Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05CALCUTTA18
2005-01-18 09:17:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Consulate Kolkata
Cable title:  

ARUNACHAL PRADESH: ISOLATED TRIBAL STATE

Tags:  PGOV PREL SOCI ECON ENRG PBTS PREF CH IN 
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 CALCUTTA 000018 

SIPDIS

NEW DELHI ALSO FOR DATT -- SBOTO
STATE FOR SA/INS, PRM AND INR

E.O. 12958: DECL: 1/18/2015
TAGS: PGOV PREL SOCI ECON ENRG PBTS PREF CH IN
SUBJECT: ARUNACHAL PRADESH: ISOLATED TRIBAL STATE

REF: A) 04 CALCUTTA 482; B) 03 CALCUTTA 291


CLASSIFIED BY: George N. Sibley, Principal Officer, ConGen
Calcutta, State.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)



C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 CALCUTTA 000018

SIPDIS

NEW DELHI ALSO FOR DATT -- SBOTO
STATE FOR SA/INS, PRM AND INR

E.O. 12958: DECL: 1/18/2015
TAGS: PGOV PREL SOCI ECON ENRG PBTS PREF CH IN
SUBJECT: ARUNACHAL PRADESH: ISOLATED TRIBAL STATE

REF: A) 04 CALCUTTA 482; B) 03 CALCUTTA 291


CLASSIFIED BY: George N. Sibley, Principal Officer, ConGen
Calcutta, State.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)




1. (C) SUMMARY: Geographic isolation, historical misfortune
and deliberate choice combine to make the northeastern state of
Arunachal Pradesh India's most isolated and among it least
developed. As home to 26 major tribal groups, Arunachal is
something of an anthropologist's dream, but a political and
developmental nightmare. Much of the northern border with China
remains disputed territory. This contributed to the 1962
Sino-Indian war that was waged mainly in Arunachal and ended in
India's humiliating defeat. As a result, the state has remained
"sensitive" from India's security perspective and even Indian
citizens require special permission to visit it. This has
severely hampered development, but the resulting isolation has
not been entirely unwelcome to its xenophobic tribal
inhabitants. In fact, the major source of resentment against
the Center is not the serious developmental neglect, but rather
the settlement in Arunachal of Chakma and Hajong refugees of
Bangladeshi origin in 1964, and their continued presence in the
state. Arunachal has significant potential in hydropower,
forestry and tourism but these are unlikely to be developed
quickly until a political consensus is reached on the
fundamental question: Does the state want tribal cultural
isolation or economic development? END SUMMARY.

-------------- --------------
Arunachal Pradesh: Geographic Isolation
-------------- --------------


2. (U) Arunachal Pradesh is the largest state in the northeast
in terms of area (32,000 square miles) and it borders China,
Burma and Bhutan as well as the Indian states of Assam and
Nagaland. With a little over one million inhabitants, the

density of population (31 per square mile) is the lowest among
all Indian states. More than 80 percent of Arunachal's land
area is covered with forest and parts of the state remain
unexplored. It has limited transport and communication
infrastructure. With few highways, helicopter services or
footpaths are the main transportation lifelines. The state's
population is largely tribal, with 26 dominant tribes, each with
its own language and customs, and literally hundreds of
sub-groups. Villages are administered in consultation with the
nominated village headman and the elected panchayat (local
self-government) leader. Several tribes practice Donyi Polo, a
religion worshipping the sun and the moon, whereas others
practice animism. Missionaries have made few inroads here.
Polygamy is permitted and practiced by some tribal elites. Two
of the tribes exist in a master-slave relationship (Ref A).
According to 2001 census figures, overall literacy (54.3%; male
-- 64%, female -- 44%) was ten points below the all-India
average. The 2002 GOI Economic Survey showed a sex ratio
heavily biased against women (901 females to 1000 males) and
infant mortality surprisingly low at 40/1,000. These figures
are difficult to explain, as the cultures do not practice gender
preference or female infanticide, and may simply reflect
counting errors in this remote and sparsely populated state.

-------------- --------------
Arunachal Pradesh: Historical Misfortune
-------------- --------------


3. (C) China invaded parts of Arunachal Pradesh during the
1962 conflict and India's border with southern Tibet remains
disputed. Arunachal undoubtedly occupies a space in China's
South Asia strategy. During the Calcutta Principal Officer's
(PO) visit in December 2004, a senior minister of the Arunachal
Pradesh Government recalled how a Chinese government official, a
few months previously, had told him that he would not require a
visa to go to Kunming (in China) as he was from Arunachal
Pradesh. As the Indian and Chinese governments engage in a
dialog over the border issue, Arunachal Pradesh's strategic
importance has increased. According to media reports, the
Tawang District in north Arunachal Pradesh bordering Tibet is
being contemplated for a swap with China in exchange for Aksai
Chin in the Ladakh region. In the last week of November 2004,
then Indian National Security Advisor J.N. Dixit went to
Beijing, and at the same time Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam
Saran went to Arunachal. Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister
Gegong Apang told the PO that Saran did not discuss the GOI's
deliberations with China during the visit. He expressed
dissatisfaction over this, saying that no resolution of the
border issue, including territorial exchange, would be possible
without taking the people of Arunachal Pradesh into confidence.
Apang subsequently conveyed the same message to the GOI by
leaking his own comments in this portion of the meeting to the
local media. Nonetheless, Apang expressed strong interest in
developing border trade with China. (Note: Given these
negotiations, perhaps it is no coincidence that Arunachal
Pradesh's new Governor, S.K. Singh, sworn in on December 16,
2004, is a former Foreign Secretary of India.)


