ethnic conflicts in Assam

Abstract
Assam has passed through a period of political turmoil since 12th century AD which continues even today. Prior to the entry of the British in to the territory of present Assam the region was ruled by various monarchs belonging to different ethnic groups. The initial conflict in the mid12th century was started with the entrance of the Ahoms into the territory of upper Assam, which was then ruled by the Bodo-Kacharis. The conflict between the two ethnic groups compelled the Bodo-Kacharis to migrate westward and this process continued till 19th century. The gradual expansion of the Ahom territory was affected at the cost of sequential migration of people from one segment of the territory to another. This process imparted socio-political instability to the other ethnic kingdoms of that period like the Gobha Kingdom, Koch Kingdom, The Mataks, and The Morans etc. The basic reason for such political conflict and sense of ethnic insecurity was related basically to right over land.  During the British period the tribal groups of people who traditionally did not have proprietorial right over land were pushed out of their own land by imposing land revenue and in the pretext of land acquisition for tea plantation resulting in 1857 peasants’ revolution in Assam. Thus both the pre-British monarchs and the British rulers were equally responsible in creating ethnic instability in the region and in both the cases seeds of discord and distrust among the ethnic groups were sown on the very emotional ground of the agrarian populace that is the land. After the national independence the growth of the elite Assamese middle class started developing hegemony not only on the economic sector but also in language, literature and cultural aspects.  The formation of the ‘Tribal League’ in 1933 under the leadership of Bhimbor Deori and hearing of the Simon Commission in 1929, wherein there was a strong resentment of the various tribal ethnic groups expressed in the form of protests against the Assamese hegemony. In fact, the various ethnic groups under the banner of Tribal League were organized only to protect their right over land, language and culture. Such a socio-political disturbance among the ethnic groups of Assam was supplemented by large scale immigration of muslim agricultural immigrants from the then East-Bengal under the patronage of the British rulers in the pretext of enhancement of agricultural outputs and land revenue. Initially influx of such a foreign demographic mass which was quite unmatching to the local demographic structure was quite small but since 1900 the influx of such immigrants was so huge that the indigenous ethnic groups of Assam started losing their very economic ground for their sustainance that is agricultural land. Thus the sense of socio-economic and political insecurity among the ethnic groups of Assam started becoming deeper. At the time of national independence the then chief minister of Assam Gopinath Bordoloi tried to redress this problem through implementing “line System” and creating tribal belts and blocks. But such measures failed because of the gradual encroachment of the Muslim agricultural immigrants into the protected territories meant for the tribal people.  In fact, after independence the state had a requirement of a well-planned socio-economic policy for securing the rights and aspirations of various ethnic groups living over the territory for ages. But no such socio-economic plans have been created for resolving the basic areas of ethnic conflict even now. For this reason only the ethnic conflict of Assam as well as socio-economic frustration of the multi-ethnic state are considered as a socio-politic gimmick of both state and central government. The paper embodies the socio-economic and political causes behind the ethnic conflict in Assam and the prospective direction and resolution for an everlasting socio-political stability of the region.

Immigration has always been a reality for Assam since time immemorial till date. The composite population of Assam was the result of the migration of various ethnic groups to the soil. These groups were not large in number and therefore subsequently assimilated with the existing population and culture of the soil in order to sustain their existence. In the long run, this process eventually led to the growth of the common Assamese culture with the contribution from these ethnic groups who lost their separate identity in the process. However the migration of the large mass of population from erstwhile East Pakistan has different story to share. The massive influx from East Pakistan later Bangladesh and continuous annexation of the arable land of the soil of Assam has been a major source of turbulence in the state almost since the time of their entry. The major socio-ethnic conflicts in the state so far between the Bangladeshi Muslim Migrants and the local ethnic groups are supplemented by the reason of economic insecurity caused

The phenomenon of identity assertion among its various ethnic constituents over a protracted period of time has significantly shaped the socio-political discourse of contemporary Assam. This assertion has been explained as a part of the process of social evolution of these backward groups, designated as the Scheduled Tribes by the Indian constitution. This assertion is informed not only by an attempt at constructing a distinct cultural order by the newly emerging elites of these groups, it is also characterized by their demand for a share in the existing politico-economic dispensation. However, ever since these demands have transformed into movements for ‘self-determination’ demanding separate ethnic homelands, an array of questions has emerged on the processes of democratic governance and development in Assam. While the democratic aspirations behind these movements are generally recognized, the threat the exclusivist tendency inherent in them poses to the multi-ethnic landscape of Assam also can not be undermined.

