PDMB warns of intensifying movement for Bodoland with inclusive policies

From our Correspondent

KOKRAJHAR, September 8: Expressing discontentment over the statement of the Union Home Ministry that at present no proposal was under consideration for the creation of a separate State, the People’s Democratic Movement for Bodoland (PDMB) has warned that it would intensify the movement for separate Bodoland state as they had rights for self-rule.

At a press meet held in, Kokrajhar, the president of the PDMB Jebra Ram Mashahary said the Government of India should realize the constitutiol and historical rights of the Bodo people. He said the PDMB had no option left but to intensify the democratic movement against the move of the Government of India which was systematically trying to demoralize the Bodoland issue. He also demanded that the Government of India should bring amicable solution through State re-organization commission. He called upon all the Bodo and other like-minded organizations of the region to come together for raising united voice for Bodoland state and work together with inclusive policies.

The All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU) also has been appealing to all organizations to join the mass movement for Bodoland with collective responsibility on August 30 through five-hour tiol highway blockade. When asked about the way to be united, Jebra Ram Mashahary said their organization was independent and it did not work under any political platform. He said the PDMB believed in inclusive policies and it would fight for Bodoland state taking all stake holders in confidence.

In reply to a question, he said that the ABSU’s clarion call for united movement should be made clear in terms of their policies. He reiterated that the ABSU’s call for unifying all organizations was not matching with their activities in ground level. He also said that they had approached the founder chairman of NDFB Ranjan Daimary, BTC chief Hagrama Mohilary and president of Ex-BLT Welfare Society, Ja Mohan Mashahary for their support in the Bodoland separate state movement. He also claimed that the leaders gave them positive response.

Mashahary said they had sent memorandum to the Union Home Minister recently. In the memorandum they said the PDMB was an inclusive people’s peaceful democratic movement organization and the peace-loving common people of the proposed Bodoland wanted continuation of process of comprehensive peace talk with ceasefire groups of tiol Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and other Bodoland movement organizations with an objective to make way for lasting settlement of the decade-old demand for creating separate state of Bodoland and other relevant problems. He said the process would open more wide-ranging  route of settling Bodo crisis with the creation of Bodoland state under the articles 2, 3, and 4 of the Constitution of India and bringing peace in the region by granting justice to Bodo and other indigenous people in their all spheres of life.

Mashahary said in independent India the Bodo indigenous people had become a stateless people in their own country and margilized socially, economically and politically and struggling to survive with their distinct culture, tradition and identity. Their very existence as a people is now threatened. The safety and security of life, land, culture, tradition, languages and identity of the Bodo indigenous people are now questioned. In independent India the Bodo indigenous people have borne the brunt of continuous process of assimilation by domint people who stooped low in uprooting and annihilating the Bodo indigenous people from their ancestral land. The government has adopted various repressive measures legal and illegal, tangible and intangible in ture, time and again against the Bodo and other indigenous people. He said the political experiences of the last six decades had made it clear that under the present political and administrative set up, the Bodo and other indigenous people would never be able to safeguard and protect their interest and identity. He also said the Bodo indigenous people had the prerogative and legitimate right to have a physical state of their own where they can control and mage their affairs and destiny with freedom and live with dignity and honour.

He further said whenever there was exploitation, oppression, domition and repression by aliens or domint tion or community there had always been resistance and uprising and thus the Bodo and other indigenous communities were also resisting and up in arms against exploitation, oppression, repression and domition. They had been voicing and asserting the need to retain their land and identity.

Top Headlines

No stories found.
Sentinel Assam
www.sentinelassam.com