4. (C) Lack of development combined with isolation from the
Indian "mainland" have led some in Arunachal's intelligentsia to
develop a "pro-China" slant. During an informal interaction,
several student leaders and human rights activists candidly
admitted their pro-Chinese tilt to the PO, even saying that
living with China would be better than living with India.
Arunachal, like other parts of northeast India, is ethnically
and culturally more akin to their Tibetan and South East Asian
cousins than to the majority of Indian citizens, but these
statements appeared more a product of frustration than of any
careful assessment of what costs any serious effort at secession
would entail.

-------------- --------------
Arunachal Pradesh: Isolation as a Deliberate Choice
-------------- --------------


5. (C) Arunachal Pradesh's indigenous communities are
"protected" through the system of Inner Line Permits devised by
the British. No "outsider" can enter Arunachal Pradesh without
an Inner Line (IL) or a Protected Area Permit (PAP). Neither
can they buy land, start a business or take up employment.
While accompanying the PO in December 2004, Calcutta's Economic
FSN, an Indian citizen, was even enjoined from "taking
photographs" in Arunachal on the IL permit issued to him. The
people of Arunachal, its political leaders, government officials
and civil society representatives are unanimous about retaining
the Inner Line system. They are convinced that by keeping
outsiders away, the Inner Line is protecting the life and
culture of the indigenous people. The Chief Minister explained
that without the Inner Line restrictions, the tribes would lose
their land to people from mainland India. Although Hindi is the
state's official language, and "Jai Hind" is a common greeting,
the passion to retain the Inner Line is an expression of the
underlying resistance to integrate with the Indian mainstream
that has a separate ethnic, cultural and linguistic identity.
When PO suggested that these restrictions inhibit investment and
tourism -- including from the U.S. -- virtually all of his
interlocutors appeared willing to pay this price to preserve the
state's tribal identity.


6. (C) Arunachal's long-standing feud with the Chakma-Hajong
refugees highlight this desire for preservation of indigenous
rights in its extreme form. The Chakmas and the Hajongs are
tribes evicted from Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts. In
1964, about two thousand families were resettled in refugee
enclaves in Arunachal's Tirap Division, presumably because the
GOI believed that Arunachal, as the least densely populated
state in India, could most easily accommodate them. Since then,
the Chakma and the Hajongs have grown in numbers whose reliable
estimates are either not available or not disclosed.
Representatives of indigenous people's organizations have their
own estimates -- which to us do not appear credible -- that
predict that Chakma-Hajongs will outnumber Arunachal tribes in
the not too distant future. Such portents are discussed and
debated at group meetings, reinforcing the tension and the
animosity against Chakmas and other "outsiders". In a meeting
with the PO a leader of the largest student group in Arunachal
went so far as to suggest that his organization might lead
efforts to violently drive out the Chakmas in future if the GOI
did not take action to resettle them elsewhere. Indeed, on
December 10, 2004, the National Liberation Front of Arunachal
(NLFA) - a tribal militant outfit - directed Arunachal's
Chakma-Hajong refugees to leave the state in two months. The
directive came after a Singpho tribal leader was abducted and
killed in late November, allegedly by the Chakmas.

7. (U) In contrast, there is much less animosity against the
Tibetan refugee enclaves. This is partly because their numbers
are fewer and partly because they have significant ethnic and
religious affinity with some of the Arunachalese. For example,
the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery outside of Tibet is at
Tawang in Arunachal. In any case, as part of its public
relation exercise, the state government organizes conducted
tours of Tibetan refugee camps.

