Back story of Guwahati violence

But what raises questions is the administration and police handling — or rather mishandling — of the agitation. About 5,000 agitators, some armed with bows and arrows, arrived by the busloads in the city. They then marched towards the state secretariat though they did not have permission from the authorities to do so. Meanwhile, the police remained mute spectators.

This is not the first time such a situation has gone out of control. Last month, a 300-hour bandh called by the All Koch-Rajbangshi Students’ Union turned violent, with over 200 vehicles damaged over a period of 13 days. In one incident, bandh supporters also set on fire a night bus, which was going from Coochbehar to Guwahati after locking the doors from outside. All 35 passengers sustained severe burn injuries. Fortunately for Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi no one was killed, and the incident occurred outside Guwahati.

The Congress-led dispensation in Assam has created this situation by supporting the demand of these various communities to be recognised as Scheduled Tribes. The Gogoi government had, in fact, earlier this year recommended to the Centre that these six communities be placed in the list, classified as Scheduled Tribes. But there is no unanimity in New Delhi on the issue. Even as Gogoi sent his recommendations to New Delhi, tribal welfare minister, P.R. Kyndiah, an MP from Meghalaya, turned down the demand in August.

As far as the adivasis are concerned, they have been facing many serious problems — especially since 1996, when a major ethnic conflict broke out between them and the Bodo tribals in the Kokrajhar district of Lower Assam. Over 1.2 lakh people were rendered homeless in that ethnic violence, the majority of whom were adivasis. Today, 11 years later, several thousands of them are still living in relief camps in the Kokrajhar and Bongaingaon districts, waiting for rehabilitation.

The tea tribes, engaged in the plantations, are also in a limbo. The bulk of the tea labourers, who number around eight lakh, are illiterate. Their living conditions are deplorable, with even drinking water being unavailable. In the last month itself, at least 100 tea labourers in the districts of Sivasagar and Jorhat are reported to have succumbed to diarrhoea.

For the ruling Congress Party, these tea labourers and adivasis are part of a vote bank that the former Congress president, Dev Kant Barooah had identified, comprising Muslims, local tea labour and Bengali-speaking migrants. Today, the Congress’s vote-bank politics has come to haunt it, as visuals of protesting adivasis being brutally beaten and women being publicly stripped feature on primetime television.

The Gogoi government has had to face considerable embarrassment and pressure because of these developments. But how it chooses to defuse the volatile situation is till a matter of speculation.

sg_kashyap@rediffmail.com