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Assam: Rivers of Blood

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MBA Education & Careers Assam: Rivers of Blood BHARAT JAIN ndia’s North-East, today marketed as an In India today, regionalism has assumed two ‘Unexplored Paradise’, is characterized by major forms. In its most radical form, regionalism Ireligious, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural is violent, making a demand of secession of a diversity. The region is home to some of the most particular region from India thus generating a serious internal conflicts that have plagued our centrifugal force. Such a demand for secession country since the time of its independence from directly threatens the unity and integrity of India. British rule. Almost all conflicts in the North-East The current situations in J&K and Nagaland are are based on ethnic, linguistic, and political of this form. ideologies. Analysts attribute the disturbances in the north-east to the strong growth of extreme regionalism among the people inhabiting these states. In January 2007, the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) killed over 70 people, mostly poor migrant workers. Such poor non-Assamese migrants are an easy game for a ruthless militant organisation like the ULFA. Ever since its foundation in 1979, the ULFA has been demanding that the non-Assamese, especially Hindi-speaking people, leave Assam. Before we venture out to analyse the causes and The second major form that regionalism takes on consequences of the ULFA’s killing spree, it is a demand for autonomy within the political would help if the reader is aware of the ‘idea’ of border of an existing state. The demand for regionalism as well as the ‘idea’ of secession. Bodoland within the existing state of Assam is an What is regionalism? example of this type of regionalism. Regionalism refers to a feeling of distinctiveness, Why do the demands for secession or for greater group consciousness or sectional identification and loyalty shared by people who live in a autonomy, both manifestations of regionalism, particular area. Often, groups of people seek to arise? politicize the territorial predicaments of their Political geographers and ethnographers cite the region, with the intent of protecting and rise of secessionist tendencies or demand for advancing their regional interests. greater autonomy to three significant factors: lack March 2007 3 MBA Education & Careers INDIA AND THE WORLD: ESSAYS ON IMPORTANT ISSUES of a strong nationalistic feeling, lack of effective ULFA: A backgrounder linkages, and reorganization of states on linguistic The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) was basis. Also, economic backwardness, regional formed on April 7, 1979, by Bhimakanta Buragohain, Rajiv Rajkonwar alias Arabinda imbalances, and cultural segregation of the people Rajkhowa, Golap Baruah alias Anup Chetia, living in border states, peripheral areas, and remote Samiran Gogoi alias Pradip Gogoi, Bhadreshwar and backward places, all combine to illustrate the Gohain, and Paresh Baruah at the Rang Ghar in fact that people living in these places have not Sibsagar to establish a “sovereign socialist been assimilated into the Indian Assam” through an armed struggle. mainstream – social, cultural, economic, and ULFA’s chairman is Arabinda Rajkhowa; its political system. vice-chairman, Pradip Gogoi, was arrested in 1998, In his scholarly study of South Asian history, and is currently lodged in a Guwahati jail. Anup Chetia, the militant organisation’s general Revenge & Reconciliation, Rajmohan Gandhi secretary, is under detention in Bangladesh after elucidates on the Assam identity crisis: “Feeding being arrested in December 1997. The other on Assam’s steady truncation over the years and founding members including Bhimakanta on allegations that Assam’s electoral rolls Buragohain, were arrested during the Indian contain a huge number of foreigners (mostly Army’s military operations in Bhutan in Bangladeshis), militant Assamese rhetoric December 2003. nonetheless asserts at times a non-Indian The organisation is divided into two wings: identity, an alienation unaffected by the fact that political and military. The chief of the military most ULFA leaders are Hindus… [Assam’s] wing is titled ‘commander-in-chief’. A military complaints against New Delhi, which include a wing of the ULFA, the Sanjukta Mukti Fouj (SMF) charge of poor recompense for its oil and tea, was formed in March 1996. are paralleled by grievances against Assam by ULFA’s aims & demands several tribal groups that continue to inhabit The creation of an independent and sovereign truncated Assam. socialist Assam is the avowed goal of the ULFA. Apart from this, the following are the major “The demand of the Bodos, a substantial group demands of the separatist ULFA: in the plains of Assam, for a state of their own Demand to end, or suspend, army operations has led to numerous incidents of violence ♦ against its cadres; involving security forces, Bodos, Assamese and Release of its top leaders captured by the other ethnic communities. ♦ security forces; “Perhaps the bloodiest fight over