DCoV)

cc.LU>OO

mmm INDIAN ARHY™.SISTERS m ASSAM

Graffiti near the Deputy Commissioner's office in Gauhati: severe alienation

ASSAM AND THE NORTH-EAST

The Danger Of Secession

GET out Indian dogs," reads theterse message on a public wallatDibrugarh, the bustling townin upper Assam hemmed in bymiles and miles of tea gardens.

On board the Fokker Friendship fromJorhat to Tezpur, another tea town on thenorth bank of the swirling Brahmaputra,a passenger looks below at the valley'schequerboard through the dusty afternoonhaze, and murmurs something about the"eighteenth war of Independence".

The traveller was referring to the 17 suc-cessive invasions carried out into Assam bythe Mughals, all of which were repulsed byLachit Borphukan, the legendary general ofthe Ahom kings of Assam. Lachit is thename that still electrifies the masses. Holding

38

Lachit's banner aloft, the state currentlylights its "eighteenth war" against "invad-ing" foreigners.

While the majority of the Assamesepeople still consider themselves to be Indians,ambitious politicians steer the course of thefive-month-long movement against "foreig-ners" dangerously close to secessionism.On August 15, the national flag was burntat public places in several towns of thestate. On January 26, Assam's citizens boy-cotted all official celebrations and assembledinstead at streetcorners to fly atop the samemast as the tricolour, the colour of the AllAssam Students' Union (Aasu). The Aasu,which is spearheading the present movement,has on its flag a green contour map ofAssam with a mailed fist thrown in.

Frenzy: As hatred and resentmentsmoulder like a slow fire along the 470-mile-long course of the Brahmaputra, mostother parts of north-eastern India (totalarea: 2,55,000 sq km) are rocked by ananti-Indian frenzy (INDIA TODAY, Dec 16-31,1979).

In Meghalaya (area: 22,000 sq km),about 2,000 refugees, mostly Bengali-speak- •ing, are still sheltered in protected camps atShillong, the hill-state's picturesque capital.The town, famous for its beautiful women,bracing climate and good bars, is now apale ghost of its past. At the gorgeousPinewood Hotel, rows upon rows of vacantsuites fill the heart of the chance touristwith gothic visions. Down the slope, in thecolourful Laitumukhra area, charred re-

INDIA TODAY. FEBRUARY 16-29. 1980

mains of houses belonging to the Bengali-speaking minorities bear witness to thetraditionally hospitable Khasi people's newxenophobia. j

In Manipar (area: 22,000 sq km), theMeitei plainsmen living in the state's centralvalley have been agitating for successionsince long. Their China-trained People'sLiberation Army, along with a less-politicisedurban guerrilla band, has claimed 40 livesduring the past six months. In Mizoram,fresh reports of illegal collection of taxesby the outlawed Mizo National Front havebeen reaching the Union Government.

In Nagaland, two Maoist rebels,T. Muivah and Izec Swu, have regainedcomplete control over the underground NagaFederal Government and have begun a newrecruitment drive among the Naga youthfrom their camps across the Indo-Burmaborder. In spite of repeated requests, theBurmese authorities have failed to arrangefor frequent patrolling of the area.

Parleys: With the lilliputians gettingat its limbs, the Indian Government, like

Lemuel Gulliver of Swift's fantasy, is slowlywaking up to the persistent pinpricks on itsnorth-eastern flank. Last month, Mrs Gandhisent her one-man army, Yashpal Kapoor, toAssam in what turned out to be a majorbreakthrough. Kapoor, who humoured themilitant students like an indulgent uncle,brought them to Delhi and had them closetedwith Mrs Gandhi for talks.

In Delhi, the students, led by PrafullaMohanto, the bearded president of Aasu,basked in self-glory as they insisted onspeaking to Mrs Gandhi in Assamese andused an interpreter. Spurning an invitationto visit Raj Ghat to place a wreath at thememorial of Mahatma Gandhi, a studentleader snapped at Kapoor: "Have we comehere on a picnic?" Back in Gauhati, theyaddressed a press conference to reaffirmthat the agitation would continue.

The one crore Assamese-speakingpeople of Assam (estimated population:1.89 crore) are currently engaged in a grimstruggle to weed out 50 lakh "infiltrators"who originally came from Bangladesh andNepal. The "infiltrators", 90 per cent ofwhom speak Bengali, are allegedly threaten-ing the political and cultural existence ofthe Assamese people.