This essay examines the above issues in the context of the identity assertion among the Misings, a plains tribe of Assam. After explicating the social, cultural and economic background of the Misings, the essay delineates the trajectory of their identity assertion over almost three quarters of a century. In doing so, the essay illustrates the process of emergence of an educated middle class among the Misings, their demand for politico-economic rights, the turnaround from political to cultural issues, and finally the movement for territorial autonomy. It also underlines the fission and fusion – inter and intra-group – and the role of the state in shaping the course of the Mising identity movement.

On the surface, the conflict appears to be a case of innocent civilians being caught in the crossfire of a battle of attrition between two insurgent groups, the United Peoples' Democratic Solidarity (UPDS) and KRA. However, the discord is inherently rooted in the growing schism between two communities at a time when local politics in the district has witnessed significant transformations.

In the early nineties BJP politically aired a new slogan—‘Indianization of big cities’ since old names, to them were, symbolic to either Mughals or British slavery. The idea later became cheaper for all political parties with much vote bank credits.

And in the process Indian politicians spread a new virus in the world—every one has to redo or delete old data. The commercial capital of India Bombay became Mumbai, Madras changed into Chennai, the first British capital of India Calcutta became Kolkata and the hi-tech capital of India Bangalore followed to be Bengaluru.

Anindita Ghoshal’s Refugees, Borders and
Identities is a historical account of the journey
of post-Partition refugees in India’s east and
northeast, focusing on West Bengal, Tripura,
and Assam. With this much-needed approach,
where the refugee influx is perceived
from an interconnected vantage point,
Ghoshal looks not only at points of separation
between these regions but also at areas
of convergence, arguing for a shared history
of these refugees. Based on documents and
literature from diverse sources, such as administration,
political parties, individuals and
organisations, the book introduces itself as a
grounded telling of a history that is often perceived
as fragmented.

This book examines the impact of Partition on refugees in East and Northeast India and their struggle for identity, space and political rights. In the wake of the legalisation of the Citizenship Amendment Act in 2019, this region remains a hotbed of identity and refugee politics.

Drawing on extensive research and in-depth fieldwork, this book discusses themes of displacement, rehabilitation, discrimination and politicisation of refugees that preceded and followed the Partition of India in 1947. It portrays the crises experienced by refugees in recreating the socio-cultural milieu of the lost motherland and the consequent loss of their linguistic, cultural, economic and ethnic identities. The author also studies how the presence of the refugees shaped the conduct of politics in West Bengal, Assam and Tripura in the decades following Partition.

Refugees, Borders and Identities will be indispensable for scholars and researchers of refugee studies, border studies, South Asian history, migration studies, Partition studies, sociology, anthropology, political studies, international relations and refugee studies, and for general readers of modern Indian history.

Table of Contents
Introduction  1. Encountering the ‘Refugee’: Crafting the Policies  2. Dealing with the Refugees: Rehabilitation, Variation, Discrimination  3. Creating a New Refugee Domain: Assam and Tripura  4. Becoming Political: Politicisation of Refugees in West Bengal  5.  Politics as Defence: Activation of Refugees in Assam and Tripura  Epilogue

This paper evaluates how the dynamics of land policy ambiguity of plurality in tenure security results in different forms of social exclusion, including total exclusion and partial exclusion from any form of land rights for both immigrants and indigenous people. This paper tries to analyze the Land Fund (LF) in the 1998 Land Act (LA98) as an inclusion factor targeted to help the government purchase land which can be redistributed to sitting tenants and reduce ethnic conflicts between immigrants and indigenous people in Kibale. The persistent of social exclusion has resulted into ethnic conflict and a hindrance to development in the Great Lakes Region in the specific context of Kibale district in Western Uganda and Assam immigrants in northeast India.

