dig this The Tragedy Called Assam
On 30 October 2008, The Indian state Assam was trounced by an additional one atrocious serial blast that had killed at least 77 innocent civilians. The media had termed the blasts as the 'worst-ever' terrorist strike in Assam. For decades, this ill fated state is passing straight through a continuing sequence of hatred, suspicion, violence and ethnic division. Today, this once thriving land is one of the most economically backward and problem-ridden states of India. The state has a meager economic growth; many areas are still left untouched from development. Maltreatment of consecutive governments has promoted many of the genuine grievances of the Assamese people and helped the continuing conflicts and misconceptions to thrive. To form a definite thought on this terrorist strike, it seems primary to chronologically study the very involved history of the state. It is also crucial to carefully peel straight through the many layers of facts and viewpoints to get near the core truth.
The Tragedy Called Assam
Prologue
The eight states of the North-East region of India comprise over 200 determined ethnic groups. Assam alone is the home of about 20 large and small ethnic groups. Having ancestral relation with neighbour countries like China, Myanmar, Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan and sharing 98 per cent of its border with them, 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 organize 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 outside 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 increase 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 manufactures was built up; high sufficient oil fields were discovered. The British brought in English educated Bengali officials to Assam to run the tea plantations and the civil aid of the British raj. Since 1826, educated Bengali middle class Hindus held prominent positions in the colonial management and other prominent professions like teachers, doctors, lawyers and magistrates. They also managed to introduce and begin 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. Assam was merged with the new Muslim majority province of East Bengal. However, in 1911 British Government annulled the Bengal Partition due to heavy political unrest in West Bengal. Assam was restored to its earlier status as a Chief Commissioner's Province. But this time the British did an additional one damaging act by integrating Bengali speaking Cachar, Goalpara and Sylhet with Assam province.
The British organize 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 postponement of Bengal. Despite the fact that the middle class Bengali Hindus has made gargantuan contributions to the amelioration of Assam's oil wealth, manufactures and administration, the authority and power exercised by them over the ethnic Assamese and treating them with arrogance and contempt had ensued grave frustration 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 whether Hindus or animists. As a result, a deep 'anti-Bengali' syndrome advanced 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 curious 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 - generally 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 organize 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 narrative stated that only in Nagaon district, the whole of Bengali settlers has gone up between 1921 and 1931 by two thirds, from 300,000 to 500,000. The narrative also observed that places like Nagaon, Barpeta, Darrang, Kamrup and North Lakimpur were 'invaded' by settlers arrival from Mymensingh district of East Bengal. These peasant Bengali immigrants made Assam their home and made a primary offering to the agricultural cheaper of the state.
In the primary months prominent 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 gift 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. 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 comprise 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 Islamic organize for a Greater Bangladesh which became the major source of future clashes.
Population influx of Bengali refugees, both Hindu and Muslims prolonged 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 disagreement between the Bengalis and Assamese acquired momentum and turned into a fierce agitation with one side demanding valid language status for Assamese and the other side defending the existing status of Bengali. The disagreement had a exact political undertone and in 1960-61 burst into violent language riots causing some deaths from both sides. In 1961, Assamese language received the valid 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 valid status of Bengali language was retained there.
After the Indo-China war in 1962, Arunachal Pradesh was separated out from Assam. The state was additional 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 very 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 consequent 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 connected 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 original presuppose of this exodus was economic. Bangladesh was a very populated country where 60 per cent of the people lived below the poverty line. Devastating natural calamities usually displace millions. Land alienation, poverty, unemployment and lack of adequate group infrastructure prompted the poor Bangladeshi nationals to immigrate into India for a best livelihood. between 1970 and 1974, the people of East Pakistan (Bangladesh after 1971) amazingly came down from 7.50 crores to 7.14 crores. Though, calculating by the each year people increase rate of 3.10 per cent, in 1974 it should nothing else but increase to 7.70 crores. It is widely believed that the shortfall of 5.60 million has nothing else but 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 gift in both the sides to spoil the jubilation, the enormity of the event temporarily demoralized and disbanded them. A normal 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 scrutinize the consequence of this heavy influx from Bangladesh.
