Aizawl: The Centre’s lack of proper appreciation of social, political and demographic peculiarities of region is responsible for turmoils that have been plaguing the northeastern region, Mizoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla said here on Friday.
”The conflicts witnessed in the North East for decades seem to carry with them an ideal or goal. The projected goal is to preserve ethnic identities, perceived to be in danger of being swamped by culture alien to the people, and to undo the alleged wrong done to them by years of neglect with the resultant economic deprivation,” Lal Thanhawla said at a closing function of a national seminar on ‘Peace and Development in Mizoram : Challenges and Prospects’.
The seminar was organised by Zoram Research Foundation, in collaboration with Indian Council of Social Science Research — North Eastern Region and Mizoram University, to mark the 25th anniversary of the Mizoram Peace Accord.
Strongly denouncing an expression of grievances in the form of violence, the Chief Minister said one needs to look deeper into the psychological, ideological and socio-economic causes that have prompted people to resort to violent agitation avowedly to get their grievances redressed.
Lal Thanhawla, who had to surrender his chief ministerial throne in 1986 as the first step to restore permanent in Mizoram, recalled the 20-year-long insurgency that ravaged the Northeastern Indian state before the signing of the historic accord between the Indian government and then outlawed Mizo National Front led by the late Laldenga.
”The administration could have possibly been more sensitive to the issues raised by the aggrieved section of the people at that time and could have handled them with greater foresight and imagination.
The two decades of insurgency in Mizoram was a result of the insensitive approach of the government of that time which failed to assuage the hurt feelings of the Mizos, who had suffered a great deal due to Mautam, the gregarious flowering of bamboo followed by rodent upsurge and famine.
”Insensitivity and negligence on the part of the power that be is also one of the causes of the Maoist problem in some of the states. What needs to be highlighted is the fact that progress demands as much a peaceful environment as good governance,” he added.
Claiming that the Mizo Accord is one of the few successful peace accords in India, Lal Thanhawla acknowledged crucial role played by the churches and the civil societies in restoring peace and preserving it.
”One lesson that we Mizos have learnt is this that for peace efforts to be successful, there has to be a spirit of dedication and sacrifice on one hand, and the realisation of the futility of violence, on the other.
”Both sides have to demonstrate a spirit of give and take. Also needed is a committed bureaucracy. Fortunately for Mizoram, there was an enabling environment,” Lal Thanhawla pointed out. (UNI)