The tragedy called Assam

On October 30, Assam was trounced by another atrocious serial blast that has killed at least 77 innocent civilians. The
media termed it as the ‘worst-ever’ terrorist strike. Once again the Prime Minister and Home Minister delivered their
recorded cliché statement; bigwig leaders visited the affected area like tourists and merrily played politics. Minutes
after the blasts, Hindu nationalist leader Lal Krishna Advani accused ‘illegal Bangladeshis’ for breeding terrorism and
Bangladeshi jihadi groups for triggering the blasts as if the attackers had taken him into confidence before pursuing the
act. Local Hindutva communal groups called a statewide strike. Everything went on as expected.
For decades, this ill fated state is passing through a chronic sequence of hatred, suspicion, violence and ethnic division.
Today, this once prosperous land is one of the most economically backward and problem-ridden states of India. The
gap between Assam and rest of the country in terms of per capita income has been widening continuously during the
last fifty years after Independence. The state has a meager economic growth; many areas are still left untouched from
development. Maltreatment of consecutive governments has retarded serious and sensitive issues unresolved for
decades. This ill treatment has promoted many of the genuine grievances of the Assamese people and helped the
continuing conflicts and misperceptions to thrive. As a consequence, people of this region have increasingly grown
frustrated and became mentally alienated from the rest of the country.
To form a precise opinion on this terrorist strike, it seems essential to chronologically study the highly complex history
of the state. It is also crucial to carefully peel through the many layers of facts and viewpoints to get near the core truth.
Prologue
The eight states of the North-East region of India comprise over 200 distinct ethnic groups. Assam alone is the home of
about 20 large and small ethnic groups. Having ancestral relation with neighbour countries like China, Myanmar,
Bangladesh and Bhutan and sharing 98 per cent of its border with them (see map), this land and its ethnic inhabitants
has historically remained distanced from mainland India.
Human migration was an ongoing phenomenon in the Brahmaputra Valley for over the centuries. Various immigrant
groups, most of them Mongoloids, had entered the region from neighbouring South-East Asian countries. The Ahoms,
a Tai-Mongoloid group, immigrated to Assam during 13th century from China and consolidated their position to
establish the Ahom Kingdom that ruled Assam for the next 600 years. In 1818, the Burmese invaded Assam and forced
the Ahom king to leave the kingdom. Finally, in 1826 the British drove out the Burmese and Assam came under British
domination. Although the power of Ahom Kingdom started to decline from the second half of the 18th century, the
territory remained mostly unconquered from any exterior power (except for the brief periods between 1663 to 1667 by
the Mughals and 1818 to 1826 by the Burmese invasion) till the British took over.
British rule and growth of ‘anti-Bengali’ syndrome
After their takeover, the British revived Assam to one of the wealthier states of their regime with industrial and
infrastructural developments. The tea industry was built up; high productive oil fields were discovered. The British
brought in English educated Bengali officials to Assam to run the tea plantations and the civil service of the British raj.
Since 1826, educated Bengali middle class Hindus held important positions in the colonial administration and other
important professions like teachers, doctors, lawyers and magistrates. They also managed to introduce and initiate
Bengali as the executive language of Assam. In 1905, the Viceroy of India Lord Curzon divided Bengal Presidency
(undivided Bengal) into East and West Bengal (see map). Assam was merged with the new Muslim majority province
of East Bengal. However, in 1911 British Government annulled the Bengal Partition due to massive political unrest in
West Bengal. Assam was restored to its earlier status as a Chief Commissioner’s Province. But this time the British did
another damaging act by integrating Bengali speaking Cachar, Goalpara and Sylhet with Assam province.
The British design to merge Assam with East Bengal had hurt the ethnic pride of local Assamese people. The decision
was perceived by them as an indication that the Britishers are adversely treating their homeland as an extension of
Bengal. Despite the fact that the middle class Bengali Hindus has made enormous contributions to the development of
Assam’s oil wealth, industry and administration, the authority and power exercised by them over the ethnic Assamese
and treating them with arrogance and contempt had ensued grave discontentment and a fear of cultural subordination.
