After Arunachal, Mizo Govt in Soup

By Sandeep Ashar

The contentious plot in Vashi. Narendra Vaskar

Mumbai, Oct 31 :  It's not just the Arunachal Pradesh government that brought in a private player to exploit commercial space on land allotted to it at subsidised rates in Navi Mumbai by the Maharashtra government. It turns out that Mizoram government has taken a similar route.

It has tied up with US Roofs — the same company that Arunachal government picked up for developing its plot — to build a state guest house and market the balance space commercially. On March 9, 2010, CIDCO had signed a lease agreement with the Chief Secretary of the Mizoram government allocating a 21,348-sq ft plot for the guest house. Like in Arunachal Pradesh's case, the agreement bars the Mizoram govermment from transferring or assigning rights or using the plot for any other purpose.

Citing financial constraints, the Mizoram government, however, involved USR in the project.

Mizoram's acting chief secretary M Sathiyavathy said a formal agreement was yet to be signed with the developer. An official communication to CIDCO in 2011 by the Mizoram government, however, spells out the details of its arrangement with USR.

On November 1, 2011, K T Lalrikhuma, Deputy Secretary, General Administration Department, Mizoram, informed the CIDCO Managing Director that as per the draft agreement between USR and his government, the developer will be allowed to exploit 75 per cent of the built-up space while constructing the guest house at his cost on the remaining space. In response, the Manager (Town Services) of CIDCO, on November 30, 2011, said, "While any such BOT (build-operate-transfer) arrangement had no relevance since the lease agreement prohibited it, the Mizoram govermment was free to award a contract for the purpose on terms it deemed fit and suitable."

Newsline found a display board indicating that USR was a "contractor" for the Mizoram Bhavan (see pic). On Tuesday, The Indian Express had reported how the Arunachal Pradesh government found itself in the dock for sub-leasing the 26,375-sq ft Navi Mumbai plot it had received at subsidised rate. Documents obtained under the Right To Information (RTI) Act reveal that authorities of Mizoram and Uttarakhand, too, were firming up plans to allow private developers to commercially exploit lands similarly allotted to them.

However, the developer's official website has advertised the property as commercial and available for sale or lease. Building plans, accessed under RTI, show that the total construction proposed was over 50,000 sq ft. The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation is yet to grant commencement certificate for this work. Local realtors confirmed that the current market rates for commercial properties in the region was Rs 25,000 per sq ft.

CIDCO's Joint MD V Radha had said violations in the case of all such plots were being examined.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna has written to Maharashtra counterpart Prithviraj Chavan for permission to undertake development on public private partnership basis on the plot allocated to it. Newsline has a copy of this communication.

Mizoram Elction Update: Oct 30

EC instructs Mizoram election department for VVPAT system in 10 constituencies

Aizawl, Oct 30 : The Election Commission has instructed the Mizoram election department to use Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail System (VVPAT) system in 10 Assembly constituencies in the coming elections to the 40-member state legislature to be held on November 25.

The instruction was issued yesterday to introduce VVPAT with the electronic voting machines (EVMs) and would be used in 10 seats out of the 11 seats within Aizawl city, state Joint Chief Electoral Officer H Lalengmawia said here today.

"The constituencies where the VVPAT system would be introduced would be decided by the state election department," he said, adding that being a new equipment, the Election

Commission wanted the VVPAT with EVMs to be introduced in the urban area where it would be easier to be monitored.

Earlier, the opposition Mizo National Front (MNF) had expressed doubts about the reliability of the EVMs and suggested to the Election Commission that the EVMs might have been manipulated in the 2008 Assembly polls which resulted in the unprecedented victory for the Congress which bagged 32 seats.

The major opposition parties - the MNF, the Mizoram People's Conference (MPC), the Zoram Nationalist Party (ZNP) and the BJP state unit recently submitted a joint memorandum to the Election Commission seeking introduction of the VVPAT with EVMs.

The parties expressed the desire that the voters would be able to exercise franchise without having doubts and with transparency. 

