By Albert Thyrniang
It was the darkest Christmas and New Year for the next of kin of the victims of the violence in Boroland, Assam last December. The mindless bloodshed resulted in the needless loss of 85 lives. Nearly three lakh people had to take shelter in 139 relief camps in the four affected districts excluding those in neighbouring states of West Bengal and Arunachal Pradesh. It might have been the most horrendous last and first days of 2014 and 2015 respectively. The festive days turned into a nightmare. The situation has improved and inmates in refugee camps have decreased but it will take some time for normalcy to return.
The most unfortunate turn of events began with the carnage on the Adivasis on December 23, last in Chirang, Sonitpur and Kokrajhar districts by the Songbijit faction of National Democratic Front of Bodoland — NDFB(S). Using AK-series weapons, cadres carried out a series of attacks under the order of the outfit’s commander-in-chief, B Bidai, cruelly killing at least 68 innocent Tea Tribes of Assam. Shockingly the dead included 21 women and 18 infants.
Intelligence sources revealed that the massacre on the Adivasis was a hate killing to avenge against the Adivasi villagers who had had provided information to the army of the location of NDFB (S) cadres in Kokrajhar,which led to the death of two of them in an encounter on December 21. Sources further disclosed that the plan to kill the Adivasis was ordered in August after the community protested against Bodo militants early last year. The original hate plan, objected by some senior leaders of the outfit, was reviewed after December 21 and duly executed under direct command of B Bidai.
Bidai, a close confidante of NDFB founder chairman Ranjan Daimary who switched his loyalty to Songbijit in 2010, lived up to his brutal billing once again after he and his men killed a Bodo girl in Kokrajhar in August labelling her a police informer. Witnessed by villagers, Bidai outrageously gunned down the girl, recorded the whole incident and later circulated the video clip to television channels.
Backlash and retaliatory violence followed as Adivasis attacked and set ablaze houses of Bodos on December 24 in the worst affected Sonitpur and Kokrajhar districts resulting in killing of six and four Bodos respectively. Further three Adivasi protesters fell victims to police firing on the same day. The violence also spread to Udalguri district. Curfew was clamped and the army called in. Currently the army is engaged in an all out operation against the militants in the deep jungles of Kokrajhar. Aided by helicopters to survey the densely forested habitat of the militants , the operation is expanded to West Bengal and Arunachal Pradesh. The task could be a long drawn battle as NDFB (S) cadres are feared to have fled to Bhutan and Kachin Hills of Myanmar.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh accompanied by his deputy Kiren Rijiju visited Sonitpur district on Christmas Eve to take stock of the situation. They held discussions with Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi in Guwahati. A blame game followed soon after. The BJP Union government blamed the Congress led Gogoi government in Assam for inaction to prevent the carnage despite available prior intelligence warnings. Refusing to take the whole blame on himself, Gogoi pointed out that Central forces were present in the area and they had powers to take appropriate action against rebels. Gogoi also accused the BJP of taking the support of the NDFB (S) in the last parliamentary elections. Strongly rejecting the allegation, the BJP dared the Chief Minister to provide proof of the nexus to the NIA or the Election Commission.
It’s for the Assam CM to provide proof for BJP-NDFB(S) nexus but it was only logical for NDFB (S) to support BJP candidates. Prior to and during the last MP election, the BJP, including the then Prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi resorted to political rhetoric. In the high pitched campaign they vowed to repatriate illegal immigrants in West Bengal and Assam back to Bangladesh. Many also recall that it was the BJP government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee that gave them the Bodoland Territorial Council in 1993. The NDFB (S), were made to believe that the BJP dispensation in Delhi would grant them a Bodoland state, thus fulfilling the outfit’s objective.
The December incidents remind us of the volatility of the Boroland Territorial Area Districts. The fragile area has seen many a communal and ethnic conflicts. Non-Bodos like Nepalis, Hindu Bengalis and Bengali speaking Muslims and Adivasis have been targeted by Bodo armed groups since the Bodo movement in 1987. In May last year similar attacks were committed on Muslim migrants that resulted in large scale clashes claiming more than 31 lives and sending thousands from both communities to refugee camps.
The Bodos are an aboriginal community in the lower Assam. Constituting of only 20 per cent of the total population, the Bodos are a minority in the four districts of Kokrajhar, Baksa, Udalguri and Chirang demarcated as Bodoland Territorial Area District (BTAD). They suffer from the perceived fear that they are being swamped by ‘outsiders’ in their ‘own homeland’.
The latest mass killing of the Adivasi villagers cannot be seen as a mere hate crime. There is a larger picture to be read. Consistent with history this is part of a geographically exclusive claim of the demarcated homeland by a terrorist group who romantically assert to represent an ethnic community. This and the earlier communal violence in the politically and constitutionally administrative unit is a chauvinistic pursuit for an illusionary exclusiveness in a territorially and demographically diverse and complex reality.
The NDFB (S) and other armed groups have to accept the fact that besides the Bodos, the residents in BTAD are Rabhas, Rajbongshis, Nepalis, Garos and of course Adivasis, Bengalis and Assamese (Hindus and Muslims). Eliminating fellow tribals is not a way forward. It is detrimental to the Bodos themselves. At the personal level I have two colleagues in the same residence – one a Bodo and the other an Adivasi. Both are extremely anguished at the events of December 23, last. They readily note that the vast majority of both communities want to live in peace and harmony. There are only a handful trouble makers. Both hope that wounds are healed gradually and both communities are reconciled to live in together in the future.