land between ♦ Information about those cadres captured neighbouring ethnic groups, or between old and during ‘Operation Flush Out’ in Bhutan in new settlers, occurred in Nellie in Assam’s Nagaon 2003; district in 1983, when over a thousand immigrant ♦ Third party mediation for peace talks, and Muslims, including women and children, were ♦ Holding talks in world fora like the United killed in attacks by Lalung tribals.” Nations (UN). March 2007 4 MBA Education & Careers INDIA AND THE WORLD: ESSAYS ON IMPORTANT ISSUES External linkages Assam (MULTA) and the Muslim United The ULFA has links with a large number of Liberation Front of Assam (MULFA). external organizations. Some of these are To generate funds for financing its operations, intelligence agencies of countries that directly ULFA launched several income generating aid and abet anti-India activities. projects in Bangladesh. It has set up a number of In 1986, ULFA first established contacts with the firms in Dhaka, including media consultancies and then unified National Socialist Council of soft drink manufacturing units. Nagaland (NSCN), and the Kachin Independence The recent spurt in militant activity in Assam has Army (KIA) of Myanmar, for training and arms. occupied the minds of those in the external affairs Naga rebels helped the ULFA establish a establishment in India. The covert support working relationship with the Kachins. provided by the Bangladesh defence In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the ULFA joined establishment to anti-India militants has begun hands with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence to worry the Indian policy makers. Not only do (ISI). Indian intelligence agencies believe that the these militants use Bangladeshi territory to run ULFA also has links with Afghan militants. In training camps but they also use the banking fact, there are reports that the ULFA militants have channels — legal and illegal — to finance their received training in Pakistan and Afghanistan. anti-India terrorist activities. The Bangladesh Angle While India continues to put pressure on If there is one country that occupies a strategic Bangladesh to put an end to all such activities place in the ULFA’s scheme of things, then it has being carried out from its territory, it seems the to be Bangladesh. According to Indian intelligence latter has chosen to ignore this. The reasons could agencies, Bangladesh has also provided safe be domestic compulsions and the need to pander haven to the top leadership of the ULFA. Since to the anti-India rhetoric of the Islamic parties, on 1989, the ULFA has had a number of training the support of which hangs the fate of the ruling party in Bangladesh. camps in Bangladesh. The Directorate General of Field Intelligence (DGFI) of Bangladesh Pakistan’s ISI hand in glove with ULFA reportedly facilitates the ULFA’s presence and Pakistan has seldom lost a chance to hit India in its nefarious operations against India. In fact, any way possible. Given this, common sense seized documents and interrogation of some would indicate that if there is any nation or group arrested activists revealed that the DGFI had also that is anti-India, Pakistan would, without doubt, trained ULFA cadres in camps close to the lend them a “helping hand”. In the light of this, international boundary. Pakistan’s support to the ULFA should come as no surprise. Also, the ULFA has often used other outfits to smuggle arms and ammunition into India. Two of Indian intelligence agencies have said that the these are the Muslim United Liberation Tigers of separatist group’s top leaders maintain a very March 2007 5 MBA Education & Careers INDIA AND THE WORLD: ESSAYS ON IMPORTANT ISSUES strong liaison with the In September 2006, the ULFA Pakistani intelligence It must be walked out of the talks with establishment. Safely the Union government after ensconced in protected a peace the latter withdrew from a six- shelters in Bangladesh, these week ceasefire saying that the leaders are reported to have without victory. ULFA had violated truce visited Pakistan on several conditions. Since then, the occasions. — Woodrow Wilson, state has seen a steep surge in the violence unleashed by The fact that the ULFA have Jan. 1917 the ULFA on the innocent received material and military civilians, especially against support from Pakistan could be gauged from one the Hindi-speaking migrants. crucial fact: During the 1999 Kargil War, the ULFA came out in open support of Pakistan and Recent developments described the Pakistani intruders as ‘freedom The January 2007 attack is the second major fighters’. attack by the ULFA on migrant workers on non- Assamese; the first such major attack took place Another important link in the ULFA’s external in 2000 when over 100 non-Assamese were killed. network is the Sri Lankan terror group, LTTE. It was, again, the ISI which brokered a deal for the ULFA Soon after the recent attacks, the Indian military with the LTTE: In return for hard cash, the LTTE forces launched an all-out military offensive would smuggle arms into the dense forests of against the separatist group.
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