Moreover, the continuing large-scale influx of lower class Bengali Muslims was perceived as a demographic conquest
by Bengalis to overpower local Assamese – those who were either Hindus or animists. As a result, a deep ‘anti-
Bengali’ syndrome developed in the psyche of the ethnic Assamese mass. Hostility, mistrust and socio-cultural
conflicts aggravated between the two major linguistic groups and have set the fertile ground for a full scale future
confrontation.
Muslim immigration and the linguistic conflict
During the British rule, a big mass of Muslims had emigrated from undivided Bengal to Assam. Local Assamese
people were living mostly in Upper Assam and cultivating one crop per year. They were less interested about working
in the tea gardens or increasing their agricultural productivity. Hence, to work in the tea gardens, the British tea planters
started to import labourers from central India – mainly from Bihar. British entrepreneurs had also actively encouraged
landless Bengali speaking Muslim peasants to migrate from the populous East Bengal into the lowlands of Assam to
work and develop the vast virgin lands. These poor peasant labourers were hardworking in nature and ready to work
with minimal wages. They toiled hard on the waste lands of Lower Assam and transformed it into fertile agricultural
fields. The influx of peasant labourers increased with the 1941 Land Settlement Policy. A British government 1931
census report stated that only in Nagaon district, the number of Bengali settlers has gone up between 1921 and 1931 by
two thirds, from 300,000 to 500,000. The report also observed that places like Nagaon, Barpeta, Darrang, Kamrup and
North Lakimpur were ‘invaded’ by settlers coming from Mymensingh district of East Bengal. These peasant Bengali
immigrants made Assam their home and made a significant contribution to the agricultural economy of the state.
In the critical months leading up to Partition, Assam was again in the verge of getting merged with East Pakistan. The
Congress High Command and the Muslim League agreed on the Cabinet mission proposal for regrouping of Assam
with the eastern part of Bengal, which was to go away with Pakistan. The move was fiercely opposed by Gopinath
Borodoloi, the stalwart Congress leader of Assam with the backing of Mahatma Gandhi. Borodoloi successfully
prevented the regrouping plan and saved Assam from becoming a part of Pakistan. Combined with the present day
territories of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya, Assam sans the pre-dominantly Muslim district
of Sylhet, Assam became a state of the Union of India. Sylhet’s ceding to East Pakistan was comprehended as a desired
relief. A July 29, 1947 editorial in Assam Tribune, noted that “…the Assamese people seem to feel relieved of a
burden”.
The frustration of this failure to include Assam with East Pakistan left a permanent blotch within a prominent section of
orthodox Muslim leadership and reactionary religious groups. This abiding resentment was preserved in their minds as
the cherished Islamist design for a Greater Bangladesh which became the major source of future clashes.
Population influx of Bengali refugees, both Hindu and Muslims continued from East Bengal (now East Pakistan) in the
post Partition period. It used to accelerate whenever natural calamities, economic or political instability affected East
Pakistan. During this time, the ongoing linguistic conflict between the Bengalis and Assamese acquired momentum and
turned into a fierce agitation with one side demanding official language status for Assamese and the other side
defending the existing status of Bengali. The conflict had a definite political undertone and in 1960-61 burst into
violent language riots causing several deaths from both sides. In 1961, Assamese language received the official
language status by a legislation passed by the Government of Assam known as the ‘Official Language Act’. However,
under pressure from the predominantly Bengali speaking districts of Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj in the Barak
Valley of southern Assam, the official status of Bengali language was retained there.
After the Indo-China war in 1962, Arunachal Pradesh was separated out from Assam. The state was further Balkanized
with the formation of Meghalaya, Manipur and Nagaland in the years of 1960-70s.
Formation of Bangladesh
With the active help and intervention of the Indian government and army, Bangladesh (former East Pakistan) was
liberated from the grip of Pakistan and was established as a sovereign secular republic in 1971. It became a highly
emotional event for the millions of Bengalis of India, who during the catastrophic Partition days were forcefully
uprooted from their homeland in East Bengal and immigrate to India. The utterly traumatic events of Partition had left a
profound effect on their lives. In his sensitive films, Ritwik Kumar Ghatak has brilliantly displayed this emotion,
longing and trauma of the refugee Bengali Hindu families. Bengali Hindu refugees and immigrants who came to India
before or during or after Partition has always related themselves with East Bengal and never with East Pakistan.
