The success or failure of a popular movement is not always reflected in the politics of the day. Bhrigu Kumar Phukan, who died earlier this week, represented the best and the worst of student power in recent Assamese politics. The anti-foreigners agitation by the All Assam Students? Union in the early Eighties was actually an expression of a new sub-nationalist sentiment. Although marred by widespread violence, it took a different course from the armed insurrection of the United Liberation Front of Asom. But, once the movement sought to reinvent itself through formal politics, it was a very different experience for the student leaders-turned-rulers. For Phukan, who was the chief organizer of the AASU?s agitation, the life of a politician turned out to be an experience of defeat. He drifted not only from his mentor of the AASU days and former chief minister, Mr Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, but also from the party, the Asom Gana Parishad, that was born of the student movement. He lived to see even worse ? the expulsion of Mr Mahanta from the party he had founded.

However, the legacy of the movement has survived the disintegration of the AGP and the failures of its leaders. Their protest against the influx of Bangladeshis into Assam may not have been either peaceful or democratic. But it forced the country to wake up to the danger and thrust it on the national political agenda. It is another matter that 20 years after the Assam accord, which ended the agitation, the issue remains unresolved. Worse, the so-called foreigners issue has become a convenient ploy for divisive, vote-bank politics in the state. The AGP has itself to blame for this end to Assam?s most popular political movement in its recent history. There is no denying, though, that Phukan and his compatriots helped the Assamese become conscious of the threat from illegal migration. Their agitation may have incited jingoistic, xenophobic sentiments. But that should not detract from its larger meaning.