Ahead Of 2026 Assam Polls, Nellie Massacre Resurfaces Over Differing Reports

Ahead of the 2026 Assam Assembly polls, the issue of the Nellie massacre has returned to the spotlight, with the ruling party leaving no stone unturned to make the Tiwari Commission report public.

Many political analysts believe the issue will gain prominence, and that the ruling party is attempting to release the report before the polls to polarise sentiments and derive political advantage.

The 1983 Nellie Massacre

The Nellie massacre, which took place on February 18, 1983, was one of the deadliest single-day episodes of ethnic violence in Assam. It occurred at the peak of the Assam Agitation.

Long-simmering tensions between Tiwa (Lalung) villagers and Bengali-origin Muslim settlers in the Nagaon-Morigaon belt escalated into a sudden and catastrophic outbreak of violence across 14 villages around Nellie, killing more than 1,800 people within hours.

Two Inquiries, Two Narratives

Two major inquiries attempted to document what happened and why. The Tiwari Commission, headed by Justice Tribhuban Prasad Tiwary, a retired Gauhati High Court judge, was appointed by the Assam government under the Commissions of Inquiry Act in July 1983. It was tasked with examining the disturbances, identifying administrative lapses and recommending preventive measures.

The Mehta Commission, chaired by Justice TU Mehta, former Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court, was formed in 1984 by the Assam Rajyik Freedom Fighters' Association. It was a non-official, civil-society-led judicial inquiry created in response to widespread dissatisfaction over the government's refusal to release the Tiwari report and the perceived lack of an impartial probe.

While both reports examine the same broad events-violence before, during and after the 1983 elections-they differ sharply in orientation, focus and conclusions.

• The Tiwari Commission provides an administrative reconstruction of incidents across districts, including Nellie, emphasising police response, district-level failures and the need for procedural reforms.
• The Mehta Commission takes a wider political and constitutional view, arguing that the central government's decision to conduct elections under unrevised rolls, coupled with large-scale state repression, created the conditions that enabled massacres like Nellie.

Why The Issue Has Returned?

The BJP government has revived the push to make the Tiwari Commission report public. The party, which leads the Assam government, has long been vocal on illegal migration and has recently carried out massive eviction drives against illegal encroachment. Most of the evicted encroachers were Bengali-origin Muslims.

The immediate flashpoint in 1983 was the decision to hold Assembly elections without revising the electoral rolls to delete the names of alleged "illegal migrants," a demand central to the six-year-long Assam Movement.

A Dark Chapter Resurfaces

The Nellie massacre remains one of the darkest chapters in Assam's history, and it has once again gained prominence ahead of the Assembly polls. The opposition has been attacking the government over the issue, but the ruling party remains adamant about releasing the Tiwari Commission report.