But liberation of Bangladesh also sharply increased a fresh influx of immigrants – thousands of Bangladesh nationals
started pouring into the bordering states of Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and West Bengal. The primary reason of this
exodus was economic. Bangladesh was a highly populated country where 60 per cent of the population lived below the
poverty line. Devastating natural calamities regularly displace millions. Land alienation, poverty, unemployment and
lack of adequate social infrastructure prompted the poor Bangladeshi nationals to immigrate into India for a better
livelihood. Between 1970 and 1974, the population of East Pakistan (Bangladesh after 1971) amazingly came down
from 7.50 crores to 7.14 crores. Though, calculating by the annual population growth rate of 3.10 per cent, in 1974 it
should actually increase to 7.70 crores. It is widely believed that the shortfall of 5.60 million has actually immigrated in
India.
Twenty-four years have passed from 1947 to 1971 but the nostalgia and longing for desher bari (homeland) was still
alive in the refugee hearts. Bangladesh’s liberation generated a wider hope for reinstating their broken linkage and
therefore created an ecstatic feeling among them. Though chauvinist-reactionary groups were present in both the sides
to spoil the jubilation, the enormity of the event temporarily demoralized and disbanded them. A general mood of
elation and friendship was prevailing among the two countries. Triumphant after the victory over Pakistan and
temporarily blinded by its own war success, the Indian government at that point failed to contemplate the consequence
of this massive influx from Bangladesh.
However this friendship and goodwill gradually evaporated after the legendary leader and founder of Bangladesh
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated in 1975. Bangladesh eventually discarded secularism in 1988 and declared
Islam as the state religion.
The rise of AASU
In the post-Bangladesh era, the Assamese-non Assamese conflict turned in a statewide turmoil with the rise of the All
Assam Students’ Union (AASU). AASU came to prominence in 1979 with their ‘peaceful’ agitation (popularly called
as the ‘Assam Agitation’) to uncover all illegal immigrants in Assam, deletion of their names from the electoral rolls
and their deportation. Calling their movement ‘the 18th war of independence’, an allusion to the 17 wars fought by
Assam’s legendary King Lachit Borphukan, AASU claimed that “infiltration and illegal migration is a potential threat
to the integrity and sovereignty of the country as well as a demographic danger to the indigenous communities of
Assam”. The movement was actually triggered by the discovery of a sudden rise in registered voters on electoral rolls.
In the 1970s, the number of registered voters in Assam jumped from 6.20 million to almost 9 million – the increase was
mostly accounted for migrants from Bangladesh. Accusing the Congress party for protecting the migrants as a ‘captive
vote bank’, AASU constituted a broader platform called All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP) with
representatives of various organizations to augment the agitation against ‘illegal immigrants’.
Taking advantage of the deep rooted sentiments and discontentment of Assamese people against the settlers, AASU
and AAGSP successfully transmuted it into a widespread popular movement with the clamoured call of ‘Bideshi
Khedao’ (kick the foreigners out). Various social-political groups, personalities and intelligentsia played clandestine or
active role in this six year long reactionary agitation. The mood of the agitation was well accounted by journalist
Chaitanya Kalbagh (India Today, 1-15 May, 1980 issue): “Aside from the anti-foreigner sentiment, the movement has
developed other dangerous strains – anti-Bengali, anti-Left, anti-Muslim, anti-non Assamese, and slowly but
discernibly, even anti-Indian.”
The Nellie massacre
AASU had strongly opposed the 1980 Parliament elections and later the 1983 State Assembly election on the ground
that the polls be adjourned till electoral rolls were cleansed of illegal immigrants. Amid the ongoing agitation, the
Congress government went ahead for the State Assembly polls in February 1983. During the polls the state witnessed
large-scale arson, communal disturbances, group clashes and killings. The violence had no particular pattern – ethnic
clashes between Assamese tribal and non-tribal; communal clashes between local Hindus and immigrant Muslims and
linguistic clashes between Assamese and Bengalis occurred all over the state.