Mizoram CM likely to contest from two seats

Aizawl, Oct 30 : Mizoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla is likely to contest the November 25 Assembly polls from Serchhip constituency from where he has won five times and also from Hrangturzo, Congress sources said.

Lal Thanhawla has successfully contested from Serchhip for five times since 1984.

He lost from the constituency only once in 1998.

Earlier he had won from Champhai seat in 1978 and 1979 assembly polls. But since 1987, the seat became the home turf of MNF chief Zoramthanga.

Mizoram Opposition Parties Form Alliance

Aizawl, Oct 30 : The Mizo National Front (MNF), Mizoram People’s Conference (MPC) and Maraland Democratic Front (MDF) today entered into a pre-poll alliance for the state Assembly polls that are just 27 days away.

According to the agreement reached between the three parties, the MNF will contest 31 seats, the MPC will contest eight seats and the MDF one.

The seat-sharing formula was announced today at a news conference attended by MNF vice-president Tawnluia, MPC party executive general secretary Kenneth Chawngliana and the lone sitting MDF legislator P.P. Thawla.

According to the seat-sharing arrangement, the MPC will contest from Aizawl North 1, Aizawl North II, Aizawl East I, Champhai South, Hrangturzo and Lunglei East constituencies. The MDF will get the constituency it already holds — Palak.

The MNF will contest the rest of the seats with support from the MPC and MDF.

The MNF, which is considered the “main” Opposition party in the state has to claw its way back after it was virtually wiped out by an anti-incumbency wave in the 2008 Assembly elections — managing to win only three seats.

The wave swept the Congress party to power — giving it 31 seats. But the MNF got 30.6 per cent the total votes while the MPC got 10.38 per cent.

The Congress, on the other hand, got 38.98 per cent of the total votes but won 80 per cent of the seats. So, leaders of the MNF, MPC and MDF probably figured that forming a coalition would give them a winning formula.

The three-party front would release its joint manifesto shortly, Tawnluia said.

The Zoram National Front (ZNP) that fared poorly in the last elections, getting only two seats, is still trying to work out its strategy for the coming elections.

At the same time, a newcomer to the political scene, the Zoramthar Duhtute Pawl (ZDP), has already declared its intention to contest the Assembly polls but has not revealed from which constituencies it will contest.

These two parties could sink the plans of the MNF-MDF-MPC trio.

The Congress party leaders, including chief minister Lalthanhawla, are currently camped in New Delhi to get the stamp of approval for their list of candidates, party sources said.

MNF Wants To End Favouritism, if Voted To Power

Aizawl, Oct 29 : To put an end to nepotism, opposition Mizo National Front (MNF) has promised voters that recruitment for all government jobs would be made through employment exchanges, if the party is voted to power in the forthcoming Assembly elections to be held on November 25.

MNF leaders said yesterday that they would stop the practice of recruiting youths for government service on the basis of recommendations made by politicians and government officials.

The MNF leaders, former ministers R Lalthangliana and Liansuama and former legislator Lalchhandama Ralte, also assured voters that Lok Ayukta, an anti-corruption authority at the state level, would be set up which would be empowered to investigate government employees and public servants, including Chief Minister and ministers.

The party, they said, would also work for unification of the ethnic Mizos and apologised for the resolution passed in the Assembly for fencing the Mizoram-Myanmar international border during MNF rule.

The opposition party also promised to scrap the existing 'life-time payment' of vehicular road tax being imposed by the present Congress government which, they said, was a "heavy burden" on vehicle owners and the common man.

Grape-Growers Sour Over Winery Issues in Mizoram

By Rahul Karmakar

Aizawl, Oct 29 : In Champhai North, Champhai South and East Tuipui — three of Mizoram’s 40 assembly constituencies south-east of capital Aizawl — wine is the guiding spirit of the people when it comes to elections, given that all three constituencies fall in the grape-growing belt.

