Assam is back in news for violence, but ethno-nationalism may worsen the conflict and lead to further polarisation and bloodshed, writes ANANYA BORGOHAIN
Violence in Assam is not a new issue; a notion of Assam being a ‘conflicted’ zone has been seeped deep into the socio-cultural awareness of the average Indian. After all, it is one State which alone has around 30 rebellion outfits in it. Ten days ago too, the state of affairs worsened and Assam hit mainstream headlines yet again, and for the same old reason: Conflict.
BONE OF CONTENTION
The National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) is a terrorist organisation which wants a sovereign Bodoland for the Bodo community in Assam. The Bodos are an ethno-linguistic tribe in the State. Although the official claim for a sovereign Bodo State is often accredited to the movement started by the All Bodo Students’ Union in 1987, this sectarian conflict started in Bodo-dominated pockets two decades earlier in 1967. Back then, the movement was also called Udayachal. The Bodo community believes their region has been overlooked and has hence been under-developed. The influx of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh is also said to have added to their grievances. Particularly, in the 1970s, after the 1971 war, there was a major inflow of Bengali Muslim settlers. The NDFB seeks to secede from India, and establish a sovereign Bodoland, deeming it to be the solution to the owes of the indigenous tribe.
However, they would need to be a majority to make that claim. But the zone which is referred to as Bodoland — Bodoland Territorial Areas District (BTAD) — also comprises a lot of Adivasis, the tea tribes who were brought to Assam by the colonial British tea-planters from the Chota Nagpur plateau. In fact, BTAD has a mixed population — Bodos, Koch-Rajbangsis, Assamese, Rabhas, Adivasis, Bengali Hindus and Muslims, etc.
The Bodo separatists believe that the Adivasis are Intelligence and police assets who tip off the State Government about their movements. Assam has three autonomous councils constituted under the Sixth schedule (which seeks to give greater autonomy to tribal communities), the BTAD is one of them. The four districts under BTAD are: Kokrajhar, Baksa, Chirang and Udalguri. These are the volatile areas and the BTAD came into existence in 2003 when the Bodo liberation Tigers Force (BlTF) had surrendered. The All Bodo Students’ Union then finally started a fresh movement for separation in 1987 (with the slogan ‘Divide Assam 50:50’). The NDFB, originally the Bodo Security Force, changed its name to NDFB in 1994.
The BlTF accorded the BTC in exchange of giving up arms. Their leader Hagrama Mohilary then became the as the Chief Executive Member of the region. The NDFB, one of the other insurgency groups fighting for the same cause, were discontented with the step as they believed it to be still an underwhelming solution.
The NDFB is believed to have established 12 camps on the Bhutan-Assam border in the 1990s. After the Royal Bhutan Army’s Operation All Clear, NDFB signed a ceasefire with the Indian authorities in May 2005. Until then, they had carried out bombings, kidnappings and murders in Assam, most recently being the Assam riots of 2012 at Kokrajhar which displaced almost 4,000,00 people, or the riots in May 2014 and killed over a hundred. Children have often been the victims of such violence, followed by women. In one incident, NDFB cadres had slayed a 16 year old girl (including pumping bullets into her breasts), Priya Basumatary, in front of her parents, believing her to be a Government spy.
ETHNIC ClASH AND CARNAGE
As mentioned, BTAD entails a mixed population. The NDFB and the tea tribes too have always been in the midst of damaging animosity. For the sake of forming a majority too, an ethnic cleansing of the Adivasis would help the NDFB. And hence begins the cycle of violence in the region. The objective of the Bodo Territorial Council (BTC) accord was the uplift of the Bodo people vis-à-vis their cultural identity, language, education and economic development. Though the Bodos in the region are larger in number, they are still not a majority.