On February 18, a day after the polling has concluded, the village of Nellie in Nagaon district, 34 miles north-east of
Guwahati was virtually turned into a killing field by a horrific and brutal massacre. According to official figures, on a
single day, 2191 innocent and very poor Bengali Muslims, mostly women and children, were butchered in broad
daylight by Assamese Hindus and Lalung tribals. Twenty-five years have passed but the Nellie massacre still remains
an extremely mysterious case where no one claimed responsibility for the massacre, no judicial probe or independent
enquiry was ever demanded by the Congress or the AASU, a Commission of Inquiry was instituted but the 600-page
report was never made public and not a single person was convicted. The Congress and subsequent AGP government
suppressed all information and deliberately tried to rub off the gruesome and shameful episode from the memory of
Assam. (For an eyewitness account of the Nellie massacre see Bedabrata Lahkar: Recounting a nightmare)
Enactment of IMDT Act
Despite the existence of the Foreigner’s Act 1946 which gave the Indian Government certain powers to execute in
respect of the entry, presence and departure of foreigners inside the Indian Territory, the Indian parliament in 1983
enacted the Illegal Migrant Determination by Tribunal Act (IMDT). Unlike the existing Foreigner’s Act which was
applicable to the whole of India, IMDT Act was solely applicable to the state of Assam and projected as an instrument
to detect illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and expel them. There were fundamental differences between the two
acts. According to the Foreigners Act, a suspected illegal immigrant has to establish his/her nationality on their own
whereas under the IMDT Act, the responsibility of proving the citizenship of a suspected illegal immigrant lay on the
complainant. The act was a focused political move initiated by Delhi – to spoil the growing influence of AASU and to
protect genuine Indian citizens affected by the Assam Agitation, both religious and linguistic, from the undue
harassment of been termed as illegal. Interestingly, the IMDT Act was passed by a Parliament, which had no members
from Assam due to a boycott of elections on this issue.
The IMDT Act was challenged in courts by MP Sarbanand Sonowal of AGP and in 2005 a three-judge Bench of the
Supreme Court struck it down as unconstitutional and directed the setting up of fresh tribunals under the Foreigners
Act, 1946 and Foreigners (Tribunal Order) 1964.
Assam Accord
The violent ‘direct action’ agitation of AASU continued for six consecutive years till the signing of the Assam Accord
in August 15, 1985. The Assam Accord was a tripartite agreement between AASU, the government of Assam and the
government of India. After much debate and negotiations, AASU retracted from its earlier demand of deporting all
migrants who came after 1951 as ‘illegal’ and agreed on to recognize March 25, 1971 (the day civil war in East
Pakistan began) as the cut-off date to determine ‘foreign infiltrators’ in Assam.
Signing of the Assam Accord was celebrated as a political victory of AASU. The state Assembly was dissolved and
Hiteswar Saikia headed Congress government which came to power after the infamous February elections was
dismissed. Within three months, AASU was transformed into a regional political party called Asom Gana Parishad
(AGP) on October 14, 1985. Fresh elections in December 1985 brought AGP in power. After coming to power the
AGP government adapted half-hearted and shortsighted measures to deal with the immigration problem. All cases
connected with the Nellie massacre were dropped.
Though the IMDT Act had depraved political intentions and has basic flaws from its inception, it is extremely
interesting to recall that AASU or AGP did not raise any uproar about the shortcomings on identification, detection and
deportation of illegal migrants in the act, which was enacted just two years before the Assam Accord. It was only after
loosing power in the 1991 assembly elections to Congress; AGP started a hue and cry about the defects of IMDT Act
and demanded for its repeal.
