In the home of the ULFA

People here know Arabinda Rajkhowa as the guitar strumming Rajib who sang songs of Bhupen Hazarika

Back in the Seventies,Rajib Rajkonwar was a guitar-strumming boy who sang songs of Bhupen Hazarika in Ujani Konwargaon and its neighbouring villages. The song he sang often was Raij aji bhaworiya,deshei naat-ghar/koney ki bhao loba aji samay je takor (the country is a stage,the people its actors/come choose your role,there is very little time left), remembers Haren Rajkonwar,a teacher at the Lakwa Tantia Higher Secondary School,where Rajib was a year junior to him. With his talent for dhol,penpa and other musical instruments,people assumed he would become a musician.

Three decades later,Rajib or Arabinda Rajkhowa as hes known now,chairman of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA),is in custody after surrendering,as the government says,and after eluding the police and the army for years.

His mother,94-year-old Damayanti Rajkunwari has not seen him for years,ever since he disappeared in 1985. Since the news of his arrest broke,she has been scanning the newspapers eagerly,reading every report on his arrest,despite her failing eyesight. When the smaller type hurts her eyes,she gets others to read the paper for her. After Rajib (Arabinda) went missing,we suffered another blow when our eldest brother was killed by some unidentified people in 1998. Almost every day since then,my mother has been asking for news about Rajib, says Ajoy Rajkonwar,one of Rajkhowas brothers. Rajkhowa is the youngest of nine siblings.

I had not seen him since 1985 until that day on December 5 when he was arrested and produced in a court in Guwahati, says Ajoy Rajkonwar,who works with the Assam State Electricity Board.

The ULFA is a subject Ajoy wants to steer clear of. But I am definitely concerned,especially because my brother is involved. I also remember the day the police came and raided our house looking for him. The first time he was arrested,we got him out on bail. The police came back again the following night but he had already left a few hours earlier. Since then,the police have come several times. We have got used to it, says Ajoy.

But it was his late father,Uma Rajkonwar,who was upset the most by his sons ULFA links. A freedom fighter,he headed the Shanti Sena in Upper Assam during the freedom movement and participated in the swadeshi and khadi movements. Deuta (father) used to tell us how they derailed a military train in 1942, says Ajoy.

Uma Rajkonwar belonged to that generation of freedom fighters who upheld their principles above everything else. In the early sixties,he refused then chief minister BP Chalihas offer,a gift from a friend,of 100 acres of land. There were several such offers which he politely declined. In fact,a couple of years before his death,he gifted all his land to a few poor families in our village, says Ajoy.

Soon after Independence,Uma Rajkonwar quit the Congress and joined Ram Manohar Lohia. He worked closely with Ashok Mehta,Aruna Asaf Ali,Hem Barua and others. But later,he returned to the Congress and stayed there till his last days. Whatever may have happened in our family,I will remain a Congressman,he would often say, says Ajoy.

Like Rajkhowas family,the villagers too are reluctant to talk about the ULFA. They would rather talk about the regions poverty and backwardness. Nothing has changed for us. We expected a lot of change especially after oil and gas were discovered in our village. The ONGC acquired much of our land but all that we got was a pucca road and some grade III and grade IV jobs, says Biswajit Tipomia,a central committee member of the Asom Jatiyabadi Yuva Chatra Parishad (AJYCP),an organisation that Rajkhowa belonged to for a few years.

There is little development here and whatever little there is has taken a long time to come. A government water supply scheme took about 20 years to be completed but is of little use. This plant became defunct three months after it was inaugurated last April, says Tarun Rajkonwar,president of the Lakwa Gaon Panchayat.

About 10 per cent of the families under the Lakwa panchayat are BPL families. But the panchayat president still hasnt been able to find out why rice under BPL schemes does not reach the village regularly. Last year,only 14 of the villages 541 NREGS card holders got 100 days of work. This year we have not yet been able to give any work, says the panchayat president.