In history books, we often find terms such as partition, migrant, refugee, illegal immigrant and stateless person, which however do not reflect how emotionally loaded these categories became in the context of the Partition of India in 1947. The Partition and the ensuing migratory movements devastated a nation. At the same time, it created three new nations within the next three decades: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Partition destroyed homes on the one hand and designed new political spaces on the other. Minorities suddenly felt stranded on the wrong side of the newly created national borderlands as the partition displaced gigantic numbers of citizens on both sides of the border but also extended the living space (Lebensraum) for others. It created an unending caravan of people who fled from or to their ‘promised lands’, looking for shelter and refuge. In the eyes of some, the Partition of 1947 was part of a bigger and so-called better agenda, named “a process of nation-making.” But in reality, this event as a whole cautioned people that the home you have may no longer be your home tomorrow. It taught people that you might hate the neighbourhood you so fondly grew up with, as from one moment to the other you could no longer trust your neighbours. Above all, it created a South Asia which had not existed before; all of this in the name of ‘nation-making'. More than seven decades after the Partition, the entire process comes across as a catalyst for two key issues: one, how to negotiate with the mistakes that occurred in the past while designing future agendas, and two, creating new possibilities to introduce new policy-making, a new system of governance and treatment of the refugees-turned-citizens people displaced during and after the Partition.

Northeast Indian women have a significant social role as compared to the women of the other parts of the country. Since ages evil practices like Sati, dowry and female foeticide is absent in this region and in the post-Independence, this region has seen many political and social upheavals, where women have entered the public space. But a region shaken by insurgency and decades of unrest has shown a devastating effect on the psyche of the people, especially women. The media has failed to provide a wide national coverage. Nevertheless, considerable writers in English and other regional languages have centred their works on these issues. This paper will focus on the lives, role and struggle of Northeast Indian women during the insurgency period with select texts from a few writers of the region. The paper will present a background of the status of women in Northeast Indian society and at the same time, the vulnerability posed by insurgency.

This essay assesses the gaps in India's legal doctrine on stateless people and migrants in context of the ongoing National Register of Citizens (NRC) project in the Northeast Indian state of Assam, which aims to identify immigrants of East Bengali origin.

Published in the journal, "Northeast Researches" in March 2017.  It critically evaluates the regional politics in Assam and throws light on the views of dissenting scholars who evaluated the pros and cons of regional politics that dominates the state of Assam

This paper explores whether minority groups are more vulnerable to hate speech, human rights violations, denationalisation and mass atrocities in light of the deliberate lack of state protection through the lens of recent incidents in East and Southeast Asia. The paper also examines the role of social media giant Facebook in spreading hate speech online and whether it may have had any liabilities in relation to the hateful posts that were spread online against the Rohingyas in Myanmar and, more recently, against the Muslim minorities living in the State of Assam in India. The paper concludes by (1) advising policy-makers to adopt and implement strong anti-hate speech laws, clearly criminalising both online and offline hate speech on the national level, as well as to (2) refrain from denationalising minority groups leaving them stateless or at the risk of statelessness and thus avoid instrumentalising nationality for political gains.

