In poll-bound Mizoram, civil society groups are at war with the chief electoral officer

In poll-bound Mizoram, a bureaucratic tussle has turned into a pitched battle, with the state government and civil society groups ranged against the chief electoral officer, SB Shashank. The streets of Aizawl were filled with protestors on Tuesday morning as civil society groups, led by the Young Mizo Association, demonstrating against the removal of L Chuango, who was principal secretary at the state home department, and demanding that Shashank resign.

Protests also broke out in other districts too. In Kolasib, protesters stopped vehicles ferrying paramilitary personnel from Silchar to Aizawl, said deputy commissioner T Arun.

At the heart of the dispute between the Election Commission and Mizo civil society lies the question of voting rights for several thousand Bru refugees who fled ethnic violence in Mizoram and settled in camps in neighbouring Tripura.

On Monday, Mizoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla had written to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh asking that Shashank be transferred out of the state. Earlier that day, the Mizoram Journalists Association had boycotted a press conference held by Shashank, saying the chief electoral officer had repeatedly ignored requests for interviews. “The journalist fraternity of Mizoram under the banner of Mizoram Journalists Association is deeply saddened by the actions of SB Shashank which has hurt the sentiments of the people of Mizoram,” said a press statement they issued.

Also on Monday, Shashank claimed that the Election Commission was holding talks with Mizo groups in order to defuse the situation. “We are trying to assuage them, we have already started talking to them,” he said.

However, civil society groups seem to be in no mood for reconciliation. “We have a meeting with representatives of EC before, and we requested them to stand on what they promised us before,” said Vanlalruata, president of the Young Mizo Association, according to reports. “Considering the present scenario, I feel like the EC is in cahoots with the Brus.”

Even state government employees have been up in arms against Shashank. In a letter to Chief Election Commiosner OP Rawat, the Federation of Mizoram Government Employee and Workers threatened not to cooperate with the Election Commission if Shashank was not transferred out of Mizoram by October 9.

A letter and a dismissal

The current crisis was preceded by a letter Shashank wrote to the Election Commission, complaining that Chuango was interfering in arrangements for the polls and asking for his transfer. On receiving the letter, the Election Commission asked the Mizoram government to remove Chuango and barred him from duties related to the state government until the assembly elections were over.

The transfer order has raised tempers in Mizoram, with both civil society groups and local journalists protesting that principal secretary Chuango had been removed for merely doing his job.

Shashank’s letter raised two points of contention. First, that Chuango was trying to undermine the voting rights of Bru refugees. Second, that he had questioned the deployment of central forces for elections in Mizoram.

Between Tripura and Mizoram

As of 2018, close to 35,000 Bru refugees from Mizoram were estimated to be living in Tripura’s camps. According to Shashank, there was resistance to Bru voters being included in Mizoram electoral rolls in the first place. The Election Commission had decided to use identification certificates issued to Bru refugees by the Mizoram government in 2016 as proof of identity for inclusion in voter rolls.

In 2016, according to Shashank, Mizoram government officials entered camps in Tripura to check documents and determine whether the residents were “original inhabitants” of Mizoram. If they could name a relative who was originally a resident of a village in Mizoram, Bru refugees were issued identification certificates bearing the relevant family member’s name, Shashank said.

“This can be used to enter names in the voter rolls, it is a government-generated document,” he said. But the Mizoram home department had opposed this. “They said it could not be used for any other purpose other than repatriation,” claimed Shashank, who said that the certificates were like passports and driving licences – documents that can be used for a range of identification purposes.

The second point of difference was the question of where Bru refugees could vote from. Mizo groups claim the Election Commission had assured them that only Brus who lived in Mizoram would be eligible to participate in future electoral processes in the state. To this effect, they cite a letter written in 2014 by a secretary in the commission to the Chief Electoral Officer of Mizoram at the time, which states:

 “The Commission had decided the provision would be made during future elections to the Lok Sabha and the Legislative Assembly of the state of Mizoram, for exercise of franchise within the state of Mizoram by Bru (Reang) voters living in Tripura enrolled in voter lists of Mizoram.”   

