A grab from The Telegraph report on secret killings published on November 16

State as the assassin

Much has been written and spoken about the Justice K.N. Saikia report, which indicts former Assam chief minister Prafulla Mahanta for the secret killings of Ulfa kin and sympathisers between 1998 and 2001. Mahanta was then also the home minister and it was under his initiative that the Unified Command structure was formed.

Ironically, a similar inquiry by Justice J.N. Sarma stopped short of naming the people involved in the mass killings although it had no doubts about the fake encounters, which took a toll of 188. Why the two accounts are inconsistent is anybody’s guess. But Justice Saikia’s report is a compendium of damning evidence against Mahanta. It also finds definite proof of the involvement of top army and police brass in the secret assassinations.

Mahanta, himself a product of the Assam Movement of the late seventies is closely associated with the current Ulfa leadership, all of whom were ideologues having similar aspirations. Why a section of those activists turned radical and preferred to go underground instead of joining electoral politics is a matter of conjecture. But given the intricate nature of politics there is no knowing what went wrong in the relationship and why enmity has replaced a former comradeship.

Having been groomed in the same soil and imbibed the same political milieu, Mahanta’s philosophy cannot be too different from that of Ulfa’s. However, as chief minister of a state nurtured in the eco-system of democracy, Mahanta had to disown his former colleagues.

Volte face?

Given the intimacy that Mahanta shared with his former comrades they must have expected him to give them a free operating space with regular doses of oxygen to enable them to breathe easy. At the very least that would have been dichotomous. Mahanta could not have ignored Ulfa’s acts of terror, which by then had escalated and resulted in the exodus of capital and industry from Assam.

Also, Ulfa had by then made public its aspirations for a sovereign Assam. This declaration of open, conditional warfare against the country, without leaving any room for negotiations, naturally pushed India to the offensive. India had enough knowledge even then about Ulfa’s support base. If there were assumptions then that Ulfa had become a pawn in the hands of the ISI and other extremists, all that has been more than amply vindicated over the years. To speak of the rule of law in circumstances where non-state actors operate by their own rules and spit on the laws of the state, is rather presumptuous.

Scholars who prescribe strict adherence to the rule of law by state actors but have no gumption to stipulate similar rules for non-state actors or to condemn the acts of terror perpetrated by these so-called revolutionaries, are at best rabble-rousers. Could Mahanta have countered Ulfa’s onslaught without the assistance of the Unified Command structure? These are questions that require insightful deliberations and not mindless condemnation of the entire exercise.

Commenting on the rule of law in a 2005 article in The Telegraph, columnist Tarunabh Khaitan says, “The sine qua non for the rule of law is an independent and freely accessible judiciary which fearlessly tries people, irrespective of power, wealth, status or political affiliation. The rule of law also demands an independent police organisation and an independent prosecution service, which are free from political interference in their day-to-day functioning while being accountable for their actions.”

Khaitan is speaking of a normal situation where the state is in a position to use its police force to quell internal disturbances. Considering that the police are by and large politicised and owe their loyalties to the ruling government, there is need for a non-partisan force. In the current scenario there is no such trained, special counter-insurgency force.

The Assam Rifles, which calls itself a paramilitary organisation, draws much of its manpower especially at the higher echelons, from the Indian army. Hence it operates like the army, replete with wartime preparedness. The attitude of many of the army operatives is superciliousness towards the local population. Since the Northeast, especially along the Myanmar border, is treacherous terrain, the posting here is considered punishment enough for them to treat the entire region as a battlefield and not just the ideologues but their close kin and sympathisers as enemies who have to be decimated for providing the wherewithal to their gun-toting family members.

Ineffective law

There are several instances when the rule of law has been deficient in handling the host of nationalist movements in the country, which are dubbed as “secessionist” by the nation state. Sadly, even after tackling the Naga movement which has now reached its 60th year, the Centre has still not developed adequate mechanism to fight terrorism without inflicting casualties on the ordinary citizen.

Justice Saikia had warned that the army should not be politicised and the police should not be militarised. This is a very appropriate warning. But what are the alternatives to counter insurgency? Can Assam afford to throw the bay out with the bath water? The learned Justice should have prescribed the most effective remedy for countering terror groups like Ulfa which strikes targets with impunity.

Tackling terror

Tackling terrorism is like shooting in the dark. As terrorism spreads its ugly tentacles and innocent targets are eliminated at will by terrorists and agent provocateurs, there are fewer and fewer options for the state. Going soft and sticking by the rules will not pay dividends. Citizens will complain that the government is not doing enough.

That was what the Gogoi government was accused of during the spate of Ulfa attacks against Hindi-speaking residents of Assam. Counter-terrorism is a hard option and those involved in these operations are putting their lives on the line.

When the options become narrower and information gathering gets too tedious, operatives tend to take short cuts. Part of this shortcut method is to get relatives and sympathisers of terrorist outfits to spill the beans and to punish those who refuse to squeak.

These shortcuts are unpardonable in the International Courts of Justice just as they cannot be condoned by the nation state. But we seem to suffer from the dilemma of having fewer and fewer options to deal with the culture of terror.

It seems so inadequate to simply comment on the secret killings without having alternative suggestions for the state to act upon. This is the appropriate time for the people of Assam and its politicians to transcend the blame game and try and find lasting solutions to the Ulfa dilemma.

The Justice Saikia report cannot be used as a political trump card to flog Mahanta and the AGP. But why flog a dead horse? The AGP is already split into irrelevant units. It is no longer an effective Opposition. In fact, that is one of the travesties of Assam politics today. Parliamentary democracy, which envisages a strong Opposition to put governments on the mat, is almost dead.

The writer can be contacted at patricia17@rediffmail.com