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India’s Northeastern region has seen many episodes of armed conflict and generalised violence since India’s independence. These conflicts and violence have had different causes ranging from rebel groups fighting for outright independence for their ethnic group and violence against people they regard as ‘outsiders’. Inter-ethnic violence between indigenous groups has also taken place. Ethnic unrest in the Northeast is nearly always followed by large-scale violence leading to loss of lives and property and displacement. In the political idiom of contemporary India, the term “Northeast” has almost come to denote a region characterised by ethno-political movements.
The ethnic clashes in Northeast India is considered to be worse than any of the bloody clashes in the rest of the country in terms of brutality, heavy toll on innocent human lives, properties, and span of conflict.In December 2010, violent clashes broke out between ethnic group belonging to the Rabha and Garo community in Goalpara District of Assam and East Garo Hills district of Meghalaya. The Rabhas of Assam, a group that has very close cultural affinity with the Garos, both being of Tibeto-Burman origin, have been restive. However, in the recent past, the Rabhas have resorted to bandhs and road blockades to press for the demand of Rabha Hasong, a political framework which would bring them under the ambit of the Sixth Schedule.
The emergence of identity assertion movement of the Rabhas has had a significant implication in Assam and areas bordering East Garo Hills district of Meghalaya. The identity assertion movement of the Rabhas has also given rise to inter-ethnic conflict between the Rabhas and Non-Rabhas within Rabha Hasong area. These developments have been found to generate some significant ethnic conflicts such as a violent clash among the Rabhas and Garos in Assam-Meghalaya border areas of December 2010 and January 2011.
The problem started when the Rabha Hasong included 416 villages inhabited by Garo people, which also formed a part of the demand by the Garo National Council who had demanded for a separate Garo Autonomous Council in Assam.The conflict between Rabhas and Garos were taken by surprise by some observers of the region.
The background to the conflict between Rabhas andGaros is that the Rabhas are recognised as Scheduled Caste in Goalpara district of Assam but not in the contiguous East Garo Hills district of Meghalaya. The East Garo Hills district has its own Autonomous District Council under the Sixth Schedule of the constitution. But because the Rabhas are not a Scheduled Tribe community in Meghalaya, they never had their representation in the elected district council.
For quite some time, the Rabhas had been agitating in the Garo Hills for gaining Scheduled Tribe status. But the Garos are opposed to it for which the Rabhas had been declaring bands to press their demand. Meanwhile, the Garos resented such demands of the Rabhas and the methods used by them to press the administration to cede their demand. The Garos instead got increasingly agitated with the frequent bandhs and road blockades all the more because the road link between the two parts of Meghalaya – the Garo Hills and Khasi Hills – lies through Assam. If one has to travel from Tura, the headquarters of Garo Hills to Shillong, capital of Meghalaya situated in Kashi Hills, one has to go through Assam via Goalpara and Guwahati. Any bandh and the subsequent road blockade, cuts off all road communication between two parts of Meghalaya.
To the Garos, the ongoing agitation by the Rabhasis nothing but an economic blockade of their district. Subsequently, in retaliation, the Garo National Council of Assam also started declaring bandhs in Goalpara district of Assam, which ultimately led to inter-tribal clashes between the Rabhas and the Garos.
Garos have at least one armed group, the Achik National Volunteer Council (ANVC) which is under ceasefire since July 2004 and a newly formed Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA). The Rabhas have Rabha Viper Army, which is argued to be ineffective and more like a band of petty dacoits. Besides the militants, the student unions of both the Rabhas and the Garos play a very strong political role. The genesis of the clash between Garos and Rabhas may be the demand for autonomy, but the immediate trigger was a bandh call by the Rabhas during Christmas and some Rabha groups beating up a pastor and pelting stones at revelers.
As a result of the clashes between the Rabhas and Garos, members of these communities on both sides of the border have suffered extensively. In East Garo Hills district large scale damage took place in homes belonging to Rabhas who form a minority in the state. In Assam, it is the other way round with Garos leaving behind their homes in a mass exodus towards the safety of Meghalaya.
Garos and Rabhas have lived side by side for centuries, interacting and cooperating with each other by and large. The clash between them has to be seen in terms of mobilisation against each other by vested interest groups along with their primordial identitieswhich triggered the conflict between them. Also, the delay of the Meghalaya governmentfor a conclusive and amicable decision on the Sixth Schedule tangle is believed to have resulted in the present clashes between the Rabhas and the Garos in Assam-Meghalaya area. It needs to be mentioned here that the All Rabha Student’s Union(ARSU) has been demanding Sixth Schedule status to the Rabha Hasong Autonomous council and elections to the council, while the non-Rabhas living in the Rabha Hasong areas have been demanding exclusion of some villages from the Council areas.
If one takes a closer look at the articulations of Rabha resistance and an affirmation of identity-based rights, one can locate a certain amount of exasperation among them in terms of state apathy in the comparative context of reliability of power and rights of similar groups such as the Bodos. Set-ups like the Rabha National Security Force mooted the idea of separation from India as well as from Assam until the Autonomous Council Act was passed in the Assam Assembly in 2000. After that, the All Rabha Students’ Association persisted with the demand for increased autonomy for the Rabha council by earmarking territorial jurisdiction within which the Rabha Hasong Autonomous Council(RHAC) would have absolute power in local governance. The creation of panchayats under the 73rd amendment in Rabha areas remained as a parallel and omnipotent institutional framework that negated much of what the Rabhas wanted to achieve through their own autonomous council.
The Rabha-Garo clashes have subsided for the time being but the possibility of a renewed flare-up at some point in time persists till the basic problem of granting ST status to the Rabhas in Meghalaya and the problem of administration of RHAC is resolved once and for all. In the case of RHAC, though the Council was constituted in 1995 by the then Chief Minister of Assam, Hiteshwar Saikia, elections to the RHAC has not been held till date. For the past 18 years, the Council was run by an ad hoc body appointed by the state government.
Such a case enhances volatility of the situation in the Council area due to various serious ambiguities. The possibilities of flare-ups between the Rabhas and non-Rabhas in RHAC can be substantiated by the violence between the Rabhas and the Garos and by the violence and arson between the Rabhas and the non-Rabhas in the run-up to the Panchayat elections in RHAC areas in February 2013.
The author is a Research Assistant at CLAWS
Views expressed are personal
Select Bibliography
Das, Dhrubajyoti (2012), “Reconstructing Ethno-Cultural Identity: A Study on the Assertation of Ethnic Identity of the Rabha Community in Assam”, Global Research Methodology Journal, Issue 6: 1-22
Biswas, Prasanjit, “Politics of Brinkmanship”,The Statesman, 3 March 2013
Bhattacharjee, Kishelay, “North East Conflict Resolution in 10 Days”, [www.ndtv.com] URL: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/north-east-conflict-resolution-in-10-days-78985, Accessed on 20 August 2013
Rabha-Garo Ethnic Conflict, [www.newageweekly.com] URL: http://www.newageweekly.com/2011/01/rabha-garo-ethnic-conflict.html, Accessed on 20 August 2013
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