3/20/2018 640 Banajit Hussain, The Bodoland violence and the politics of explanation

The Bodoland violence and the politics of explanation

BANAJIT HUSSAIN

EVEN though tensions were apparently simmering for many months

prior to the outbreak of violence in the month of July 2012 in the
Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts (BTAD) area, but the
immediate trigger was the killing of two Muslim youths who were shot
dead by unidentified gunmen on 6 July. The needle of suspicion
pointed to the former cadres of the disbanded Bodo Liberation Tigers
(BLT). In retaliation, four former cadres of Bodo Liberation Tigers
were hacked to death by a mob in the Muslim dominated village of
Joypur near Kokrajhar town. What unfolded after that was the worst
humanitarian crisis to have hit Assam in decades.

During the crisis that unfolded in Kokrajhar and Chirang districts of the
Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts (BTAD) and the adjoining
Dhubri and Bongaigaon districts, Assam witnessed the tragedy of
nearly 500,000 people belonging to the Bodo and Muslim communities
being forced to take shelter in 273 temporary refugee camps. These
people will stand internally displaced, scarred and traumatized for a
long time to come. An estimated 97 people lost their lives and around
500 villages were burnt down. The magnitude of this human tragedy is
overwhelming considering the short span of one month in which it
occurred.

There was an immediate need for a united humanitarian call to stop the
killings and the violence on the part of community leaders and the
administration, but the failure to do so created an atmosphere of
extreme polarization, with leaders of both the Bodo and the Muslim
communities hurling allegations and counter-allegations at each other.
To make matters worse, leaders of the Bodo community, large sections
of mainstream Assamese society, and a section of the media and the
political class took it upon themselves to allege and prove that the
responsibility for this human tragedy lay squarely on ‘illegal
Bangladeshi migrants’ (often used as a shorthand for Muslims of
Bengali origin in Assam) and that the undifferentiated Muslim masses
inhabiting western Assam are ‘Bangladeshis’.

A whole range of clichés like ‘influx of foreigners’, ‘loss of culture’,

and ‘demographic invasion’ were deployed to driven home the point
that what was unfolding was no ethnic clash but rather a last ditch
reaction against the ‘genuine’ fear of the Bodos of being swamped by
illegal Bangladeshi foreigners in their own ‘homeland’.

While there is little doubt that migration from Bangladesh into Assam
has continued after 1971, the claims of getting swamped by the
unabated influx of ‘illegal’ migrants runs contrary to the fact that both
Assam and the Bodoland area have shown decreasing trends of
population growth in the last few decades as against the all India
growth rate of population. It is the rhetoric of ‘illegal’ migrants
flooding the region that seems to have aggravated the recent violence,
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backed largely by paranoia about the perceived growing numbers of

Muslims in the area, all of whom are assumed to be ‘illegal’ migrants.

This article will reassert the fact that huge numbers of people from
erstwhile East Bengal had migrated and settled before 1947 in the area
affected by the recent violence. The article will also attempt to
demystify the claim that the root cause of political violence in the
BTAD area is illegal immigration from Bangladesh by looking at
patterns of population growth in the past few decades in the BTAD
area. Finally, it will try to understand the current violence by looking
into the recurring history of political violence and riots in the Bodo
heartland.

Polarization was escalated by irresponsible statements by both

constitutional authorities and leaders of community organizations. The
Election Commissioner of India, Harishankar Brahma, himself a Bodo,
made an overzealous attempt to prove that illegal Bangladeshis were
behind the violence. He also claimed that migration of Bengali
Muslims into Assam started during the late 1960s and early 1970s.1 It is
in this context, especially when a constitutional authority like the
Election Commissioner of India presents a distorted picture of the
country’s official demographic records, that certain well documented
historical facts like that a large number of peasants from erstwhile East
Bengal migrated and settled in Assam in the early decades of the 20th
century need to be reiterated.

