Adivasi children at a refugee camp in one of the Bodoland Territorial Council-administered districts. (AFP)

Kokrajhar, Aug. 28: Using a book as its weapon, the militant National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) today targeted the Assam government for allegedly encouraging migrants to overrun tribal belts and turn the indigenous population into minorities in their homeland.

Published by the NDFB?s publicity wing, the 20-page book, A Short History of the Boro People, holds pro-migrant policies responsible for the deteriorating condition of tribal areas. It claims that as much as 80 square km of tribal areas has been ?reconstituted? by the government for different purposes.

The primary motive behind encouraging migration, it says, is to create vote banks. The situation has allegedly come to such a pass that non-tribals now own most tribal land.

The NDFB, which signed a tripartite ceasefire agreement with Dispur and Delhi in May, recently came up with a 31-page manifesto to ?correct the wrong policies of the past?. Blaming ?preceding Bodo leaders, organisations and political parties? for the continuing unrest in the Bodo heartland, the militant group?s leadership said they were trying to evolve a consensus on the demand for sovereignty before starting negotiations with Delhi.

The outfit also sought to dispel the notion that a ?sovereign Boroland? would be a territory exclusively for the Bodo community. ?There is no country in the modern world that is not a multiracial one and Boroland shall not be an exception to this. The NDFB is not against any caste, creed, community or religion. People of any community or religion shall live in sovereign Boroland, but their living there should not be at the cost of our land and identity.?

The outfit?s book, too, harps on the topic. Blaming a Muslim League leader, Md. Sadulla, for the advent of migrants in large numbers from erstwhile East Bengal, it states: ?The encroachment not only devastatingly affected the socio-political life of the Boro and tribal people, but also brought about a sudden change in the demography. In many places, the encroachers outnumbered the aborigine tribal population. Thus, the tribal people turned into minorities exploited, discriminated against, dominated and despised by the outsiders.?