Unimpressed by the logic of all the pastbilateral agreements between Delhi andDacca, undeterred by the dangerous pos-sibility of creating about 50 lakh statelesspersons in a powder-keg world situation,the leaders of the "Assam movement"are determined not only to go ahead withtheir agitation but to spread the flamesall over the north-east.

Alienation: The extreme geographicalalienation of the region from the rest ofthe country is significant. It takes over46 hours and a change-over from broad-gauge to metre-gauge to cover by rail the1,928-km distance between New Delhi andGauhati, Assam's capital. There is no directair-link between the two cities, and the airfare is a staggering Rs 871. From Delhi,the "seven sisters" look alike in one mentalblur.

The alienation is now complete, working,both ways. The movement for deporta-tion of "foreign infiltrators", raging forfive months now, has become the convenientpeg on which to hang all syndromes of thisalienation. The Centre's perplexity over theAssamese demand is being interpreted as itsapathy. The seemingly polite exhortation:'"Assamise yourself if you want to live inAssam," is now commonplace.

/fTi s

HE Assam movement is a revolution byconsent where almost the entire societyseems to be up in arms. The secretaries

belonging to the Indian Administrative Ser-vice (IAS) send their wives and children topicket and court arrest. The Assamese-speaking resident manager of the jointsector Oil India Limited says he wouldhave been "the first to court arrest" if hewere free to do so. The suave but emotionally

high-strung co-proprietor of the state's big-gest newspaper chain, Assam Tribune (ag-gregate daily circulation: 94,000), PradipBarua, 36, says his blood "boils". BhupenHazarika, the famous singer, sings hymns inpraise of the movement. Deepa Hazarika,43, the stunningly beautiful proprietressof Assam's largest travel agency, rues theloss of business following the movementbut says she does not mind it "as anAssamese", f

Flashpoint: Observes a senior non-Assamese bureaucrat in the Assam Govern-ment: "On the surface, the agitationlooks peaceful because there is noresistance within the state. The administra-tion has turned into jelly, the party politi-cians have developed cold feet. You're upagainst an entire society, like the anti-Hindiagitation in Tamil Nadu or the movementin Telangana. It's not a problem that canbe solved by men in khaki."

The movement reached its flashpointwhen armed hordes in trucks and busesand on foot went about setting houses onfire and killing people at the two sub-divisionsof Nalbari and Barpeta in Kamrup districtfor three days between January 5 and 7.On January 18, police opened fire on anunlawful assembly in front of Oil India'smain office at Duliajan, 45 km from Dibfu-garh in Upper Assam. Four persons werekilled. Within 30 minutes, Robi Mitra, theBengali-speaking geologist who was in chargeof the office that day, was decoyed out ofhouse and pelted to death.

According to Assam's Chief Secretary,R. Paramshivam, 40 people were killed inmob violence at Nalbari and Barpeta. Oneof them was a Central Reserve Policeconstable and another was an AssameseHindu boy, while 25 of the victims wereBengali Muslims and 13 Bengali Hindus."The figures speak for who is fighting whomin Assam," observed a non-Assamese non-Bengali police official.

But the leaders of the movement thinkotherwise. "Ours is a patriotic, peacefuland non-violent movement," pompously as-serts student leader Mohanto.

Aasu claims to represent 75 per cent ofAssam's 13 lakh school and college studentsincluding children at the primary level.Girin Barua, the president of AsomJatiyotabadi Dal, promptly attributes allcases of arson and rioting to nebulous,ill-defined "anti-Assam" forces trying to"divert attention". Dr Jogeswar Mohanto,the Assamese principal of Gauhati MedicalCollege and a Fellow of the Royal College ofSurgeons, Edinburgh, bends over backwardto "prove" that a Bengali doctor clubbed todeath within hospital premises on De-cember 12 was the victim of a crime ofpassion..^^jThe word "bahiragat" (foreigner) isa stigma that each Bengali living inAssam carries on his head. He hasto prove his nationality by producing anIndian Citizenship Certificate (ICC), a re-

INDIA TODAY. FEBRUARY 1 6-29. 1 980 39

quirement which may catch unaware mostIndians including ministers, judges andsenior bureaucrats. There are dark hintsthrown that 25 per cent of the staff in thestate's secretariat are "foreigners". The Aasucalculates, and the overwhelming majorityof the Assamese gentry devoutly believes,that every fourth man in Assam is a"foreigner" and, therefore, needs to bedeported.