सांप्रदायिक नफ़रत की लहलहाती फ़सल
कांग्रेस बोती है, आरएसएस काटती है !
राष्ट्रीय स्वयं सेवक संघ सांप्रदायिक ध्रुवीकरण के मामले में उस्ताद है। आज़ादी के बाद से यह दिन-रात  इसी काम में लगा है कि किस तरह से भारत की धर्मनिरपेक्ष-लोकतांत्रिक राजनीति को अस्थिर कर सांप्रदायिक ध्रुवीकरण किया जाए। इसके लिए वह देश में अल्पसंख्यकों के खिलाफ़ नफ़रत और विद्वेष का वातारण बनाने में जुटा रहता है। मुसलमान और र्इसार्इ खासतौर से उसके निशाने पर हैं। अफसोस की बात यह है कि यह टोली इन राष्ट्र-विरोधी शैतानी मंसूबों में अक्सर कामयाब भी होती रही है। इसके लिए वे जिन जहरीले हथकंडों को कुप्रचार के लिए इस्तेमाल करते आए हैं वे इस प्रकार हैं-धर्मांतरण का हौव्वा खड़ा करने के लिए र्इसार्इ मिशनरियों के विरोध में प्रचार किया जाता है कि ये हिन्दुओं को धर्मांतरित कर जिस तेजी से र्इसार्इ बना रहीं हैं इससे तो जल्द ही भारत 'पादरीस्तान' बन जाएगा। गाय भी उनके लिए एक सांप्रदायिक मुद्दा है। वे मुसलामानों के विरोध में नफरत, हिंसा के लिए इसे लगातार  इस्तेमाल करते आए हैं। उनका दावा है मुसलमानों के आगमन के बाद से ही देश में गौहत्या प्रारंभ हुर्इ है। (1)
    इसी प्रकार वंदे मातरम् को उन्होंने मुसलमानों का विरोध करने के लिए एक मुद्दा बनाकर उछाल दिया है। वे मुसलमानों को लक्ष्य कर कहते हैं 'भारत में रहना है तो वंदे मातरम्  कहना होगा'। अयोध्या में राम मंदिर, उन्होंने 'रामज़ादे बनाम बाबरज़ादे' के बीच लड़ार्इ के तौर इसे मुद्दा बनाकर बतौर हथियार इस्तेमाल कर रहे हैं। मुस्लिम तुष्टिकरण भी इसी प्रकार का एक मुद्दा है।
अब असम:
आरएसएस और इसके राजनीतिक उपांग भाजपा को मुस्लिम विरोध की नफ़रत की राजीति के इस्तेमाल के लिए असम में नागरिकता के रूप में ऐसा ही मुद्दा मिल गया है। राष्ट्रीय नागरिकता रजिस्टर (एनआरसी) का दूसरा और अंतिम मसौदा 30 जुलाई, 2018 को प्रकाशित हो गया है। इसकेू अनुसार असम राज्य की कुल आबादी में से 40,07,707 लोग, जो कि राज्य की कुल आबादी का लगभग 10प्रतिशत से अधिक हैं, देश के नागरिक ही नहीं हैं! इस बिना पर आरएसएस/भाजपा के नेतागण उन्हें 'घुसपैठिया' बता रहे हैं और खुशियां मना रहे हैं। भाजपा अध्यक्ष अमितशाह ने तो इन सबको बांग्लादेशी घोषित कर दिया है।

The cry for an abnormal Muslim population growth in Assam is a hoax. It is factually busted time and again but the political forces which find it suitable as polarization tool keep propping this issue as campaign material. An Army General should have avoided any public rhetoric on such politically heated issue.

Going by the present demographic condition in Assam, out of total 27 districts of the state only six districts of upper Assam – Golaghat, Lakhimpur, Jorhat, Sibsagar, Dibrugarh and Tinsukia can be counted as culturally Assamese populous regions with a special note, however, that the tea-tribe people who have their own Hindi or Bhojpuri language and culture live in these areas too.

In at least nine districts – Cachar, Karimganj, Hailakandi, Dhubri, Bongaigaon, Goalpara, Barpeta, Morigaon and Nagaon Bengalis form the majority. Four more – Karbi Anglong, N.C. Hills, Kokrajhar and Baksa have different tribal cultures and languages of their own. The remaining eight districts – Nalbari, Kamrup city, Kamrup rural, Darrang, Sonitpur, Dhemaji, Udalguri and Chirang have a mixed population of Assamese, Bengalese, tribals and tea labourers.

With the aforementioned details, the obvious conclusion of this linguistic and cultural debate in Assam should be that the Bengalis in Assam are losing their age-old and rich linguistic and cultural grip in the state to newly evolved Assamese language and culture with the voluntary conversion of some Bengalis living in lower and central parts of the state, and not vice-versa at all.         

Nonetheless, because of the undue stress on the ‘identity crisis’ of Assamese by some politically astray and chauvinistic youth, the voluntary and natural process of different tribals and Bengalis assimilation into Assamese language and culture in post-independent India has got a big jolt. It rather became counter productive.

Written in the aftermath of what has come to be know as the 'Bodoland riots' of 2012, the article attempts to demystify the claim that the root cause of political violence in Bodoland area is illegal immigration from Bangladesh by looking at patterns of population growth in past few decades in Bodoland area, and while doing so the articles reasserts the fact that huge numbers of people from erstwhile East Bengal had migrated and settled before 1947 in the area affected by the 'riot'. Lastly, the article also tries to understand and contextualise the 'riot' of 2012 by looking into the recurring history of political violence and riots in the Bodo heartland.

