Shillong, May 12:The outlawed Hynñiewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) issued a long statement to the press highlighting how, it says, the Khasi-Jaintia people have been subjugated by India through nomenclature alone.
The Khasi-Jaintia community is a Scheduled Tribe in India, a status that brings various rights and privileges.
However, HNLC general secretary Sainkupar Nongtraw opined today that such a status is part of an effort to deny the tribe self-determination.
By continually referring to the Khasi-Jaintia as a Scheduled Tribe and not as a “people”, they are being denied “their rights to self-determination, to their lands, to their own governance and to their own identity”.
