Thursday, July 12, 2012

Mr. P.A. Sangma is not a candidate of Adivasis of India


Indian Confederation of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples (ICITP), an Apex body of Adivasis of India established in 1987 and presently working with more than  310 Member Organisations (MOs) of various Adivasi Organisations representing 100 million of the most oppressed, suppressed and marginalized section of the 1.21billion populations of this country, first of all would like to express our unhappiness over not being considered by the political parties of the country to our genuine appeal to consider Shri R.S. Mooshahary as the consensus candidate for the 13th Presidential election.
For the general information of all the concerned fellow citizen of this great country and as a  matter of fact , the Indian Confederation of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples (ICITP) would like to state that we carried out an appeal campaign to all the national political parties including INC, BJP, BSP, SP, CPIM, JDU, TMC, NCP and other regional parties to consider sponsoring Shri R.S. Mooshahary as the consensus candidate for the 13th Presidential election of the country with the attached appeal letters w. e. f. 20th February to June 2012. Earlier in 2007 also ICITP carried out an appeal campaign for an Adivasi Vice President. ICITP after series of consultation with its 310 member organisations all over the country unanimously agreed to consider Shri R.S. Mooshahary to represent the Adivasis of India as the consensus candidate and subsequently appealed all the political parties to consider his candidature to provide opportunity to serve the nation as a proud genuine Adivasi son of the country on the following grounds:
Apart from his excellent service records as an IPS officer and a Governor, Mr. Mooshahary is an Adivasi Ratna (ICITP organized “Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Mahasabha” for the first time in the post-Independence India from March 28-30, 2011 at Talkatora Indoor Stadium, New Delhi to review the various problems and issues of the Adivasis and to collectively contribute towards policies to  improve their overall situations in presence of more than 3000 community leaders representing more than 500 Adivasi  communities of India and among many others activities, we have also recognized and honoured four  most deserving great  Adivasi sons and daughter of this country  with the title “Adivasi Ratna” for their outstanding services in their respective areas of work for the cause of the Adivasis and for the nation. The four proud sons and daughter of the Adivasis recognized by the millions of Adivasis as their heroes in 2011 unanimously were Dr. Bishop Nirmal Minz, Jharkhand; Irom Sharmila, Manipur; Mr. S.P. Wetsah, Nagaland and Mr. R.S.Mooshahary, Assam), a man of integrity, efficient, eminent, a patriot, sincere to his duties, honest and a man of practical experience in pan Indian matters who is also familiar with different cultures and ethos of our plural populations of the country. He also enjoys excellent reputation and impeccable integrity who is non-controversial with acceptability across the political spectrum.  He is totally committed to work for a society free from exploitation, corruption and any type of discrimination which is extraordinary. He is very well-read and articulate, has the experience of working at all India level in diverse fields. He is a man of broad outlook free from prejudice and pettiness and has the courage to uphold the right cause. But our sincere aspiration of the Adivasis to have someone of our choice as our custodian of the nation is turned down once again by all the political parties.
Meanwhile, with serious concern ICITP would like to express that Adivasis of India has nothing to say on political parties who have shown their interest and support to Mr. P.A. Sangma on his own personal merits or on political interest for the Presidential candidate for the 13th Presidential election of India but we do strongly reject his drumming of self-proclaimed representative of Adivasis of this country, since Mr. Sangma neither consulted the Adivsis/Adivasi organisations nor approached by any Adivasi organization prior to his sudden self-forced appearance for the  whole gimmick to play the tribal card for his own personal ambition rather than becoming a consensus Adivasi candidate for presidential election race. One thing that we want to make things clear to the all concerned including dominant society driven political parties of this country that we don’t want any division of Adivasis for the sake of narrow politics and therefore we did not ask any party to put our preferred consensus Adivasi candidate to contest in the party lines but appealed to be sponsored for a consensus candidate as an honour for the weakest section of the society of 100 million most oppressed, suppresses and marginalised populations of this world biggest democratic country by giving this opportunity to serve the nation for equal footings with the rest of the dominant society.
