Balkan-speak by Hmar National Army

We should not be alarmists nor should we be, what is generally termed, as ‘sensationalists’. More importance lies in the speed with which we try to put this news in its proper context.

So, first, we should note what the news is.

Hmar National Army, in a press statement, said that they would do to the Meiteis what the two rebel groups, namely, UNLF and KCP, did to the Hmars.( By its souondbites, it seems that HNA must be operating somewhere out of the Balkans!).

It made me jumped out of my seat when I first read it!

After some moments, it dawned on me that what they were trying to put across was that they would make some Meiteis ‘refugees’ as some hmars became ‘refugees’ in Mizoram for some months. Please note that what made me jumped out of my seat was : ‘Are they going to rape some Meiteis?’. They didn’t say that. Is this a tacit admission that the ‘mass rape’ is at least controversial?

They laid down a condition. They want the State government to execute rehabilitation programmes for the Hmars on a priority basis. If the Government fails to do so, they will in turn execute the threat to the Meiteis.

We should not fail to note here that they are not saying rehabilitations for the ‘mass rape victims’ but for the whole Hmar refugees. It is significant.

So significant that it can be read as something to do with a desire of making a tactical retreat from the allegations of mass rape slur on the Meitei rebels. Or, at the least, a desire to bury the Rajkhowa Commissiom’s working (and therefore, its inconclusive report) under the weight of an engineered ethnic tension. We have to note here if an ethnic tension is made to pop out of nowhere there would not be cross-examination—that means the Commission’s report would be inconclusive.

We are made to think on this line because they made 2 very significant points in their press note.

>> Hmars being a Tibeto-Burman group of people (like Meiteis) have no qualm at the receiving ends of some collateral damages as a result of the insurgent movement of a fellow Tibeto-Burman people, Meiteis. But the groups, UNLF and KCP had bad intention to inflict heavy hardship to the Hmars particularly.

>> Hmars have the support of Zo people to issue ‘quit notice’ to Meiteis living in Churachandpur so as to make them refugees. They are sending out message that they are different from Zo (Mizo) people but they can easily elicit support from them. This is a very significant message.

So, where is the context, as I talked about at the start?

The context is the formation of an umbrella organization of the Kuki-Chin-Mizo rebels, under the name of United People’s Front. The Front was formed by the representatives of the constituent group in Aizawls some weeks back.

What’s significant is that Hmar People’s Convention (Democratic) is one of the 8 constituent groups. HPC(D) had tried all it’s might to abort the birth of HNA, which is a newbie in the Hmar political arena.

This could only mean that HNA has been slowly pushed to the fringe of Hmar political space.

Another very interesting corollary is that it is very likely that HNA must represent the ‘creamy layer’ of the Hmar society which, by its definition, would be more interested in short objectives like reservations in the jobs of the central government and production of more administrative posts as a result of the formation of a Hmar autonomous administration, like a Union Territory.

The sad thing is that the late Isaac Hmar fits the bill as exactly as can be imagined. And, we also first heard of the HNA at the time of his death. And it is becoming clear that the late Isaac Hmar was a crucial figure in all these developments.

Read about Isaac and HNA here.