Bodo Brief:
Jebra Ram Muchahary testified at the United Nations during the Second Indigenous Permanent Forum held during May 12-May 23, on the unique challenges faced by the Bodo people of Assam, as well as the problems shared in common with other indigenous peoples, whose representatives attended the Forum. He also raised several issues affecting the Bodo, during a meeting sponsored by the World Bank, in the offices of the UNEP (United Nations Environment Program). Below is a personal communication from Muchahary submitted for publication exclusively on Calicutnet.
Dear Chithra,
Thank you for your mail. My story goes like this: My name is Jebra Ram Muchahary, village Barlawgaon, P.O. Bijni, PS: Bijni, Dist: Bongaigaon, Assam, India. I was born in 25th of November 1966 in a poor but large farmer family. My father Late Bana Ram Muchahary was a generous Indigenous Bodo farmer who married two wives. I am 5th son of my father’s first wife Mrs. Aodoor Muchahary. Customarily and traditionally bigamy exists in our Bodo Indigenous Community though now it is not encouraged. We are 10 brothers and sisters in my family.( 7 brothers and 3 sisters). One brother died long back.
Well, right from my childhood I have been experiencing what is called backwardness. Living in a remote village 5 kilometres away from a small sub divisional town called BIJNI I have been seeing al these years ILL HEALTH, POVERTY, LACK OF PROPER COMMUNICATION, LACK OF HEALTH CARE, LACK OF MEANING FUL EDUCATION AND NO PROPER ROAD COMMUNICATION, NOT TO MENTION ABOUT THE ELECTRICITY AND TELEPHONE WHICH ARE LIKE A DREAM for us.
Since my father was a little bit educated ( who attended his lower primary school in a place 2 kilometers away from our village, he could atleast felt the need of education and hence he almost tried to provide education for all the kids but all failed to reached college as all of them dropped out due to reasons best known to the educationists except me. I was lucky to passed my H.S.L.C in 1st division with distinction and I am the first boy from my locality of nearly 20, 000 Bodo Indigenous peoples in this area to become the first pioneer in having pass my H.S.L.C examination with first division in 1983. This is a record as till today no one could break my record of having this short of good result all because of partly no motivation in school education and partly because of inapropriate education system. Thank God since I am exception to this general rule may be because I had really seen what is called suffering of my people in this part of most negelcted part of Assam. I managed to go to college and complete my graduation with science in 1988 and then joined as a teacher in a neigbouring country Bhutan in 1988 itself and then my B.Ed in 1994.
It is interesting to share why I joined school job in Bhutan and not at home country? I was very sensitive and patriotic right from my child hood and I love my family members, my village, my people as it is our world full of enthusiasm and social co-operative life. We live in green village very close to forest as we depend directly or indirectly on the forest and forest products for our lively hood. we collected fire wood from the forest which we need. we went for hunting for our requirments.
We went for fishing in the rivers freely as we had abundance of natural fishes that was necessary for our people. Though we are isolated but we had no shortage of food, cloths and shelter. We were quite happy. But some thing went wrong on the part of our fellow brothers whom we called them HARSA literary meaning out siders or other groups of people who are considered to be of lower status in our own perspective. They are the dominant group of people now who are not indigenous but started to come our place from 1228 AD and some very recently after 1947 (Indian independence). Bodos have been living here since 5000 BC. Harsas started occupy our fertile lands, they started to dominate us, suppress us and oppressed us.
They started to impose their language on us. We did not understand why they started to do that. Slowly we became minority in our home and the strange politics started to make us subjects of backward classes called to be TRIBAL in India and our lands, forests, water became theirs by some new laws which our people didnot understand at all. So some educated boys and girls like me started to speak against this injustices meted to our people who are not less than 4 Millions in Assam and we started to launch a dramocratic movement for separate homeland for our safety, our progress and our development in our own ways.
We started to demand a separate polity called BODOLAND from 1987 AND I was an active member( General Secretary) of our students union called ALL BODO STUDENTS’ UNION (ABSU), Shillong unit. My involvement for my people drew bad attention to the government and they tried to arrest me and hence I had to go to Bhutan for my refuge. I stayed five years there till 1993 and I came back in 1993 after Bodo accord as our people and the government entered in a peace accord to create Bodoland Autonomous Council (BAC).After coming back from Bhutan I began to join ICITP ( Indian Confederation of Indigenous and Triba peoples) and its movement and this is how I am here in the UN level to still find some good solution to our causes in order to improve my peoples’ fate. Sincerely yours
Jebra Ram Muchahary
Indigenous Peoples’ Life Experiences – Coming Soon!
Calicutnetnet has asked persons attending the Indigenous Peoples’ Permanent Forum at the UN (May 12 – May 23) to tell their stories to our e-readers. Calicutnet will print these as they come in.