Hypothetically, if we take the entire population of 33 lakh in Assam in

1901 to be ‘indigenous’, and we apply the all-India rate of population
increase of 74.82 per cent between 1901 and 1941, the population of
Assam in 1941 should have been 57.69 lakh instead of 67 lakh. That
means approximately 9.31 lakh people had migrated into Assam in this
period. Applying the same all-India rate of population increase during
this period, the Muslim population in 1941 should have been 8.8 lakh,
instead of the 16.9 lakh it actually was.2 From this it can be inferred that
the increase was due to the settling of migrants in the state and that the
majority of these Muslim peasant migrants who settled in Assam
during this period were East Bengali Muslim peasants.

It is worth mentioning that East Bengali Muslim peasants first settled

in undivided Goalpara district (which included Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon,
Chirang and Dhubri till the 1980s), before they spanned out to other
parts of lower and central Assam. The decadal growth of population in
Goalpara district had shot up by 30 per cent as early as 1901-1911
compared to 1.4 per cent in 1881-1891 and two per cent in 1891-1901.
In 1921-1931, the decadal growth of population of Goalpara had
dropped to 15.8 per cent due to the fact that ‘most of the suitable waste
land in the district had already been occupied by immigrants who
poured into the district in 1901-1921, and that the main stream of
immigrants had found better prospects for settling in Kamrup and
Nagaon districts. During 1921 to 1931 Barpeta subdivision of Kamrup
district saw an enormous 69 per cent increase in population.’3 But
between 1901 to 1931, 4.98 lakh East Bengali Muslim peasants are
recorded in Goalpara district alone.4

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One needs to remember that there had been an irreversible

demographic change in Assam during the colonial period because of
this stream of migration from East Bengal which was encouraged by
the colonial state. If one is to believe the assertions of the Election
Commissioner, then the question that immediately arises is – where are
the descendants of the lakhs of East Bengali Muslim peasants who
settled in this area before Partition?

It has also been claimed by various people, including the BTAD

leadership, that the Bangladeshi population in Kokrajhar district –
where the violence erupted first and which is also the political seat of
power in BTAD – has increased by leaps and bounds in the last
decades. Contrary to popular perception, even a cursory glance at the
census data gives a different picture. Even though the growth of
population between 1971 to 1991 in Kokrajhar district was 76%, there
has been no alarming increase of the Muslim population in many
decades. In 1971, the Muslim population in Kokrajhar (then a
subdivision of undivided Goalpara district) stood at 17 per cent, with
no census being conducted in 1981. It stood at 19.3 per cent in 1991
and, in 2001, it stood at 20.4 per cent.

Even though the religion-wise census figures for 2011 are not yet
available, provisional results from the 2011 Census show that the
decadal growth rate of population between 2001-2011 for Kokrajhar
district was 5.19 per cent, interestingly, marking a decline of nine per
cent as compared to the decadal growth rate of 14.49 per cent between
1991 to 2001. (The decadal growth rate for Assam between 1991 to
2001 was 18.92 per cent and 16.93 per cent between 2001-2011.)

There can only be two plausible reasons for this nine per cent decline in
population growth in 2001-2011. One possibility, though highly
unlikely, is that the population growth rate has remained more or less
the same as it was between 1991 and 2001, but the death rate has shot
up by nine per cent. The other possibility, which seems more plausible,
is that there has been a considerable out-migration from Kokrajhar,
especially after the formation of the BTAD in 2003.

Since the Bodos (who constitute 20 per cent of the population in the
BTAD area) hold a monopoly over political power in the area, it is
unlikely that there has been any significant out-migration of the Bodo
population from Kokrajhar district. The Koch Rajbangsis, who
constitute roughly 17 per cent of the total population of the BTAD,
have been campaigning for and demanding a separate homeland
(Kamtapur) which territorially overlaps the BTAD, thus making it
unlikely that they would out-migrate, abdicating their political claims
over the territory. In all probability, the out-migration involves other
non-Bodo communities, including Muslims.

By now it should be clear that simplistic propositions like ‘Bangladeshi

illegal migrants are the root cause of the violence’, prevent us from
understanding the complex reality of the situation.

While trying to delve into the possible reasons behind the current
violence, it might be pertinent to note that it is not the first of its kind in
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the Bodoland area. The violence that was witnessed in the wake of the
Bodo movement since 1987 was largely in terms of political
assassinations, abductions and bomb blasts in public places. However,
there is a significant shift in the nature of violence since 1994, when for
the first time non-Bodo communities were identified and targeted.
Throughout the 1990s, people belonging to non-Bodo communities like
Nepalis, Hindu Bengalis, Muslims of Bengali descent and Adivasis
were targeted by armed Bodo groups.