But Shashank is steadfast. He insisted that the Bru would be eligible to vote even from refugee camps in Tripura and did not have to return to their original homes in Mizoram. “Whether you are coming [back] or not coming is not the issue,” he said. Going by the special status accorded to Bru refugees, Shashank said, “They will be treated as ordinary residents and will get the right to exercise their franchise.”

A Mizoram home department official, who did not want to be quoted, said the chief electoral officer was “creating confusion” in the government. He also affirmed that Bru refugees should not be allowed to vote from camps outside Mizoram. “They can come back and vote,” he said. “And that is the government’s stand too. What right do they have to participate in Mizoram’s electoral processes when they don’t want to come back in spite of so many assurances from the state?” Allowing them to vote from their relief camps in Tripura could led to the electoral process being compromised, said the official.

In a letter to the Centre, dated November 3, the state chief minister had explicitly addressed the dispute over the Bru refugees, speaking for “Mizo sentiments”.

“Never have we seen such extreme action in Mizoram election history,” he wrote. “The Civil Society does not take this lightly and we in government also fully supported their longstanding demand that the Bru now living in Tripura Transit Camps should come and cast their votes inside Mizoram like every other Mizo do [sic] from outside the State at the time of elections.”

Meanwhile, Bru organisations said they had hoped to cast their votes in Mizoram from the Tripura camps. “But we will follow the rules of the Indian Constitution,” said Mizoram Bru Displaced People’s Coordination Committee leader T Laldingliana. “We are depending on the Election Commission to make it a success.”

An old fight

The question of voting rights for Brus in Mizoram threatens to open up old fissures once again. Conflict between the Brus and Mizos surfaced in the 1990s, when organisations such as the Young Mizo Association and the Mizo Zirlai Pawl demanded that Bru names be struck off voter rolls. They contended that Brus were not an indigenous tribe of Mizoram. It led to a reactionary militant movement among Bru, who demanded greater political autonomy. Matters came to a head in 1997, after Bru militants allegedly shot down a forest guard at the Dampa Tiger Reserve. The violent backlash from Mizo groups forced tens of thousands of Brus across the state border into Tripura. Another round of violence in 2009 sent a second batch of refugees into the camps.

This year, after decades of negotiations, the Centre handed them an ultimatum: accept the rehabilitation package on offer and return to Mizoram by October or be cut off from aid supplied by the government. As of October 7, only 40 families had returned to Mizoram. On October 23, three weeks after supplies were cut off, the government resumed rations to the Tripura camps.

Most are reluctant to be repatriated, some because they worry for their security and others because their political demands for an autonomous district council had not been met. It did not help that voter rolls were allegedly stolen from the Mamit district election office in Mizoram. The district was home to a number of Bru refugees before they fled the violence. Local leaders were subsequently “found involved and chargesheeted”, said Shashank at a press conference on Monday.

In his November 3 letter, Lal Thanhawla seemed to suggest that the refusal to return was a political strategy. “It is my belief that some with vested interests in Tripura Camp are only dissuading the people from coming back to Mizoram to press their unwarranted demand for an Autonomous District Council.”

Policing the polls

In the furore about Bru refugees, the second point of contention, on the deployment of Central forces for assembly elections, seemed to have faded into the background.

Still, Shashank insisted that due procedure had been followed in the recommendations for deployment – the state police makes an estimate of the forces needed and submits it to the chief electoral officer; if the state government cannot provide the requisite number, the Centre makes up for the shortfall. Based on assessments and consultations, Shashank said that the Election Commission had recommended 40 companies of armed police. It was, he said, “a reasonable requirement”. Either way, the home department “cannot question the decision of the Election Commission”, he said.

Not surprisingly, the senior home department official begged to differ. “Our home department only asked about details of force deployment, which [he] is now terming as interference,” he said.