New Delhi: Historic! Thus far, all agreements that the Centre (be it of any party) has signed with an armed outfit in Northeast India have been termed either by the signatories, or their political backers, no less than ‘historic’ – till they turn out to be nowhere near it.
On December 29, signing the agreement with the Arabinda Rajkhowa faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) in New Delhi, the Union home minister Amit Shah quite predictably termed it too as ‘historic’.
Well, only time can tell how ‘historic’ is this agreement; also, if it is more ‘historic’ than the Assam accord delivered by the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1985, which this new ‘historic’ peace accord’ signed by Shah’s government has failed to even make a mention of.
Within Assam, since the 1990s, one has seen three ‘peace accords’ in the ‘Bodoland’ area itself, signed with various Union governments held by the two national parties – the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Each was ‘historic’ – till it was not.
The last one, signed with the Narendra Modi government in 2020, was also termed ‘historic’ by Shah. However, the All Bodo Students Union (ABSU) president Dipen Boro stated in Kokrajhar on December 29 that the agreement has not been “implemented in letter and spirit by the state and central (Modi) government” and if not done soon, the outfit vows to start a ‘democratic movement’. The ability of Shah’s ministry to prove that the 2020 agreement was indeed ‘historic’ is already under a cloud.
While history has shown over and again that New Delhi has been crafting one ‘historic’ peace agreement or the other with groups spearheading armed movements across the Northeast (remember, the ‘historic’ Naga Framework Agreement from 2015?), time is, perhaps, not only to reckon the transient nature of these pacts but to cognise the need to put a stop – once and for all – to this litany. Simply because these ‘historic’ agreements have proved to be nothing but hollow when it comes to their efficacy in profiting the public in general and the community it is intended for.
Also read: ULFA Faction Signs ‘Peace Accord’ with Centre; ‘Political Gimmick,’ Says Opposition in Assam
So, what must the Assamese public learn from the December 29 ‘historic’ moment scripted within closed doors in their name? Importantly, what must they do to ensure that this march of ‘historic’ agreements with some angry group or the other by Notun Dilli (New Delhi) ends?
The answer is simple; history must be the teacher here.
Beneficiaries of the ‘peace accord’
Before getting to the prescriptive part, it is helpful though to hold up who is likely to benefit the most from this latest ‘historic’ pact.
No doubt, there are clearly three direct beneficiaries. One is the Rajkhowa faction of ULFA. Since 2008, its cadres have been waiting in designated camps (set up by the government) for their leaders to pull off an ‘honourable’ agreement with the Centre. So that, they can not only get a means of livelihood but also integrate back into society. However, with nothing in sight, waiting for years together, several of them had begun deserting those camps.
Union home minister Amit Shah with Arabinda Rajkhowa, the chairman of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA). Photo: X (Twitter)/@AmitShah
While some among those disillusioned with ‘peace’ had begun looking for employment on their own, some others had gone back to the jungles to join the anti-talks faction of ULFA run by Paresh Barua from Myanmar. What needs highlighting here is that most of that lot are the sons and daughters of Assamese peasants. This upheaval within Assamese peasantry is huge considering Assam is an agricultural economy.
Post the Modi government’s advent in North Block in 2014, the interlocutor appointed by the Manmohan Singh government to carry forward the talks with the Rajkhowa faction had changed. It meant the talks had to begin afresh.
Over time, that new interlocutor was shifted out too. These changes have certainly slowed down the process. So much so that the initial euphoria within the Assamese public and the intellectuals about the likelihood of the ‘historic’ Assam Accord (no more historic by then) to be replaced by another ‘historic’ pact through the Rajkhowa faction of ULFA began to lose steam. In other words, the December 29 agreement with New Delhi has come at a time when its worth is already diminished. Nobody in Assam expected it to be truly ‘historic’.
The slowdown of the peace process can be seen as part of a strategy to tire out those on the other side of the table because it ended up benefitting the Centre. It was exhausting for the ULFA leaders to wait endlessly for Godot to arrive. In the end, they seem to be ready to sign an agreement which has at least a semblance of an ‘honourable’ exit for them. In other words, with their dwindling bargaining chips, the ULFA leaders needed this agreement to be ‘historic’ more than New Delhi did.
