Pathology of Riots -I

Pathology of Riots-I


What is unfolding in Kenya must drive home the lesson we in India must learn. Howsoever a stable and democratic a country with its much vaunted well off middle class, it takes a few wrong steps to bring it to the verge of self destruction. Whatever hue of a so called strong leader unless all sections are accommodated in the polity sans discrimination, democracy can be nightmare. No sooner do the strong leader like Tito and the stable country like Kenya face another challenge than cracks appear. The question is how and what we prioritize. That becomes news as do views become news.

On 6th of March 1983 the opposition leader in the parliament Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee told the BJP supporters in Pathankot that the February 1983 elections in Assam were conducted in a bloodbath and BJP would not accept the results because the elections were not “free and fair”. On the following day, Monday March7, the Non Alignment Movement conference opened in Delhi, Free Press Journal called it a big tamasha. Such a gathering of heads of states and governments was the only one time that so many had gathered there. The views of the nascent BJP and the gala festivity that went with the NAM to-do threw the bloodbath in Assam into oblivion. Fast forward to our time, the election in Gujarat 2002 was also of the same nature, an attempt to ride on communal divide and place the pogroms on the backburner.


On February 18, 1983 about 3000 Muslims long settled in Assam were murdered in and around Nellie. Among them were mostly children and women who could not run away from the reach of the well organized and armed marauding mobs . One caption of India Today photo on the ghastly scene captured by Bhawan Singh reads: “This is Assam for you. They paid with their lives so that democracy could be put back on the rails in that God forsaken land!” BJP demanded that the governor order inquiry as it always did at that time thought not in Gujarat 2002. But the party had the agenda scripted much earlier according to its priority: not the tragic massacre of the victims per se but the timing and place and vicinity to the borders and proximity to elections.


The marauding crowds included upper caste Hindus leading the mobs which would ultimately vote their regional party into power. BJP had successfully indoctrinated the mobs against the Muslims, quite unlike the schisms of Bihari versus Assamese and tribals with prerogative of reservation versus immigrant adivais sans reservation in Assam of recent times. “The BJP leaders are understood to have sought to convince the agitation leaders (in Assam 1983) that it is vital to make a distinction between the Hindus and the Muslims among the immigrants from the erstwhile Eastern Pakistan.”

Thus the chasm created on the communal lines among the Bengali speaking people settled there resulted in violence which boded ill for the country. People in Bombay collected 40 lakh rupees and in Punjab 20 lakh rupees for the flood affected in Assam 1974. But there was no relief fund for 1983.

The Assamese till 1983 were much like the Kenyan of 2008. The violence in Assam was unabated even in late March 1983. The people were known for their lahe lahe style of life, a life of being soft and docile. Who brought about the change in the chemistry of the people? Why? A book that appeared on October 30, 2007 throws light on the disturbing questions. Neelie, 1983: Asom Andolonor Borborotom Gonohatyar Postmortem Report (Neelie, 1983: A Postmortem Report into the Most Barbaric Massacre of Assam Movement) by author Diganta Sharma records how 688 cases were registered of which 318 were dropped and after the final report 310 were registered but when Asom Gana Parishad, the political wing of the AASU came into power all were dropped.

The reason: there were no eye witnesses. The victim survivors were there but they were so traumatized and intimidated that they had no chance to meet anyone. How could they when the police were complicit in the carnage. As can be seen in the message of sent by the officer-in charge of Nogaon Police Station to the Commandant of 5 th Assam Police Battalion in Morigaon, Officer-in charge of Jagi Road Police Station and Sub-Divisional Police Officer on 15 February, 1983 the contents of which are:INFORMATION RECEIVED THAT L/NIGHT ABOUT ONE THOUSAND ASSAMESE OF SURROUNDING VILLAGES OF NELLIE WITH DEADLY WEAPONS ASSEMBLED AT NELLIE BY BEATING OF DRUMS (,) MINORITY PEOPLES ARE IN PANIC AND APPREHENDING ATTACK AT ANY MOMENT (,) SUBMISSION FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION TO MAINTAIN PEACE (,)
It is quite ironical that much of the debate on Gujarat pogroms 2002 veers back to 1984 massacre of Sikhs but not to massacre of Muslims in Nellie 1983! In an acrobatic fashion we try to be politically correct in one and yet we are ‘political and incorrect’ in the other!