A refugee crisis brews in Mizoram too

The refugee crisis in Mizoram is rapidly worsening as Chin and Kuki-Chin refugees from Bangladesh and Myanmar are forced to flee and seek refuge across the Indian border.

On 10 March 2021, India’s home ministry wrote to the chief secretaries of the border states of Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh to ‘take appropriate action as per law to check illegal influx from Myanmar into India’.

It also reminded the states that, since India is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol, they have no power to grant ‘refugee status to any foreigner’. The letter termed the movement of refugees due to the political coup in Myanmar as an ‘illegal influx of foreigners’, thereby making its position clear on refugees from Myanmar.

From Bangladesh, Kuki-Chin refugees are being impelled into Mizoram due to an ongoing crackdown by Bangladesh forces against the Kuki-Chin National Army in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.

Mizoram’s chief minister Zoramthanga, who is also the chief of the state’s ruling Mizo National Front, deemed the directive from the ministry “not acceptable” to Mizoram. In a letter addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Zoramthanga noted: ‘I understand that there are certain foreign policy issues where India needs to proceed cautiously. However, we cannot ignore this humanitarian crisis.’

K. Vanlalvena, a member of India’s upper house (Rajya Sabha) from Zoramthanga’s party, added that refugees from Myanmar are like “family” and can’t be asked to leave when facing such a humanitarian crisis.

The Mizos’ decision to extend hospitality to Chin and Kuki-Chin refugees, in defiance of the home ministry directive, has its roots in history and a shared Zo identity. However, their treatment of minorities within the state of Mizoram, particularly the Chakmas—the largest minority ethnic group in Mizoram, who have been discriminated against—reveals the double standards regarding the treatment of minorities.

Like the Rohingya, who have fled Myanmar at different points to escape prosecution, other minorities from Myanmar have also fled seeking refuge. In India, the influx intensified especially after the military coup in Myanmar in February 2021.

One such group is the Chin, who share similar ethnicity with the Zo people of Mizoram. In Myanmar, the Chins are a very diverse group, and can be further divided into six major tribes and 63 sub-tribe groups. Human Rights Watch aptly describes the Chin people of Myanmar as a “forgotten people”, “unsafe in Burma” and “unprotected in India”.

The Chins of Myanmar are a persecuted minority, subject to various abuses, including forced labour, restrictions on fundamental freedoms, extrajudicial killing, rape, torture and attacks on religious freedom. Many Chins have migrated to Mizoram due to worsening conditions in Myanmar, with the first wave of migration starting in 1988.

But they have faced discrimination, lack of job opportunities and affordable education, and forced deportation by local groups like the Young Mizo Association, as Human Rights Watch has reported. These forced deportations have resulted in returnees facing arrests, imprisonment, torture and even death in Myanmar.

An estimated 40,000 Myanmar refugees from the Chin ethnic group are currently being granted asylum in Mizoram. The refugees from Myanmar have spread out across Mizoram, mostly in Mizo-dominated areas, some living with their relatives and others in rented homes.

“This is not the first time the Chin refugees came,” activist and researcher Paritosh Chakma said. “They came in the 1990s too. There were reports from human rights organisations like Human Rights Watch about their condition. They said that they faced discrimination in Mizoram, even from the Mizos. But I think they have a strong kinship bond.” They are not unwelcome in Mizoram, Paritosh Chakma added, but even so, “there is also a philosophy that ‘Mizoram belongs to Mizos’”.

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After Mizoram was granted statehood in 1987, there were suggestions to abolish the Chakma autonomous councils, which today administer territories in the south of Mizoram. In response, then-prime minister Rajiv Gandhi reminded the Mizo leadership and society to treat the state’s minorities well. Journalist Subir Bhaumik writes in Troubled Periphery that ‘Rajiv Gandhi told a rally in Aizawl that if the Mizos expect justice from India as a small minority, they must safeguard the interests of still smaller groups like the Chakmas’.

The first World Zomi Convention, held in May 1988 in Champhai near the Mizoram–Myanmar border, aimed to unite the various Chin tribes. Participants included representatives of the Zomi National Congress and the Mizoram People’s Conference party, as well as people from Lamka (Manipur), Ngaihban (Haflong), Zampui/Sakhan, the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), Arakan (Myanmar) and the Chin Hills.

They reached an agreement to collectively identify themselves as Zo and formed the Zo Reunification Organisation (ZoRO), which became an international NGO in 1999. ZoRO’s goal is to promote the unification and shared awareness of Zo tribes.

In recent years, there has been an attempt to homogenise the Mizos—even though there is a history of tribes such as the Mara and Lai seeking autonomy within Mizoram despite being Mizos. “Chakma, Mara and Lai were given autonomy at the same time Mizoram was granted statehood,” Shyamal Chakma, a doctoral candidate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, said. “It shows that Mizoram has problems with both inclusion and exclusion.”

