India - Articles

Assam: Back to Square One

In Assam, the ULFA has returned to arms again causing a breakdown in the ongoing peace talks. For the ULFA, the prospects for direct talks with the Government of India or the release of its top brass from prison, had not prevented it from carrying out bombings, abductions or extortions, even as the talks were on. As the Assam Tribune (10 July) observed, even as the ULFA chairman was hailing the peace process and hoping that direct talks between the GoI and the ULFA would be held soon, the organization was going all out trying to boost its coffers. For its part the Indian Army too was not engaged in a ceasefire, only in a 'suspension of operations.'

The GoI certainly has a duty of trying to find peaceful, political solutions to its internal conflicts. But perhaps it is time to examine more closely just what is meant by a 'political solution.' This article examines this issue in two ways - first, at narrow the level of practical applicability and second, at the broader level of why political mechanisms have failed in the first place, leading to violence and 'political solutions.'

First, finding a political solution implies at the very least an agreement on the terminology for discourse. If however, both sides cannot agree on certain common positions or come to the table - whether under the guise of secret talks, third-party mediation or open negotiations - with widely differing understandings of what constitutes the terms of discussion, the 'talks' cannot but fail. The GoI kept channels open with the ULFA via the People's Consultative Group (PCG), even after the 3 July statement of the ULFA mouthpiece Swadhinata: "If everything remains all right and if there is no lack of sincerity, direct talks between the ULFA and the 'colonial' Indian Government for the solution of the Asom-Indian political conflict has become a certainty." Now, if the GoI as party to the negotiations cannot decipher the final goal of an organization that has a mouthpiece whose name maybe translated as "Independence," it certainly must have a lot of forbearance to consider talks even after being called "colonial."

Or is there perhaps, some truth to the statement? It is close to 60 years following Independence and the Indian state is still described as colonial in several parts of the country. As anybody from the northeast of India will tell you, and even members of the Indian army will admit, if a person is frisked, his belongings searched, his home 'invaded,' day in and day out, because of his ethnicity, and British-era laws are still used as justification, the word 'colonial' would fit the bill, perfectly. So perhaps the GoI, acknowledging this 'guilt' still agrees to negotiations, spurred on also by both public opinion and the state government in Assam.

This brings us to the second question: why have the political formulations for the northeast of the country repeatedly failed? Why is this part of the country still separated from the rest by colonial-era Inner Line restrictions, governed by a 'colonial' tool like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA)? The GoI labours under the illusion that the numbers raked up by economic growth, even if only in certain pockets of the country, mean that all is well or will be well with the rest. And this is the case even as the mechanisms that create those numbers come increasingly under threat by the incompetence, maladministration even, of civilian authorities. Politicians have taken enough flak over the years for running this country down, and the poor, illiterate voter blamed for being unable to exercise wisely his democratic right. Our civilian administrators are however, chosen after coming through rigorous examinations and considered the crème de la crème of Indian society privileged with running the administration of the country. How have they turned out ineffective, if not incompetent in vast stretches of the country?

The local police do not exist merely to direct traffic or salute the Indian Army as the latter goes about the thankless job of maintaining law and order in any particular state. The fact that the Indian Army or any army for that matter ought not to be used for internal policing operations has been repeated ad nauseam. The functions that an army is trained for are quite different from what the Indian Army is now regularly called upon to do when the civilian instruments of the Indian State are found wanting or are under duress. From combating insurgencies to tackling communal riots, the Indian Army is being stretched thin, its soldiers coming under increasing stress, and now being asked to take up even civilian functions in the name of the Sadbhavana initiative. Just what then is the purpose of the civil administration and what are men clothed in police uniforms for?

Foreign involvement is a bogey that will immediately be raised in this context but cannot become an excuse for parochialism, ethnic chauvinism and shoddy public administration in this country.