https://react.etvbharat.com/english/national/bharat/bharat-news/bodo-accordwill-it-bring-a-closure-to-the-tangled-bodo-question/na20200206082840138 English HOME/BHARAT/BHARAT NEWS/ BODO ACCORD WILL IT BRING A CLOSURE TO THE TANGLED BODO QUESTION Bodo Accord: Will it bring a closure to the tangled Bodo question? Published on: Feb 6, 2020, 8:28 AM IST|Updated on: Feb 7, 2020, 11:28 PM IST Chandan Kumar Sharma, Professor of Sociology at Tezpur University and an expert on Bodo issues, explains the history of the Bodo tribe, their demand for a separate homeland and the recently signed peace accord meant to bring closure to the Bodo statehood crisis. Tezpur: The just-concluded Bodo peace accord brings much joy to the wider Bodo society in Assam. In needs to be noted that this is the third such accord that the government has signed with the Bodo leadership. The Bodos, the largest plains tribe of Assam, have been agitating for a separate homeland since 1968 when the Bodo leadership under the banner of Plains Tribal Council of Assam (PTCA) raised the demand for an autonomous region. This demand was soon upgraded to the demand of a Union Territory namely, ‘Udayachal’, incorporating a large tract in the north bank of the Brahmaputra in 1973 which had greater concentration of the Bodo tribe. Read: Ending decades old insurgency, Bodo Accord signed in Delhi But this movement gradually fizzled out which paved the way for the All Bodo Students Union (ABSU) taking over the leadership of the movement in the 1980s. Initially, the ABSU leadership displayed interests for a resolution of their demands through dialogue with the newly formed Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) government, constituted by the leaders of the anti- foreigners movement in Assam, that came to power in 1985. But the indifferent attitude of the Assam government turned ABSU recalcitrant and eventually they raised the demand for a separate state with Union Territory status by dividing Assam into two equal parts (‘Divide Assam Fifty Fifty’) in March, 1987. This demand was then upgraded into a full-fledged separate statehood namely, Bodoland, in 1988. The movement, under late Upen Brahma, the charismatic President of the ABSU, evoked unprecedented response from an overwhelming section of the Bodos. One also witnessed large-scale violence in almost all the Bodo dominated areas along with state repression during this period. Read: Will peace thrive henceforth? However, with the premature demise of Upen Brahma, the movement wore out and it gradually slipped into the hands of a militant group, the Bodo Security Force (BSF), later rechristened as National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), which demanded a sovereign state. Such a turn of event also made ABSU desperate for a settlement and they signed an accord with the Union and the Assam governments in February 1993. The accord, instead of full statehood, offered only an autonomous council to the Bodos (Bodo Autonomous Council) on the north bank of the Brahmaputra with its headquarters at Kokrajhar. Read: 1500 NDFB cadres surrender arms as part of Bodo Peace Accord The villages with fifty percent Bodo population in the above area were to be included in the BAC. For the sake of geographical contiguity, provision was made for the inclusion of villages with minimum or even without any Bodo population. This immediately gave rise to a lot of uproar among the non-Bodo population of the area and this has remained the most pressing issue until now. However, soon differences surfaced among the leadership at the helm of the BAC. Meanwhile, the NDFB made considerable inroads into the Bodo popular consciousness pushing ABSU from the center-stage of the leadership of the statehood movement. Around the same time, another armed group, Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT), came into prominence. Read: In 2020, it will rain ‘accords’ with insurgent outfits in Northeast India Many observers believed that BLT received help and support of the state agencies to tame the growing clout of NDFB. Interestingly, unlike the NDFB’s demand for sovereign Bodoland, the BLT demanded a separate Bodoland state within the Indian Union. The period from mid-1990s witnessed BLT engage in an internecine conflict with the NDFB for gaining the control of the statehood movement. Their modus operandi, however, was much more dreadful as they often resorted to indiscriminate killing, particularly through explosions at public places, trains, etc. resulting in considerable loss of human lives and property. BLT declared ceasefire with the Union Government in August 1999 and eventually agreed to settle with a Bodo Territorial Council (BTC) with additional villages, towns and tea gardens as well as more administrative and financial powers. Accordingly, in February 2003, BLT signed an accord with the Union and the Assam Governments. The leader of the BLT Hagrama Mohilary was sworn in as the Chief Executive Member (CEM) of BTC in December 2003. The accord made provision for the administration of 3,082 villages included in the BTC by creating four districts – Kokrajhar, Udalguri, Baska and Chirang – which were carved out