When you get more than a billion delusional people in a country, who has a big armed forces and nukes, this is what you are going to hear from them, constant threats of invasion and aggression. People do what they can get away with. I am sure many Indian Hindu's secretly hope to nuke us on some excuse, to get revenge for the past humiliating Muslim rule. So it should be a wake up call for Bangladesh. Pakistan did many things right to counter India, getting nukes was one of them.
What we need to do is the following:
- kick Indian agents out of power
- get nuclear power generation and learn nuclear technology as soon as possible, because we have severe power problems which we have no hope of solving without nuclear power
- finalize a defense contract with China to get nuclear shield so any attack on our territory would be considered an attack on China, not sure if this is possible or not, but without a nuclear shield we remain vulnerable (this brings a very important question, did we achieve independence or actually lost it and become a vassal state?)
Coming back to topic. So far I made the following observations:
- China is covertly in contact with NE insurgents and providing some level of support, but they want to officially deny it, using plausible deniability
- I am not sure if China wants to see an independent NE states country, or think that it is even possible. It could be that they are just using NE insurgents as a leverage to tighten the screw to increase pressure on India, if India makes wrong moves about other Chinese interests like Tibet, Taiwan, SCS etc.
- if China is just using NE insurgents as a leverage, essentially as cannon fodder, without a sincere long term goal to make that land mass and its people independent then this is bad news for them, they might as well make some good deals with Indian govt., give up insurgency and get on with ASEAN integration, road/rail link etc., but regardless of the situation, my personal suggestion would be to send their young in ASEAN+ states (Japan, Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia etc.) for education, jobs and to create better people-to-people contact bridge building rather than sending them to Indian cities where the girls are vulnerable to rape and other crimes and face tremendous racial discrimination, these 4 countries should fund scholarships for good students from NE Indian states
- not sure what the Burmese role is with NE insurgents, they seem to be listening to Indian request and showing that they are doing all they can to flush them out, but these efforts will never be 100%, because they have to keep China happy as well. When push comes to shove, Burma will always chose China over India, because China can hurt or help them more than India. But they will keep a facade showing that they are keeping a balance and not leaning towards one power too much, so they can maximize the benefits and rewards from both
- for Bangladesh, the fate of NE is critical, but we are in no position to play a decisive role like China or even a supportive role like Burma, we do however have a huge number of Bengali Muslims in that space, who are not "liked" by the "tribals" or even Ahoms/Assamese, but if there is a struggle, along with other local Muslims in these states, they are in a position to play a significant role
If people recall a brief history of the breakup of Pakistan in 1971, I think it went something like this:
- in 1947 India found itself surrounded by two hostile landmass, it quickly dawned on them that breaking this country would reduce their threat level considerably
- so they started looking for ways how this can be done, they found ethnic fault line, as these two disparate areas never had a history of close interaction, except having a common Muslim migrant ancestry at the very top level, which has over centuries diluted into the local masses and also having a common history of being imperial subjects of Delhi sultanate as well as Mughal dynasty
- they embarked to assist and fund some ambitious demagogues setup Awami League that broke off from Muslim League, Mujib was one of them
- 4 khalifa's of Awami League (victim of jail killings under Khond. Mostaque) were India's point men, while Mostaque was anti India and Mujib was pro India and pro federal autonomy but against secession/independence
- first opportunity presented itself in the language movement and the 21st Feb. killing of pretesters in 1952, Awami League and others took full advantage of the language issue and created a newly fashioned "Bengali nationalism" for East Pakistan, note that the concept of nationalism is inherently a chauvinistic meme, as it promotes the supremacy of one ethno-linguistic group over others who do not belong to this group and it did not dawn on these "brilliant people" that a Bengali nationalism is incomplete without the people of West Bengal, who had no intention of leaving Indian nationalism
- using West Pakistan and Bihari/Hindustani collusion and unfair treatment towards Bengali's, agitation were started and grievances were high lighted in the 6-point (choi dafa) demand
- so in effect, in then East Pakistan, there was no insurgency to speak of, but there was a civil society movement led by political party Awami League, which culminated in the winning of almost all seats in 1970 election, essentially ensuring Bengali political dominance over all of Pakistan
- when power was not handed over, Awami agents along with Indian agents started insurgency by killing Bihari/Hindustani Muslims since January-March 1971, a provocation, which then resulted in the reaction of Operation Search Light, to wipe out Indian agents, but it was viewed as an indiscriminate killing of Bengali's and turned the mood of the country in favor of independence
- at every stage, Indian Intelligence Bureau, Indira Gandhi and later RAW when it was created in 1968, played a skillful role to guide Awami League with advice and direction so that the events could be used towards an eventual secession, the key being the shaping of mass public opinion in favor of independence, while hiding any role of India in this whole affair, which did come out at some stage with Agartala conspiracy case, which was no conspiracy at all, and very real, admitted by Retd. Colonel Oli Ahmed, a senior former Awami League politician from Chittagong
Now if we look at the above, Dada's have history of Chanakya, so this should come as no surprise, and they had the advantage of having a very supporting Bengali Hindu population in East Pakistan who probably wanted this outcome. The situation is not quite the same in Burma and North East states theater. But some similarities are there.
So if we look at the above example, what stands out is the importance of North East state population to unify under a common North East states national consciousness, that does not just include the tribal population, but the "mainland" immigrants and Bengali's (Hindu, Muslim etc.) as well, so it is inclusive and is able to draw support from these communities. There may be a need for a North East states political party, which will work for securing rights of North East popultion:
- to reduce immigration from mainland (BSF and the fence is enough for Bangladesh border) using some kind of Article 370 mechanism
- to ensure that resources extracted from NE states is used for the development of this region
- to create connectivity with Burma/ASEAN
- to allow NE states students to study abroad in other countries, so good English education in high schools
- to protect the fragile environment which is rich with biodiversity and has excellent future tourist potential, once the insurgency become negligible
So this political party will try to unify the North East state populations and fight for their rights in a democratic non-violent way and also negotiate with insurgents to make them surrender and be involved in politics instead.
To summarize, my recommendation is for political solution and national consciousness building, as a full independence movement will not be supported at this time by China. Once a population is empowered and fully conscious of their rights and future well being, then I believe it will be difficult for India to exploit their resources and run this space like a repressive colonial empire. And the option to secede will always be there in the future, if the situation requires it due to Indian abuse, once people are willing to make the sacrifices to make that a reality. At least that is the lesson we see in case of Bangladesh, which separated mainly due to an effective political campaign based on Bengali nationalism. So much more than guns, it is people's hearts, minds and desires that are more important than tangible things, since as the saying goes, where there is a will, there is way. The difficult thing is creating a will, out of a situation that necessitates such a will.
I think we need a new clause in the UN declaration of human rights which enshrines the right of an alienated and oppressed population to collectively vote on and take a decision to peacefully secede from any existing nation state and assert self determination without taking part in any violent insurgency to break free from an oppressive and exploitative colonial rule.
