Just when the
northeastern Indian state of Assam was hoping
for peace after the largest rebel group, ULFA
agreed for peace talks, the prospect of return
to normalcy in the state suffered a huge
setback with the outbreak of violence between
two tribal communities who inhabit the
district of Karbi Anglong. On first site, the
violence appears to have ethnic color but a
deeper probe indicates that there are other
socio, political and economic issues involved.
This also highlights the fact that a piecemeal
approach to the northeast insurgency would not
work and a solution to the various problems
prevailing in the area would have to be found
if a lasting peace has to be established.
Long History of bitter
struggle
India's northeast, comprising seven states, is
home to more than 200 tribes and ethnic groups
and is circled by China, Bhutan, Bangladesh
and Myanmar. The region has been racked by
separatist and tribal insurgencies for more
than 50 years. One of the important states of
northeast, Assam is home to more than 30 major
tribes and feuds between militias claiming to
represent them over conflicting homeland
demands are fairly common.
In the Karbi Anglong district, the majority
Karbis and Dimasas have been engaged in a
bitter turf war for many years and the
situation has been turning violent in recent
weeks with armed militants of both tribes
attacking rival community members. The
outlawed United Democratic People's Solidarity
(UPDS), a rag-tag rebel group fighting for a
Karbi tribal homeland, and the Dima Halom
Daoga (DHD), a militant group fighting for a
Dimasa homeland, are suspected to be behind
the recent attacks.
The two groups are operating ceasefires with
New Delhi - the UPDS has been observing a
truce since 2002 and the DHD entering into a
ceasefire in 2003. Under the ceasefire
agreements, cadres of the two rebel groups are
allowed to retain their weapons although they
are expected to stay within the periphery of
designated camps allotted to them by the state
authorities. DHD has an estimated 450 armed
cadres and the UPDS some 300 rebel fighters.
Outbreak of Recent
Violence
The ethnic violence in the district was
triggered on September 26 when three Dimasa
auto-rickshaw drivers were hacked to death by
unidentified persons at Tissom village in the
Diphu police station area. Diphu is the
headquarters of Karbi Anglong, a district
dominated by the Karbi tribe.
In retaliation, five members of a Karbi family
were hacked to death at Hemari Terang village
on October 2 followed by killing of another
three Karbis at Upper Dikrong two days later
under the same police station. On October 8 at
Borsingbe village six Dimasas were killed in
retaliation to which eight Karbis were killed
the next day at Langsoliet village.
Then five more Dimasas were killed at Kheroni
village the day after. On October 12 a Dimasa
woman was hacked to death. Four bodies were
recovered on October 16 from Karbi villages
Hojaipur, Bokolia, Jamunapar and Sing Teron
area where five people were also reported
missing.
On October 17, 36 Karbi villagers were killed
in three separate attacks. The victims
included 22 bus passengers who were hacked to
death by DHD rebels. The very next day, at
least seven more Karbi tribals were massacred
by militants. These attacks took place in
Doyangmukh village of Karbi Anglong district.
The rebels set ablaze at least 50 homes before
leaving the village.
The toll in current spell of ethnic violence
neared 90 when nine Karbi militants were
killed on October 21 by the rival Dimasa
tribe, in Tamulbari in Upper Assam. According
to the police, a group of Karbi extremists
after torching 12 houses at Kakubasti and
seven at Kisiri Bongaon villages in interior
areas of a reserve forest headed for Tamulbari.
Dimasa guerillas ambushed them as they were
about to enter Tamulbari and shot dead nine of
them.
Failure of the State
Administration to Comprehend the Situation
The state authorities were totally clueless in
the first few weeks when trouble broke out.
The law enforcement officials admit that such
developments in far-flung districts often go
unnoticed, but the situation in Karbi Anglong
has long been highly volatile. Confusing it
with the regular law and order problem
resulted into large-scale violence.
Political Parties
Indulge in Blame Game
The intensifying violence in Karbi Anglong
district started a bitter blame game among the
political parties of the state. They accused
each other of being involved in the violence.
Opposition parties like the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) and the regional Asom Gana
Parishad (AGP) accused the ruling Congress of
failing to control the escalating violence.
The AGP president Brindaban Goswami demanded
the resignation of the state government. The
BJP also accused the local Communist Party of
India-Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML) leaders like
Jayanta Rongpi of instigating the clashes. It
sent a team led by S S Ahluwalia to assess the
situation. Criticizing the state government
the CPI (M) also demanded Center’s
intervention saying the state government had
failed to comprehend the gravity of the
situation.
Assam Government
Accusing Opposition Parties for the Violence
Assam government accused the former MP and
CPI-ML (Liberation) leader Jayanta Rongpi’s
Red Army of involvement in the ethnic violence
in Karbi Anglong district. According to the
state government, it was the Red Army who
triggered the whole crisis by indiscriminately
attacking both Dimasa and Karbis. This
infuriated the respective militants groups of
Karbis and Dimasas, the UPDS and DHD, who then
launched an all out attack against each other,
leading to a series of violence.
However, the CPI (ML) leader Jayanta Rongpi
alleged that the Congress was trying to escape
responsibility of Karbi violence by creating a
non-entity. Rongpi claimed that there was
nothing called Red Army in Karbi Anglong. He
also dared the state government to arrest him,
if he was involved in the violence.
Late response of the
Assam government
The large-scale violence raised concern
prompting the Centre to ask the Assam
Government to use the police and paramilitary
forces and also take some political steps to
bring the ethnic violence in Karbi Anglog
district under control. Home Minister Shivraj
Patil said, "We have told the Chief Minister,
who is the Chairman of the Unified Command, to
use these forces; not only use these forces
but also take some political steps to see that
it does not happen (again)." He also stated
that the state government was well equipped to
deal with this situation.
