The Hindu Business Line : The killing fields of Assam

The most devilish aspect of the killings by insurgents in Assam is their deliberate targeting of Hindi-speaking people mostly hailing from Bihar. The United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) and the Karbi Longri National Liberal Front (KLNLF), another of the many tribal outfits going on a murderous rampage from time to time, have boastfully associated themselves with the latest series of such killings in the villages of Karbi Anglong district.

Sectarian slaughter is not new to that hapless State. The massacre of about 3,000 Bengalis at Nellie was the worst in living memory.

The killing of Hindi-speaking people, mostly small traders, brick-kiln labourers and shopkeepers has also a long history.

One such attack in November-December 2000, claimed the lives of 100 Hindi-speaking people, and 70 more lost their lives in another tragic series in mid-January this year in Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Sibsagar and Dhemaji districts.

The current recrudescence of lethal outbreaks shows there will not be an early end to such incidents, rooted as they are in the hatred and hostility of extremist groups which cannot bear the presence of non-Assamese.

The ULFA has never hesitated to proclaim its role in launching these atrocities. It has vowed to continue such killings until all outsiders, the foremost among them being what it calls the occupying forces of India, are expelled.

According to the US think-tank, Stratfor, the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan has also had a hand independent of ULFA in these killings to facilitate the incursion of Bangladeshis for ‘Islamising’ the State.

The number of Bangladeshi Muslims is already said to have crossed one crore in a State of 2.7 crore, and every time an exodus of non-Assamese speaking people occurs following the kind of killings recently witnessed, their place is soon filled by a fresh wave of illegal immigrants. Among the States of the Indian Union, Assam is the only one in which the population speaking the language of the State is the lowest (57.4 per cent), the rest being immigrants.

Fuel to the fire

The Centre is yet to wake up to the alarming “demographic invasion” of Muslim infiltrators. The Muslim population of the State has jumped up from 24.56 per cent in 1971 to 30.91 per cent in 2001. The Governor Lt. Gen. (Retd.) S. K. Sinha warned as early as in 1998 “if the present trends are not arrested, the indigenous people of Assam would be reduced to a minority and there may, in course of time, be a demand for the merger of Muslim dominated bordering districts with Bangladesh.”

This is precisely the fear that the ULFA also has been exploiting in justification of its terrorist activities. Adding fuel to the fire is the backwardness of the State in all economic parameters. In the 20 years between 1983 and 2000, unemployment has risen from 2.2 per cent to 4.6 per cent (now numbering 16 lakhs), as against a national average of 2.3 per cent, the per capita income which was 4.1 higher than national average fell 45.5 per cent lower, and the number of the poor has shot up from 18 lakhs to 45 lakhs.

Other than stating in Parliament that the situation is being closely monitored, the Government at the Centre has practically left Assam to fend for itself.

The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, during his visit to Assam in 2004, made the grandiose announcements of a Rs 9,210-crore package, but thereafter there has been no report card to the people on whether the money was, in fact, made available and how it was spent.

The Centre has to reach out to the long-suffering people of the State by putting in intense efforts, if it wants to avoid frequent enactment of tragedies.

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