Vinay Joshi
In a shocking
incidence suspected tribal militant outfit NDFB shot dead 23 Muslims including women, children
out of which few are infants in the Kokrajhar district of Bodoland-Assam.
Primarily the
incidence is militant attack, but the hidden meaning of the attack is more
shocking. Superficially this incidence is just one more militant strike in
about 25 year's history of militancy in Assam, but actually it is the beginning
of new battle between indigenous people of Assam and Muslim migrants-majority
of Bangladeshi origin. The ruling Congress government and former AGP government
both never tried to answer the problem of insurgency in Assam in sincere and
classical manner, and just exploited the issue to harvest the votes of Muslims
by Congress and indigenous people by AGP.
Traditionally no
militant outfit ever targeted migrant Muslims fearing military action by
Bangladeshi government against militant training camps running in Bangladeshi
territory. Also militants groups never uttered a single word opposing or
condemning Bangladeshi infiltrators. On the contrary various militant outfits used
to warn and condemn the statements issued by RSS and its affiliate
organisations whenever these organisations raised the issue of illegal
Bangladeshis.
Fallouts of Lebensraum
Bangladesh is struggling to feed its population as there is
widening gap between domestic rice production and actual need of the country.
The appalling infrastructure, huge and ever growing population, religious
fanaticism and political instability has inflicted huge damage to Bangladesh.
On the other hand porous Indian border and vote hungry Indian politics encouraged
and facilitated Bangladeshi infiltration. Gradually N-E India, especially Assam’s
about 6 district Barpeta, Dhubri, Goalpara, Hailakandi, Karimganj and Nagao and West Bengal’s border districts
became Muslim majority districts,
replacing indigenous population. Journalist and intellectuals in India pleaded
for Bangladeshis referring humanitarian angle of Bangladeshi infiltration. But those
at receiving end were tribal people of Assam, who were fast losing their
traditional fertile lands to infiltrators causing social tensions. While
ensuring Bangladeshis their Lebensraum indigenous tribal were forced to
leave their farm lands to Bangladeshis causing retaliation by locals. But Congress
state government always stood firmly by the Bangladeshis fearing damage to strong
Muslim vote bank, and poor tribal could only helplessly see the developments. They
were not in a position to fight back, but were hunting for a way to tackle the
issue.
Growing pressure on militant groups
The gradual pressure
of local tribal become unbearable for militant groups, as militant groups are
always dependent on locals for food and shelter, and they felt it necessary to
respond to the issue of Bangladeshi migrants. During 2012 Bodoland riots, for
the first time there were incidences of active participation of armed militants
fighting against Muslim migrants. But during the riots it was not possible to segregate
local tribal and militant. But Muslim groups publically claimed after 2012
riots that militants were involved in rioting with sophisticated weapons in
hand. Also when Assam government tried to re-establish refugees after the
riots, Muslims complained the threat of armed militants as hurdle in getting
resettled at their original places.
After 2012 riots
the tribal-Muslim divide widen beyond imagination and there was calls for
economic boycott of Miyas – a term used by local Assamese to call
Muslims. There was clear division among militant cadres on the issue of
Bangladeshi issue. And public pressure was mounting to find out armed solution
to the problem of infiltration as democratic option was not effective in Assam
due to huge Muslim vote bank. There were incidences of killing of militant
cadres by Muslim villagers in BTC area, which put up Muslims and Militants into
eyeball to eyeball confrontation with each other.
If the Assam
government carelessly handles the issue of killing the Muslims, then there
would be 2012 like situation in Bodoland once again. Assam Minister Siddique
Ahmed blamed in a public statement that BPF- a Bodo political party is
responsible for killing is most irresponsible statement which may spread the
violence in whole BTC governed area. The minister and the government must
ensure the separation of common Bodos from militants to calm down the
situation, but the Minister is blaming the BPF and indirectly whole Bodo
society for violence, which may draw a clear line between Bodos and Muslims,
creating worst situation than 2012. This statement might be intended to lure
traditional Muslim voters for Congress and may give it a political mileage, but
it may backfire if the minister and the government directly blame Bodos.
It is suicidal to
ignore the core issue of Bangladeshi infiltration and to blame indigenous
people for violence.