The rise of armed insurgency
The volatile situation in Assam for decades had paved the way for various terrorist-insurgent groups of different scale
and size to mushroom and commit scores of violent and mindless incidents like murders, triggering blasts, abductions
for ransom, extortions and attacking of economic targets. The South Asia Terrorism Portal website has listed 38 such
terrorist-insurgent groups in Assam. Prominent among them are the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA),
National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), United Liberation Front of Barak Valley (ULFBV), Dima Halim
Daogah (DHD), Kamtapur Liberation Organization (KLO), Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA),
Muslim United Liberation Front of Assam (MULFA), United People’s Democratic Solidarity (UPDS), Karbi Longri
North Cachar Hills Liberation Front (KLNLF), Black Widow, Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT) and Barak Valley Youth
Liberation Front (BVYLF). Many of the smaller groups are actually the offshoots of major groups. The objective of
most of the groups is secession from the Indian State. However, except ULFA, most of the secessionist insurgent
outfits that had appeared during the turbulent days of 1979-1983 did not survive after the Assam Accord.
By going through the list, one will be startled to find that with the exception of ULFA most of the groups have a
specific ethnic-religious representation. It is seemingly obvious that the root cause of armed insurgency in Assam is the
widespread and deep rooted ethnic cultural conflict prevailing in the region that is fueled by the failure of subsequent
governments and mainstream political parties to understand the local people’s mind. The rise of ethnicity based
insurgency and the separatist demand for sovereignty were the direct result of a general feeling of alienation,
dispossession and fury among the ethnic community which considered that armed insurgency is the only way to make
their voices heard. The presence of about 20 large and small ethnic groups with differing belief systems and way of life
and the unique geographical location has facilitated the rapid development of terrorist-insurgent activities in Assam.
There are also roughly 14 Islamist terrorist outfits operating in Assam, those who attempts to mobilize the Muslim
youths in Assam to fight for the ‘cause of Muslims’. Pakistan and Bangladesh based foreign terrorist groups like
Harkat-Ul-Mujaheedin, Harkat-Ul-Jihad, Jamat-Ul-Mujaheedin and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (HuJI) are also
reportedly having active presence in Assam. Another militant outfit named Islamic United Revolution Protect of India
(IURPI) has been formed recently covering the Muslim dominated districts of Assam.
The menace called ULFA
United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) is a well organized, highly influential, widely connected, enormously funded
terrorist group active in Assam. During the height of anti-foreigner agitation, a hard line section parted from AASU to
form ULFA. Born on the lawns of the historic Rang Ghar of Sibsagar on 7th April 1979, ULFA leaders Rajiv
Rajkonwar alias Arabinda Rajkhowa (chairman), Samiran Gogoi alias Pradip Gogoi (vice-chairman), Paresh Barua
(chief of staff) and Golap Baruah alias Anup Chetia (general secretary) declared their aim of “liberating Assam from
the illegal occupation of India” and to establish a ‘sovereign socialist Assam’. By describing itself as a ‘revolutionary
political organization’, ULFA gave a militant manifestation to the anti-foreigner movement but initially remained
concealed by acting along with AASU.
There is a fundamental difference between the ideologies of AASU and ULFA. AASU’s agitation was pointed against
‘illegal immigrants’ whereas ULFA’s struggle is solely against the Indian State: “to overthrow Indian colonial
occupation from Assam”. The ULFA does not consider itself a separatist or secessionist organization, as it claims that
Assam was never a part of India. Arbinda Rajkhowa, chairman of ULFA once said that, “India has been occupying
Assam illegally like Kashmir, which was never an integral part of India”. ULFA claims that among the various
problems that people of Assam are confronting, the problem of national identity is the basic, and therefore represents
“not only the Assamese nation but also the entire independent minded struggling peoples, irrespective of different race-
tribe-caste-religion and nationality of Assam”. It must be mentioned here that ULFA has always refused to admit their
involved in any ethnic or communal violence but always admitted their role if the attack was against the Indian security
forces or any target symbolic to the Indian State like the state-owned oil pipelines. It is principally a secular outfit and
fiercely against Hindu nationalist groups and the BJP, calling it ‘out and out a Hindu fundamentalist party’. After the
Babri Masjid demolition in 1992, ULFA was credited for stopping Hindu-Muslim riots ‘by displaying arms openly’ in
the Hojai region of Nagaon district.
