Issue Date: Tuesday , July 8 , 2008
A unilateral ceasefire and a new governor may not be enough to end the
cycle of violence and counter-violence in Assam, unless there is a
radical renegotiation in the social contract between India and this
state, writes Sanjib Baruah The author is at the Centre for Policy
Studies, New Delhi
Some in Assam like to see the unilateral ceasefire by the so-called
Alpha and Charlie companies of United Liberation Front of Asom=92s 28th
battalion as good news. However, there is nothing in the history of
the past two decades of the state=92s politics to suggest that the
state=92s multi-faceted political crisis, of which Ulfa is a symptom,
might end with new defections from Ulfa or, even a mutiny.
A far more promising development may be the appointment of former
chief minister of Rajasthan, ****v Charan Mathur, as governor. For the
first time in nearly two decades, Assam will have a politician as
governor.
Two other gubernatorial appointments in the region are significant.
Sikkim=92s new governor, the retired IAS officer, Balmiki Prasad Singh,
is an old =91Northeast hand.=92 Unlike these two men, the new governor of
Meghalaya, Ranjit Shekhar Mooshahary, has had a career in a uniformed
all-India security service. But his Bodo roots makes it an interesting
appointment.
Governors of the northeastern states have more inputs in policymaking
than in the less-troubled states. It is no coincidence that the
primary thrust of our policy towards Ulfa during the tenure of the
last two governors =97 both military men =97 has been military. The half-
hearted steps toward negotiations were not the result of conviction on
either side. They were gestures to satisfy Assamese public opinion
that strongly favours a negotiated and honorable settlement with Ulfa.
The outgoing governor, Ajay Singh, leaves behind a remarkably
unsuccessful record of locking horns with Ulfa for nearly two decades.
In the early Nineties, long before he became the governor, he
commandeered two counter-insurgency operations against Ulfa as head of
the Indian Army=92s 4 Corps. As governor, he came to be associated with
a hardline position of opposing talks with Ulfa.
Singh claims in his resum=E9 that as the commander of those counter-
insurgency operations, he =93was given the responsibility of wiping out
[the] Ulfa insurgency=94 and that he =93smashed the Ulfa insurgency in
less than three months=94. But that was more than fifteen years ago.
While Ulfa is at a crossroads today, it is not because of its military
reversals alone. Popular outrage at the killings of civilians, and a
sense of hopelessness that there is no end in sight to the cycle of
violence and counter-violence, are more im****tant factors.
There is no evidence that anyone knows how to use the ****ft in the
public mood as a political opening. One hopes that the new
gubernatorial appointments would mark a ****ft in the balance between
military and political thinking. Even though Ulfa as an idea has
always been more powerful than the reality, this has not made engaging
with it any less challenging.
The oft-repeated clich=E9s about unemployment and underdevelopment
creating conditions for recruitment by insurgent groups, and
platitudes about solving the crisis of immigration through border-
fencing do not give confidence that our decision-makers understand the
sources of Ulfa=92s political influence.
The two most recent governors have both been highly vocal on the
dangers of illegal immigration from Bangladesh. But to expect
political dividends out of such speech-making on this extraordinarily
difficult issue without addressing it in any substantial sense is to
grossly misunderstand the nature of the immigration crisis and its
relation****p with the rise of Ulfa.
Ulfa was a radical fringe of the Assam Movement of 1979-85. From the
very beginning, it tried to distance itself from some of the Assam
Movement=92s extreme rhetoric on =93foreigners=94 and =93Banglade****s.=94
A=
t the
same time it tried to get propaganda value out of the evident
indifference of our governmental institutions to this key Assamese
concern.
But the immigration crisis, for Ulfa, has never been more than a piece
of evidence of what it sees as a raw deal that the Assamese got in the
postcolonial pan-Indian dispensation.
India=92s political and bureaucratic elites inherit a memory of
Partition vastly different from that of their counterparts in Assam.
Few people seem to know that the migration from eastern Bengal was a
politically explosive issue in Assam even as far back as the 1930s.