The Koch-Rajbangsis constitute around 17 per cent of that population and they demand separate statehood (Kamtapur) too. In fact, their territory overlaps BTAD. In the most recent killings, it was indeed a little surprising that the NDFB targeted the Adivasis, barring their usual target, the Bengali Muslims. Statistical data have, at the same time, claimed that the influx of Bengali Muslim setllers have not really been high in the last few decades, contrary to popular claim. This makes the pattern far more complex, and this is why, shifting all blame to illegal immigration from Bangladesh may not be accurate, and worse, would be unnecessarily xenophobic to say the least.
SPlIT WITHIN THE GROUP
In 2008, the group split into two factions, pro-talks and anti-talks. The pro-talks factions led by B Sungthagra, NDFB(P), supported peace talks with the Governments. The anti-talks faction, NDFB(R), led by Ranjan Daimary, opposed the same. In December of the same year, the NDFB(P) indicated its plans to indirectly or directly participate in the lok Sabha elections. The May 2014 violence is accredited as an act of retaliation for not voting for the NDFB in the lok Sabha elections.
IK Songbijit was named the “army commander” of NDFB(R) in 2009. In 2012, Songbijit formed a nine-member “interim national council” which resulted in a split with the Daimary faction. The NDFB(S), which is now led by Songbijit, is considered to be the most feared faction. Apparently, they had not even spared a five month old baby. For the want of a better word, irony is, Songbijit is not even a Bodo, he is a Karbi.
Counter insurgency operation by security forces in August last year are said to have resulted in the deaths of several NDFB(S) cadres’ deaths. On December 21, 2014, cadres of Songbiit’s faction stormed into the huts of Adivasis and killed them. In retaliation, five Bodos were killed by the adivasis in Sonitpur and Chirang districts, a Bodo village was torched as well. A mob tried to storm into the Dhekiajuli police station. Police firing then killed a few more protesters. Within 24 hours, more than 70 lives were lost. Night curfew was imposed in Kokrajhar, Chirang, Udalguri and Sonitpur. Reports say that the death toll has risen to 81.
HOW THE GOVT FAIlED
Assam Additional Director General of Police (special branch) Pallab Bhattacharya has acknowledged that the attacks were anticipated but they didn’t have any idea about the specific location. This is an embarrassing and irreparably damaging Intelligence failure. State Secretary, Jitesh Khosla, too was caught on television enjoying an elephant safari at the Kaziranga national park the very next day after the killings.
Along with Governmental authorities, national media as well as citizens of the country have been largely insensitive towards the crises in Assam. Only recently, the Peshawar killings were met with due shock and agony from all Indians collectively, but barely a few outside Assam know that children were killed in the State as well. In fact, seven year old Kalu Todu was shot seven times in the carnage.
WHAT MIGHT HElP
The NIA has now taken over the investigation. Following the latest onslaught, Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered Rs2 lakh to the families of the dead and Rs50,000 to the seriously injured. Home Minister Rajnath Singh visited affected areas and called it a terrorist activity. 55 para-military companies were dispatched to Assam. Bhutan and Myanmar were also reportedly taken into confidence in order to entrap Songbijit.
However, this issue goes beyond security forces capturing one militant. The Central Government needs to reconsider the land rights and population records to keep a tab on influx, and to meditate a more impactful solution. As per the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, the sale or transfer of tribal lands is prohibited, but illegal immigrants still reportedly forge documents and settle mostly in the forest areas. Issuing compulsory Aadhar Cards also need to be considered. Intelligence sources, of course, will have to be doubly alert and the same needs to be extended to the authorities in Myanmar, where Songbijit is said to be hiding.
Socially, one needs to rise above xenophobic sentiments and shift blame from one religion to another. Whether the BSF was Hindu dominated or the NDFB is Christian-dominated, or Bengali Muslims are the sole perpetrators, is irrelevant and crumbles in the face of political opportunism. In such a volatile situation, one wonders if an All-Out Offensive as the one recently launched would be constructive or not. This struggle has reduced itself to a Darwinian notion of power dynamics and has forgotten all human values.
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