ULFA’s initial cadre recruits were from AASU. But later they started recruiting cadres directly, particularly from the
rural belts. Even after the outfit was banned and Indian Army operations resumed in September 2006, the continuing
presence of ULFA suggests that the organization has somehow maintained their rural influences and the pattern of
cadre recruits. The outfit has a mixed cadre base comprising Assamese and ethnic tribals – even Bengali peasants.
ULFA is believed to have a trained cadre-strength of around 5,000 and possesses a huge cache of weapons for its
insurgent activities.
Around the mid-80s ULFA started showing its true face with low-intensity military conflicts, political homicides and
economic subversion and was soon recognized as a potent terror organization. By dividing insurgency activities
between its political and military wing ULFA started raising huge funds through extortions and threatening rich
businessmen and tea estate owners and also looted banks. The outfit’s major operational area was the Dibrugarh-
Tinsukia sector, the wealthiest tea-growing and oil producing region of Assam. Almost every tea plantation paid an
annual ransom to them. In 1986, ULFA leaders established contacts with National Socialist Council of Nagaland
(NSCN) and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) of Myanmar to procure arms and arrange for training of its cadres.
The Kachins taught them the essentials of terrorist-insurgent tactics. One of its daring attacks was in May 1990 when
ULFA cadres killed Surendra Paul, one of the leading tea planters in Assam and brother of famous UK-based
businessman Lord Swaraj Paul. The incident caused many tea estate managers to flee Assam. Soon the government
sprung into action. The entire state of Assam was declared a ‘disturbed area’ and ULFA was banned on November
1990 as a terrorist group. Since 1990, the Indian security forces are engaged in Assam to stall ULFA activities.
Controlling the ULFA menace became a dilemma for the AGP government as the leaders of AASU-AGP and ULFA
were the same lot of people born on a common platform. “The cynical characterization of the same set of people as
ASSU in the morning, Government (AGP) at midday and ULFA at night cannot be just laughed away” (M. Kar,
Muslims in Assam Politics - 1946-1991, page 421; quoted in R. Upadhyay: ULFA – A Deviated Movement? ) Taking
this advantage, ULFA almost ran a parallel government in Assam, conducting trials of people and black mailing them
for extorting money. The AGP government had also encouraged ULFA activities to some extent to keep alive their
confrontational politics and pressure over the Central Government. “The reasoning behind the unwillingness on the part
of the AGP regime to confront the ULFA lies in its eagerness to keep the terrorists actively alive to retain its anti-centre
leverage” (Ibid. page 425). On the other hand, ULFA’s popularity and influence gained a spectacular rise from the
rising disillusionment among the Assamese people against the AGP regime.
Contrary to its original ideological position of a revolutionary political organization and dumping its ‘social-reform’
activities, the ULFA leadership has done a complete volte-face when they transformed the outfit into a purely terrorist
outfit. Later on, ULFA established contacts with Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan, Defense Forces
Intelligence (DFI) of Bangladesh, the Afghan Mujahedeen and other terrorist-insurgent groups of North-East and
committed a series of atrocious crimes to create terror in the State. Since 1989, ULFA Chief of Staff Paresh Barua,
however, has denied the alleged link of ULFA with ISI as a ‘heinous conspiracy of New Delhi’.
ULFA had put up a number of camps in Bangladesh and also owned several ‘income generating projects’ like media
consultancy firms, soft drink manufacturing units, transport companies, schools, three hotels, a private clinic, two
motor driving schools, a tannery, a chain of departmental stores, garment factories, travel agencies, shrimp trawlers and
investment companies there. ULFA also runs profitable narcotics business in Myanmar and Thailand. Paresh Barua
was allegedly involved in smuggling heroin from Myanmar into Assam. ULFA leaders and cadres had reportedly
received specialized training on counter intelligence, disinformation, use of sophisticated weapons and explosives from
ISI. Two Muslim terror outfits of Assam – the MULTA and the MULFA are their regular arms suppliers through
Bangladesh. Routed through Nepal, it has also developed channels for the transfer of funds and arms from Thailand,
Myanmar and Cambodia.