While the students, who really representthe tip of Assam's iceberg of resentment,are still ready to reason it out with the Centre,the elders are not. The movement is organisedunder a steering body called the All AssamGana Sangram Parishad (Aagsp), comprising11 constituents of which Aasu is but one.

Said Nibaran Bora, 59, the presidentof the most strident member-group of Aagsp,Purbanchaliya Lok Parishad: "We wantto put pressure on Mrs Gandhi to rescindher two agreements with the Dacca regimein 1971 and 1974. We know Bangladesh isnot going to kiss these people as they walkback. In fact, President Zia-ur-Rahmanmight call in the Chinese, or the Americans,if pushed to the wall. With the Sovietsalready in the saddle in Afghanistan, thismight provide an excellent plea to theSino-American axis to open another front.But we've no option. This is *a matter ofsurvival."

The "Cause": The movement has strongsentimental overtones fostered by a massiveturnout of women. Teenage girls squat onrailway tracks alongside boys in front ofoil refineries throughout night. The entire

Angry women picket oil installation

state performs mourning rites for the fourAssamese killed in police firing at Duliajan.In Dibrugarh, car-owners get their numberplates written in Assamese character insteadof the Roman if they wish to save theirwindshield from being smashed to pieces.

Its other manifestation is a hystericalobsession with the "cause." During January,the Assam Tribune spent 75 per cent of

its front-page space on news of the movement.At clubs and private parties, all conversationultimately leads to the "happenings." Thepeople remain unperturbed even thoughdiesel stocks dry up, kerosene disappears,classes are not held, mail and telegramsdo not reach their destinations. "The samething happened in 1942," said Nilim Barua,20, economics student at Cotton College,with touching simplicity.

As days go by, more and more peopleare getting involved in the movement. Nearlyall Assamese members of the state Govern-ment staff (number: 1,06,660) sympathisewith the movement.

Equally impressive is the identificationof the Central Government employees, thetransport operators, and employees in coal,oil and the miniscule engineering industry.The students have lost an academic sessionin the state's engineering and medicalcolleges. Says Navakanta Barua, anAssamese poet who teaches English literatureat Cotton College: "During these enforcedholidays, I'm only trying to translate Push1 <n—another anguished soul." ./

Fuel Shortage: The harshest spin-off from the movement is the fuel crisisthat has gripped the entire north-east. Thisis caused by picketing at vital points alongthe 710-mile-long pipeline that carriesAssam's annual yield of 4.6 million tonnesof crude oil from the upper Brahmaputravalley to Barauni in Bihar.

The picketing, which goes on roundthe clock, has mainly stopped the outflowof crude from the pumping station at

ECONOMY

The Sick SistersI NDIA'S seven north-eastern states re-

semble, economically, a chronically illpatient who leaves the doctor scratchinghis head. The transfusion of Rs 6,000 croreas assistance from the Centre into this regionsince Independence has failed to have thedesired effect. During 1978-79 alone, theCentre poured Rs 500 crore into thesestates.

IB spite of this, six out of 10 familiesin Assam, and every second family inMeghalaya, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh,Tripura, Manipur and Nagaland lives belowthe poverty line as against the nationwideaverage of four families. While this regionproduces over 60 per cent of the country'stea and over 35 per cent of its oil, it alsoimports over 80 per cent of its food, clothing,heavy and light machinery for small-scaleindustries from other states.

As regards industry, this corner of thecountry presents a sorry figure. It has only21 large and medium-scale industrial units—and of these, eight aje under construction-

out of over 15,000 throughout the country.Though labour is cheap and coal plenty-coal reserves: 927 million tonnes—evensmall-scale entrepreneurs have stayed away.Total investment in 1,75,000 smallrscaleindustrial units in India is Rs 1,200 crore.The north-east's score: 3,000 units with aninvestment of a paltry Rs 15 crore.

Agricultural Backwardness: The grossfactory output per worker is also hopelesslylow. At Rs 305 per annum, it comparesunfavourably with Punjab's Rs 2,000 plus,Maharashtra's Rs 2,200, and a nationalaverage of over Rs 1,200. Moreover, only4 per cent of the region's 2.96*crore popula-tion is engaged in industry. The nationalfigure in this regard is 20 per cent.