The inherent pressure on them to conclude a process that they had started with the Centre in 2011 ensured that their stakes to sign on the dotted line were certainly higher than that of the Centre. Meanwhile, the Assamese public looked on, with mixed feelings. Whether to expect indeed a ‘historic’ agreement, or not.
It is also important to note that no government (read party) will show any generosity to a militant group unless it looks at it as a milcher. It is particularly true with the Modi-era BJP. The timing of this ‘historic’ agreement must, therefore, be seen as the prime mover for the Modi government. Here is a reminder that most Lok Sabha seats of the state are in Upper Assam, the Assamese heartland. It is also in Upper Assam that the efficacy of ULFA as a ‘sentinel’ of Assamese interests has not died down fully.
Though the top leaders of the Rajkhowa faction have publicly stated that they have no political ambitions, what stops them from publicly endorsing the party that delivered the ‘historic’ agreement in the run-up to the crucial 2024 elections, particularly when it can project the Assamese public that they brought home an ‘honourable’ agreement?
It is no rocket science that with the entire South India now virtually BJP-mukt, the party desperately needs to shore up as many Lok Sabha seats as possible from other corners of the country. If reviving the frenzy for the Citizenship Amendment Act in West Bengal before the 2024 polls can help dress up BJP as always working in the interests of a large swathe of Bengalis, in Assam too, an accord with the pro-talks faction of ULFA should be able to project to the majority Assamese community that the party is indeed pro-Khilonjia (indigenous). The BJP is, therefore, another direct beneficiary of this timely ‘historic’ agreement.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is the third direct beneficiary. Time and again, he has to prove his worth to the top leaders of his new party to continue on the hot seat. The chief minister can do that only by delivering the majority of the 126 seats of Assam during an assembly election to the BJP, and the majority of the 14 Lok Sabha seats during a parliamentary poll. In the 2024 campaign, let’s not be surprised if his voice about ‘peace’ having arrived in Assam and the rest of the Northeast due to ‘Modi sarkar’ is the loudest.
So, what must the common Assamese do to ensure that such ‘historic’ agreements never take place in their name; their khilonjia sentiments can never be misused by one political group or the other in future?
The path is already lit if lessons from history are learnt. The answer clearly is not in taking up guns. Let history be a witness to the fact that guns have only brought bodies home, often to the poorest families. The gun culture in Assam and the rest of the Northeast has only helped produce a set of self-serving political leaders by misusing community sentiments; have served only some political parties’ desperation to win an election or two.
The protracted ULFA movement generated a bunch of Assamese youth to go for easy money through extortions and helped create a batch of selfish Assamese businessmen who have little interest in building any public good apart but only to fill their personal bhoral (coffer). This should, by now, be an eye opener for the community at large.
What the Assamese youth and society in general must then focus on, and stridently so, is to gun only for self-reliance. Till the land you own; there is no shame in it. It can not only make you self-sufficient but also help generate employment in rural areas. It may help turn the trend of Assamese villages increasingly becoming the cesspool of cheap labour for the rest of the country.
More and more youth must start believing in their business acumen; allow their competitive nature to flower. They must strive to know their history, not tailored by any political force to push their agenda but those by the community’s greats; they have left enough material for the generations to know who is truly an Assamese. The strive for ‘independence’ of the community, and the state in turn, must be in ensuring that individual hard work contributes to creating a collective good. This ‘historic’ agreement must prod us towards it.
With several success stories of entrepreneurship already in the state, a silent revolution of sorts has begun. The focus must be to add to it a swarm of more such stories. It is no secret that a community can have political heft only when it has economic independence.
The overall aim for the community must be to embrace excellence. An important component of it is, but, to produce leaders with integrity and spine, in every field. It also means discarding those who are purely self-serving, particularly in the political arena.
This clutch of resolve can go a long way in delivering greater profit to the Assamese public in general than banking on an elusive saviour in the form of a ‘historic’ agreement with tall promises – only to realise later that it was not quite so.
