TURA: As many as five tribal organizations led by the central executive committee of the Garo Students’ Union undertook a protest demonstration on Friday against the recent non-tribal participation in the elections to the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council.
Garo organizations such as the GSU, Association for Democratic Empowerment (ADE), FKJGP, A’chik Youth Welfare Organization (AYWO) and Federation for A’chik Freedom (FAF) surrounded the GHADC office premises and staged a sit-in demonstration with placards opposing the participation of non-Garos to the autonomous body.
Last year’s October elections for 29 seats of the GHADC had witnessed participation by non-Garos in the minority dominated plain belt region of West and South West Garo Hills in which two non-tribal candidates – Independent Sofior Rahman from Balachanda and S.G. Esmatur Mominin of the NPP – won. Addressing the protestors outside the council premises, GSU president Tengsak G Momin pointed out that the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution was created solely for the protection of the tribal population living in the hills of the Northeastern region.
He said that the founding fathers of the Constitution of India had specifically created the Sixth Schedule to protect the tribal people so that they would be able to preserve and follow the age old practises of their forefathers for the benefit of the tribal people.
He expressed anguish that in today’s political scenario non-garos and non-tribals are foraying into the domain of tribal areas which would not bode well for future generations of the tribal people.
The GSU president also claimed that the number of non-tribal voters enrolled in the GHADC electoral list had risen to a great extend as was evident from the deletion of names ahead of the last council polls.
He claimed that in Tura MDC seat alone as many as eight thousand ‘dubious’ voters were removed from the electoral list and another twenty thousand from the rest of Garo Hills but several lakh voters still remain in the list.
“We need to stand united and protect our tribal culture otherwise a day will come when we will face a similar situation like Tripura where the tribal population was swarmed by outsiders,” warned the GSU president.
Leaders from the other organizations also spoke at length on the importance of preserving tribal culture and reiterated that awareness programmes against non-Garo participation in GHADC elections would be raised after the completion of the upcoming by-elections to the Tura Lok Sabha seat.