The three constituencies have 33,000 voters and 25% of them are linked to the grape-growing business. In 2008, the three constituencies voted out the Mizo National Front (MNF), which had fought the anti-liquor church, to end a 13-year wait for wineries. And now, some 3,000 grape growers of the area are unhappy with the Congress, which facilitated those wineries. No apparent logic, but the determining factor is always wine.

The wine-connect

The area’s wine-connect goes back a little more than a decade. Farmers here rode a horticulture wave to cultivate the prescribed Bangalore Blues grapes, not popular as table fruit but apt for making wine.  But it turned out that Champhai was too remote for its grapes to be economically viable for wineries beyond Mizoram.

The alternative — setting up wineries near the vineyards — was not easy especially as the influential church had in 1997 made the state government enforce the Mizoram Liquor Total Prohibition (MLTP) Act.

The MNF government managed to convince the church and the MLTP Act was amended in 2007 but MNF chief Zoramthanga lost both the Champhai North and Champhai South seats he contested a year later, possibly because of his disconnect with local issues due to anti-incumbency.

The Congress pursued the wineries after coming to power in 2008 and production of red port wine with 14% alcohol content began in 2010, but the church soon intervened, forcing the government to lower the alcohol level to 11%. It did not please consumers.

“The demand fell subsequently,” said R Thangseia, general secretary of Champhai Grape Growers’ Society. The Congress government, he added, has ignored pleas for fiscal aid towards expanding the wine business and boosting its demand.

Mizoram Polls: Just 2 Woman Candidates

Aizawl, Oct 29 : Going by numbers, the Mizoram polls are going to be a women's show all the way, with more female voters (3,49,506) than male (3,36,799) being part of the electorate. But though the number of female voters is higher, if history repeats itself, women candidates are unlikely to squeeze any advantage out of the numbers.

So far, only a couple of possible women candidates are clearly identifiable. The 2008 Mizoram election featured nine women candidates, but none of them made it to the state assembly.

Former TV anchor and councillor of Aizawl Municipal Council Lalmalsawmi has already made her presence felt in Tawi constituency where she will be up against the Congress No 2, present home minister R Lalzirliana.

The other woman in the fray is Congress youth president C Lalawmpuii, who's the daughter of one of the most prominent leaders of the Mizoram Congress - C Chawngkunga. There is a chance that she would be contesting from the Champhai North constituency.

Apart from these two women, a few names have started to surface, but no clear information is available on their candidature.

Some of the names are the former president of an apex women's body Mizo Hmeichhe Insuihkhawm Pawl (MHIP), B Sangkhumi; Mahila Congress Committee chief Tlangthanmawii; and former underground cadre B Lalzarliani. But there is no confirmation of these three women joining the fray as yet.

It's ironical that women, who are accorded a respectable position in the Mizo society and form a large part of the workforce, haven't been able to make their mark in state politics. While about 45 per cent of Mizoram's total female population work, in politics, their presence is restricted to barely three per cent.

"It's a matter of concern that even though women are highly respected in the Mizo society, politics are way out of their league at the moment," said H Lalchhandama, a local writer. "Statistics of past elections do not favour the women candidates, but if the women voters choose to vote for them on the basis of their gender, the female candidates have a chance of being successful," he added.

The first woman legislator of Mizoram, K Thansiami, was elected to the legislative assembly in 1984 on a Mizoram People's Conference ticket. She beat veteran politician C Silvera, who later became Union minister for health. She won by a convincing margin in Aizawl West constituency.

The last Mizo woman legislator, Lalhlimpuii, was elected to MLA in 1987 and was made minister of state in the late chief minister Laldenga's ministry.

Are Indians Offenders Or Victims Of Racism?

NEW DELHI – Most Indians believe in the myth about the presence of racism only in foreign countries and see themselve sas a victim of it.

On researching about the social attitudes of Indians towards being racist, it was found that the country has the least tolerant population towards people from other nations and their ethnicity. Another racist country like India is Jordan, situated in the Middle East where there is racist manifestation.

Even though the global survey says that India is a racist country,it might be slightly hard to believe as western countries are said to have racism issues with people of different skin tones.