-------------- --------------
Arunachal Pradesh: The Development Conundrum
-------------- --------------


8. (SBU) As it comes in contact with the outside world,
Arunachal tribal society is showing signs of confusion. In a
smoky Mishmi longhouse, middle-aged tribal women with enormous
plugs in their earlobes stared at the PO as he squatted by the
fire and sipped rice beer under racks of charred wild cattle
skulls. Asked through an interpreter what they found so
interesting, they replied that they had seen "white" people on
the cable television in their longhouse but that they had not
believed, until just then, that such people existed in real
life. As awareness of material comforts grows, societal leaders
will have to decide how to reconcile the appetite for material
development with the tribal way of life. Elsewhere these
transitions have sometimes led to severe dislocation or even the
extinction of tribal culture. As a result, most students'
bodies and other civil society organizations -- representing
tribal pressure groups -are vehemently opposed to developments
such as the large hydroelectric power projects that the
Government of India is proposing and, in some cases, has started
building. The arguments against these projects are familiar --
destruction of fragile biodiversity, displacement/submergence of
tribal villages and the resulting socio-economic disruptions, or
seismic hazards. While some of these concerns are genuine
(especially the seismic concerns),one suspects many are being
driven by simple xenophobia. Ironically, the groups making
these arguments live in modern homes in the capital, wear
Western clothes for the most part, and often have a Western
education. But they are trying to preserve "their" way of life
back in the villages. Hence the confusion: They say the people
of Arunachal are not averse to shopping malls, but they will not
let the owner of the shop be from Calcutta, Mumbai or New Delhi.
They say they want factories and projects, but will not ease IL
or PAP restrictions to enable the engineers and executives to
travel to the state at short notice.

--------------
Arunachal Pradesh: State Politics
--------------


9. (C) For 20 of the last 24 years, Apang has been Chief
Minister of Arunachal Pradesh. A member of the Adi tribe, he
has been able to rally support across the state, usually under
the banner of the Congress Party. However, it is clear that his
political weathervane is driven solely and exclusively by his
calculation of what party in New Delhi can provide the most
benefits to his state. This explains his sudden conversion to
the BJP in August 2003 (Ref B) and it also explains his return
to the Congress fold under the current Congress-led coalition.
The voters of the state appear to be similarly motivated,
electing -- for the first time -- nine BJP Members of
Legislative Assembly (out of 60 total) in the 2004 elections
when the BJP was seen as frontrunners to return to power at the
Center.

-------------- --------------
Arunachal Pradesh: Economic Resources
-------------- --------------


10. (U) Arunachal has three primary areas of economic
potential: hydropower, forest-based industries, and tourism.
With nearly 50,000 MW of hydroelectricity potential, Chief
Minister Gegong Apang envisions his state as the "powerhouse of
India." The Indian government, through the North East Electric
Power Corporation (NEEPCO) and National Hydroelectric Power
Corporation (NHPC),has identified 68 major power projects. Of
these NEEPCO has completed one (Ranaganadi Stage 1) and one is
under construction (Kameng); NHPC is also building the 2,000 MW
Subansiri (Lower) with a scheduled completion date of 2010.
Basic survey and infrastructure development is underway for
eight other of these projects. The state government would also
like to encourage its own medium-size projects, generating
100-500 MW, and claims it is open to "outside" investment --
including U.S.-sourced investment -- through the
build-operate-transfer route. The state is trying to overcome
objections to these projects by holding public hearings where
villagers participate.


11. (U) According to the state Forest Department, Arunachal's
forests generate 30,000 cubic feet per year of Non-Timber Forest
Produce (cane, bamboo, etc.) that is supplied to the local
factories. Nearly 6,000 hectares of forest is replanted every
year. Agriculture is carried out primarily through
low-productivity slash-and-burn (jhum) technique, which, given
the low density of population, is not currently an environmental
threat. Despite its vast tourism potential, the infrastructure
is limited and the obstacles -- such as the permit system --
substantial.

-------------- --
Arunachal Pradesh: American Interests
-------------- --


12. (C) The U.S. has a significant interest in the peaceful
resolution of the Sino-Indian border dispute, but this is an
area where progress is likely to be made in capitals, not in the
region. In the future there may be prospects for U.S. equipment
sales or direct investment in hydropower projects or
forest-based industries. When conditions allow, U.S. cultural
and adventure tourism to Arunachal may expand considerably. One
concern was an allegation, directed to the PO by an NGO
activist, that the U.S. bore indirect responsibility for the
conditions that generated the Chakma exodus from Bangladesh and
therefore should assume a central role in assuring their return
or their relocation and resettlement somewhere other than in
Arunachal. The PO expressed sympathy for their plight, but
disavowed any U.S. responsibility for finding a lasting solution
to remedy it.


13. (C) COMMENT: Arunachal Pradesh may be an anthropologist's
dream, but it seems a politician and an economist's nightmare.
Proponents of the state's indigenous people's interests are torn
between bringing modern education, health and other civic
amenities to the tribes and keeping them pristine, isolated from
the world by geography and the regulations of the Inner Line.
Many claim that the Government of India deliberately did not
build road infrastructure in the state for fear the Chinese Army
might use it in an invasion. In any case, given Arunachal's
frontline position vis-`-vis China, the GOI does not seem ready
to press fresh initiatives in the region, with the possible
exception of some hydropower for export to "mainland" India.
The net result is that Arunachal Pradesh remains, and is likely
to continue to remain, isolated from the Indian mainstream.
END COMMENT.

SIBLEY