However this friendship and goodwill gently evaporated after the legendary leader and founder of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated in 1975. Bangladesh finally discarded secularism in 1988 and declared Islam as the state religion.
The rise of Aasu
In the post-Bangladesh era, the Assamese-non Assamese disagreement 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 nothing else but triggered by the discovery of a sudden rise in registered voters on electoral rolls. In the 1970s, the whole of registered voters in Assam jumped from 6.20 million to practically 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 benefit of the deep rooted sentiments and frustration of Assamese people against the settlers, Aasu and Aagsp successfully transmuted it into a full, 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: "Aside from the anti-foreigner sentiment, the movement has advanced other risky strains - anti-Bengali, anti-Left, anti-Muslim, anti-non Assamese, and gently but discernibly, even anti-Indian." (India Today, 1-15 May, 1980)
The Nellie massacre
Aasu had strongly opposed the 1980 Parliament elections and later the 1983 State Assembly choosing 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, group disturbances, group clashes and killings. The violence had no singular pattern - ethnic clashes between Assamese tribal and non-tribal; group 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 settlement of Nellie in Nagaon district, 34 miles north-east of Guwahati was virtually turned into a killing field by a horrific and brutal massacre. Agreeing to valid figures, on a singular 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 very mysterious case where no one claimed accountability 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 narrative was never made group and not a singular someone was convicted. The Congress and subsequent Agp government suppressed all information and deliberately tried to rub off the gruesome and shameful lesson from the memory of Assam. (For an eyewitness account of the Nellie massacre see: Bedabrata Lahkar, Recounting a nightmare, Assam Tribune)
Enactment of Imdt Act
Despite the existence of the Foreigner's Act 1946 which gave the Indian Government determined powers to execute in respect of the entry, proximity and departure of foreigners inside the Indian Territory, the Indian parliament in 1983 enacted the Illegal Migrant measurement 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. Agreeing to the Foreigners Act, a suspected illegal immigrant has to organize his/her nationality on their own whereas under the Imdt Act, the accountability 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 affect of Aasu and to safe 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. In 2005, a three-judge Bench of the consummate Court struck it down as unconstitutional and directed to set up fresh tribunals under the Foreigners Act, 1946 and Foreigners (Tribunal Order) 1964.
The Assam Accord
The violent 'direct action' agitation of Aasu prolonged for six consecutive years till the signing of the Assam Accord in August 15, 1985. The Assam Accord was a tripartite deal between Aasu, the government of Assam and the government of India. After much debate and negotiations, Aasu retracted from its earlier ask 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 decree 'foreign infiltrators' in Assam.
Signing of the Assam Accord was notable 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 arrival 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 very 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 losing 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 vaporing situation in Assam for decades had paved the way for Various terrorist-insurgent groups of distinct 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 36 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 nothing else but 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 straight through the list, one will be startled to find that with the irregularity of Ulfa most of the groups have a exact ethnic-religious representation. It is seemingly determined that the root cause of armed insurgency in Assam is the full, and deep rooted ethnic cultural disagreement 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 ask for sovereignty were the direct consequent of a normal feeling of alienation, dispossession and fury among the ethnic society which carefully that armed insurgency is the only way to make their voices heard. The proximity of about 20 large and small ethnic groups with differing reliance systems and way of life and the unique geographical location has facilitated the rapid amelioration of terrorist-insurgent activities in Assam.
There are also practically 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 proximity in Assam. an additional one militant outfit named Islamic United Revolution safe of India (Iurpi) has been formed recently outside the Muslim dominated districts of Assam.
