The Nellie Massacre of 1983 (SAGE Studies on India′s North East) by Kimura Makiko

Author:Kimura, Makiko [Kimura, Makiko]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2013-09-02T16:00:00+00:00

Two Commission Reports and the Role of the Congress Government

The Politics of Interpreting Violence: Appointment of an Official Inquiry Commission

After the election and the Nellie incident, the GOI, the AASU and other civil society organizations, as well as the media, started to give comments, critiques, and explanations regarding the violence. The GOI put the blame on the AASU for the boycott and for provoking violence. The AASU and the AAGSP criticized the government for imposing an election which resulted in grave violence. This resulted in blame displacement to locate who was responsible for the disturbance. It is palpable that there should have been a struggle for control over the interpretation of communal riots in India, beginning with the different parties involved in the violence. Brass points out that after the riot, there always emerges a constant struggle to control the meaning of riots. Moreover, such interpretation itself will influence, or even determine power relations in society thereafter—relations among groups, within groups, and between the state and the society (Brass 2003: 21–22). Thus, in order to analyze the reports and comments produced after the violence, we need to keep in mind not only the examination of facts stated in the documents, but also put them into the larger context of what political stakes the documenter of the report had.

Regarding the election disturbance in Assam in 1983, not only the movement leaders and supporters in Assam, but also the mainstream media, were critical of the role of the GOI in imposing the election. For example, before the Assam election, there was heightened anxiety that it would result in bloodshed. Shekhar Gupta, an Indian Express correspondent, posed such a question when he interviewed a Congress member of parliament. The reply was, he recalled, “If you put 5,000 of them in jail for the election period, the problem is solved” (Gupta 1984: 29–30).

When Indira Gandhi visited Nellie after the incident, she faced the question of whether or not the GOI was responsible. She said, “No, the students and the agitators were to blame; they had created a climate of violence by spurning talks with the Government” (Hazarika 2001: 52).

Arun Shourie, editor of the Indian Express , published a long report on the disturbance, particularly regarding the Nellie incident. In examining police reports and internal information, Shourie pointed out three things. First, before the election, ensuring a free and fair poll was not the priority for the police and administrative officers, as well as security personnel. For them, the goal was not “to be able to hold the elections,” but “to be able to proclaim one way or another that the ritual of the elections had been gone through.” Thus, the police and security personnel were made to concentrate on the polling booths in order to protect the 8,000 officers who had been airlifted for polling duty, and the candidates and their families (Shourie 1983: 32).

Another important thing pointed out by him was that local policemen were not satisfied with the center's decision, and they became very hostile towards the state apparatus.

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