ULFA continues to be active but has lost its credibility to a great extent due to its involvement in the mindless violence,
killing of ordinary people and lumpenization of its cadres. On January 2007, suspected ULFA extremists killed at least
62 Hindi-speaking Bihari daily labourers, workers of brick kiln, petty-traders and roadside vendors in Dibrugarh,
Tinsukia and Sibsagar districts of Upper Assam. Its popular support has reduced but not fully erased. There is still an
underlying sympathy about ULFA in the greater Assamese society, especially among the underprivileged, middle-class
and intelligentsia. “A section of the intelligentsia, however, uses the insurgent influence as a shortcut to secure personal
objectives and fame. It is not a rare exception in Assam to find a respected intellectual advocating the insurgent cause,
of course from a safe distance and carefully balancing constitutional restrictions and revolutionary babble. Many
among the more sober intellectuals in Assam prefer to maintain a deliberate silence on the issue.” (Sunil Nath, Assam:
The Secessionist Insurgency and the Freedom of Minds) This sympathy among its home-population is ULFA’s key
strength.
Journalist and North-East expert Sanjoy Hazarika has summed up the present status of ULFA and other terrorist-
insurgent groups of North-East:
“…it should be clarified that the conflicts in the Northeast, in terms of armed revolts, ethnic struggles or fights against
the Indian State, no longer draw on the romanticism and idealism that sustained fighting groups and communities for
decades. Dreams have degenerated into nightmares; the fighters have turned on each other and on the people in whose
name they claim to speak. The entire network of cadres, recruits, informers and political leaders is based on extortion
and extraction: extortion from business houses and petty traders, from professionals, contractors and politicians. Few
are spared. The extraction process even involves government officials…”
The HuJI and RSS-BJP factor
Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami or HuJI is a fanatic terrorist outfit formed at Pakistan in 1984. It initially operated in
Afghanistan, then at Jammu-Kashmir and later was extended to Bangladesh in 1992. Banned in Bangladesh since
October 2005, the objective of HuJI is apparent from their one-time slogan: Amra Sobai Hobo Taliban, Bangla Hobe
Afghanistan (We will all become Taliban; we will turn Bangladesh into Afghanistan). It is a deadly terror outfit
operating from the coastal area of Chittagong south through Cox’s Bazaar to the Myanmar border. In recent years, this
Bangladesh chapter of HuJI has been found to be responsible for a number of terrorist strikes in India with the active
assistance from ISI.
Since 1998, unconfirmed reports were emerging about HuJI-ULFA links. The connection was proved in 2003 from the
confessions of some arrested jihadi militants and reconfirmed recently when members of HuJI were spotted in the
Silchar district of Assam along with a few ULFA members. HuJI is reported to have assured co-operation and logistical
support to ULFA and help them to find shelters in Bangladesh. Reports has also indicated that HuJI is giving a three
months military training to youths and helping them to infiltrate into Indian locations like West Bengal, Assam and
other North-East states.
The RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) - BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) combine has built up a wide network in the
districts of Udalguri and Darrang in recent years. This combine has influenced a section of the Bodos along with a
small section of Assamese, Bengalis and Nepalese to mobilize against the Muslims in many places of the state. In the
name of detection of the suspected ‘Bangladeshis’, numerous harassments and atrocities are imposed on those Muslims
who had actually settled in Assam long back and became a part of the broad Assamese society. The recent clashes and
rampant violence between Bodos and Muslims that has swept across many areas in Udalguri and Darrang districts from
October 3, 2008 is the result of this evil design of RSS-BJP. “...the rifts and conflicts engendered by the communal
violence among the Bodo and Muslim communities will be sought to be utilized by the divisive, communal and
fundamentalist forces to their advantage and thus further endangering the peace and unity among the people.” (Uddhab
Barman, Behind the Recent Communal Violence in Assam, People’s Democracy, 19 October, 2008 issue) Accordingly,
after the October 30 serial blasts, BJP leader L.K. Advani took no time to blame illegal Bangladeshis (read Muslims) as
the main reason for breeding terrorism in Assam.
