Dimasa Rebel Group Signs Peace Pact With Centre
Context:
On Thursday, the Dimasa National Liberation Army (DLNA)/Dimasa People’s Supreme Council (DPSC), an Assam-based insurgent group operating in the Dima Hasao district, signed a peace agreement with the State government and the Centre in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.
Points to Ponder:
- The Dimasa National Liberation Army (DNLA)/Dimasa People’s Supreme Council (DPSC), an insurgent organisation operating in Assam’s Dima Hasao area, signed a peace pact with the state and central governments.
- The agreement was signed on Thursday in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.
- The DNLA must stop using violence, surrender their weapons and ammunition, abolish its armed organisation, abandon any camps occupied by DNLA cadres, and join the mainstream.
- Over 168 DNLA armed cadres surrendered their weapons and joined the mainstream.
- According to Amit Shah, this accord will put a stop to the insurgency in Assam’s Dima Hasao district.
- The Assam government will set up a Dimasa Welfare Council to protect, preserve and promote social, cultural, and linguistic identity and to meet the political, economic and educational aspirations of the Dimasa people residing outside the Autonomous Council.
- A Commission will be appointed under Paragraph 14 of the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution of India to examine the demand for the inclusion of additional villages contiguous to the North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council (NCHAC) with the Council.
- The MoU also calls for the Government of India and the state government of Assam to take the required steps to rehabilitate the DLNA cadres.
- The Government of India and the Government of Assam would contribute a Special Development Package of 500 crores each over five years for the overall development of NCHAC and Dimasa people living in other areas of the State.
Dimasa National Liberation Army
- The Dimasas are Assam’s oldest known rulers and settlers, and they today inhabit Dima Hasao, Karbi Anglong, Cachar, Hojai, and Nagaon districts, as well as parts of Nagaland.
- The quest for statehood began in the 1960s but took a violent turn in 1991, when a demand for a full-fledged state, dubbed ‘Dimaraji,’ gained traction, leading to the formation of the militant Dimasa National Security Force (DNSF).
- The gang surrendered in 1995, but its commander-in-chief, Jewel Gorlosa, founded the Dima Halam Daogah (DHD), and later the Dima Halam Daogah (Jewel) (DHD-J), with an armed wing known as Black Widow.
- The Constitution’s Sixth Schedule provides for more political autonomy and decentralised governance in certain tribal areas of the Northeast through autonomous councils led by elected representatives.
- This law applies to the Assam highland districts of Dima Hasao, Karbi Anglong, and West Karbi, as well as the Bodo Territorial Region.
- The United Liberation Front of Assam, the Bodo Liberation Tigers Force, the National Democratic Front of Bodoland, and the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation are among the other insurgent organisations in Assam.
