Feeding Frankenstein

The UPA government has emerged with a bloody nose from its misguided attempts to engage with the United Liberation Front of Assam ULFA. UL...

The UPA government has emerged with a bloody nose from its misguided attempts to engage with the United Liberation Front of Assam ULFA. ULFA leader, Arabinda Rajkhowa, has just indicated that it will not accept New Delhi8217;s invitation to peace talks if it is not prepared to discuss the 8220;core issue8221; of Assam8217;s 8220;sovereignty8221;. But this language 8212; incidentally once greatly favoured by Pervez Musharraf and the Pakistani military with reference to Kashmir 8212; is entirely characteristic of the bunch of lumpens that comprise the ULFA. By attempting to reopen the sovereignty question in the Northeast, it hopes to unleash even greater ethnic conflict and violence in the region.

We have to recognise ULFA for what it is. It does not represent legitimate political aspirations. It is certainly not interested in the welfare of the people it claims to draws its authority from. It has instead become a terrorist organisation, plain and simple, drawing sustenance from various unsavoury activities, including gun-running and drug-dealing. It threatens to destablise the Indian state and has found some support for this project from neighbouring Bangladesh. It has used violence to position itself within the political economy of Assam, and often acts as little more than an extortion racket. Successive Indian government have been giving the ULFA an opportunity to enter the mainstream of the political process. To be sure, often the offer for dialogue is prompted by the most venal of motives. Political parties, particularly the Congress, have not been averse to using ULFA for their own ends. Indeed, the present offer of peace talks was being made with an eye on next year8217;s assembly elections. In the process, ULFA has been allowed to grow and acquire some legitimacy 8212; despite its dubious record and the violence it has perpetrated 8212; even on innocent schoolchildren, as the attack on a school at Dhemaji last August proved.

The time to decisively put an end to any support for ULFA is now. Terrorist organisations around the world have been de-legitimised and the public grievances they once fed off have dissipated considerably. The UPA government should put a full stop to granting ULFA any more political space or it will have to bear the responsibility for having revived a Frankenstein that the nation can ill afford.