[Assam] Suck awaythe many million doses of the poison you planted in Assam now, India!

[Bartta Bistar]

State of stable anarchy

 

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The Assam Government is at it again. Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi is at loggerheads with the Governor, Lt Gen (Retd) Ajay Singh, and just stopped short of calling the President's nominee to the State a liar. Gen Singh had written to the President in his report that 6,000 migrants are crossing over into Assam from Bangladesh every day. Not true, says Mr Gogoi, what does the Governor know? The fact, he says, is that the minorities voted against the Congress in the last election

Mr Gogoi also questioned a similar statement made by Union Minister of State for Home, Mr Sriprakash Jaiswal. The Prime Minister, who is a Rajya Sabha MP from Assam, is maintaining a diplomatic silence and is confining himself sensibly to ensuring more and more schools are opened in Assam so that the children of migrants don't grow up feeling alienated from India

Whatever be the Prime Minister's strategy and the Chief Minister's views, what the Governor does know, however, is that Assam faces an Assembly election next year and it is vital for the Congress to win it. So the alteration of the demographic boundaries of constituencies continues unabated, taking advantage of the fact that the opposition is weak in Assam.

Today, no one remembers the historic operation that the Bhutanese Royal Army fought against the ULFA to remove camps from Bhutanese territory. Operation All Clear, as it was known, had to be resorted to, because of the cumulative effect of the process we see today: Migrants came to Assam, banded together to demand their political and economic rights and, over a period of time, turned into militant organisations. They had then to be eliminated by the forces of the state. Wouldn't it have been simpler to have not encouraged migration at all? Sometimes, the Indian Army can be excused for wondering why so many State governments are so keen to create problems for themselves. Every Northeastern State has a history of first colluding with the militants and then asking the Army to crush them. In October 2002, Chief Minister of Meghalaya admitted two of his ministers had links with the UG. One of them, whose real name was Adolf Lu Hitler, was arrested

Similarly, a minister was arrested in Arunachal Pradesh in May 2003. Things were so bad in 1995, that the Chief of Army Staff, Gen SR Chowdhury, and Eastern Army Commander, Lt Gen RN Batra, had publicly elaborated on the infamous nexus and how it was undermining operations of the security forces. In Manipur, the State Government was even accused of hindering security force operations against UG. In 1997, Union Home Minister Indrajit Gupta and Manipur Chief Minister signed an MoU to investigate the nexus but the report remained underground.

The joke at the time was that while Manipur Chief Minister Reishang Keishing, a failed politician, was trying to be a good soldier, Gorkhaland's Subash Ghisingh, a failed soldier, was attempting to become a good politician. It is not just in J&K but in the Northeast too, where the security forces have been combating insurgency with one hand tied behind their back, while the State cohabits with non-state actors.

In Assam, the problem is an institutional one. It is relatively straightforward. Over successive years, Congress-led governments have encouraged settling migrants illegally along the Assam-Bangladesh border.

This was at the core of the growth of the Asam Gana Parishad (AGP) and gave rise to the ULFA when the migrants got together to protect their interest. The Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, 1983, applicable only in the State of Assam for the purpose of detecting foreigners, was created but it was felt that the Act did not really work because the onus of proving an illegal migrant was put on the accuser rather than the accused. Migration is a social, economic and political problem. When claims of ownership of land are questioned, it can lead to an explosive situation.

When current Governor of J&K, Gen SK Sinha, was posted in Guwahati, he sent a 42-page report to the President expressing his alarm at the manner in which the demographic structure of Assam was being altered. He pointed out in his report that (a) Fifty-seven of Assam's 126 constituencies have shown more than 20 per cent increase in the number of voters between 1994 and 1997 whereas the all-India average is just 7.4 per cent. (b) Muslim population in Assam has shown a rise of 77.42 per cent over what it was in 1971 (there was no census in Assam in 1981). (c) Four districts in the State (Dhubri, Goalpara, Barpeta and Hailakandi) are already Muslim-majority whereas three more are fast approaching that stage. At the time of Independence, only Dhubri was a Muslim-majority district.

By conservative estimates, at least 1.5 million Bangladeshis are said to be living in the State. He attributed all the above factors to population movement from Bangladesh which, he said, would reduce the indigenous people of Assam to a minority.

These are more or less the same charges that have now been made by Gen Ajay Singh. At that time, Mr Gogoi, who was the Assam Congress chief, had said: "By saying that the Muslim population in districts like Dhubri and Goalpara may one day demand secession from India, the Governor has cast aspersions on their loyalty and commitment to the country. This is unacceptable and unprecedented. We have, in fact, called for his recall."

 

 

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