Aizawl: Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying the state is staring at a “larger humanitarian crisis” unless the central government steps in to “share the burden” of sheltering those fleeing political and ethnic turmoil in Manipur, Myanmar and Bangladesh, ThePrint has learnt.
In his latest letter, Zoramthanga has sought Modi’s “personal intervention” to get the Centre to support the relief measures of the state government. He also mentioned that Mizoram will also have to additionally spend at least Rs 350 crore for the assembly elections due later this year. ThePrint has seen the letter.
The CM has sent at least three letters to Modi in this regard between May and June, according to state officials. However, a top Mizoram government official told ThePrint that the Centre, which is yet to release any funds for relief measures, has “unofficially communicated to us that since India is not party to the United Nations’ Refugee Convention 1951 and its 1967 protocol, immediate assistance should not be expected”.
According to UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the convention and the protocol “define the term ‘refugee’ and outline their rights and the international standards of treatment for their protection.”
“We have not received any help from the Centre so far. All relief efforts are being driven by various non-government organisations (NGOs), church associations, the state government and the people at large. As long as Mizo people are here, no one will go hungry. But you ask them (Centre) why they are not giving?” Mizoram Deputy Chief Minister Tawnluia told ThePrint Wednesday.
On Tuesday, hundreds of people and political leaders, led by CM Zoramthanga, took to the streets to express their solidarity with the Kuki community, which shares deep ethnic ties with the Mizos.
The state government has run a nearly month-long fundraising drive among state and central government employees, MLAs, MPs, and civic councillors which ended on 25 July.
Deputy CM Tawnluia said those who have come from Manipur seeking shelter should not be considered refugees but ‘Internally Displaced Persons’.
“There has been no cross-border movement into Mizoram in recent times,” Tawnluia said. A Home Department official echoed him, adding that some movement happened along Myanmar’s border with Manipur recently.
Zoramthanga also underlined this aspect in his latest letter to the PM: “It has become extremely difficult and untenable for the government of Mizoram to single handedly look after the thousands of IDPs and a larger humanitarian crisis looms ahead unless the Government of India steps forward and share the burden.”
The CM pegged the number of refugees from Myanmar at 35,000, over 12,300 IDPs from Manipur, apart from over 1,000 Kuki-Chin refugees from Bangladesh.
Mizoram shares a 510-km-long border with Myanmar. The Mizo-Kuki-Chin group essentially share a similar ethnicity — the Zo. The Zo community is spread across Northeast India, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
The state government has been sympathetic to refugees from Myanmar. In 2021, the Mizo National Front (MNF) government also rejected the Centre’s advisory to not shelter Kuki-Chin refugees from Myanmar.
Zoramthanga was then quoted in media reports terming those fleeing Myanmar following a military coup as “political refugees”, towards whom India “cannot turn a blind eye”.
Tawnluia, who is also the MNF vice-president, said while his party remains one of the constituents of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), “one should not forget that MNF is MNF.”
“We fought and continue to fight for the people of Mizoram. We fought (with arms) for 20 years. When all sections of the people requested us to make peace with the Government of India, we signed the peace accord (in 1986). God and our country remain our principle and foundation. Whether or not we will remain a part of the NDA is something the party will decide,” Tawnluia, the ‘commander-in-chief’ of the erstwhile armed wing of the MNF, further said.
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MNF & equation with central govt
The MNF, led by its founder Laldenga who later became chief minister of Mizoram, led an armed uprising against the State between 1966 and 1986. On 30 June 1986, it signed a peace accord with the Rajiv Gandhi government, ending the two-decade-long insurgency.
Zoramthanga and Tawnluia were close associates of Laldenga. On Tuesday, as Aizawl witnessed an outpouring of solidarity with the Kukis in Manipur, there was aggressive sloganeering against the BJP as the two leaders watched in silence.
Asked for his view on the MNF’s association with the NDA, Tawnluia said, “We are just one of the many constituent units of the NDA. We entered the alliance (in 2014) for the development of the state. There are so many central schemes after all…”
At the solidarity march Tuesday, Zoramthanga told reporters in Aizawl that the MNF has not yet taken any decision on exiting the NDA, saying it depends upon ‘the political necessity’. However, the two MNF legislators in Parliament — one each in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha — have been highly critical of the Centre and the BJP-led Manipur government on the floor of the House. The party’s Rajya Sabha MP K. Vanlalvena even submitted a notice for adjournment motion Wednesday “for the third time to discuss the ongoing crisis in Manipur”.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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