of seven existing districts of Assam. Read: Bodo Accord will strengthen Centre, weaken Assam The area under the BTC jurisdiction came to be called the Bodoland Territorial Area Districts (BTAD). It may be noted that formation of the BTC required an amendment to the provision of the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution which was for the first time extended to provide a territorial autonomy to a Plains Tribe. NDFB expectedly rejected this and continued its fight for sovereign Bodoland. At the same time, widespread protests followed among the non-Bodo communities in the north-western Assam that came under the cloud of being incorporated into the BTC area. The non-Bodo communities, most notably the Koch-Rajbanshis and the Adivasi community, spearheaded these protests, describing the BTC as grave injustice to the majority non-Bodo population of the region. Subsequently, they were joined by the Muslims of erstwhile East Bengal origin which constitutes a sizeable section of the population in the BTC. Interestingly, the non-Bodo communities constitute around three fourth of the total population of the BTC. These communities have been vociferous about the marginalization of their political and economic rights in the BTC and rallied around a common platform of the non-Bodo population to fight for the protection of their rights. In the Parliamentary elections of 2014 and 2019, their joint candidate got elected from Kokrajhar, the very heartland of Bodo politics. The intricate nature of the situation may be further understood in view of the demand of the Koch-Rajbanshi organizations for the creation of a separate Kamtapur state which cuts across the territory of the BTC. In such a backdrop, while the new peace accord has raised new hope for a sustainable resolution to the Bodoland statehood movement, it has also created apprehension about new uncertainties. What is significant about this new accord is that unlike the previous peace accords, it has among its signatories the representatives of different organisations, including their factions, spearheading the Bodoland movement. They have reportedly committed to the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR), as proposed in the accord, abandoning the demand for a sovereign or separate Bodoland. This has been projected as a major success of the accord as it apparently puts an end to the further division of Assam. Further, the accord also speaks of possible modification in the territory of the BTC by way of inclusion of Bodo villages within the BTR and exclusion of non-Bodo villages from its jurisdiction. The accord provides for the constitution of a commission to be headed by a retired judge of the Gauhati High Court and with representatives from Government of Assam, BTC and ABSU as members to examine this issue. Further, the accord also provides for a Development Council for the Bodos living outside the ambit of the BTR. Another significant provision in the accord is to grant Scheduled Tribe (Hills) status to the Bodos living in the hill districts of Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao. Read: Dissecting Bodos and the Monday tripartite accord Besides these, the accord doles out a development package which includes setting up of a host of centrally funded educational institutions and other development activities in the exiting BTAD areas. However, public spats among a section of Bodo leaders are already evident. There have been also some squabbles about which organisation deserves major credit for the accord. Yet, the main opposition to the accord is poised to come from the non-Bodo population of the BTC. The Kokrajhar MP, Naba Kumar Sarania, who has been the mouthpiece of the non-Bodo population of BTC has already decried the provision of ‘inclusion and exclusion’ of villages in the accord. He pointed out that the accord talks of exclusion of only those non-Bodo villages which are contiguous to some non-Sixth Schedule districts. This way only few villages will be qualified to come out of the proposed BTR while more than a thousand villages which are inside the BTC and not contiguous to any non-Sixth Schedule districts will continue to remain within BTR. He has criticised the accord as unilateral which kept an overwhelming majority of the population in the BTC in the dark. That the proposed commission to examine the process of inclusion and exclusion of the villages in the BTR would not include any representative from the non-Bodo organisations of BTAD has also come under criticism. Karbi Students Association has already opposed granting of ST (Hill) status to the Bodos, which according to them pose ‘serious threat’ to the existing hill tribes of Assam. Read: Bodo Accord will usher in a new dawn of peace, harmony and togetherness: PM Modi Everyone in Assam looking for a closure to the protracted Bodo homeland movement for durable peace and development in the state. While the new accord shows some promise toward the fulfillment of that hope, it also leaves several serious fault-lines behind. It goes without saying that the fate of the new peace accord will depend on how and what urgency these fault-lines are bridged in the coming days.