The shift in the nature of violence targeting communities occurred in

the context of the collapse of the Bodo Accord (20 February 1993)
which mandated the formation of the Bodoland Autonomous Council
(BAC). The 1993 Bodo Accord was signed between the government
and the All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU)/Bodo Peoples’ Action
Committee (BPAC) combined. The accord mandated the Assam
Legislative Assembly to ‘form a Bodoland Autonomous Council within
the state of Assam comprising contiguous geographical areas between
river Sankosh and Mazbat/River Pasnoi.’5

The territorial demarcation of the BAC was left open ended, subject to
the fulfilment of the requirement outlined in the accord that ‘[t]he land
records authority of the state will scrutinize the list of villages furnished
by ABSU/BPAC having 50 per cent and more of tribal population,
which shall be included in the BAC. For the purpose of providing
contiguous area, even villages having less than 50 per cent population
shall be included.’6

But to form a contiguous Bodo homeland actually required the

inclusion of 515 villages with less than 50 per cent Bodo population,
which finally became a bone of contention between the state of Assam
and the ABSU/BPAC leadership. Further, there were also
disagreements about the exclusion of a 10 kilometre stretch of
international border with Bhutan, and the Srirampur toll gate on the
Assam-West Bengal border.7 The ABSU/BPAC rejected the unilateral
demarcation of the BAC territory by the Assam government which
excluded the above contentious areas of 515 villages, resulting in the
collapse of the BAC.

Even though the BAC lacked constitutional protection and was

completely dependent on the Assam government in financial matters
and other transferred subjects and departments, it bolstered the
imagination of a territorially contiguous ethnic homeland among the
Bodos. The collapse of the BAC over issues of demography, territory,
boundaries and the inclusion/exclusion of villages with majority
Bodo/non-Bodo population eventually led to a more aggressive claim
for a homeland that would include and protect all the Bodos. The Bodo
armed groups confronted this bind with an understanding that the
territory had ‘to be cleared from its intruders. And as the Assamese and
central government were unwilling to take up this task, they were
bound to do it themselves.’8 This confrontation can be seen as
escalating into large-scale mass violence against non-Bodos within the
boundaries of the imagined homeland of the Bodos, and more so within
the ‘contentious areas’ of the BAC discord.

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In early 1994, 50 Muslims of Bengali descent were killed in Kokrajhar

and Bongaigaon districts. Soon after, in July 1994, members of the
same community were massacred in the northern part of Barpeta
district in which at least a few hundred were killed, though one estimate
put the death toll at 1000.9 On 9 October 1995, eight Hindu Bengalis
were gunned down in Darrang district; a few days later on 15 October,
eight people, mostly Nepalis, were killed in Nalbari district. However,
this pattern of violence amplified with the Bodo-Adivasi clash of 1996
in Kokrajhar district. This round of violence resulted in 200 Adivasis
being killed and forced 250,000 people to take shelter in relief camps,
and as of 2007 more than 54,700 people, almost all Adivasis, were still
living in relief camps.10 In the wake of these sustained attacks on the
‘others’ that pose a hindrance to the realization of a homeland, the
Bodoland movement began to be questioned for indulging in what
could be seen as a process of ‘ethnic cleansing’.

Less than a decade after the collapse of the BAC, the Bodoland
Territorial Council was created by a tripartite agreement between Bodo
Liberation Tigers (BLT which was in ceasefire since 2000), the Assam
and the central government. Unlike the BAC, the BTC has
constitutional protection under the 6th Schedule of the Indian
Constitution and has definite territorial demarcation. However, a point
to note here is that the BTC was created by glossing over the
contentious issues regarding demography and territory which had led to
the failure of the BAC adventurism. Even while talks about the
formation of the BTC were in process, the non-Bodo population,
represented by an apex body of such population under the banner of
Sanmilita Janagoshtiya Sangram Samiti (SJSS), had opposed the idea
on the grounds of the demographic reality of the proposed area and
suggested that the recommendations laid out by the three member
Expert Committee led by Bhupinder Singh should be the basis of Bodo
autonomy.11

