Assam Aflame Yet Again

The multi target terrorist attack in Assam on 6 April, 2009, the eve of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit,  was definitely waiting to happen and with greater intensity than ones launched in all previous years to “celebrate” United Liberation Front of Asom’s (ULFA) raising day. The high level of public anger and feeling of despondency is certainly neither out of place nor unjustified. Because there are a number of factors which should have been taken into account by the State Government’s leadership, intelligence and law enforcement agencies and certain actions taken based on them which may have prevented or preempted this attack, or could at least have inhibited its perpetrators to quite an extent. But this being pre- election time, political compulsions for Assam’s Congress government are obviously at their highest.

The factors are (a) with ULFA having been depleted considerably during the past over a year of operations by security forces, (b) Assamese replacements for ULFA not available owing to its stock plummeting in Assam, (c) entry of Harkat ul Jehad e Islami-Bangladesh (HUJI-B) into Assam from Bangladesh in 2008 and Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Asom (MULTA), both as eager volunteers to fill ULFA’s vacancies, (d) Awami League coming back to power after an unprecedented public mandate, (e)ULFA’s Paresh Barua and cohorts fleeing from their luxurious residences in Dhaka and going underground , (f) Awami League government making a meaningful gesture of offering to hand over ULFA’s hitman Anup Chetia, imprisoned in Bangladesh, (g) Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and other Bangladeshi terrorist groups, including the Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) supported by it and and the Bangladesh National Party, all desperately trying to destabilize Bangladesh and prevent Awami League’s attempts at normalising relations with India, which would also mean improvement in the security and law and order the North East and (h) Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) raising a new wing named Tanzeem-e-Mohammedi to destabilize India’s Northeast as well as the districts of West Bengal bordering Bangladesh (Editorial, The Sentinel, 9 March, 2009).

October 2008’s terrorist attacks, ULFA’s top leadership going underground and the bloody mutiny in Bangladesh Rifles were sure indications of further stepping up of terrorist violence in Assam. But the Congress did not taking any chances by taking any kind of precautionary measures like apprehensions or arrests which may upset the Muslim vote-bank created over decades by illegal migrants from Bangladesh made legal by being issued ration cards from the briefcases of some political leaders. At least eight of Assam’s districts, have demographically attained levels of Muslim majority, high enough to sway electoral politics.

Even if ULFA was a product of the blood-soaked Assam Agitation, along with the Asom Gana Pratishad (AGP), the Congress in Assam is reported to have maintained close links with it, as brought out in the following excerpt:
“L K Advani once again reopened the issue of an alleged nexus between the government and the militant group…But it remains a fact that political parties have by and large tried to get the "blessings" of the ULFA and other militant groups from time to time, the most favourite time being during elections. Even the militant group has admitted that political parties make use of the ULFA during elections. The ULFA had a few weeks ago complained that the Congress government made its peace moves and held a few rounds of discussions with an ULFA-nominated body only to tide over the state assembly elections…And if one takes a close look at the past two or three state assembly elections in Assam, it becomes almost clear that the ULFA openly opposes one party or the other and stops short of extending open support to one of them. Though Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi reminded Advani on Friday that Congressmen were today the most favourite targets of the ULFA, what he did not mention was that the BJP-AGP alliance was the worst sufferer during the run-up to the 2001 elections…Then, there is that famous report saying politicians (and bureaucrats) not only help divert development funds in the Northeast to militant groups, but also that some politicians even take their assistance during election times. An expert group appointed by the Union Home Ministry a few years ago had prepared this report. No wonder political parties in the state do not openly criticize or oppose the ULFA” (Samudra Gupta Kashyap, Who doesn't have a nexus with ULFA?, posted  online:  March  06,  2007, www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=82445 - 44k  -).

Ever since November 29, 1990, when the Army was first deployed against ULFA, no operation against it was ever allowed to be continued to its conclusion. ULFA enjoyed the benefit of often using its ploy of crying out for a cease fire whenever the Army’s operation began to make a substantial impact. Having no sincere aim of peace negotiation, it would always use these cease fire periods to recoup and rearm and launch off again. If the last operation against it was continued for much longer than ever before, it was only after a series of violent incidents and the adverse effect of the demographic change in Assam was brought into focus by All Assam Students Union (AASU), following a judgement passed by Justice B K Sharma of Guwahati High Court in July 2008, stating that Bangladeshi infiltrators have a major role in electing representatives both to the Legislative Assembly and Parliament, that the last operation against ULFA continued for over a year as well as creating a major split in it.

The top leaders of ULFA, which rose on the plank of the agitation against Bangladeshi influx into Assam, in fact became traitors to that very cause by escaping in 1990 to Bangladesh and becoming flunkies of the ISI there. But what about ruling governments  legalizing illegal Bangladeshi migrants and treating them as a vote bank and thereby helping the very forces which want to convert Assam into ‘Bangistan’, ‘Islamistan’ or whatever, at the irretrievable cost of national security and safety and well being of the people of Assam and the North Eastern region? Memories of the Assam Agitation are most disturbing and come to mind more now because of the warnings by Justice Sharma and ASSU. If Assam’s current twisted politics of pandering to the vote bank at the high cost of the safety and living space of its people continues unchecked, then one shudders to think of the possibility of more ‘Nellies’, or worse!

Courtsey: The Sentinel, Guwahati, 13 April 2009

http://www.sentinelassam.com/editorial.php?sec=3&subsec=0&id=7845&dtP=2009-04-13&ppr=1