The menace called Ulfa
United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa) is a well organized, very 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 organize 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 inequity 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 think 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 distinct 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 group violence but always admitted their role if the strike was against the Indian safety soldiery 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 first 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 proximity 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 nearby 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 soldiery conflicts, political homicides and economic subversion and was soon recognized as a potent terror organization. By dividing insurgency activities between its political and soldiery wing Ulfa started raising huge funds straight 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. practically every tea plantation paid an each year 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 get arms and dispose 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 prominent tea planters in Assam and brother of notable 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 safety soldiery 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 from the same arena. "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 practically 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 support its anti-centre leverage" (Ibid. Page 425). On the other hand, Ulfa's popularity and affect 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 perfect volte-face when they transformed the outfit into a purely terrorist outfit. Later on, Ulfa established contacts with Inter Services brain (Isi) of Pakistan, Defense soldiery brain (Dfi) of Bangladesh, the Afghan Mujahedeen and other terrorist-insurgent groups of North-East and committed a series of atrocious crimes to generate 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 continues to be active but has lost its credibility to a great extent due to its involvement in the mindless violence, killing of lowly 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 fundamental condolement about Ulfa in the greater Assamese society, especially among the underprivileged, middle-class and intelligentsia. "A section of the intelligentsia, however, uses the insurgent affect as a shortcut to get personal objectives and fame. It is not a rare irregularity in Assam to find a respected intellectual advocating the insurgent cause, of procedure from a safe distance and carefully balancing constitutional restrictions and revolutionary babble. Many among the more sober intellectuals in Assam prefer to declare a deliberate silence on the issue." (Sunil Nath, Assam: The Secessionist Insurgency and the relaxation of Minds) This condolement among its home-population is Ulfa's key strength.
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 come to be Taliban; we will turn Bangladesh into Afghanistan). It is a deadly terror outfit operating from the coastal area of Chittagong south straight through Cox's Bazaar to the Myanmar border. In modern years, this Bangladesh lesson of HuJi has been found to be responsible for a whole of terrorist strikes in India with the active assistance from Isi.
Since 1998, unconfirmed reports were emerging about HuJi-Ulfa links. The relationship 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 soldiery 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) consolidate has built up a wide network in the districts of Udalguri and Darrang in modern years. This consolidate 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 nothing else but located in Assam long back and became a part of the broad Assamese society. The modern clashes and rampant violence between Bodos and Muslims that has swept over many areas in Udalguri and Darrang districts from October 3, 2008 is the consequent of this evil organize of Rss-Bjp. "...the rifts and conflicts engendered by the group violence among the Bodo and Muslim communities will be sought to be utilized by the divisive, group and fundamentalist soldiery to their benefit and thus additional endangering the peace and unity among the people." (Uddhab Barman, Behind the modern group Violence in Assam, People's Democracy, 19 October 2008) Accordingly, after the October 30 serial blasts, Bjp leader L.K. Advani took no time to blame illegal Bangladeshis (read Muslims) as the main presuppose for breeding terrorism in Assam.
Consistent violent campaign against Muslims with the increase of the Rss-Bjp consolidate in Assam has created adequate ground for the increase of group and fundamentalist soldiery among the Muslim society (Muslims constitute nearly 30 per cent of Assam's population). Taking benefit of this chaotic situation, HuJi and other fundamentalist Muslim outfits are gently 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 safety soldiery 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
For some decades, Assam is passing straight 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 someone clutches a piece of straw.
Dealing the problem from a fascistic perspective, the widely spread jingoistic approach of the Rss-Bjp consolidate will be a catastrophe. The problem cannot be dealt as well with a feeble, compromising and brush under the rug 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 distressing reality for Assamese people is, that they do not have any other alternative to choose.
The Indian State should first and prominent study the people and learn how to generate a condition that will itself refuse to enlarge any popular condolement or support towards the secessionists, insurgents and terrorists. An unbiased approach towards the political problem of secessionism and a firm measurement to strike against terrorism is the definite approach to deal the Assam crisis.
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