years, India has become the hub of the global fertility industry, with reproductive medical tourism becoming a significant activity. Clinics in India have been offering assisted reproductive technology (ART) services such as gamete donation, intrauterine insemination (IUI), in vitro fertilisation (IVF), intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), and gestational surrogacy.
Surrogacy, in particular, has drawn many childless couples to India in the last few decades. Surrogacy is an arrangement where a woman (the surrogate) offers to carry a baby through pregnancy on behalf of a couple, and then return the baby to the intended parent(s) once it is born. Broadly, surrogacy is of two types — traditional and gestational. Traditional surrogacy involves insemination of the surrogate naturally, or artificially, with the semen of the male partner of the childless couple. A child born this way is genetically related to the surrogate mother. This has several ethical, social and legal implications. In the case of gestational surrogacy, an embryo from the ovum and sperm of intended couple is fertilised in a test tube and transferred to the womb of the surrogate. A child born through gestational surrogacy has no genetic similarity to the surrogate mother.
While many couples benefited from surrogacy facilities in India, the practice has persisted without any legal framework, working only on the basis of vague guidelines. Under these circumstances, there have been many reported incidents of unethical practices surrounding surrogacy. These practices include the exploitation of surrogate mothers, abandonment of children born out of surrogacy, and the import of human embryos and gametes.
There has been widespread condemnation of commercial surrogacy because of these very issues. In 2014, an Australian couple refused to accept one of their biological twins born through surrogacy because of the gender of the child. Many poor women in India took to becoming surrogate mothers repeatedly despite grave implications to their health. Despite this, commercial surrogacy was upheld by the Supreme Court judgment in the case of Baby Manaji v Union of India. Similarly, in the case of Jan Balaz v Anand Municipality, the Gujarat High Court (HC) reiterated the apex court judgment upholding commercial surrogacy. The HC said commercial surrogacy was held to be legal in India as there was no law prohibiting womb-lending or surrogacy agreements.
In its 228th report presented in 2009, the Law Commission of India recommended that surrogacy be regulated through a suitable legislation. The Law Commission recommended the only altruistic surrogacy be legalised and commercial surrogacy be totally banned.
The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019, was passed by the Lok Sabha on August 5. The Rajya Sabha, in its meeting held on November 21, 2019, adopted a motion to refer the bill to a Select Committee.
The committee studied the best practices in surrogacy globally keeping in mind Indian needs. In the United States and Argentina, surrogacy requests are decided by independent surrogacy committees. In the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Ireland, Denmark, Belgium, South Africa, Australia, Canada and Greece, only altruistic surrogacy is allowed. Commercial surrogacy is legally allowed in countries like Russia, Ukraine, and Thailand. In France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Italy and Iceland, surrogacy is banned in all forms.
The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill is an ethical, moral and social legislation as it protects the exploitation of the surrogate mother and protects the rights of the child born through surrogacy. It seeks to constitute a national surrogacy board, state surrogacy boards and appointment of appropriate authorities for regulation of the practice and process of surrogacy.
To begin with, the couple seeking surrogacy will have to provide compelling condition for wanting a child through surrogacy. They have to be Indians, but can also be non-resident Indians, persons of Indian origin or overseas citizen of India. The surrogate needs to be married and have her child as some procedures of surrogacy may lead to infertility. Single women cannot opt to have a child through surrogacy, but exceptions have been made for widows and divorced women if they obtain a certificate of recommendations from the National Surrogacy Board. An insurance coverage for 16 months is proposed for the surrogate mother to take care of all her medical needs in the case of emergency conditions/complications. Surrogacy clinics cannot undertake surrogacy-related procedures unless they are registered with the appropriate authority.
Surrogacy is a blessing for many childless couples. The bill tries to ensure that while childless couples get what they want, nobody, including the surrogate mother and the children born out of surrogacy, suffer.
Bhupender Yadav is an MP and chairman of the Rajya Sabha select committee on surrogacy law
Source: Hindustan Times, 7/02/2020
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