Indeed, it shaped Assamese attitudes towards Partition.
The flow of people from one of the subcontinent=92s most densely
populated areas to a sparsely populated region =97 legally open to new
settlements in colonial times =97 did not stop with Partition. The
erection of an international border did not change that reality.
Indeed, from the Assamese point of view, the effect of Partition was
to intensify the migration pressure from eastern Bengal, with waves of
Hindu refugees joining in.
In retrospect, Assam appears to have adapted to this demographic
transformation rather well. Official predictions of the 1930s that
immigration would permanently alter the future of Assam and destroy
=93the whole structure of Assamese culture and civilization=94 did not
materialize. But it is not because the predicted demographic changes
did not take place: they did, with profound consequences. But contrary
to the fears of the colonial era, most East Bengali migrant Muslims
adopted Assamese as their mother tongue. No one familiar with the
relation****p between demographic dynamics and civil disorder in other
parts of the world would read this as a sign that everyone would live
happily ever after.
Japanese scholar Hiro**** Sato talks about the faultline between the
normative definition of citizen****p in Indian law, and the actual
exercise of franchise by people =93based on the legitimacy of
rudimentary do***ents rather than on the registration of citizen****p.=94
The =93foreigners=94 question in Assam is the product of this faultline.
Understood in this way, it is not surprising that the issue became the
epicentre of a veritable political explosion in Assam in 1979. There
is no evidence that the ripples of this explosion have subsided.
The power of Ulfa as an idea reflects a policy impasse of
subcontinental pro****tions, showing up the failures of Partition
borders and of the foundational ideologies of the post-Partition
states. Assam=92s numerous tribal rebellions, and evidence of candidates
of mainstream political parties turning to Ulfa=92s tacit sup****t during
elections, and of even the government relying on such sup****t in
certain situations =97 relations facilitated by the massive corruption
that the state has become known for =97 outline the multi-faceted nature
of the crisis. If political movements relate to reality, either to the
bare facts, or to strivings that grow out of a reality, Ulfa provides
an example of the latter.
In Ulfa=92s narrative of history, Assam lost its sovereignty in 1826. It
sees itself as being engaged in a battle to recover that sovereignty.
This reading of history has its elements of myth and fantasy. But as
the veteran journalist, M.S. Prabhakara, points out, =93a certain
wistfulness and nostalgia over a past when Assam was a sovereign and
independent political entity,=94 have been part of Assamese =93folk
memories, literature and cultural and political polemics,=94 for a long
time.
To the military mindset, Ulfa=92s insistence on discussing sovereignty
might seem audacious, especially given the organization=92s weak
position. At the same time, it is hard to imagine how the strivings
that animate Ulfa can be accommodated within the model of an ethnic
peace accord =97 so popular among our politicians and bureaucrats.
The chief minister of Assam, Tarun Gogoi, has held out the Bodo
Liberation Tigers as an example. The BLT, he says, is similar to Ulfa,
but =93we sat down with BLT and they surrendered.... Now we have BLT
members as part of our government.=94
But historically, the =91Assamese=92 has not been purely an ethnic and
exclusive category. If the category includes minorities of all stripes
=97 as it does in Ulfa=92s vision =97 how can the aspirations of a
territorially defined political community be accommodated within the
model of an ethnic peace accord?
The reason for Ulfa=92s apparent intransigence on the sovereignty
question may be because the concept provides a way of getting around
this difficulty. It brings to the policy agenda the notion of
renegotiating the social contract between India and Assam.
Sovereignty talk does not have to take the form of the familiar talk
about independence. However, compromises within this paradigm are
possible only if constitutional reforms are part of the agenda. It
might also require a willingness to relate foreign policy issues, vis-
=E0-vis relations with Bangladesh, to domestic policy concerns, but in
ways other than those that our security establishment has long
preferred.
A bold new political initiative to resolve Assam=92s complex crisis must
consider such options.
The author is at the Centre for Policy Studies, New Delhi
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080708/jsp/opinion/story_9504721.jsp
|