The study says that the United States,Britain, Canada and South America are among the least racist, reports Rediff.

Interestingly, the survey claims that most racially intolerant population sexist in the developing world. According to the Washington Post, the data for the survey came from the World Value Survey, which calculated the social attitudes of people across countries.

The survey asked individuals about the type of people that they would refuse to live next to.Racially intolerant respondents answered back saying ‘people of a different race’ which was counted as a major percentage for each country.

People of 80 different countries were surveyed to know about their preferences of people whom they would want as neighbors. About 40+ percent of Indians and Jordanians are among the least racially tolerant people, and in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Vietnam, Indonesia,South Korea nearly 30 – 39.9 percent people are racists. Countries like France, Turkey, Bulgaria, Algeria, Morocco, Mali, Zambia,Thailand, Malaysia, The Philippines, Bangladesh and Hong Kong have 20 – 39.9 percent racist crowd.

On the other hand, United States,Canada, Brazil, Argentina,Colombia, Guatemala, Britain,Sweden, Norway, Latvia,Australia and New Zealand are some countries that are tolerant towards people from other races.

Only a small percentage of people are racists in these nations.The World Values Survey reveals that Chile, Peru, Mexico, Spain,Germany, Belgium, Belarus,Croatia, Japan, Pakistan, South Africa have 5 – 9.9 percent racists.Furthermore, the World Values Survey says that Finland, Poland,Ukraine, Italy, Greece, Czech Republic and Slovakia also fall under the category of the most tolerant nations towards people of diverse races, having a racist population of about 10 – 14.9percent.

On comparing the percentage,Venezuela, Hungary,Serbia, Romania, Macedonia,Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Russia and China have a racist crowd but fall under the category of racial intolerance as there are 15 – 19.9 percent racists in each of the countries.51.4 percent of Jordanians said that they would not prefer to have neighbors who are of a different race, whereas it was 43.5percent of Indians who said the same.

The survey also established the fact that racial tolerance was low in Asian countries. But the case was different in the for Pakistan. Only 6.5 percent of Pakistanis had an objection with neighbors of different race, despite its location in the least tolerant region of the world.

The survey says that racist views are stunningly rare in the U.S. It is only 3.8 percent of residents who are hesitant of having a neighbor from a different race. The data shows that Anglo and Latin countries are the friendliest ones when it comes to welcoming people of different race.

The Washington Post reported that people from the United Kingdom and its Anglo former colonies (the United States,Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and in Latin America were the ones who are most likely to embrace racially diverse neighbors. Also, in the Middle East, where immigration is a big issue, people are not very tolerant towards races apart from their own.

However, in India, there is no escaping from racism. Indians have treated their fellow Indians as outsiders because of their appearance. The problem is that people from the North East constantly have to battle to be recognized as Indians in India.

Various groups of people, particularly the north-east Indians have experienced forms of racial discrimination and highlighted the practice of racism in India. It maybe hard to digest the fact that’ racially aggravated’ crimes have been committed against the north-east community people by their own country people.

The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs asked all states and union territories to file case against anyone who addresses a person from North East India with offensive words. The punishment is up to five years imprisonment and denial of anticipatory bail.

The north eastern side of the country has been isolated from all other Indian states and hence these states do not get equal importance like other parts of the country.

Not just this side of the country, but people from the southern states face discrimination based on their dark skin. With such less unity in the country, the slogan of’ unity in diversity’ sounds so hollow.

My Mother, The Naga Warrior

By Esha Roy Full circle Child meets the descendants of the warrior who adopted her mother, Ursula Graham Bower, at Magulong; (below) Child and with her mother and sister Allison in England, in traditional Naga attire

Her daughter travels to Nagaland to retrace the fascinating journey of Ursula Graham Bower, the British woman who made her home in these hills in the 1940s, learning the ways of the Nagas, and leading them against the Japanese during WWII It was an arduous journey for 62-year-old Catriona Child. A flight to Guwahati from New Delhi, a train to Dimapur, a night halt and then a 15-hour drive across the sparsely inhabited Peren district of Nagaland. But as she rode through yellowing fields of tall reed encircled by bluish mountains; as she hurtled and slipped while climbing slushy mountain slopes on foot, and hitched rides on dilapidated World War II trucks and newer gypsys, on her way to the remote village of  Magulong on the Manipur-Nagaland border, she was also coming home.