Army called in
The authorities decided to call in the army on
October 18 as shoot-at-sight order and curfew
failed to contain ethnic violence in Karbi
Anglong district. The decision to deploy
troops was taken at a high-level meeting in
Guwahati of the Unified Command Structure
administrative head and chief secretary, S
Kabilan, operational commander and 4 Corps GoC
Lt-Gen. HS Lidder and DGP PV Sumant, as part
of a special strategy mooted by Assam chief
minister Mr. Tarun Gogoi.
But due to late deployment of the army,
casualties increased and the crisis was
prolonged. In a confidential report to the
President APJ Abdul Kalam, the Assam governor,
Ajai Singh alleged that the state government
should have acted faster to bring the ethnic
clashes under control. The governor, Lt Gen
Singh, says the state government did not crack
down on the militants of the Dimasa and Karbi
tribes when trouble began on 26 September.
The governor felt that the army should have
been deployed in the trouble-torn Karbi
Anglong district when the clashes began. A
large number of lives were lost because of the
late deployment. The governor also suggested
that the militants of both tribes who have
signed a ceasefire agreement with the Indian
government should be kept within designated
camps and should not be allowed to move around
freely with weapons. He pointed out that both
the groups were responsible for the mayhem
with each using the opportunity provided by
the loose ground rules of the ceasefire. They
used the weapons they carried with them on a
normal course to create violence against the
other community. He also suggested that both
these groups should be disarmed if necessary.
Violence leading to
Miseries
In the month long violence, 91 persons—80
Karbi tribals, eight Dimasas, one Bodo and one
Nepali have died. The Karbis bore the brunt in
the recent attacks as most of the people
killed belong to that tribe. Over 45,000
tribals, both Karbis and Dimasas, have fled
their villages and taken shelter in 53 relief
camps as the situation in the district
continues to be volatile. The violence has
left most of the tribals in the region without
homes. For the homeless villagers, relief
camps set up by the administration could now
mean home for years to come. Many villagers
are too scared to return to their homes.
Focus on system glitches
An all party Assam Assembly team led by the
Speaker Prithvi Majhi toured the strife torn
district. This team has strongly recommended
the restructuring of Karbi Anglong
administrative system. Majhi suggested that
Assam’s largest district should be broken into
three administrative blocks — with Diphu,
Hamren and Bokajan as the headquarters — to
facilitate efficient monitoring.
Decentralisation has become imperative, given
the size of the district and the difficult
terrain.
The Speaker made a case for more police
outposts in the far-flung areas of the
district, saying that inadequate security was
one of the reasons for the situation in Karbi
Anglong spiralling out of control. He said a
single administrative unit could not be
expected to do an efficient job of governing a
district as large — and with such undulating
and inaccessible terrain — as Karbi Anglong.
After the visit the assembly team felt that
the arson and killing spree were the result of
feuding between the two dominant militant
outfits of the Karbi and the Dimasa tribes —
the United People’s Democratic Solidarity (UPDS)
and the Dima Halam Daoga (DHD). The Speaker
supported the UPDS demand to shift the DHD’s
designated camp in Dhansiri out of the
district. He said the genesis of the feud
between the two groups was the presence of the
camp. “Both the UPDS and the Karbi people are
of the view that the presence of a DHD camp
within Karbi Anglong could legitimize the
Dimasa community’s demand for the inclusion of
Dhansiri and some other parts of Karbi Anglong
in the proposed state of Dimaraji.” However,
Majhi denied the alleged involvement of a CPI
(M-L) “red army” in the ethnic clashes.
Authorities also say what first appeared to be
ethnic strife is now clearly insurgent
violence. Local police believes that It has
arisen from a ego fight between two militant
groups who are on ceasefire and have declared
war on each other on certain issues, like
establishment of a designated camp here of one
of the groups.
The local administration believes that the
strife is not just about ethnicity or
militancy, but it's also about control of land
and jungles. On many occasions this struggle
over resources is given ethnic color. The
long-term solution to these problems lies in
the management of forest and land of the
district.
Though several militant groups are active in
the country’s largest district, Karbi Anglong,
the security presence across the district is
very thin. The district has only six police
stations with 500 policemen. Both the militant
groups involved in current spell of violence
have two factions – one pro-talks and the
other anti-talks. And like the NSCN (IM) and
NSCN (K) or the Bodo outfits even the
pro-talks factions living in designated camps
are violating the ceasefire ground rules.
The violence has also prompted the home
ministry to take a decision in favor of
disarming the two tribal rebel groups. The
authorities in Assam were given orders to
seize weapons from all militants belonging to
the United People's Democratic Solidarity (UPDS)
and the Dima Halam Daogah (DHD).
Conclusion
The month-long violence may have subsided in
the hills of Assam’s Karbi Anglong district,
but thousands of tribal people displaced in
its wake would have to devote lot of time to
rebuild their lives. Even if the situation
stabilizes it will take months to instill
confidence among the thousands of tribesmen
staying in relief camps to return to their
homes. Luckily for the state government, the
feud has remained strictly between the Dimasa
and the Karbi communities. The violence in
Karby Anglong has highlighted the problems of
administering the district. It has also
pointed out the inherent lacuna in the whole
concept of the ceasefire because of which both
the militant groups DHD and the UPDS could
cause such violence. The dynamics of ethnic
clash and of militancy in the Northeast have
always been treated piecemeal. Probably, now
it’s time to treat the problems of the region
in a holistic manner.
*** The author can be reached at
anandkrai@yahoo.com
*** The
article was originally published at
www.saag.org
*** The article has been published with due
permission from South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG),
a non-profit and non-commercial think tank.
*** You
may visit
www.saag.org for further
readings. |