In the field of agriculture the situationis no better. Assam, with 18 per cent of itscropped area under irrigation, accounts foronly 2 per cent of the nation's foodgrainsproduction. The share o f . the other sixstates is less than 7.5 per cent. The greenrevolution too seems to have left the region

untouched. Between 1971 and 1977, theper acre yield of food grains rose by over18 per cent nationwide but it increased byonly -10 per cent in the north-ea"st. Fertiliserconsumption per hectare of cropped areahere is a mere 3 kg—a tenth of the Indianaverage—as a'gainst over 100 kg in Haryanaand Punjab.

The development of agriculture andindustry at snail's pace has naturally hadits effect on the per capita income. Notone of these states figures in the list of top10 states in India as regards per capitaincome. With a per capita income of Rs 852per annum (at current prices) Assam, thelargest state iri .the region, is placed wellnear the tail-end of the list.

Infrastructure: The growth of per capitaincome has also been lower than the nationalaverage. While the Indian's per capita incomeincreased by over 315 per cent (at currentprices) between 1961 and 1980, the north-east registered an increase of only 260 percent. Moreover, the Gross Domestic Pro-duct of the region during this period roseby only 2 percent—half the national growthrate. «

In the absence of any major rise in theincomes, trade and commerce have alsofailed to take off. This has led to a limited

40 INDIA TODAY, FEBRUARY 16-29, 1980

Narengi, six km from Gauhati, and trans-portation of finished products from neigh-bouring Noonmati, where a refinery islocated. The picketers, apparently guidedby employees of both Oil India Limitedand the Indian Oil Corporation, showremarkable skill in identifying the key valvesthat guide the flow.

THE action, instead of punishing the restof the country, has merely boomerang-ed on the north-eastern states. This is

because Assam crude accounts for only aneighth of the crude oil that the country guzzles.At Imphal in Manipur, petrol was sellingat the blackmarket price of Rs 12 a litre.The power plant (110 MW) at Namrup inupper Assam hatl to shut down productionas there was no supply of natural gas fromDuliajan oilfields. In Gauhati, each publicbus is allotted only 10 litres of diesel in a day.

There is a general sense of dislocationall around, affecting social life at all levels.The lifestyle of the koi hai crowd of teaplanters has also run into trouble. Facedwith local opposition, club meets were

cancelled this year at the 20 planters' clubsin the Brahmaputra valley. At Boroi Clubin Darrang district, the New Year's Eveparty was interrupted by a group of studentswho demanded the disco session to bestopped "in view of the current situation."

Population Rise: However, there is anundeniable element of immigration intoAssam from across the Bangladesh border.During 1971-80, the north-eastern region'spopulation rose by 29 per cent and Assam'sby 31.5 per cent while the country's popu-lation marked a mere 18 per cent increase.Many of those who had crossed into Indiaduring the liberation struggle in Bangladeshnever returned. A small percentage of thosewho had been deported moved back intoAssam, like the proverbial bad penny, aftersecuring back-dated citizenship certificatesthrough bribery from the Cooch Behardistrict of West Bengal.

But immigration into Assam duringthe seventies was certainly not as extensiveas that during the earlier decade when thestate's population took oflf at a sharp speedof 35 per cent against the country's 24.8 per

cent. A part of it was later legalised by theIndira-Mujib agreement which provided thatIndian citizenship could be granted to im-migrants from former East Pakistan if theyhad come in before March 25, 1971, andtook residence in India for at least sixmonths.

However, those who had come intoIndia before July 26, 1949, automaticallybecame Indian citizens. Those who hadentered the country between that date andMarch 25, 1971, were not entitled to itautomatically but could get it as a privilege.

In fact, very few of the immigrantsbefore 1971 bothered to secure citizenshipcertificates. Lured by the prospect of land,hounded by communal violence back inEast Pakistan, they came in thousandsthrough Assam's southernmost district ofCachar and easternmost district of Goalpara.The politicians in power did not objectas the immigrants voted en bloc for theCongress.