Assam is experiencing relative peace after decades. Although incidents like the recovery of an IED from a train in the Guwahati railway station on 17 June is a stark reminder of  some of the existing problems, the State can certainly boast of having left a violent past behind. The peace talks with the ULFA, scheduled to start in July, if handled carefully, can go a long way in establishing durable peace in this previously turbulent State.

There is no harm in New Delhi displaying magnanimity and an overwhelming element of sincerity to end insurgencies politically. Even when it can not and should not provide any political largesse to the ULFA faction, it can certainly adopt measures for the economic benefit and better governance of the State of Assam. Some success in the talks would be also necessary to force the Paresh Barua group to join the peace process, or become irrelevant. Moreover, a successful culmination of the peace process would also send signals to the other insurgencies in the region and beyond that rebellions do not have to be armed and violent to be successful. Towards that extent, a comprehensive process of dialogue with all the insurgent movements in Assam presently under ceasefire, rather than separate ones with individual outfits, would not be a bad idea.

Introduction: Ethnopolitics: Conflict versus Cooperation 1. The Human Dimension: Facts, Figures, and Stories of Ethnic Conflict 2. Ethnicity and Nationalism 3. What Causes Ethnic Conflicts? 4. Who Fights in Ethnic Conflicts and How? 5. Managing and Settling Ethnic Conflicts 6. Post-conflict Reconstruction 7. The Future of Ethnic Conflict: Possibilities and Probabilities

Leaning on fieldwork experience, the paper studies the family history of Soham Das—a resident of Jorhat, Assam—in order to examine the exigency of remembering one’s ‘legacy’ and establishing ‘linkage’ with the forebears against the backdrop of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam. While the legal-official definition of the ‘Indian’ citizen is increasingly being moulded to support the rhetoric of Hindu majoritarianism, in Assam, the demand for institutional scrutiny of the right to citizenship has ethnic connotations (Baruah 2019). As a result of it, Bengalis, in general, live under the perpetual threat of disenfranchisement. The first section of the paper briefly introduces the complexities inherent in NRC and the associated memory politics in Assam. The next section places Das’s family history at the intersection of the memory politics and NRC in Assam and argues that the family’s memory of the past is not accidentally revived; instead, it is contingent on its interaction with the politics of the period. The paper proposes that the documents, which the family has preserved, provide a discursive methodological framework to understand, what Marek Tamm calls, the mnemohistorical reading of the past (2013). Each document acts as a medium of remembrance, as a mnemonic signifier that sheds light on the arbitrary character of the process of scrutiny and the family’s negotiation with its mechanism to establish the citizenship credentials. Variegated stories emerge from the documents, creating a polyphonic, ‘multidirectional memory’ (Rothberg 2009) that is ‘entangled’ in varied socio-cultural frames (Feindt et al. 2014). The paper establishes the argument that rather than overlapping with the memory politics in Assam, the family’s memory of the past creates its own sense of belonging that contradicts and contests, disrupts and deviates from the collective memory of post-partition Assam.

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/a-more-precarious-citizenship-assam-nrc-list-jammu-kashmir-5949158/

India is unlikely to deport to Bangladesh people who fail NRC test. But the millions who will become non-citizens will have fewer rights

List of Maps. List of Abbreviations. Glossary. Preface. Author's Note. Acknowledgments. Introduction: Assam, Conflicts Part I 1. Conflicts Within, Conflicts Without: Communities and Concepts 2. What is AxamiyA: Understanding an Interethnic Identity 3. Identity, Interrupted: Nation-Building and the Break with Interethnicity 4. Ethnic Fragmentation and Divided Communities 5. State Policy, Ethnicity and Conflict Part II 6. Addressing Conflicts: Militarisation and the Culture of Violence 7. Addressing Conflicts: Negotiating, Power Sharing, Co-Opting 8. Resolving Issues, Transforming Conflicts, Restoring Relations 9. Back to the Future: Tradition and Transformation. Bibliography. About the Author. Index

Review by Ahona Panda:
At the heart of Sanjib Baruah’s In the Name of the Nation: India and Its Northeast lies a paradox: How is it that Northeastern India, site of the suspension of rights and freedoms enjoyed by most Indian citizens, is also a region that witnesses high electoral involvement and voter turnout? Unravelling this question requires the deconstruction of all-too-familiar political idioms of Indian democracy—including ‘insurgency’, ‘frontier’, ‘citizen’ and ‘infiltrator’—as well as deep scrutiny of the directional signifier ‘Northeast’ itself.