The bottom-line driven infotainment, corporate media in the US has completely ignored the event. There are no reports in the mainstream media, in the papers or on TV and radio, about the presence and activities of indigenous peoples from all over the world who are bringing their legitimate concerns and grievances to the United Nations during May. Incomprehensibly, the UN’s own DPI, Department of Public Information, denied access to Calicutnet to cover the events. The delay in posting these events was largely due to the DPI refusal to grant access to Calicutnet to cover the Permanent Indigenous Forum
The Brown Sahibs of the UN phallocracy, guarding their jobs and perquisites, rubber stamping at every turn the policy of unilateralism and dominance of the US, fail every day to carry out the core precepts of the UN’s own Preamble. The DPI orchestrates the celebration of World Press Freedom Day at UN HQ every year, and at the same time denies access to independent, non-corporate media.
Not fazed by the DPI’s repeated failure and refusal to grant unfettered access to independent, non-corporate, online media, Calicutnet is giving indigenous peoples’ representatives the opportunity to tell their unique and often moving stories, in their own words. Of course we must rely on the responses of individuals who came to the Forum, to submit their stories. Some may be understandably concerned that their participation on Calicutnet will be viewed unfavorably by DPI’s functionaries. Indigenous persons however, have shown themselves to be resilient in the face of official and bureaucratic indifference to their genuine concerns.
First person stories reflecting the lived experience of indigenous persons in many parts of the world, as well as other kinds of personal accounts, will be posted as they are received.
As part of the Indigenous Peoples’ Series, accounts of lived experiences from persons belonging to indigenous groups in the entire South Asia region will be especially welcome. Please send these to us for posting.
Thanks.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Contributing Editor
Focus on the UN Series
The CCDD Manipur is a coalition of indigenous peoples’ groups working to continue the traditional and customary livelihoods of the peoples of the region, among them Meitei, Hmar, Zeliangrong, Naga and others. Recently, activists among the Indigenous peoples of Manipur have called for scrapping the Tipaimukh High Dam Project. The writer quoted below is Debabrata Roy Laifungbam of CCDD, who attended the Second Indigenous Peoples’ Forum at the UN. In his letter, Roy gives his impression of a meeting in Bonn, Germany that he attended after the UN meeting:
Citizens’ Concern for Dams & Development [email protected] wrote:
Dear Chithra,
I am afraid the Bonn meeting was very disappointing because the whole Kyoto Protocol framework under the UNFCCC ( United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is a fraud with not real commitment or action to reduce GHG emissions. It is really a new market mechanism to trade in futures and enclose air and atmosphere spaces by privatising them. One of the last frontiers to go after the commons and community lands, waters, etc. Communities, especially indigenous peoples, have no voice in the Kyoto Protocol or its CDM, which is jargon filled and a lot of pseudo-scientific bull about CO2 credits and calculations that are very airy-fairy and contentious, also excluding so many other factors as social and enviromental impacts of carbon sequestration or “sinks” projects in the selective Southern countries where DFI is applicable. It is ironic and extrmemly cynical that a Convention to tackle global climate change has no regard to the environment or the social dimensions!!!
I shall write but later as I am now inAmsterdam, totally exhausted and
home-sick!!
Best,
Roy
D.Roy Laifungbam is a founder and Director Indigenous health and human
Rights) of Centre for Organisation Research & Education (CORE), an indigenous peoples’ centre for policy andhuman rights, based in Manipur in the North eastern region of India. CORE, established in 1987, responds to the immense deprivation of information relating to development and human rights that the region faces till today. Laifungbam has been consistently advocating for a real space within India as well in the international arenas of policy dialogue, formulation and implementation for the indigenous and tribal peoples of the region to fully exercise a self-determined future that is respectful of past and future generations and as trustees to a rich natural inhertance for the world. He is also an outspoken and independent human rights defender.
Citizens Concern for Dams and Development is an indigenous rights coalition based in the small northeastern Indian state of Manipur. India’s mountainous northeast is joined to the rest of the country by only a 20 kilometre-wide strip of land sandwiched between Bangladesh and Bhutan. The region also borders Burma and Tibet. Hundreds of distinct indigenous groups live in the region which has long suffered ethnic and political violence and repression by the Indian government.
CCDD is currently focusing on lobbying for the rights of the thousands of indigenous people who would be displaced the proposed Tipaimukh hydropower project. Tipaimukh, a 1500 megawatt high dam on a tributary of the mighty Brahmaputra, is one of scores of large dams planned in the region, including some of the world’s biggest hydropower projects. The valleys that would be flooded contain some of the most ecologically valuable ecosystems remaining in South and Southeast Asia.
Hydropower promoters are likely to try to gain carbon credits to subsidize these destructive projects in the name of climate protection. They may also claim that these huge dams should be eligible for funds being established to help developing countries adapt to the increased floods and drought that will be caused by climate change. Critics claim that dam projects frequently worsen the destructiveness of floods and that better and cheaper forms of water storage and management are available.
Citizen’s Concern for Dams and Development is pushing for the promoters of Tipaimukh and other dams to follow the recommendations of the World Commission on Dams, in particular that: (1) no dam should be built on indigenous people’s land without without their free prior and informed consent and (2) comprehensive and participatory assessments of water and energy needs, and of the different options for meeting these needs, should be developed before proceeding with any project.
