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| Assam: Half a step forward |
| Saturday December 12, 2009 |
| Paresh Barua, the self-styled commander-in-chief of the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) is desperate. Afraid of ceding space to his seemingly 'moderate' comrade, ULFA's self-styled 'chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa, Barua is now invoking Mahatma Gandhi! In what he calls the 'last message' to the Centre, Barua says has asked the Centre to conduct a referendum in Assam if it could not discuss the sovereignty issue with the group. In an interview, he says even Mahatma Gandhi had sought people's opinion before taking up his movement against the British and claims that there are instances of referendums in Canada, Indonesia and several other countries to support his claim for a referendum in Assam. Barua clearly has no new ideas. His insistence on discussing sovereignty or conducting a referendum is as old as 1991. In the past two attempts at talks with the government have failed precisely on this issue and yet he continues to labour the point. Perhaps ULFA's military chief was compelled to remain in public eye by making this statement since Arabinda Rajkhowa's assertion in a Guwahati court exactly a week ago that he's not surrendered and will never surrender has given the outfit's arrested chairman a leg up. Indeed, with those words on last Saturday, Rajkhowa poured cold water over the Centre's well laid out plans to start peace negotiations in Assam. Till then, there was high hope that Rajkhowa, arrested in Bangladesh and brought into India, would herald a new chapter in Assam's troubled recent history. But his refusal to give up on the demand for sovereignty, despite persistent pressure from Indian interlocutors, forced the authorities to initiate the due process of law. The Assam Police have time till December 17 to quiz and pressurise Rajkhowa and Raju Baruah, the outfit's deputy commander in chief, also arrested in Bangladesh. Most people in Assam would be hoping that in the remaining days, government emissaries and Rajkhowa can come to some kind of an understanding on the future roadmap in Assam, although Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has admitted rather candidly that the first round of negotiations with Rajkhowa have failed. The state has suffered immensely over the past quarter century on account of the ULFA insurgency. Over 12,000 people - security men, innocent civilians and ULFA militants - have died in continuing clashes. Over the next week, Government emissaries will try and hammer out a common meeting ground with the ULFA, evolve a face-saving formula as it were so that both sides can sit for negotiations. But there is many a slip between the cup and the lip as has happened twice in the past in case of ULFA - once in 1992 and then in 2005 when similar efforts to negotiate a deal between the government and the outfit floundered due to inflexibility on both sides. Even this time, the talks are in danger of being a non-starter mainly because not enough backdoor parleys appeared to have taken place between the two sides before they went public. On December 2, when first reports of Rajkhowa's arrest filtered in from Bangladesh, Home Minister P. Chidambaram told Parliament that the ULFA is in a disarray and that the government expects the ULFA leadership to make a political statement in a couple of days. Unfortunately, despite Rajkhowa's arrest and 48 hours that he spent with Indian officials before he was reluctantly produced in court, that statement did not materialise. Rajkhowa's obduracy on the issue of sovereignty put the government in a bind. So, he along with Raju Baruah had to be arrested. And in a completely thoughtless gesture, both were handcuffed and brought to court, violating not only the Supreme Court guidelines on how to treat the accused but also sending a wrong signal to the Assamese, who felt being discriminated since Naga separatist leaders had been treated by the government with much more dignity. This treatment perhaps prompted Rajkhowa to defiantly declare that he has not surrendered and never will. But more significantly, it allowed Paresh Baruah to claim that there are no differences between him and Rajkhowa when, in reality, both have had strained relations in the past year or so. Now, in order to retrieve the situation, Rajkhowa and his supporters will be given a month's time to consider their options. If they give up on sovereignty, or issue a statement saying they are willing for unconditional talks without mentioning the 'S' word, the ULFA chief will be released on bail to allow his participation in talks. Of course Paresh Baruah's shadow will continue to loom large on any peace moves that are made. Baruah has already asked Rajkhowa to "not fall prey to designs of Indian occupation forces, and remember the sacrifices made by 12000 martyrs." The government will also have to wait and watch for a while since Paresh Baruah has ordered his armed cadres to unleash violence to derail peace talks. Barua's latest statement therefore appears to be only a ploy to remain relevant in the changed scenario. Clearly, Rajkhowa's arrest is only half a step forward in efforts to resolve the three-decade old insurgency in Assam. A lot remains to be done if a permanent solution is to be found. The contours of what can be offered to the ULFA will emerge only after a basic agreement on the need to talk is clinched. In that sense, there's still a long way to go before a new beginning is made. |
A student of conflicts, insurgencies and wars, Nitin Gokhale has spent 26 years reporting on military and militants from various hostile fields like India's north-east, Kashmir valley, the Kargil war, China and Sri Lanka, among others. He's currently NDTV's Defence and Strategic Affairs Editor.
