MAHESH Singh runs an Assamese medium school in Dehinghola in upper Assam and was once an active member of the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU). But last Tuesday none of that helped him. His Assamese identity was effaced in just a few minutes when a group of boys threw him out of his house and set fire to five houses belonging to ‘‘people of Bihari origin’’. Over 30 people died this week in clashes between Assamese and Bihari communities. Mahesh Singh’s is not an isolated case of a Bihari being an AASU member. ‘‘The AASU in 1973-74 had a Bihari president—Lalan Singh,’’ says Assam Forest Minister Pradyut Bordoloi, who during 1973-74 was the president of the Dibrugarh district unit of AASU. ‘‘Lalan Singh was very highly regarded by Prafulla Mahanta. I don’t know whether the present generation of AASU leaders even remember him,’’ says Bordoloi sarcastically. Biharis have made their presence felt even in Assam’s mainstream politics. Shew Sambhu Ojha, now a BJP leader, was elected twice MLA from Tinsukia as a Congress candidate. Tinsukia currently has Rajindra Kumar Singh as its MLA. The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) too had a Bihari MLA called Jayprakash Tiwari during 1996-2001. Having lived in the state for nearly a century, many Bihari families have assimilated into Assamese society. ‘‘Our forefathers may have from Bihar but we have assimilated in this land and are proud to introduce ourselves as Assamese,’’ says a prominent citizen of Guwahati. But relations have not always been smooth between the two communities, especially in Dibrugarh and Tinsukia districts. Even as far back as in October 1969 the two communities had clashed in Namrup. The Biharis migrated to Assam as industrial labourers after the discovery of oil in Upper Assam in 1886. The founding of plywood mills and coal mines in the district further attracted a steady wave of migration. The AASU is keen to show that their stand against jobs in the railways was not to provoke violence. ‘‘We were only protesting the railway ploy to take Bihari candidates in large numbers in the Northeast Frontier Railway by systematically depriving local candidates. Railways has always been a personal fiefdom of railway ministers from Bihar and Nitish Kumar is no different. We do not have anything against the Biharis who have been living in Assam for decades. They are part of us. They were with us during the agitation against Bangladeshis too,’’ says Samujjal Bhattacharyya, advisor of AASU. Dileep Chandan, editor of Asam Bani, the oldest Assamese weekly blames the whole situation on the government’s inability to create jobs in the northeast. ‘‘The government of India has been time and again saying that unemployment is one basic reason behind unrest and insurgency in Assam. But when it comes to creating or providing employment opportunities to the local boys, all the central government offers is excuses.’’