Consistent violent campaign against Muslims with the growth of the RSS-BJP combine in Assam has created enough
ground for the growth of communal and fundamentalist forces among the Muslim community (Muslims constitute
nearly 30 per cent of Assam’s population). Taking advantage of this chaotic situation, HuJI and other fundamentalist
Muslim outfits are gradually penetrating deep into a section of the Muslim inhabitants and brain-washing them towards
Islamic fanaticism. ULFA leaders, being pushed to the wall by the mounting emphatic operations of Indian security
forces have been coerced to enslave them in the hands of the ISI for survival. Today, ISI has sheltered all the top
leaders of ULFA in Bangladesh. The outfit has abdicated its core ideology and acting now as their local agent in Assam
and the North-East.
Conclusion
You are walking along the street one day,
chewing cinnamon gum,
and the world is full of cinnamon
when there’s a fireball--
and a blast of gushing air and noise
like the Earth is cracking
and time has exploded. ...

Then ... silence. ...

You think you’re okay, but you look down and your forearm
lies in the street like a dead snake and you collapse.
– Gary Corseri, A Bombing in Assam

Ten days after the recent blasts, the Indian Home Ministry have claimed that they found “…enough evidence that the
banned ULFA had carried out the October 30 serial blasts with the help of dominant Bodo militant group NDFB.”
NDFB is currently under ceasefire with the security forces and is engaged in peace negotiations with the government.
The government sources has expressed their worry about a nexus between local outfits with outsiders in the blasts the
fact that ‘northeast militants has started using a deadly mixture of RDX, ammonium nitrate and plasticised explosives’
and neither ULFA nor NDFB has the expertise to carry out such dead explosions. Bangladesh-based HuJI has provided
the expertise to ULFA and NDFB. (Indian Express, Tue, 11 Nov 2008)
For several decades, Assam is going through too much of tears and blood. This stunningly beautiful state and its people
are struggling hard to come out from the curse of their own history.
Secessionism, insurgency and terrorism are like the mythical Phoenix bird – self destructive but able to resurrect from
its own ashes. Assamese people did clutch them all – like a drowning person clutches a piece of straw.
Dealing the problem from a fascistic perspective, the widely spread jingoistic approach of the RSS-BJP combine will
be a catastrophe. The problem cannot be dealt as well with a feeble, compromising and brush under the carpet approach
– as implemented by the Congress party. The people of Assam are bearing the brunt of this breed of politics for long. It
also cannot be dealt with reactionary parochialism – like the provincial politics of ASSU-AGP. The people of Assam
have long been disillusioned by them. The distressing reality for Assamese people is that they do not have any other
alternative to choose.
The Indian State should first and foremost study the people and learn how to create a condition that will itself refuse to
extend any popular sympathy or support towards the secessionists, insurgents and terrorists. It has to realize that a
convincing democratic mechanism that compassionately tries to comprehend the genuine grievances of its own people
and works effectively for a tangible solution will definitely win back their support. The same support which is partly
enjoyed today by the secessionists, insurgents and terrorists. An unbiased approach towards the political problem of
secessionism and a firm determination to strike against terrorism is the correct approach to deal the Assam crisis.

Notes:
see map 1
http://www.gdi-solutions.com/areas/maps/region/map_india_northeast.gif
see map 2
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Bengal_gazetteer_1907-9.jpg
eyewitness account of the Nellie
http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/details.asp?id=feb1808\edit3
South Asia Terrorism Portal
http://satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/terroristoutfits/index.html
R. Upadhyay: ULFA
http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/\papers14\paper1307.html
Sunil Nath , Assam:
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/publication/faultlines/volume13/Article2.htm
Sanjoy Hazarika
http://www.littlemag.com/bloodsport/sanjoyhazarika.html
Uddhab Barman, Behind the Recent Communal Violence
http://pd.cpim.org/2008/1019_pd/10192008_18.htm
Gary Corseri, A Bombing in Assam
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/10/31/a-bombing-in-assam-by-gary-corseri/
Indian Express, Tue, 11 Nov 2008
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Clues-indicate-ULFANDFB-combine-behind-Assam-blasts/383383/