Violence in Assam

THE POLL PROCESS in Assam has been vitiated. The spurt of violence in the past few days, including the murderous attacks on candidates may not be new. The political scene in the State had been held hostage by armed mercenaries belonging to the various outfits, the ULFA in particular, during the past decade or so. It is a fact that these outfits, armed with sophisticated weapons, had managed in the past few years to strike at their will and members of the various political parties have been their target. In this sense, escalation of violence was only to be expected with elections to the State Assembly round the corner. And, hence, the State Government - the political leadership as well as the civil administration - cannot escape the charge of having failed in their duty. The armed mercenaries could not have struck in the way they did (killing a BJP candidate and also injuring a nominee of the Samata party) if only the personnel belonging to the law-enforcing agencies were on guard particularly when the poll process is on. The State Government could not have remained oblivious to the machinations of these armed gangs, those belonging to the ULFA in particular, during the poll campaign. The ULFA has been engaged in disrupting all institutions of the democratic edifice and it was imperative for the police machinery in the State to up the ante.

It may be true that the recent spell of violence has to do with the elections. But then, most parts of Assam have been in the grip of the mercenaries for over two decades now. And the major political parties in the State have had a role, in letting the political discourse slip into such anarchy, in their own way. If the ruling AGP as a political party had its beginnings in the violent agitations that marked the State's political discourse in the early 1980s, sections in the Congress(I)'s Assam unit were not at all innocent in the game of promoting sectarian groups with a view to vitiate the political atmosphere. And the BJP, an ally of the AGP in this election, too had its role in whipping up passions across the State on communal lines and conjuring up images of a threat to the demographic balance in Assam from the immigrants from Bangladesh. In this sense, the BJP's campaign was picked up from where the All Assam Student's Union (AASU) - out of which the AGP was born - had left off after its leaders wrested power in the 1987 Assembly election. It is in this context that one will have to look at the violence in Assam as not merely a poll-eve development. Instead, the killings and the attacks (taking place by the day) are an integral part of the strategy by forces inimical to the democratic process. And for this very reason such escalation of violence on the eve of the elections were only to be expected.

In this context, the remarks by the Union Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, charging the Congress(I) with having engaged ULFA mercenaries to vitiate the poll process is simply unwarranted. Mr. Advani must realise at least now that he is no longer just another leader of a political party. Instead, it is his responsibility as the Union Home Minister to ensure adequate Central forces in Assam (as well as in other States that go to polls on May 10) rather than behave in such partisan manner as he has in this context. This is the imperative for Mr. Advani and his aides in the Union Home Ministry as well as those at the helm in the Government in Assam at least in the immediate context. The trouble in Assam, with armed mercenaries of various hues managing to strike at will and hold the political process to ransom, is indeed a larger challenge. And the political leadership at the Centre and the various parties that have a stake in Assam cannot afford to let the democratic process be derailed. This is the task before the leaders of the parties and the personnel of the civil administration in the long run and not just until the elections are over.

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