NGO forum declaration lists northeast as `occupied'

By M.S. Prabhakara

DURBAN, AUG. 27. Some formulations of the NGO forum declaration to be adopted in conjunction with the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) in Durban on September 1 have relevance to the political situation in India, in particular the northeast which is described as ``occupied territory''.

Section 2 of the declaration, dealing with ``victims of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance'', has a sub-section comprising six paragraphs dealing with ``people under foreign occupation''. The first paragraph, much of which deals with India, reads thus: ``Acknowledging that foreign occupation creates an environment in which the occupied people are exposed to gross violations of human rights and freedom, we extend our solidarity to the struggles for self-determination for the people of Palestine, West Sumatra, Aceh-Sumatra, Bougainville, Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura and other States and indigenous communities in the northeast of India, in the northeast of Sri Lanka, in Tibet, Kashmir, Bhutan, Mindanao and elsewhere in the world. Where States deny self- determination to its people, these regions are rendered as occupied territory.''

Of the remaining five paragraphs of this sub-section, two deal with Palestine, and three with Tibet - ``the situation of six million Tibetan people suffering under 50 years of the occupation of their country''.

The formulations about northeast India, and even more so about Tibet, show an astonishing ignorance - of political and even historical facts. No wonder the section dealing with ``effective remedies'', where formulations about northeast India are not taken up, is reverential in its reference to ``his holiness, the Dalai Lama'', with whose ``Tibetan Government in exile'', the Chinese Government is urged to ``open negotiations''. This so- called ``Tibetan Government in exile'', like the Bantustans of apartheid South Africa, is not recognised by any other country, not even by India, its reluctant host. It will be interesting to see how the organised Left in India, sections of which, as seen from this distance, seem to have become indistinguishable from the NGO sector, reacts to such political formulations.

The NGO declaration also has many references to caste and untouchability, and the condition of the Dalits in India. The declaration at the very outset describes the caste system as ``the root cause of untouchability that results in intolerance and discrimination against Dalits'' and as ``a heinous crime against humanity.''

Unlike the formulations about Tibet and northeast India, the declaration's critique of caste and untouchability shows a much better understanding. However, here again the overkill and the demand for immediate, normal solutions underline the unreality of much of the NGO moralising on such deeply- entrenched economic and social evils. Hence, the self- contradictory formulations of paragraph 236 of the declaration: ``We call on all States to recognise that caste discrimination based on descent and work is a contemporary form of slavery that should be abolished, and the abolition is enforced even when the perpetrators are States or State agents.'' A State which is condemned for perpetrating and sustaining this ``contemporary form of slavery'' is also enjoined to enforce the ``abolition'' of this practice.

Indeed, much of the justified indignation of the declaration is a bit of a non-starter because its utter lack of understanding of history, of historical imagination, of the correlation of class and political forces and their economic and social underpinnings. With such ``enemies'' ranged against them, even the most oppressive of State systems have little to fear. The four-day meeting of the NGO forum (August 28 to September 1) at a venue adjacent to the Durban International Conve tion Centre, where the main WCAR will open on August 31, is expected to adopt this declarati on, as well as an elaborate ``progr amme of action'', on September 1.

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