Keeping in mind the aspirations of the Bodos, the committee proposed

two things, one at the state level and another for the regional level. At
the regional level, it proposed a three-tier structure of self-government,
two of them territorial, at the village and village cluster levels, and a
coordinating body above the two. All three bodies were to have
demarcated but inter-penetrating powers. At the state level, the
commission proposed a second chamber for the legislature, a sort of
house of ethnicities, with definite powers, including veto over the lower
chamber in certain matters, to ensure self-rule and the cultural and
social autonomy of the various ethnicities.

The Bodo population in the BTAD12 area is around 20 per cent of the
total population. The overall Scheduled Tribe (ST) population of the
area is 28 per cent. This makes the Bodos the single largest ST
population in the said area. The rest are non-tribals of various ethnic
mix. Whereas the political representation in the BTC provides for the
reservation of 30 STs to the council of 46, five open for all
communities, five for non-tribal communities and six to be nominated
by the Governor of Assam from the unrepresented communities, the
percentage of political representation does not logically correspond to
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the actual demographic strength of the Bodos. This uneven distribution

of powers has only helped deepen the sense of insecurity and mistrust
among the non-Bodo population of the area.

Tensions between the Bodos and non-Bodos have been further

heightened by two developments since 2011. First, the emergence of
the All India United Democratic Front (AIDUF) as the largest
opposition party in the state assembly, a party that claims to represent
the interest of Muslims in Assam and has called for the dissolution of
BTC, adding to the skepticism of the Bodo leadership about the
growing influence of AIDUF in the BTAD area. Second, the formation
of non-Bodo organizations like the All Bodoland Minority Students’
Union (ABMSU) and Ana-Bodo Suraksha Samiti (Non-Bodo
Protection Committee) who seek to safeguard their rights and interests
in the BTAD area.

Although Bodos now have a well demarcated homeland which is

constitutionally protected, the fact that they constitute only around 20
per cent of the population has only consolidated the perceived fear that
they can be swamped by ‘others’ in their ‘own homeland’.

Rather than raise the bogey of ‘illegal Bangladeshis’ and putting forth
formulaic xenophobic explanations, the recent violence in BTAD needs
to be understood in the context of the politics and the quest for an
exclusive and geographically well demarcated ethnic homeland. It is
this quest for a territorially contiguous homeland in a complex and
demographical diverse reality which lies at the heart of repeated
communitarian violence in the Bodoland area.

Footnotes:

1. H. Brahma, ‘How to Share Assam?’ The Indian Express, 28 July 2012.

2. Calculated from the data provided in the Government of Assam. Assam State
Gazetteer, Volume I, Guwahati, 1999.

3. Government of Assam, Assam State Gazetteer, Volume I. Guwahati, 1999.

4. Ibid.

5. Memorandum of Settlement, Bodo Accord. Annexure I, in Anuradha Dutta, and

Urmimala Sengupta, Disturbing Silence: A Look Into Conflict Profile of BTAD.
Akansha Publishing House, New Delhi, 2011.

6. Ibid.

7. ABSU, ‘Bodoland Movement 1986-2001: A Dream and Reality.’ Saraighat Offset

Press, Guwahati, 2001.

8. Former National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and Bodo Liberation Tigers
(BLT) cadres quoted in Nel Vandekerchove, ‘We Are Sons of the Soil: The Endless
Battle over Indigenous Homelands in Assam, India’, Critical Asian Studies 41(4), 2001,
pp. 523-548.

9. Monirul Hussain, ‘Ethnicity, Communalism and State: Barpeta Massacre’, Economic

and Political Weekly 30(20), 1995, pp. 1154-1155.

10. Monirul Hussain and Pradip Phanjoubam, ‘A Status Report on Displacement in

Assam and Manipur’, MCRG, Kolkata, 2007.
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11. The three member Expert Committee under Dr. Bhupinder Singh was constituted in
1991 and the committee submitted its report in March 1992.

12. BTAD (Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts) refers to the four newly carved
out districts administered by the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC).

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