The Hindu,
Nov 21, 2003
Opinion - Editorials
Assam's shame
THE KILLING OF close to 30 people in Assam in a wave of attacks over the last few days on the Hindi-speaking population of the State has once again exposed the worst face of regional and ethnic chauvinism in the North-East. The attacks, which began with Assamese students preventing Hindi-speakers from writing a selection examination for junior posts in the North-Eastern Frontier Railways (NFR), sparked off reprisals against north-easterners in Bihar, the State to which most Hindi-speakers in Assam trace their roots. This in turn became the excuse for the killings in northern Assam where a large number of Hindi-speaking people live. The Assam Government has been forced to seek the Army's assistance to bring the situation under control. The entire series of events, from the first incident to the last killing, is reprehensible and unacceptable to all who consider themselves part of a civilised society. It has to be condemned as such and a clear message sent out to the perpetrators that such actions cannot be tolerated. To her credit, the Bihar Chief Minister, Rabri Devi, took swift measures to clamp down on the incidents in her State. In Assam, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi's efforts were evidently inadequate: they failed to prevent the grisly killings.
The latest episode of anti-migrant wrath in Assam has provided the United Liberation Front of Assam a tailor-made opportunity to rear its ugly head again. Since the mid-1990s, the outfit has been languishing on the margins, pushed there by the Assamese because of its resort to terrorism, retributive killings and criminal extortion. Evidence of its unpopularity came when voters defied its call to boycott the 1999 Lok Sabha elections and turned out to vote in large numbers. Hundreds of its cadres have laid down arms, some of them saying they did not agree with the senseless violence it advocates. More recently, the group's call for a boycott of Hindi films evoked no response. In the present spate of violence gripping Assam, the State Government has named ULFA as the main instigator and the perpetrator of the killings. Clearly, the extremist organisation, which has been banned under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, sees in the situation a chance to make a comeback. In all this, the role of the All Assam Students' Union needs to be highlighted. The AASU, which led the agitation in Assam in the 1980s, recently demanded that the NF railway "should be restricted to the region" and it was the first to raise the "foreigner" bogey in the matter of the zonal railway recruitment examinations. In doing so, the student body may have had an eye on its own political fortunes but its strategy has dovetailed neatly with that of the ULFA.
Mr. Gogoi has blamed the troubles on the Central Government's failure to create adequate employment opportunities in Assam. That may be true, but it is only a part of the story and a lazy way out - good for deflecting criticism but bad in the long run because it plays into the hands of the extremists. It reinforces the view that while the mainstream political establishment in Assam may distance itself from groups like ULFA, it is not above using them for its own political gains. Assam needs to look inward for answers to this week's violence. The victims were those whose families had migrated from Bihar generations ago. It is time the so-called "indigenous Assamese" looked at them as an integral part of the State's ethnic mosaic instead of as "outsiders". In this time of crisis, it rests on Mr. Gogoi's shoulders to provide leadership. Above all, he must resist the temptation to fall into the more-Assamese-than-thou trap.
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