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North East : Identity crisis in Assam

	May 10, 2004

With the Lok Sabha poll process on its last leg, things are back to square one in this strife-torn region. Militant outfits have again started raising their heads and voicing concern over ethnic issues.

The war of words between the ruling Congress and the Opposition Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) over the question of Assamese identity is becoming hotter by the day.

The AGP last week tried to turn the tables on the Congress a day after the ruling party renewed its attacks against its regional opponent over its alleged remarks against the tea community.

Accusing the Congress of “playing dirty politics” involving the tea community, AGP spokesman Jagdish Bhuian put a set of questions before the Congress, asking it to come clear on what the party’s governments had done for the community’s development.

He dared the Congress to make public the schemes the party had implemented for improving the lot of the community. The Congress had alleged that the AGP, in its election campaign against PCC chief Paban Singh Ghatowar, had dubbed him an outsider as he hails from the tea community.

The AGP vehemently denied the charge, saying the tea tribes were an inalienable part of Assamese society. Bhuian said the Congress was levelling baseless allegations against the party as the tea community, which the Congress considered its “votebank”, had voted against the party in the current Lok Sabha elections.

The regional party said the tea community was distancing itself from the Congress in protest against its policy of neglecting and exploiting the community.

“Did Ghatowar question chief minister Tarun Gogoi as to why the highest number of people who died in police firing during the past three years of Congress rule was from the tea community?” the AGP asked.

It further asked why Ghatowar did not resign after seven persons from the tea community died in police firing while demanding bonus in Paneri last year.

The AGP spokesperson alleged that Congress MPs, including Ghatowar, were silent in Parliament over his party’s demand for a separate ministry for the tea sector.

He said Ghatowar and his party should also inform the people as to why the Congress has always deprived the community of higher education.

“How many English medium schools have been set up by Congress governments over the years in the tea belt?” he further asked.

Bhuian said unlike the AGP, the Congress had not made explicit any stand over increasing the daily wages of tea labourers.



More demands for autonomy

Meanwhile, the repercussions of the creation of the interim Bodoland Territorial Council for the Bodo tribe under the amended Sixth Schedule last year are getting increasingly visible in other tribal-dominated areas in the Assam plains.

In the wake of the Centre’s decision to gift the BTC to the Bodos to strike a lasting peace deal with the now disbanded Bodo Liberation Tiger, other ethnic communities primarily the Rabhas and Hajongs, Tiwas (earlier known as Lalungs) and Mishings have raised demands for similar autonomy under similar legislation.

These three major ethnic groups were granted autonomous councils by the state government in 1990s under a State Act, but are obviously not satisfied with their status. They have declared these existing councils as “ill equipped to serve the interests of the tribal communities” and thus justified their demand for BTC-like autonomy.

A violent manifestation of the clamour for greater autonomy from the Rabhas and Hajongs exploded in Goalpara district of Western Assam, on the southern bank of river Brahmaputra, a bare 90-minute drive from Guwahati, the commercial hub of the North-east. Three members of All Rabha Students Union were killed last week at Krishnai while trying to enforce a bandh called to press the greater autonomy demand. They were lynched at a market and the seeds of mistrust and communal hatred were sown with the eruption of ethnic clashes involving Muslims and others. Subsequently, five more dead bodies were recovered from different parts of the area. Night curfew is still enforced although the administration has done a good job to keep the temperature under control.

However, on the ground, communities are becoming polarised along pro-autonomy and anti-autonomy lines surely but silently signalling volatile days ahead for the people living in that part of Assam. The incident may be small in the scale of violence but it was sufficiently significant to draw an unusual and sharp reaction from the chairman of the United Liberation Front of Asom, which has been lying low since the Bhutan crackdown on its forces which scattered and killed many cadres. In a statement, Arabinda Rajkhowa blamed the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Research and Analysis Wing of the Centre for the killings and urged the different groups to continue to live in amity.

Ethnic divisions are older than the state, where simmering ethnic divisions have bubbled for years before erupting in violent clashes and riots, taking administrations by surprise. The complexity of ethnic relations in the narrow Assam valley often defies definition and causes political and administrative exasperation - in some areas a group, which is an ethnic majority in other areas, is a minority!

A few kilometres on the highway and one may be meeting with Tiwas; a few kilometres on their space is taken by Bengali-speaking Muslims; further on, the Rabhas and Deoris dominate. Ethnic groups are no respecters of district or state borders - thus there are pockets of Khasis near Guwahati who have lived in the area for generations while the majority of that ethnic group is in Meghalaya. This is hardly surprising in a state with 22 major tribes and a region of eight states that has, at last count, some 350 distinct ethnic groups, with a few with connections in Myanmar, China and Bangladesh.

Chief minister Tarun Gogoi has stated that his government was not against granting more autonomy under the amended Sixth Schedule. However, as the final decision in this matter rests with the Centre, the state government has instructed its Cabinet sub-committee on this matter to prepare a set of recommendations to be sent to New Delhi soon.

The question is whether the “grant of more autonomy” holds the key to all round development of ethnic groups in the state or not. The autonomous district councils of Karbi Anglong and North Cachar Hills - these are autonomous councils for basically Karbi and Dimasa tribes respectively - are shown up in very poor light in this regard.

Decades after the formation of these two autonomous councils, a rich and powerful elite among the Karbis and Cacharis has grown while the light of development, income improvement and education have failed to reach far flung areas where people still live in primitive conditions. The state of affairs in these two autonomous hill districts has severely dented the credibility of those running the councils. The present system of granting autonomy to tribals in Assam runs the risk of creating only a creamy layer within the community while common folk continue to languish.



Dimasa-Karbi rivalry

The militant Dima Halam Daogah (DHD) has denied reaching an agreement with the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) to create fresh trouble in south Assam. The North Cachar Hills- based militant outfit, in a one-page statement faxed to a newspaper, The Telegraph, said no such understanding was reached with the Bodo outfit, as alleged by Karbi Anglong deputy commissioner Anurag Goel.

In the statement, one Dao Raja, who identified himself as the publicity secretary of the outfit, said, “Since the DHD is observing a ceasefire with the authorities in North Cachar, there is no scope for any collaboration with the NDFB.

“We regret that the Karbi Anglong district deputy commissioner hurled such an allegation without studying the ground reality in this regard,” the DHD publicity secretary said.

The DHD also alleged that the Karbi Anglong superintendent of police was bent on creating “bad blood” between the Dimasa-Karbi tribes by alleging that the DHD was involved in a recent grenade attack on the Autonomous State Demand Committee (ASDC) office at Diphu. Five Karbis were injured in the attack.

The statement denied the DHD’s hand in the attack.

Dao Raja said such allegations by the authorities at a time when the DHD and its ally, the United Democratic People’s Solidarity (pro-talk faction), were trying to usher in peace in the insurgency-ravaged twin districts of North Cachar and Karbi Anglong were “very unfortunate”.

Referring to recent media reports that Dispur would petition the Union home ministry to rein in the DHD for its alleged ceasefire violations, Dao Raja said “peace is reigning at present in North Cachar”. He urged the Assam government to encourage the peace process.

Dao Raja said during the past few weeks, only one incident of abduction, allegedly by Hmar guerrillas, had occurred in North Cachar.