Political Factor: Assam, which sentmany leaders to occupy places in Delhi'spantheon of power, came to be recognised

H23SPER CAPITA

INCOME

employment potential and too many youthswith time on their hands and no jobs. Ofthe two lakh unemployed registered withthe employment exchanges in the regiononly 7,000 could find jobs in 1977-78.In effect, only 4 per cent of the unemployedcould find work. The corresponding figurefor the country in this year was over 13 percent.

The communication, transport andbanking facilities are also meagre. Fortyper cent of India's villages are electrified;

. but in the north-east when darkness falls,electric lights go on in only 10 per cent ofthe villages. These states account for over7.5 per cent of the country's area, but only2,200 km of 60,000 km of railway lines havebeen laid out here. As far as banking faci-lities go, the region has only one branch fora population of 32,000. as against an Indianaverage of one branch for 20,000 people.

Fixing Responsibility: Central Govern-

ment officials disown any responsibility forthe region's backwardness. "What more canwe do?" asks a senior official in the FinanceMinistry. "The Centre provides 60 paiseout. of every rupee of government expendi-ture in these states."

Officials in New Delhi point out thatthe local administrations have not been ableto chalk out any viable strategy for economicdevelopment. Also, the state governmentshave failed to mobilise their internal revenue.This now accounts for only 25 per cent ofAssam's annual plan outlay and only 10-per cent of the annual plan outlays of Naga-land, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur andMeghalaya. In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar—both of which are also not too well off—the percentage of internal resources exceeds60 per cent of the state Government's ex-penditure.- The Central Government's out-standing loans to all the seven states stoodat over Rs 1,000 crore in 1977-78.

But leaders of the north-east regionaccuse the Central Government of ignoringwhat they feel is their rightful claim. Insteadof putting up large-scale processing unitsfor oil1 and tea in their region, they point out,these heavy industries have been installedin other states—Bihar and West Bengal.Says an Assamese academic: "Sure, we doreceive 75 per cent of the finance for theannual plans from the Central Government.But we also spend 80 per cent of our incomeson products imported from outside. Whilethe Central Government has made about20 per cent of its investment in Maharashtraand Gujarat, we in the north-east havereceived barely 5 per cent of it."

While the states and the Centre argueover who is responsible for the region'spoverty the people are not getting anyricher. And the current agitation cannot beexpected to help things either.

—PRABHU CHAWLA

INDIA TODAY. FEBRUARY 1 6-29, 1980 41

Students spell out their message: Assam for Assamese Mrs Gandhi and Home Minister Zail Singh with students: one minute's silence

as a bastion of the Congress largely throughthese votes. Drawing endless cheques uponthese "vote banks," Devkant Borooah,the former Congress president, once grate-fully alliterated a paean of praise to "Ali,Coolie, Bangalee, nak chepta Nepali" (Ali:the Muslim; Coolie: the Bihari tea gardenlabourer; Bangalee: the Bengali Hindu whois too frightened to alienate the rulingparty; nak chepta Nepali: the snub-nosedNepali who occupied forest land).

The immigrants were not resented aslong as they swam with the current. However,in 1978, they showed the first sign of goingagainst it. The Congress was defeated.The Communist Party of India-Marxist(CPI-M), which had never won a singleseat in the past, bagged as many as 11.Other Left parties bagged 13 seats. The126-strong Assembly witnessed for the firsttime as many as 34 Muslim members.

While the traditional Congress politicsof Assam suffered a rude jolt the Janataeuphoria too did not last long. The Marxistconsolidation in neighbouring Tripura andWest Bengal, and persistent inroads madeby the CPI-M-controlled Centre of IndianTrade Unions (Citu) in the tea gardensbred in the mind of Assam's political elitea siege mentality. Twirling his goatee, HirenGohain, the Marxist academician of GauhatiUniversity contemptuously said: "Thename of Jyoti Basu is the ultimate red ragto the Assamese bull."

THE earliest sparks that stoked thethe present fire were seen in GauhatiUniversity in 1978 when pro-Marxist

students were beaten up and many of themwere forced out of hostels. However, thebattle-drums rolled as late as last May when46,000 foreigners were "detected" in thesingle parliamentary constituency" ofMongoldoi on the north bank of the Brahma-putra.