Little wonder then that Ujani Konwargaon would rather talk development than Rajkhowa.

Jerai Chakalibharia Dibrugarh District

In Assams football nursery,everyone thought Paresh Barua would be a star player. But he took a different path

Jerai Chakalibharia is Assams football nursery. Almost every cluster of houses here has produced at least one state football playerone of them even made it to the national team. And one of their footballers went on to become the self-styled commander-in-chief of the ULFA.

Paresh was a very good footballer. He played for the state,for Northeast Frontier Railways,ONGC and Oil India Ltd, says Champak Chetia,sports secretary of the Jerai Anchalik Yuva Parishad Aru Krira Sangstha.

He would stay in a Mess in Tinsukia and tour various places,playing football. He hardly found time to come home. It was only in 1981 when the police came and raided our house that we realised he had taken a different path, says Bikul Barua,younger brother of Paresh and a teacher in the village primary school.

The road he went on couldnt have been more different from the one his brothers took. While Paresh joined the ULFA,two of his brothers work with the Defence Ministry. His eldest brother Bimal works in an army supply depot and another brother,Pradip,is an employee of the Military Engineering Service at Dinjan,the 2 Div headquarters of the army. Their sister Hirawati Barua is a councillor in the local panchayat,elected on an AGP ticket. His other brother,Dinesh,was killedlike Arabinda Rajkhowas brother Dimbaby unidentified persons in 1994.

Paresh Barua is not the only big ULFA leader the village has produced. Anup Chetia,once a sports organiser,now the outfits general secretary,too belongs to Jeria. In fact,the two are neighbours. Chetia,who was arrested in Bangladesh in 1997,is still awaiting extradition to India.

With two of the outfits top leaders coming from Jeria,its not surprising that others in the village followed them. While many of them surrendered in recent years,some are still in Bangladesh or Myanmar,where the ULFA has a general headquarters. Some of them have been killed by security forcesmemorials for at least six of the villages boys killed in encounters have sprung up next to the village stadium.

But the villagers are wary of talking of their links to the outfit.

Nila Bargohain,79,a retired headmaster of the primary school that Paresh Barua went to,refuses to talk about Barua. Instead,he talks about what he did the day India became independent.

That is the most memorable day of my life. I still remember very clearly how we hoisted the flag early morning in the village school, he remembers. That evening the villagers got together and threw a big feast to celebrate Indias Independence.

But these days,Jeria has little to celebrate. Jobs in the region are scare and villagers make some money by growing tea on their land. Debakanta Bargohain,the headmasters son,says he too has taken to tea plantation. Jobs are becoming increasingly scarce and homestead tea cultivation has become a good alternative, says Debakanta who sells 15 to 20 quintals of tea leaves to the bigger tea gardens. The price however,keeps varyingit goes up to Rs 24 in good times and Rs 10 per kg when the going is bad.

Paddy is the other crop that grows in Jerai,though only once a year. There is nothing called irrigation here despite the fact that the Brahmaputra flows only 10 km north of our village, says Debakanta.

A number of Jerais residents have also found jobs in the oil industry and tea estates. The village has also produced half-a-dozen engineers and a couple of state civil service officers.

Champak Chetia Mukut Gohain,a resident who quit a tea garden job to set up his own business,however,is not happy. I wish more of our young people went out to study. That would have done them some good, he says.

The village once had a libraryit was set up in the fortiesbut now that too is gone. The library was in good shape till Paresh and Golap (Anup Chetia) looked after it. Once the two left for the jungles,the library too fell into disuse, he says.

Back in Paresh Baruas home,his 80-year-old mother sits grinding betel nuts. You people have come again? What do you want me to tell you? Dont ask me to talk about his (Pareshs) childhood, says Miliki Barua.

But once she starts talking,she cant hold back. The boys must come back. I dont want to see any more killing. Do you know,I have not slept for years? Do you know my tears have dried up? she asks.