After a six-year long student agitation led by All Assam Students' Union (AASU) the Government of India signed an Assam Accord on 15th August 1985 which ensured to initiate the process of identification of illegal immigrants and their subsequent deportation from India. In order to give effect to this task, the National Register of Citizens was to be updated. However even after thirty years the clauses of the Accord was not implemented in letter and spirit bringing about much social turmoil that saw the death of hundreds and thousands of ill fated victims. Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty through her work explores the entire history that exposes the failure of the government machinery, the malafide intention of the various political parties and the suffering of the Assamese people. This review analyses threadbare the various dimensions that the books opens up, its strength and weakness.

The credit for creating this mess goes mainly to the Supreme Court. The original demand of the Assam Movement that all non-Assamese should be thrown out has been converted by the RSS/BJP leaders into Muslims versus others.
Now we should wait for the demand from the MOOLNIWASI or original inhabitants of India, Dravidians and tribals that all 'outsiders' should be identified.
Please read editorial of The Indian Express ('Who is a citizen', July 31, 2018)
https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/sponsored-lifestyle/a-fathers-plea-please-help-me-give-my-son-the-future-he-deserves-5276029/

Modern nations are products of migration, and all the richer for it. NRC process doesn’t seem alive to this reality.
Reproduced with thanks to The Indian Express

The 12 July 2011 unilateral ceasefire declaration by the ULFA’s pro-talk faction and the clarification issued by the outfit on 23 July that sovereignty for Assam is not in their charter of demands, are welcome developments for the state, which has struggled to break free from the cycle of violence for many years. Although an immediate halt to violence is certainly not on the cards, the consolidation of peace would certainly depend on the direction of negotiations between New Delhi and the ULFA leaders, due to begin in August.

Abstract
Governance today is of paramount apprehension for any state. Concern for governance therefore reveals new areas of articulation for a state and the people living within its jurisdiction. For many, governance refers to certain conditions necessary for a state through which it can exercise power in managing the nation's social and economic assets and also becomes the precondition for realizing democratic ideals. Though the notion of governance is different for different people, one common understanding of it is the decision making process as well as the process of implementation of those decisions. This process also identifies involvement of different structures from different walks of life, signifying both the formal as well as informal actors. In this background, the traditional institutions of a society also have their appeal for involvement of local structures in the issues of governance. The traditional institutions of Karbi Anglong also entails such appeals, because of its involvement in civil, socio-economic and religious jurisdiction of the local interests. Therefore the participation of people through such institutions has been recognized as a process of grass rooting the democratic principle of governance in its most popular form as mentioned above. In this paper an attempt is made in recognizing the effect of the traditional institutions in Karbi Anglong more specifically among the Karbi Tribes.

असम में नागरिकों को बेवतन किया जाना !
इस पूरे झमेले का श्रेय मुख्य रूप से कांग्रेस और सुप्रीम कोर्ट को जाता है। असम आंदोलन की मूल मांग कि सभी गैर-असमियों की पहचान की जानी चाहिए और उन्हें आसाम से निकाल बाहर किया जाना चाहिए को मानलेना देश की एकता के ख़िलाफ़ एक बड़ी साज़िश थी।  आरएसएस/भाजपा के नेताओं ने इसे बदल कर मुसलमानों बनाम अन्य के रूप में बना दिया है। अब हमें आदिवासियों अर्थात भारत के मूल निवासियों, द्रविड़ों और जनजातियों की इस मांग की प्रतीक्षा करनी चाहिए कि कि सभी 'बाहरीतत्वों' की शिनख्त की जानी चाहिए और उन्हें बेवतन कर दिया जाना चाहिए।
शम्सुल इस्लाम
With thanks to The Indian Express

“...undoubtedly, a must for anyone keen to understand the conflict-ridden society in Assam”: India Quarterly
Study of interethnic relations in one of South Asia’s most sustained conflict zones, tracing the rise of armed nativist movements, analyzing state responses that instill cultures of violence, and exploring pathways to durable peace