Since then, the national parties havebeen rendered irrelevant in the Assamesecontext. From their ashes, and also from theranks of the Socialist Party's Assam unit, ahost of regional parties have risen. Two such

parties to be catapulted almost overnight topopularity are AsomJatiyotabadi Dal (AssamNationalist Party) and Purbanchaliya LokParishad (Eastern, People's Forum). Theyhave gained respectability by drawinginto the vortex of the movement AssamSahitya Sabha, a politico-literary organisa-tion which had a glorious past but has nowbecome, says Gohain, "a refuge of literaryhacks and people past their prime."

While they have provided the brain, thebrawn has obviously come from the studentswho joined ranks and forged links quicklyfrom the level plains of Goalpara to the teagardens of upper Assam, in the shadow ofthe Naga Hills.

The Aasu, which has a few efficientorganisers in its front ranks, now operateslike a well-oiled machine from its head-quarters in Cotton College, Gauhati. Itsspacious office room is the hub of briskstatewide activity. On its wall is painted alarger-than-life portrait of the legendaryAssamese general Lachit Barphukan. Twobuses, "requisitioned" by them, carry studentpicketers every morning to the Indian OilCorporation's refinery at Noonmati, sevenkilometres from Gauhati. The picketers sit inshifts and are well looked after by localtraders who ensure a liberal supply of tea andsnacks. Donations are supposedly voluntary.

Girin Barua: "change the Constitution"

So is the payment of Rs 10 per car for paintingon the rear windshield the battle-cry of themovement—Jai Ai Asom (pronounced asahom) —victory to mother Assam.

Strident: With regionalism steadily buil-ding up, a peculiar breed of "Assamesenationalism" is engulfing the valley. Its mainproponent, Asom Jatiyotabadi Dal, is raisingits own volunteer force. Says Girin Barua,the Da! president: "My party demands thateach person staying in Assam must have twocertificates of citizenship, one for India andthe other for Assam."

Barua, 48, who played Ranji Trophycricket for 16 years and still loves to pose forphotographs with a county cap on, wasunperturbed when told that dual citizenshipwas against the Constitution. "Get theConstitution changed then," was his reply.

However, intelligence sources aver thatthe Dal has already put together a pocket-size Jatiya Rakshi Bahini (National Guards) "jin upper Assam. Elements have been drawnfrom retired ranks of the Special SecurityBureau (SSB), a counter-insurgency unitoperating under direct supervision of theUnion Home Ministry.

Purbanchaliya Lok Parishad, presidedover by Nibaran Bora, is still more stridentin its localism. Bora, a former Socialist whoadvised tea garden-owners on "labour re-lations" till recently, is the "think tank"of the movement. Thumping the table, andshaking his salt-and-pepper head, Bora dra-matically «argues how "India" exploitedAssam over the years. He resents deploymentof paramilitary units in Assam, and demandswithdrawal of the "Indian Army" from"Assam's soil". Mrs Gandhi, he says, mustexpress her regrets publicly for police firing .,at Duliajan, though "regretting is not in hef' |blood".

Of all the groups currently engaged in :

fishing in the Brahmaputra's troubled waters,Bora's Purbanchaliya Lok Parishad is thebest organised. Its area-of operation stretchesto other north-eastern states as well, parti-cularly Meghalaya and Manipur, wheresecessionist sentiments run high. -

Complaints: However, the present anger

INDIA TODAY. FEBRUARY 16-29. 1980

against India is not bred out of sheerparanoia. The need for major investment inthe whole region has been constantly bypass-ed by the! Centre (Seeboxpage 40). The latter'sapathy grew stronger after India's debacle inthe China war of 1962 which rendered such in-vestment "unsafe". Since October 1977, theentire region has been declared industriallybackward. Though 7.5 per cent of thecountry's population lives in the area, theinvestment in even small-scale industries is alittle over 1 per cent of the total.

Though Assam produces 4.6 milliontonnes of crude oil in a year, which is a thirdof the country's production, its revenue fromoil is pegged by a ridiculously low royalty ofRs 42 a tonne. Assam Sahitya Sabha argues:"Every year we get Rs 22 crore as royaltyfor Rs 840 crore of crude oil! The differencealone would have raised Assam's per capitaincome by Rs 454 every year."