Actually, we at ICITP raised the issue of Adivasi President on the basis of social justice and not on mere political interest and hence we deeply deplore political parties who tried to consider our genuine appeal from mere political angles. We are also very much disturbed by the political parties who have stooped so low even to create social divide and take undue advantage to win the hearts of millions of Adivasis in the country over the presidential candidature of Mr. Sangma on his mere Tribal Identity. ICITP, through this press release would like to inform all the concerned that the very arguments raised by Mr. Sangma on Tribal identity during these days are not his own points but are stolen ideas and real ordeals and voices expressed in our appeals to the political parties which we have been raising since 2007.
We are also concern with so called Tribal Forum of India (TFI) which was just given birth on the 9th of May 2012 in the eve of 13th Presidential election by few individuals particularly by few handful retired sold out Adivasi Officers based in New Delhi on Sangma’s initiative only for the purpose of facilitating Mr. Sangma’s personal single agenda to become a candidate for the 13th Presidential election in the name of Tribal identity after coming to know ICITP’s campaign for Shri R.S. Mooshahary as a consensus candidature from Adivasis of the country. We are aware of the fact that the Tribal Forum of India has nothing to do with Adivasi issues and it neither enjoys any mass support nor have any mandate on the Adivasis of this country. Failing to have support to back his self-candidature as a consensus tribal candidature from any genuine tribal body including Indian Confederation of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples (ICITP) as we expressed unwillingness to back his candidature as a Tribal candidate on the ground reality that he has no affiliation with any regional or national tribal organisations of the country working for the Tribal issues  and also on the ground that he has no record of raising any tribal issues during his entire political carrier and therefore, he finally desperately managed to convinced few handful self-centered retired Adivasi officers based in New Delhi and few senior tribal politicians to form the TFI and to raise the voice for his self-interest that ICITP already raised for the 100 million of the Adivasis of this country.
ICITP on behalf of Adivasis of India, therefore, would like to clearly express that we are not happy over the present development on the Presidential election. Neither Shri Pranab Mukherjee nor Mr. P.A. Sangma is our preferred candidature for the 13th President of India rather he was Shri R.S. Mooshahary who was the best choice of 100 million of Adivasis of this country to be the next President of India. Therefore, we feel that the sentiment of 100 million Adivasis of India are once again ignored by the political parties of country and sabotaged by Mr. Sangma’s individual hijack of the ICITP’s national campaign which was meant for the best interest of the Adivasis of this land.
On the other hand, the United Nations 2nd decades of the World Indigenous Peoples is ending on 2014 and followed by a World Conference on Indigenous Peoples (WCIP) in 2014 at the UN Head Quarters which will be addressed by the heads of the world’s governments including India, a rare opportunity where our genuine campaign and aspiration to be proud of our nation having an Adivasi President after six decades of Indian Independence only to be the next to the Bolivia in front of the world communities during the WCIP is buried alive. ICITP once again strongly felt as if we the Adivasis of this country are only the subject of deprivation, exploitation, suppression, oppression, marginalization and humiliation despite the original inhabitants of this land.

(Jebra Ram Muchahary, Chief Advisor and Dr. Cecil Khakha, Secretary General on behalf of ICITP)

Jebra Ram Muchahary
President, Borosa Foundation for Peace, Democracy and Human Rights (New Delhi);
President, ICITP-NEZ (Guwahati, Assam) & Chief Advisor, ICITP (New Delhi); 
Chief Convenor, Peoples' Joint Action Committee for Boroland Movement (Kokrajhar);

Member of 2nd Executive Council, Indira Gandhi National Tribal University (Amarkantak, MP) and
Member of Advisory Board (Asia), Indigenous World Forum on Water and Peace (Victoria, Canada )
3rd Floor, B-51, South Extension Part-II, New Delhi- 110049
Phone: +91-11-26260715,Mobile: +91-8876669606

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