Along the Red River: A Memoir by Goswami Sabita

Author:Goswami, Sabita [Goswami, Sabita]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zubaan
Published: 2014-10-28T00:00:00+00:00

25

It was not easy to estimate the death toll of the internecine war among the “sons of the soil” in Gohpur, but it reflected the deep weaknesses and the antipathy of the larger Assamese society. According to an Assam Police official in Gohpur police station, Bodo tribals attacked Assamese villages without instigation of any sort. There was no mention of counter-attacks by the Assamese. However, a person who fell to police bullets was a Bodo. In the Behali Police Chowki, I saw four tribal boys who were caught “red-handed” allegedly indulging in violence during the conflict. I tried to speak to them. The police prevented me from doing so. The tribal boys looked far from being aggressive. Among the arms and ammunition recovered by the police from these tribal boys were two daos and about a dozen sharp iron-headed arrows! They had no bows! They pleaded that they were not part of the conflict and that they were innocent. They had set out for the election campaign in support of the PTCA in Udalguri. The conflict therefore appeared to be between pro-election and anti-election groups! The PTCA had entered the election fray. It was evident and well known that the Assam Police and at times the Dispur administration too was biased and partisan. I remember the names of three of the four boys arrested in Behali – Lawrence, Nareshwar and Suren. All had the same Bodo surname – Basumatary.

It was much publicized and reported that the conflict in Gohpur, like Nellie, was between two factions – pro-elections and anti-election. The pro-Assam Agitation and anti-election groups had abducted the son of Bhubon Mech, the PTCA’s candidate for the Sotia Assembly constituency. According to intelligence sources, this incident had also fuelled the conflict in Gohpur. The PTCA had deputed their volunteers to Udalguri. On the other hand, a tea garden labourer named Ram Prasad Karmakar, ensured a regular supply of iron-headed sharp arrows to the tribals and other tea-garden labourers for their defence. There was nothing new in this. It was an accepted practice for the tribals and tea garden labourers to possess these weapons. A few supporters of the Assam Agitation who were against holding of elections had requested Karmakar to supply them with such arrows too. Karmakar had refused and his house had been burnt down! The report submitted by the intelligence cited this incident as the cause of the conflict in Gohpur. Of course, the real instigators of the conflict were not mentioned. There was no definite count of the number of dead in the Gohpur attacks and so it gave rise to several rumours. Like Nellie, the cause of this violence was not just the issue of elections. The genesis of this conflict between Bodos and non- Bodos was actually that of land.

The Bodos in Gohpur lived in the reserve forest land of about 150 square kilometers. This land was extremely fertile and the caste Hindu Assamese also had interests there. The Bodos were responsible for denuding the reserve forests.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.