The 756 tea estates of Assam grow26.3 crore kg of tea worth Rs 400 crore.The bulk of it is sold and distributed in Cal-cutta and London by a system of auctioningthat brings no benefit to the state. Thestate's plywood industry, with an aggregateturnover of Rs 80 crore, employs only 25 percent Assamese in its work force. The percapita credit sanctioned by banks in Assamwas as low as Rs 38 in 1976 whereas Mahara-shtra received Rs 443. The per capita incomein Assam was Rs 852 last year, far short of thenational figure of Rs 1,236. The number ofjobless has risen steadily. There are 2.5 lakhpersons enrolled in Assam's employmentexchanges now.

Economic Tangle: Sitting in the glow of agentle fire at the North-Eastern Council'soffice in Shillong, development plannerslament over the lack of entrepreneurship inAssam. They show the instance of Punjabwhere the Centre has not invested much,again due to strategic reasons. They com-pare Assam's penury to Punjab's dazzlingrecord. They cite the case of Bihar, which hasa couple of steel plants, not to speak of therefinery and a huge heavy engineering com-plex. "Has it solved the problem of Bihar'sbackwardness?" they ask.

While bureaucrats seem to have thrownup their hands in despair, planners toohave not come forward to solve the region'seconomic tangle. No technology has beendeveloped to build cheaper roads, to providemore drinking water, to harness the hundredsof rivulets and streams. The high amounts ofloan and grants-in-aid have been largelyeaten away through graft and corruption.

Corruption in the tinier states of the•egion is the inevitable fall-out of an unstable

polity. In Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram.Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh, out of240 Assembly seats, the ruling groups com-mand not more than 135 of them. Legislativeparties often switch allegiance en bloc, toweave conveniently in and out of powerfulnational parties.

Tainted Millions: In north-east India'ssickening ideological vacuum, political power

begets corruption faster than the spread ofbacteria. Currently an investigation is inprogress against Manipur's present and for-mer chief ministers, Nagaland's former finan-ce minister, a former minister of ArunachalPradesh and the former development ministerof Manipur. One of the chief ministers ofthe region has shamelessly appointed five ofhis brothers-in-law to important posts. Aformer minister built assests worth Rs. 22lakh in less than two years.

The region is full of contractors wholiterally reek ill-gotten gains. The ministerialaffluence comes from kick-backs on contractsawarded to them by devious means. Themassive central assistance (see box page 40).

instead of developing the area, disappearsdown the bottomless pit of north-east India'scontractor-ridden economy. The flourishingmarkets of smuggled goods thrive in Aizawland Imphal as an inevitable byproduct ofthe region's all-pervading corruption.

While the ruling elite applies itself withMormon-like zeal to making millions, theopposition groups fume and fret for thelost opportunities. It is these people whomouth radical rhetoric, spread chauvinisticideas and exploit the inherent simplicity ofthe tribals. A case in point is Meghalayawhere Martin Narayan Majaw, the shrillestadvocate of Khasi localism, forcibly resistedthe monitoring work for a hydel project

Rohini Debnath with family: fear of being deported

Who's A Foreigner?

R OHINI Debnath, 50, and Jamini Deb-nath, 55, alongwith their 11 other familv

members, have been declared as foreignersby the authorities in Assam. They stand therisk of being eventually deported from Indiato Bangladesh where the government isunlikely to take them back.

Jamini Debnath, a Hindu cultivator,moved into Kamrup District of Assamthrough Goalpara in 1946. Rohini came in1950. The brothers settled down at Ranga-phali in Nalbari subdivision of Kamrup.While Jamini stuck to the plough, Rohinipassed his school leaving examination in1955 from the local Dhamdhama HighSchool. He passed his BA and MA examina-tions in history from Gauhati University

no<rn30C/5

O3D

and was sent to Utkal University nearBhubaneswar to do his B.Ed on an AssamGovernment scholarship. He is now theheadmaster of Dhamdhama High School.

Jamini need not carry an Indian citizen-ship certificate to prove his bona fide as hecame in before Independence. But Rohini,who moved in after the stipulated date ofJuly 26, 1949, is technically a non-citizenas he never cared to apply for a citizenshipcertificate.

Posing for a photograph with a dozenfamily-members in the courtyard of hisown house, and scratching his head, Rohiniasked his brother in fluent Assamese: "Werewe prepared for this contingency?"

INDIA TODAY. FEBRUARY 1 6-29. 1 980 45

RANBAXY'S

Contain the pure extract ofraw garlic, without the smell.And in easy-to-digest, soft,gelatin capsules.

