Twenty-six persons were killed and more than 100 injured
by two explosions in Dimapur, the only railway station
in Nagaland in India's northeast, on October 2, the
birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. The same day, in
a series of coordinated attacks in different places in
Assam, also in the northeast, involving the use of hand-held
weapons, hand-grenades and explosives, 19
persons were killed.
While the needle of
suspicion points strongly in the direction of the
National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) in respect
of the incidents in Assam, the indicators regarding
Dimapur are still weak. There is a greater possibility
that the Dimapur explosions were also carried out by the
NDFB and not by any of the two Naga insurgent
organizations - the National Socialist Council of
Nagaland (NSCN - Issac Swu-Muivah) or the NSCN
(Khaplang). Both of these organizations have been
observing a ceasefire and the NSCN (I-M) has entered
into negotiations with the authorities for finding a
political solution to their grievances. The talks have
not broken down or reached a dead end, though they have
been progressing very slowly, and it does not make sense
for them to indulge in such acts of terrorism. Moreover,
the NSCN (I-M) is reported to have promptly denied any
involvement and offered a reward for anyone who would
help them identify those responsible for the explosions.
While there is no strong reason so far to
suspect the involvement of any of the two Naga insurgent
organizations in the blasts, one cannot rule out the
involvement of rogue elements in either of these
organizations, out of the control of the leadership,
either alone or in collusion with the NDFB, because of
their impatience over the perceived slow progress
toward a peaceful settlement. In the past, the
1,000-strong NDFB has had a networking relationship with
the NSCN (I-M) and the cadres of the two organizations
had known and helped each other - definitely
logistically and probably operationally.
An
intriguing question is, why were the strikes organized on
the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi? To achieve a
greater impact, insurgent and terrorist organizations
often time their violent acts to coincide with important
anniversaries of symbolic significance, such as the
Indian Independence Day, Republic Day, the anniversary
of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Uttar Pradesh
by a Hindu mob in December 1992, etc.
Rarely
has any insurgent or terrorist organization timed its
acts to coincide with Gandhi's birth anniversary. It does
not make sense. However, the anniversary of the militancy
of the NDFB falls on October 3. Hence, the inference
is that it was the NDFB that probably organized all the
terrorist strikes in Assam as well as in Dimapur to mark
its anniversary and that it timed them for October 2
instead of October 3 because it might have felt that the
security would be tight on October 3.
Presuming the NDFB was involved in
these terrorist strikes, through them it has sought to send a
clear message to the people of the Bodo community in Assam as
well as to the government of India that it is
quite alive and kicking and its motivation and
capability for action remain as strong as ever despite the
dismantling of its sanctuaries and terrorist infrastructure
in Bhutan by the Bhutanese government, at the instance
of the government of India, last December.
The Bodos are a
major tribe from the plains of Assam who have been in a
state of ferment since 1967 due to feelings of
discrimination against them by the majority Assamese.
This ferment, particularly among the Bodo youth, led
to the formation of two militant organizations. One
called the Bodo Security Force (BSF) and led by one Ranjan
Daimari came to notice in 1989. It was subsequently
re-baptized as the NDFB. The second, founded by Prem
Singh Brahma, is called the Bodo Liberation Tigers Force
(BLTF). While the NDFB advocates an independent
Bodoland, the BLTF wants a separate state of Bodoland
within the Indian union.
A major problem in
finding a solution to the demands of the Bodos has been
that villages of Assam, where the Bodos are in a
majority, do not constitute a contiguous stretch of
territory. What they look on as the territory of
Bodoland is interspersed with many non-Bodo villages.
On February 20, 1993, when Narasimha Rao was the
prime minister, the governments of India and Assam
reached an agreement with the Bodo leaders for setting
up a Bodo Autonomous Council (BAC) within the state of
Assam with considerable powers of autonomy for the
Bodos. But difficulties arose in its implementation due
to disagreements between the two governments and the
Bodo leaders over what villages would come under the
jurisdiction of the BAC. This led to the Bodo insurgents
stepping up their violence, particularly against
non-Bodo villagers living in the villages claimed by
them.
Since 1956, the northeast has been a major
cauldron of insurgency/terrorism due to feelings of
ethnic separatism among its inhabitants.The area
provides all that terrorists/insurgents need for keeping
alive their movement - sanctuaries in Bhutan, Myanmar,
the pre-1971 East Pakistan and the post-1971 Bangladesh;
facilities for across the border training and
procurement of arms and ammunition; state-sponsorship
from the intelligence agencies of Pakistan and
Bangladesh; a regular flow of funds from the smugglers
of narcotics from the Golden Triangle; and an
ineffective administration in northern Myanmar.
To
these have been added in recent years the increasing
presence of Osama bin Laden's International Islamic
Front (IIF) in adjoining Bangladeshi territory through
the intermediary of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami
(HUJI). As the US steps up its anti-terrorist watch and
operations in the Afghanistan-Pakistan-Saudi Arabia
triangle, pro-bin Laden terrorists of various hues have
been making a beeline for Bangladesh for the past two
years, without any action being taken against them by
the Begum Khalida Zia government. They do not like India
and would be only too happy to help the insurgents and
terrorists of the northeast, if they are not already
doing so. In the context of their presence in Bangladeshi
territory, an ominous development has been the reported
coming into being of an organization called the Muslim
United Liberation Front of Assam to work for a separate
state consisting of the six districts of Assam where the
Muslims are in a majority due to large-scale illegal
migration of Muslims from Bangladesh.
The
terrorism situation in Assam due to the activities of
the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), with
sanctuaries and state patronage in Bangladesh, and other
organizations continues to be as worrisome as ever,
despite claims to the contrary from the government. The
situation in Manipur, where large sections of the youth,
if not the entire youth, is in a state of virtual revolt
against the government, demanding the withdrawal of the
army's Special Powers Act, is a serious cause for
concern.
There is not much evidence of strong
action by the government to break the nexus between the
narcotics smugglers and the various insurgent and
terrorist groups and to stop the continuing illegal
migration of Muslims from Bangladesh and to identify and
expel those who have already settled down in Indian
territory. In the name of promoting secularism, the
government has been closing its eyes to the serious
threat to national security posed by these illegal
settlers.
This writer visited Assam in
August last year after a gap of 10 years. There is
definitely more economic activity, but the economic
development there is comparatively poor as compared with that in the
the rest of India. One is told that so is the case - or
even worse - in other areas of the northeast. All the
hype from the government about special economic packages
for different states of the region is far from being
translated into ground reality.
The northeast
needs the urgent attention of India's policy-makers and
national-security managers. Unfortunately, this has not
been forthcoming. There is an active volcano over there.
It is waiting to explode.
B Raman is additional secretary
(retired), Cabinet Secretariat, government of India, New
Delhi, and currently director, Institute for Topical
Studies, Chennai, and Distinguished Fellow and Convenor,
Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Chennai Chapter.
E-mail:corde@vsnl.com.
