Rebel groups like ULFA-I and other militant outfits have called for a ban on Independence Day celebrations on August 15. (Photo: PTI)

Rebel groups in India's Northeast have called for a boycott of Independence Day celebrations across the region.

United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent (ULFA-I) along with Coordination Committee (CorCom), an umbrella group of major militant outfits in Manipur, has called a general strike on August 15 from 1:30 am to 6:30 pm.

However, essential services like flood relief work, medical services, electricity, and water supply, etc have been kept outside the purview of the strike.

For the people undertaking the struggle for self-determination, the celebration of India's Independence Day on August 15 had no meaning.

"The RSS-BJP's ideology of one nation, one religion, and one language should be fought tooth and nail by the rising indigenous peoples. In order to undertake the nationalisation process all over the country's comprehensive Hindunisation process through changes in the education system is an atrocious authoritarian move to transform the mental autonomy of the young," read a joint statement issued by the rebel groups.

The rebel groups alleged that the Modi government was attempting to transform the indigenous cultures in the region through the imposition of "Hindu ways of life" by popularizing Hindi language and using population invasion of Hindi speaking people.

"These are sinister. Overall policy to suppress the distinctive indigenous cultural identities of the sons of the soil. India is waging a major war of racial discrimination over the indigenous populations," it stated.

Hitting out at the Modi-led BJP dispensation over its decision to abrogate special status to Jammu & Kashmir, the militant groups expressed apprehension about similar steps being taken in the Northeast.

"Recent outrageous events about the scrapping of Article 370 of the Indian constitution and bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir without the consent of the people of the state show India's arrogance and blatant disregard of democratic principles. Underhand dealings of shutting down the state machinery and house arrest of prominent leaders clearly portend the kind of dirty policies that would be applied to the people of the Northeast as well," it said.

"All the new laws hurriedly passed in the Parliament are meant to strengthen the fascistic power-hungry state of Modi India," the rebels claimed.

A separate statement signed by HNLC, KCP, KLO, KYKL, NDFB, NLFT and PDCK claimed that Kashmir had been reduced to a big prisonhouse for Kashmiris to make them "safe and prosperous". "The arrogance shown recently to the Kashmiri people is a product of muscular Hindutva nationalism, an ultra-pure form of fascism," it said.



