Books | A Fence in The Courtyard

How parochialism led to the marginalization of an entire community. An extract

Rashmi Narzary

Matters got worse when in 1970, Gauhati University decided to introduce Assamese as the medium of instruction in all colleges affiliated to it and under its jurisdiction. A sense of apprehension regarding employment prospects, bordering on a threat, began to percolate among the non-Assamese tribals. Even if they were given employment, they wouldn’t be able to work in an official language they did not know. The same apprehension was there among the students in colleges and universities. When such socio-economic insecurities crawled in, ethnic groups further alienated themselves from the greater in colleges Assamese society and huddled tighter among their own. So rather than being a binding, common language, which perhaps the imposition of Assamese was anticipated to be, it did just the opposite. It tore down Assam into fragments, in spirit and effect. The languages and dialects and thereby the identities and ethnicities of the numerous indigenous tribes of Assam lay trampled. However, the root cause of dissent owing to a sense of injustice, discrimination and deprivation among tribals in Assam, especially the Bodos, can be traced back to colonial times. Now though, with a renewed threat to their existence and also due to massive immigration, the seeds of establishing their own identity were sown in each tribe. To bow out without asserting themselves was not like them. And so a steady process of tribalization began in Assam.

The All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU) launched the Bodo movement in 1987, demanding a separate state to be called Bodoland. This was a consequence of the failure of the Plains Tribes Council of Assam (PTCA), which had, since its inception in 1967, demanded a separate union territory for the Bodos and other plains tribes, to be called Udayachal.

Political leaders sought out their mileage from the situation and over the years, while one set of tribal leaders took to mediation and talks with the powers in Assam and Delhi, to detach from a biased Assamese society, another faction took up armed revolution. The governments at the Centre and the state began to refer to them as insurgents, ultras and militants. Earlier, when for the very same reasons, seemingly misled Assamese youth formed the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) in 1979 to embark on an armed rebellion in protest against the Centre’s upper hand over Assam, they, too, were called insurgents and militants—never Assamese insurgents, Assamese ultras or Assamese militants. But when a handful of misled Bodo youth took up arms for similar reasons, they became Bodo insurgents, Bodo ultras and Bodo militan