Blood in Brahmaputra

With the recent killing of 24 “Indians” by militants of the separatist National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) in the Bongaigaon and Darrang districts of Upper Assam, the organisation declared the entire north bank region of the Brahmaputra as the territory of a separate Bodoland. It asked all non-Bodos to vacate the area. The killings were a show of force in a proclaimed policy of “20 for one”, i.e. kill 20 “Indians” regardless of age or gender in reprisal for any Bodo killed during internal security operations.

The victims were mainly Hindi speakers from Bihar, besides some local Bengalis and Assamese.
In another incident, the NDFB militants ambushed a patrol vehicle of the Border Secirity Guards in a forest area in Assam’s Kokrajhar district, and killed three jawans. It is unfortunate that such outrages in the Northeast pass almost unnoticed in Parliament as also in the rest of the country. This is symbolic of the chronic disinterest and apathy towards the region.
The NDFB is merely one of the numerous and disparate ethnic and sub-ethnic groups that have proliferated in the Northeast over a period of time. These groups have a common but far-fetched agenda, i.e. a “sovereign homeland” for each tribe or even sub-tribe to safeguard against a perceived threat to their ethnic identities, which they apprehend would otherwise be submerged in the larger societies of what is regarded here as “Greater India”.
The Government of India has made efforts to periodically initiate talks with the main and faction groups, while simultaneously maintaining a calibrated and low key pressure through security forces and intelligence agencies. This has made some intermittent progress but at a glacial pace. Sections within all major militant groups, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isaac Swu Muivah (NSCN-IM) in Nagaland, the United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa) and the NDFB in Assam, are in the process of engaging with the government. However, no single militant group from the most affected state of Manipur has so far chosen to do so.
A wary and armed stalemate prevails between the militants and the government, as well as amongst the militant factions themselves, interspersed with sudden incidents of homicidal violence either against the government or against each other. Talks progress with jerks, with the militant factions sizing up the Government of India as a common opponent who cannot be defeated militarily, while attempting to eliminate rival groups in savage internecine killings.
In many ways, this is the way it should be as talks are the only way forward, especially as the government has gradually assumed a position of relative strength. Most of the Northeast militant groups (again, except those from Manipur) have split into pro- and anti-talk factions. Those who support talks are tired of the hard life in jungles and are under constant pressure from the government forces. They are looking for an honourable compromise (an important factor in any arrangement). Those who oppose talks, comprising hard line ideologues, refuse to compromise on their demands for independence and are now operating in murderous groups of mad dog.
The neighbouring countries of Bhutan and Bangladesh are attempting to bar their gates and insulate their own territories from any backflow from north-eastern India. The Royal Bhutan Army (RBA) had earlier launched active offensive operations to purge the Indo-Bhutan border areas of the Ulfa and Bodo insurgent groups who had intruded into sovereign territory of the Dragon Kingdom, to establish camps and training bases.
Bangladesh had a large and active Pakistani and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) presence during the earlier Balochistan National Party (BNP) government of Begum Khaleda Zia. It has actively commenced uprooting the large numbers of anti-Indian Ulfa and NDFB elements who had hitherto been accorded sanctuary within the country with government support and sponsorship. As a result, the Ulfa’s active leadership has been decimated by capture or surrender to Indian security forces. But the surviving groups continue to sustain their violent intent, most recently demonstrated by a major explosion at the headquarters of the Congress Party in Guwahati. The attack was engineered by cadres of the extremist faction of the Ulfa owing allegiance to Ulfa commander-in-chief Paresh Barua, and operating under instructions of Hira Sarania, commander of Ulfa’s “709 Battalion”.
But new doors are opening. The militant militias in Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura, are all “looking East” for sanctuary and transit facilities, towards the vast and poorly policed region of mountain and jungle in northern and western Burma. Here the presence of the Burmese government is extremely tenuous and on its own side of the border the presence of Indian government is not too surefooted either.
Media reports, unconfirmed but in fairly plausible detail, indicate a growing interaction between representatives of China’s overarching intelligence and security apparatus, the Bureau of State Security, and Anthony Shimray, hardcore ideologue and commander of the NSCN-IM. The latter is reportedly being advised to renew attention on organising the various insurgent organisations in the Northeast under an umbrella organisation to renew activities against the Indian government.
There are similar reports of contacts developing between the essentially adivasi cadres of the Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist (CPI-ML) from the red corridor region in the Indian heartland, and their ethnic counterparts in the Adivasi Peoples’ Army in the Sonitpur, Udalguri and Kokrajhar districts of Assam, raised with support from Ulfa. There are also reports of contacts between Ulfa and other north-eastern groups with the CPI(ML) for supply of weapons channelled through Burma and Bangladesh. None of these augur well for the country in the long run.
Meanwhile, transfixed in open mouthed fascination at the parade of amazing scams passing in review order across the national stage, while simultaneously distracted by the violent upheavals in the Arab world, public gaze in the country has no time to look back over its shoulder at India’s own forgotten backyard — the Northeast. Is there something stirring in the darkness out there?

Gen. Shankar Roychowdhury is a former Chief of Army Staff and a former Member of Parliament