Comparative Case Studies
© Prakash John Mascarenhas
The EIP is not only disputed state in the world. There are many, and but recently, Timor Lorosae has finally succeeded in getting Indonesia to vacate its occupation.
Let us take up these cases and see how they compare with our own case.
HAWAII: The Hawaii Islands were united under European influence into a single independent kingdom which was recognized by most of the then existing states of the world, including the USA, as a sovereign state. Nevertheless, with the active aid and abetment of the US government and armed forces, US citizens resident in Hawaii organized a coup de etat, and submitted Hawaii to the US as a dependency. Soon after these events, the then US President, Grover Cleveland, after investigating them, denounced them as immoral and illegal. However, he did not act to reverse them, and latter administrations ratified this patently illegal act. A century latter, President Clinton and the US Congress have acknowledged the illegality of these acts, but have still not undone them.
It is the moral duty of the USA to evacuate its citizens and institutions from Hawaii, restore the constitutional and legal government, and make restitutions, etc. That it has not done, and fails to do.
The Question of Hawaii today is who represents the wronged Hawaii, and thus to whom must the restored Hawaii be confided: Is it all the present population of Hawaii, or is it only those who were legally its citizens then, and those whom they freely accept of the latter-comers? The latter, according to morality and justice.
TIBET: China and many of its neighbours came to be conquered by the Manchus of Manchuria, bringing about the Manchurian Empire that lasted many centuries. In 1911, the Chinese Nationalists succeeded in overthrowing the Manchus. Taking advantage of the troubles, Tibet attempted to re-assert its independence, under the Dalai Lama. However, only a part succeeded in breaking away, and while Tibet achieved autocephaly, it was not recognized formally as an independent, sovereign state by its two most powerful neighbours - British India and China. In 1949, the Communists overthrew the Nationalists in all but Taiwan (Formosa), and promptly began to re-assert the rights and prerogatives of the Chinese empires of the past - even of the Mongol and Manchurian Empires over China, etc. Thus, they invaded and overthrew Free Tibet.
SIKKIM: Sikkim, the homeland of the Lepcha nation, is actually North-East Sikkim, the other parts being the South-East Sikkim or the Darjiling district, and the more largeish West Sikkim in East Nepal. This area, and Bhutan, to its east, has been and is being colonised by the Gorkha nation (which also conquered its neighbours - the Newarese, Western Sikkim, etc., to form the psuedo-nation of 'Nepal', the word being a corruption of Newar) and it is these Gorkha colonists who agitated against the Lepcha monarch and for India to annex the remnant Sikkimese state.
India's action is illegal, and the Gorkhas, whether in Sikkim or Darjiling, Kalimpong, Bhutan, etc., are foreigners and not citizens. There is therefore, also, no legitimate basis for a Indian and Bhutanese "Gorkhaland" in Darjiling, Kalimpong, Sikkim, and Bhutan, there already being a Gorkhaland in Nepal, and a greater Gorkhaland, or Gorkha empire, in Nepal itself!
Moreover, if the Indian Union was justified in its actions against Sikkim, then, it must exercise the same principles in the Question of Bhutan.
Bhutan, Sikkim's eastern neighbour, is racked by the same problem that precipitated the Indian Union's invasion of Sikkim - a large and aggressive Nepalese colonist community is agitating for 'democracy' where they can overwhelm the comparatively smaller Bhutanese population!
NAGALIM: The Naga family of nations once populated a huge territory, including the Gangetic Basin. They were pushed out by the Aryans and later in the Brahmaputra Basin, by other newcomer nations, to the slopes of the Patkai mountains on the Indo-Burmese border and so are on both sides of this artificial frontier.
From the very beginning, the Nagas refused to be included in either in the Indian Union or "Burma".
India received these territories under the legal fiction of constitutional succession, but India itself confesses that it is rather based on the moral grounds of its self-existence as a community of peoples geographically and historically distinct from its English rulers and therefore on its freedom struggle against England's rule.
But the Nagas' struggle is just as moral as India's. Therefore, India ought not to sit on its high hobby horse of being the constitutional successor state, and favorably consider the just as legitimate aspirations of the Naga nations.
EELAM: The island of Ceylon or Sri Lanka is the homeland of three nations the aborigine Veddas, the later Tamils and the even later Sinhalese.
The native Tamils (to distinguish them from the plantation Tamils imported by England to work the Tea Plantations in the Kandy Highlands in the Singhala homeland) inhabit the North and East coast.
With independence, the Sinhalese, using their brute majority in Ceylon, began to discriminate against the Tamils, making Sinhalese the sole "national" language, and removing Tamil civil officers, etc. This persecution reached its peak under President Jayewardene who began a policy of Sinhala colonisation of the Tamil homeland (the "Dollar", "Reagan" camps, etc.) This is what was the last straw oand what finally pushed the native Tamils to secession.
As such, the Tamils are entirely justified in rejecting Sri Lanka and seceding to form their own state.
Their struggle is just and moral and deserving of approbation and support from all good men.
ANALYSIS
Hawaii has the strongest legal case, and its moral case is also strong.
As compared to Tibet, the case of the EIP is much stronger: The distinct identity of the EIP was never under question, as Tibet was. Sikkim's case is stronger, and similar to Hawaii's, because it was a recognized sovereign state. Nagalim and Eelam have strong, very strong moral cases, but weak legal cases, while the EIP has both a strong moral and legal case. As compared to Timor Lorosae, the EIP's case is in the same category. The EIP's case is stronger than those of the Moluccans, who have strong moral cases but a comparatively weak legal case, although stronger than that of Nagalim. Eritrea, under Ethiopian occupation, was in exactly the same position as the EIP. Eire has a stronger case than we have, while we have a stronger legal case than the Biafrans and Sudanese. Again, our legal case is stronger than that of Puerto Rico. Etc., etc.