Shyamal expanded on the Mizo social structure. “It is a very elitist society,” he said. “It is also Brahminical, in a way. The Lals and Puis are like [the] Brahmins of the Mizo society, who try to mobilise, impose and carry forward the notion of being Mizo. They try to show that they are very homogenous, but in reality it is also a very heterogeneous society.”

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‘Mizoram for Mizos’

The Chakmas in Mizoram with a population of around 100,000, have been discriminated against in Mizoram and elsewhere. They are also seen as non-indigenous by the majority of Christian Mizos because the majority of Chakmas are Buddhists. Chakmas are concentrated especially in the south of Mizoram, bordering the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh to the West, and the Chin and Arakan provinces of Myanmar to the East.

They are often treated as non-citizens and have faced the cancellation of trade licences, denial of their right to employment, deletion of names from electoral rolls, the withdrawal of healthcare and educational facilities since the 1980s, and other forms of persecution.

In the past few years, many medical students belonging to the Chakma community have also been refused admission to educational institutions in Mizoram.

“The Chakmas live in fear within Mizoram,” Paritosh Chakma explained. He added that if any Chakma fled from Bangladesh and entered Mizoram today, “I don’t think Chakmas will be treated similarly” to how Kuki-Chin refugees (considered part of the Zo peoples) are.

Since 2015, the denial of admission to Chakma students who clear medical entrance exams has been routine. Earlier this year, an interim order by the Guwahati High Court directed the Mizoram government to provisionally admit three Chakma students to medical school and allow them to attend MBBS classes. The order also stated that “enormous prejudice would be caused” to the students if their admission was blocked.

In February, the student organisation Mizo Zirlai Pawl protested against the selection of three non-Mizo candidates for government jobs and demanded the removal of the official responsible. The primary question raised was how non-indigenous people could be given jobs in Mizoram.

The terms of indigeneity were defined only recently in the Mizoram (Selection of Candidates for Higher Technical Courses) (Amendment) Rules 2021. These clearly distinguish Mizos from non-Mizos and discriminate between them in terms of the eligibility criteria for candidates.

The rules state that students have to complete their final years of schooling in Mizoram to apply for technical education seats, but this rule is not extended to Mizos, who are defined as “those who are Zo-ethnic indigenous people of the state of Mizoram and have been residing permanently in the state”.

In plain terms, if a non-Mizo—say, a Chakma—has attended their last years of schooling in Delhi, for instance, they will not qualify for technical education seats in MBBS and other courses under the Mizoram quota. But if any Mizo student applies, having completed their schooling outside Mizoram, they can still access these seats.

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Bridging divides

Various Mizo civil society bodies have extended humanitarian aid to Kuki-Chin refugees from Bangladesh—but, notably, so have Chakma organisations such as the Central Young Chakma Association. Jyoti Bikash Chakma, the group’s current president, said that it and other organisations have offered help and given rice, clothes and other items to refugees. Most refugees belong to the Bawm community from the Chittagong Hill Tracts. The Mizoram government sanctioned Rs 30 lakh for the rehabilitation of refugees from the Chittagong Hill tracts.

“We can clearly see a conflict between the state and centre on the issue of refugees,” Dilip Chakma, a lawyer and activist, said. “Even when the burning of Hindu gods and the Indian flag took place in Mizoram a couple of years ago, the issue did not escalate. I think they (the Centre) understand the historical sensitivity of this area and bear with it. They have been very tolerant with the state of Mizoram.”

Dilip Chakma also justified the extension of asylum to the refugees: “As human beings, when it is related to refugees and their persecution, one cannot have double standards. We have to be always welcoming of them. In human rights parlance, a selective extension of humanitarian aid on [grounds of] ethnicity or religion is not acceptable.”

Despite such humanitarianism and goodwill from the Chakmas, Mizo groups such as the Young Mizo Association and Mizo Zirlai Pawl have raised slogans calling Chakmas illegal foreigners and demanding that they be pushed out of Mizoram. Vanlalvena, the same parliamentarian who described refugees from Myanmar as “family”, described Chakmas as “alien” to the state in a letter to Union home minister Amit Shah earlier this year.

“We are trying to help them,” Jyoti Bikash said of the refugees in the Chakma Autonomous District, yet the targeting of Chakmas never stops. He added that only the Chakmas and the Brus, another minority community “are seen as hnam dang, or ‘other tribes’”.

(A version of this article was first published in Himal Southasian magazine (www.himalmag.com) and is being republished with permission. It has been abridged and edited for reasons of space and style. Suraj Gogoi is an assistant professor at the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, RV University, Bengaluru)