RANBAXY'S

Up Help relieve gas andindigestion, ease heartburn.

•||p Reduce high cholesterollevels.

p ease disablingjoint pains.

<U3 Prevent and controlrecurring coughs and colds.

RANBAXY'S

A product of RanbaxyLaboratories—a trusted namewith the medical profession.

Take two pearls twice daily-regularly

The natural wayto all-round health.

INDIA TODAY. FEBRUARY 16-29. 1980

in the state. Majaw, who is now in the op-position, told INDIA TODAY: "We don'twant chimneys and cables and factory shedsto clutter up our forests. We don't want thathundreds of non-Khasi workers should setup camps here and disturb the solitude ofour hills."

Cultural Links: The cynicism spread bythem spreads across the society like a dab ofink on blotting paper. It is fostered by thehamfisted handling of the situation by theDelhi bureaucracy. Planners and officialsin the capita! tend to wallow in the fondbelief that the Indian culture is homogenousforgetting that Assam is really the gatewayto south-east Asia and the people of the re-gion are connected, both ethnically andpsychologically, to the Tibeto-Burman andChinese cultures across the border.

The local people are not impressed bythe idyllic calendar-type image of north-east India. The Meiteis of Manipur, thoughofficially labelled as Hindus, are now search-ing for their roots in the tangled history ofThailand. They are searching for their scriptwhich was taken away from them in the 16thcentury to be replaced by the Bengali script.The Ahoms of Brahmaputra valley demandedonly recently a separate homeland, Udaya-chal. At least some Nagas demand a sovereignNagaland for the 10-lakh Naga populationliving in India and Burma. As late as 1965,Laldenga, the mercurial leader of the Mizos,wrote: "We Mizos are a free people. Ours isa free society. It has nothing in commonwith the caste-ridden, idol-worshippingHindu society of India."

The British left the north-east alone,and opened up only a part of it for colonialexploitation of the region's resources—tea,coal and oil. The rest of the area was markedoff with over 1,000 miles of a cordon sanitairecalled the "inner line". After Independence,the Indian Government merely pursuedthe same policy. It was caught on the wrongfoot as insurgency exploded in Nagaland(1956) and Mizoram (1966). The IndianArmy "grouped" villages like the BritishArmy had done to subdue Malaysianinsurgents. It levied punitive taxes, and issuedidentity cards to citizens. It only widenedthe gulf of separation.

The unrest in the north-east is alreadycasting its shadow on India's geographicalintegrity. So long, the Indo-Aryan non-tribal population of the Assam valley wasIndia's only cultural bulwark in the region.It helped cushion separatist sentiments andasserted the presence of India in a Mongoloidlabyrinth..

Chinese Interest: Assam's present alie-nation from the rest of the country will havefar-reaching effects. It will at least provideChina with a gilt-edged opportunity tofoment fresh trouble in the area. In 1962,a few Dafla tribesmen of Arunachal Pradeshshowed the routes to the invading ChineseArmy. As late as 1977, training in arms wasgiven to rebels from Manipur and Nagalandat camps run by the Chinese near Lhasa

in Tibet. At Borkol in the Chittagong HillTracts of Bangladesh, where the rebel Mizosset up camps last year, the presence ofChinese experts was frequently reported.

With India already established as aformidable military power, China may notrisk a direct confrontation with it. But suchconstraints do not end China's quiet searchfor a sea port^an access to the Indian Oceanvia the Bay of Bengal. The pockets of in-surgency in India, Burma and Bangladesh,if joined together, may provide an excellentcorridor between Yunan in China and theBurmese port of Akyab along an 800-mile-long crescent formed by the Arakan-Lushai-Patkai hills.

The Assamese today recall that they

Ioo<m•33V>

O30

tip ilWF. TWE

Bengali refugees: no place to go

were thrown into India not by choice, norfollowing military defeat, but througharrangements between the British and theBurmese king at Yandaboo in" 1822. TheNagas remember that they had told theSimon Commission that they would preferto be left alone rather than being ruled by"black kings" just in case the British decidedto leave. The Mizos make the point thatthey were about to be declared a "crowncolony" in 1947.

With the shadow of the dragon length-ening across such a confounding scenario,wonders a former member of Parliamentfrom Assam: "Should we brief our carto-graphers in advance?"

—SUMIT MITRA

47