At the entrance to the village, children stood in a line, welcoming them with a song sung to the tune of God Save the Queen. "They had been waiting for us for several hours," says Child, who was accompanied on her journey by a group of friends and cousins. As was their tradition, the villagers offered to carry their guests in but when they protested, they tied a rope to the front bender of the gypsy and pulled it all the way to the church at the centre of the village.

With that, Child had travelled through an arc of time — Magulong was where her parents Ursula Graham Bower and Colonel Frederick Nicholson Betts were married by Naga rites over 60 years ago. Her mother, the amateur anthropologist who lived for several years with the Nagas, whose life and customs she was documenting in the 1940s. Her mother, whose image was splashed on the cover of Time magazine in 1945, celebrated as the woman who led a squad of Naga warriors against the Japanese during World War II.

Graham Bower, who was described by her mother to the Time magazine, as one who "never would sit still", arrived in Assam in 1936, a disappointed woman. Having fought all her life to be sent to the best private schools in England, the 22-year-old had been denied a chance to study at Oxford because of a financial crunch at home. "She felt that her life was over. Till a friend, Alexa Macdonald, whose brother was an Imperial Civil Service officer recently posted in Manipur, invited her to join them. My grandmother, who never understood my mother's ambitions, felt it was
a good thing and that she would find a husband here. Instead my mother found the Nagas," says Child.

In the beginning, Graham Bower, a plump, academic woman, did what other white women of the Raj did — shop at a bazaar in Imphal or watch a polo match on a sunny afternoon. Then, on a trip to Kohima, she spotted the muscular Nagas for the first time, in their traditional kilts and ornaments. Graham Bower would tell Child much later that she felt a strong connection with these mysterious people, a sense that her destiny was tied with them. She began visiting Naga areas and photographing them. When she went back to London and showed her anthropologist friends the photographs, they encouraged her to return to finish the work she had started.

Between 1939 and 1946, Graham Bower travelled to remote villages, helping the people with medicines and rudimentary medical care, as well as photographing them and documenting their traditions. She spent many years among the Zemi Nagas, the object of her study, in Laisong village in north Cachar, Assam.

In 1942, thick in the middle of World War II, her presence and familiarity with the villagers was a strategic advantage for the British, who did not have many friends among the local, often hostile, tribes. "Maybe, because she was a woman and not an official, people began to accept her,'' says Child. Graham Bower's medical kit had become popular among residents. There were few antibiotics available, so the medicines she carried would be the only care they had for sores, fevers and infections. Over time, she developed an unshakeable bond.

When the Japanese army invaded Burma in 1942 and threatened to push forward to India, she was recruited by the British to scour the jungles for the enemy. Bower mobilised the Nagas against the Japanese, placing herself at the head of a formidable band of 150 warriors, armed with ancient muzzle-loading guns. She herself would carry two sten guns. They came to be known as the Bower Force, for rescuing wounded Allied pilots and ambushing enemy missions.

It was in the hills that she met Lt Col Frederick Nicholson Betts, a fellow adventurer, who she married in 1945. The newly-married couple set off toward Magulong a year later to meet the tribes in "Manipur State, outside British India and 30 miles off across forbidding hills". First down into Jiri valley, over a steep hill, climbing over Maovam in lashing stinging rain and running down hills to finally reach a camp where the headman of Magulong, Khutuing, was waiting for them. He was carrying a ge-ze — a human hair-tufted shield and two long strands of human hair in his two ear lobes — a sign that he had taken the head of a Kuki. It was from Khutuing that Graham Bower learnt the headhunter's war cry. "My mother really loved them, as Magulong was a warlike village, very much like Khonoma, where the Angami (tribe) lived,'' Child says.

