People protest against the Ulfa’s recent carnage in Dibrugarh. Picture by Eastern Projections

Pitted against insanity

At this point, one weeps with those who have lost their kith and kin in what could be termed as the most horrendous round of bloodletting by the Ulfa. Stories of innocent people being lined up and shot indiscriminately raise a fundamental question about Ulfa’s professed desire to talk peace. At this juncture, does the outfit have any legitimacy to propose a dialogue with the Government of India?

With people virtually having delivered their verdict about whether or not they believe in a sovereign Assam, the space for dialogue is visibly reduced, since the demand for sovereignty has been the outfit’s main plank.

In the last three months, the Ulfa has killed over 50 people and injured more than 100 in bomb blasts across Assam. Of those dead, only two happened to be Assamese. The rest were all Hindi-speaking people, mainly migrant labourers.

On January 6, Ulfa eliminated 48 people in cold blood and injured several others. If these rituals in blood are Ulfa’s way of proving its nationalistic fervour, then it is also the most devilish, inhuman act of terrorism.

People’s voice

Ordinary people do not subscribe to violence of the kind perpetrated by the outfit. They may have their grouses on a host of issues and their bile could act up when it comes to the government’s apathy towards influx from Bangladesh, but at no time have the Assamese people shown their antagonism towards the working community from the Indian heartland.

A very interesting survey conducted by an NGO, appropriately named Assam Public Works, in nine districts of Assam, soliciting people’s views on Ulfa’s demand for sovereignty, booted out the outfit’s claims. Ninety-five per cent of the people who voted by putting their signatures said they did not believe in sovereignty.

Naturally, the temperamentally audacious Ulfa has termed the referendum as an initiative of the Research and Analysis Wing. This preposterous presumption assumes that the people of Assam are dumb, driven cattle and do not have a mind of their own. History testifies that violence has its watershed, beyond which point it refuses to cut any ice. People have been repulsed by bloodshed and senseless killings and the people of Assam, I believe, have now reached the threshold of patient spectatorship to Ulfa’s bloodletting tactics.

What has triggered a strong public reaction and emboldened people to speak up is the outfit’s ban on the National Games scheduled to be held in Assam in February this year.

That Assam has been chosen as the venue of the National Games is a matter of great pride and joy for the people of that state.

False ideals

It is Ulfa’s false air of intellectualism which has pushed it into an exercise of semantics with the word “national”. While the outfit is at liberty to engage in polemics, it cannot impose its diktat on an unwilling populace. It is gratifying that people have chosen to speak out and they have courageously used the platform provided to prove their point.

Daniel Boorstin writes, “Men who set much store by their dogmas and who will not allow themselves to be guided by the give-and-take between ideas and experience are likely to suffer defeat in one way if not another.” Ulfa’s policy of exclusion has few takers in Assam. This is not surprising. The Assamese today are citizens of the world, settled in every part of the globe from Europe to America to Australasia. These non-resident Assamese are influencing their compatriots to develop a broad and pragmatic worldview and accommodate what is in the best interests of the Assamese people.

Although the word “Assamese” has undergone severe buffeting at the hands of scholars and intellectuals, simply put, it includes all those who are legal settlers of Assam, irrespective of the language they speak or their racial milieu.

This farsighted pragmatism has not developed overnight. It has evolved and is now imbibed by the average Assamese who understands the market economy. The politics of the market is diametrically opposed to ethnic assertions and exclusivity as these have the tendency to divide resources. In a sense, therefore, the market has no respect for social values and aspirations. However, if these can be achieved in spite of commerce and profits, so be it. But to abandon profit and support separatist ideologies is certainly not the rule of the marketplace. The Assamese diaspora settled abroad recognise this rule of thumb that drives the market and is vigorously helping to promote it among their fellow citizens back home.

Information technology has enabled non-resident Assamese to connect to their roots, to keep track of the developments back home and also to share the resources that they garner abroad to enable fast-track development. This is a very encouraging development for Assam and the Assamese people. Unfortunately, each time violence snowballs, the diaspora is anguished. They become pessimistic about whether Assam can ever get out of this cycle of violence. But it is not just the Assamese people who are affected by spurts of violence such as those which occurred in the past week.

Assam is the gateway to the entire region. Any political upheaval that results in largescale violence in Assam has a cumulative effect on the seven other states that are intrinsically linked to it by virtue of road, train and air communication that traverse the state. Almost all the seven states have a major stake in tourism because of their scenic beauty, extraordinary climatic zones and flora and fauna.

If Assam goes into contortions as it is doing now, most tourists would prefer to change their itinerary and opt out of the Northeast. Bad news travels fast and wide. When innocent people are massacred and the government is apparently utterly helpless to prevent such carnage, why would anyone choose Assam or the Northeast as their destination for leisure?

What is shocking is the reaction from some quarters in Assam. A prominent member of the Peoples’ Consultative Group (PCG) alludes to the involvement of another group in the killings with the purpose of maligning Ulfa.

Such statements only reflect the complete lack of freedom of the PCG to think and behave rationally and objectively. Instead of engaging in the blame game, the PCG should have the courage to tell Ulfa to stop the butchery of helpless citizens.

This is what all groups attempting to bring peace should be doing. Nothing is as distasteful and ignominious as a partisan and hawkish posture at a time when courage is needed to call a spade a spade.

Adverse impact

Assam is set to witness an attrition of the Bihari labour community, comprising dairy farmers, who are forced to seek a secure space elsewhere. But worse is the impact that the latest round of killings will have on the National Games. If the residents were themselves eliminated with impunity, would outsiders, however magnanimous, want to put their lives on the line? This is a question that the Tarun Gogoi government has to wrestle with in the next few weeks.

V.K. Duggal is hardly the person to dictate whether the Games should or should not be held. If the state is unable to provide security in normal circumstances, how can they ensure security to a host of sportspersons converging at Dispur?

If athletes are anxious about their safety and security, then the whole fun of the event is lost. As neighbours of Assam, we would feel a deep sense of having lost something great and memorable, should the Games be abandoned. But at this moment, is there a better option?

The writer can be contacted at patricia17@rediffmail.com