Battle lines over Bodoland

The December carnage in Assam has divided its people like never before. For now, a delicate peace prevails at the state’s relief camps

Kati Hemram (13) and Chandan Basumatary (14) were lying on adjacent beds in the emergency ward of Tezpur Medical College & Hospital. Except for their ethnic identities, everything else about them was similar: their age, their innocence and the description of their wound – “firearm injury right upper chest [sic]”.

Kati is an Adivasi while Chandan is a Bodo. Adivasi is a collective term for tribes like Munda, Santhal, Orang and so on. They were brought to Assam by the British to work in tea gardens. Bodo is a tribe native to Assam’s western districts. The two tribes had been living amicably for decades in far-flung villages inside the forests of Assam bordering Arunachal Pradesh.But now they are baying for each other’s blood.

It all started on December 23 when terrorists belonging to the anti-talk faction of National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) led by I K Songbijit open fired on Adivasis in Sonitpur and Kokrajhar districts in a series of attacks at four places, according to the state administration. Soon after the carnage, Adivasis retaliated, setting off a chain reaction of violence.

Considering the extent of bloodshed, Kati and Chandan would be called lucky survivors of the madness that claimed 81 lives including 26 women and 18 infants in Sonitpur, Kokrajhar, Udalguri and Chirang districts of Assam, according to a PTI report. Around 1.8 lakh people, both Adivasis and Bodos, were forced to leave their homes en masse and take refuge in relief camps set up in nearby schools, Anganwadis, churches and so on.

Sonitpur was the worst-affected district. One of the biggest Adivasi relief camps in Sonitpur was set up in the campus of Tinisuti High School near Bishwanath Cariali. The camp housed 3,000 people – not only from Fulbari, the village where the killings happened, but also from nearby villages since they were too scared to continue living there. “I was decorating my house for Christmas on 23rd when I came to know about the massacre. I couldn’t celebrate after that.

How could I?” said Nobul Baglari, a Hindi teacher in a private school and a resident of Bilasigudi, a Bodo village bordering Hathijuli. “IK Songbijit is not even a Bodo, what good would he or his group can do to us?” he added while criticising the act of NDFB(S). “We don’t think about Bodoland, we think about our work that fetches us our meals,” said Lereng Bodo when asked what he thought about the legitimacy of the demand of Bodoland by NDFB(S).

The Adivasis and the Bodos came to these villages (earlier forest) almost at the same time, 15-16 years ago, and have virtually coexisted ever since. Adivasis would approach their friends in Bodo villages, relatively better educated, to sort out any accounts-related matter. They would also relish the rice-beer, a Bodo speciality.

However, people were taking his promises with a pinch of salt. Not much is visible on the ground inside the villages, they complained. Of late, people of the aforementioned camps have returned after jawans of Seema Suraksha Bal (SSB) were deployed in their villages.

But the question is for how long would this security remain in the villages? What would happen after that? What about those villages that are equally vulnerable but were simply lucky to have escaped the carnage. The fact is, these people would continue to remain sitting ducks for NDFB(S) or any such militant groups till the time their villages have the “forest-village” status.

Being on forest land, they remain out of bounds for the local administration. Which means no roads, no electricity, no water, no schools and no police. They don’t even have an official village head who can take the concerns of the villagers to higher authorities. No Panchayat elections happen here. They are encroaches of the forest in the eyes of the government.

Now, to choose between environment and people is not going to be an easy choice for any government and evicting them from their villages after decades will have its own consequences but till this matter is sorted out, reactionary and ad hoc security measures is only going to act as a bandage on a deep wound. (www.newslaundry.com)

By:Gaurav Jain