In her 1952 book, Naga Path, an account of her life in the hills, Graham Bower writes of her second wedding in this village. "Tim and I had been married, the village knew, by the sahib's laws and rites. But there ought to be more. It was right that I, who was a Zemi, should also be married by tribal rites as well — the only rites that the Zemi recognised. Magulong, therefore, proposed to see it done." Not only had the Zemi accepted Graham Bower as one of their own, but she had also started dreaming in their language, believing herself to be one of them, says Child.

For the ceremony, Khutuing adopted Graham Bower as his daughter and another family of warriors adopted Betts. There was singing and dancing and drinking till the early hours of the morning. A villager stumbled upon a bear in the middle of a field and speared it. He said he had killed it on behalf of Betts, in honour of his bride Asaipui, or the queen, as she was known by the Zemi.
Child is here to visit the two families who adopted her parents. Over a meal of meat, boiled greens and rice beer, she tells Gobi and Rimzam Disuang, 88 and 85 years respectively, the descendants of Khutuing, "I only have a sister, no brothers. You are my Naga brothers.''

Rimzam was six when Graham Bower first came to Magulong village, now in Manipur's Tamenglong district. "We had never seen a white person before and were frightened. She had different skin, hair, eyes, ears. She was so big! One of her thighs was the same size as a child. We all ran away. Then she took her gramophone to a small knoll in the middle of the village. There she started playing music. We went up to the knoll and looked around for the person singing the song. But there was no singer. Only a box from which these songs emanated in a strange language. One of the gaon budas (village elders) warned us. He told us not to listen to these songs as they would attract us and convert us to a strange religion,'' recalls Rimzam.

Child first came to India in 1986, intrigued by her mother's stories, and tried to visit north Cachar.

"But there were many restrictions then and I was turned away. I never told my mother I was attempting the trip. When she later found out, she was furious, first of all because it was a dangerous journey to make at the time and also because she was jealous that she couldn't be with me," says Child. It was only much later in 1996, after a decade of building contacts, that she met the Nagas from Magulong in Shillong.

A freelance writer and editor, Child is now documenting many of the dying traditions and folklore of the area. "I am worried that with the onslaught of modernity, the traditions will disappear. At some point I plan to write a book on my journey, just as my mother did,'' she says.

Child recalls that three villages were particularly dear to Graham Bowers — Laisong, Magulong and Asulu. "Not only did I want to come to the village that married my parents but also climb Mount Kisha which my mother spoke so much of and wrote about in her book. The villagers believe that there are spirits on the mountain guarded by the god, Kisha. Even my father, who was an ardent biologist, said that when they had climbed the mountain before their wedding, he heard strange cries that he could not attribute to any animal he had ever known,'' she says.

The mountain, which is estimated to stand at 1,462 m, lies on the Nagaland-Manipur border. Its north face falls in Nagaland, while the other side drops precariously into a clearing where Magulong village sits quietly, forming the northernmost periphery of Manipur and linked by a new muddy road to the world. Time stands still here. Rice is grown in the flat lands at the drop of the ranges, water is collected from the river which forms a natural boundary between the two states and hunters, armed with guns and slings, travel into its forests to bring back birds, porcupine and jungle fowl. There are no grocery stores, no modern amenities, just thatched huts and a church around which village life revolves.

Soon after India won its Independence, Graham Bower and her husband left for Kenya, where Child was born. She never returned to Nagaland after that.

Graham Bower died in 1988, two years after Child's aborted trip to the hills. The villagers of Magulong and Laisong had got in touch with her a while ago. "She wanted to do something for them,'' says Child. After her death, Child gifted the two villages Rs 2.5 lakh each. Laisong used the fund to build a guesthouse and a recreation centre for its children. Magulong used half the amount to set up an annual award for its best student, the other half to buy traditional attire for its cultural performances. "That my mother would really have approved of. She loved the dances of Magulong,'' says Child.

PICS DEEPAK SHIJAGURUMAYUM