ON 23 DECEMBER, Assam’s Bodoland Territorial Area Districts—the BTAD—erupted in violence again. Sixty-two adivasis were massacred by Bodo militants of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (Songbijit)—the NDFB (S). The attack was purportedly carried out to avenge security operations against the group. By 24 December, following retaliatory attacks against Bodos by adivasi mobs and police fire to control them, the death toll had risen to eighty-one, and more than 200,000 people had been displaced.
December’s violence was the most severe in the BTAD since July 2012, when riots between Bodos—an indigenous ethnic and linguistic community from the Brahmaputra valley—and Bengali Muslims left seventy-eight dead and more than 400,000 displaced. But 2014 had seen similar brutality earlier, in May, when thirty-two Bengali Muslims, mostly women and children, were killed in Baksa district. The BTAD has a history of unrest stemming from tensions between the Bodos and other communities—particularly Bengali Muslims perceived to have migrated from Bangladesh—relating to issues such as ethnic identity and economic clout. The intensity of the violence since 2012 is reminiscent of the 1990s, when Bodo militancy was at its peak. This uptick in violence has come with an erosion of the Bodo people’s faith in their political representatives—chiefly the Bodoland People’s Front, or BPF—and a growing mistrust between different Bodo groups. These developments could significantly alter the political landscape of the area.
The BTAD comprises a strip of four districts in northern Assam, lining the Bhutan border: Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baksa and Udalguri. Most aspects of the BTAD’s administration, including agriculture, health and tourism, are controlled by the Bodoland Territorial Council, an autonomous body that emerged from decades of separatist agitation. (Maintaining law and order falls under the jurisdiction of the Assam state government and its administrative arm in the district, which operates parallel to the council.)
The Bodoland movement began in the 1980s, when Bodo groups—headed by the influential All Bodo Students Union, or ABSU—launched a movement for a separate state. This, they held, would secure Bodo culture, identity and development. As it took shape, the movement broadly split in three directions: civil-society agitation, violent militancy, and politics. The militant movements emerged after a failed agreement with the centre on an autonomous Bodo territory, in 1993; they included the Bodoland Liberation Tiger Force, also known as the BLT, and the NDFB, both of which were committed to violence. Through the 1990s, these groups carried out attacks, often against non-Bodo groups such as adivasis and Bengali Muslims, to push for separation.
In 2003, the centre signed an agreement with the BLT to set up the Bodoland Territoral Council, or BTC. The BPF, which comprises former BLT militants, was formed to take charge; it won the first BTAD elections, in 2005, and continues to rule today.
But civil-society groups and militants persisted with separatist activities even after the formation of the BTAD. The former used non-violent methods, such as dharnas, hunger strikes and bandhs, while the latter resorted to extortions, kidnappings and targeted killings of other ethnic groups.
Officially, the BPF distanced—and continues to distance—itself from the violence. But disaffection has grown over its rule, and it must now face up at least to the issues of misgovernance that have plagued the years of its leadership of the BTC.
Over the course of research in the aftermath of the 2012 violence, between June 2013 and June 2014, villagers in Kokrajhar and Chirang districts told me that many of the area’s welfare projects were dysfunctional. The NREGA was a particularly glaring example: residents of several villages said the scheme had not been functioning for over two years. The Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti, a pan-Assam peasant organisation, has alleged government corruption. (In November 2013, the shop and house of a member of the group, Babul Basumatary, were burnt down. The organisation claimed that this was retaliation for his activism against graft in the NREGA and other schemes.) A young Bodo man in Ouguri village, in Chirang, told me that the local Village Council Development Committee, “who have all our job cards, have claimed money in our names without any NREGA scheme being implemented.”
In Kokrajhar, a district official explained that funds given to the BTC are not effectively tracked or audited by the state or central governments; meanwhile, Village Council members, who are mandated with spending this money, are not elected, but nominated by BTC members. “There is no accountability, either from below, or above,” the official said.
While poor governance might be the primary reason for people’s disaffection with the BPF, the party’s links to violence may also be damaging its reputation. In August 2012, for instance, a BPF MLA, Pradeep Brahma, was arrested for instigating violence during the riots of that July. Two years later, after the 2014 general elections, another BPF MLA, Pramila Rani Brahma, stoked communal tension by declaring that Bengali Muslims had not voted for the party’s candidate for the Lok Sabha. A few days later, thirty-two Bengali Muslims were massacred in Baksa. While the NDFB (S) was initially held responsible, survivors of the massacre identified forest guards, who function under the BTC, as the attackers.
The BPF’s poor response to violence, particularly after the July 2012 riots, has only furthered popular resentment. Many Bodos I spoke to were disappointed with the lack of support in post-violence recovery. Subin Brahma, a resident of Bangalduba village in Kokrajhar, said, “It wasn’t the BPF or ABSU that gave us clothes and utensils, it was the NGOs.” I heard similar sentiments in most villages.
Perhaps sensing its dwindling popularity ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the BPF intensified its campaigning, sending top leaders out to canvass for its candidate, Chandan Brahma, who was standing from Kokrajhar constituency, approximately contiguous with the BTAD. In Ouguri, villagers told me they had even been offered money by BPF leaders in exchange for votes. The party’s prospects dimmed particularly when, in March, the ABSU announced its support for UG Brahma, an independent Bodo candidate, and began campaigning on his behalf.
But the non-Bodo competition proved far stronger, as eighteen groups came together to nominate Naba Kumar Sarania, the independent candidate who won the seat by more than 350,000 votes. Even the combined tallies of the BPF and ABSU candidates would not have defeated Sarania. Still, it was a sign of the party’s dipping fortunes that the ABSU, in its first electoral foray, had secured nearly 35,000 more votes for its candidate over that of the BPF.
After its defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, the BPF, in anticipation of the BTC elections likely to be held in March or April, offered a seat-sharing deal to the ABSU, going as far as to offer it the post of president. However, the latter did not respond publicly. Interactions between the two after the December violence have been bitter, with each accusing the other of links with NDFB militants. Though the groups have had their differences, public squabbling of this nature is a relatively recent phenomenon.
In a further show of its apprehensiveness over its BTC election chances, after the Lok Sabha elections the BPF broke its alliance with the Congress. Instead, it said, in next year’s state elections it will support the BJP, which won an unprecedented seven of Assam’s fourteen Lok Sabha seats. (The ABSU had already declared support for the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.) This shift towards the BJP by both groups is significant. Though exact figures for this are not available, a majority of Assam’s Bodos are known to be Hindus. An alliance with the BJP could be a way for the Bodo groups to ride the party’s surge of popularity across the country, and thus retain some appeal among their electorate. The BPF might also see this as a way to evade difficult questions about its past administrative failures.
This realignment may help the BPF hold on to power for some more time, but it could also increase communal polarisation in the area, particularly in light of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comments during campaigning last year, when he said that Hindu migrants from Bangladesh would be welcome in the state, and implied that Muslim migrants would not. If the BPF resorts to similar tactics in a bid to capture the Hindu Bodo electorate, it could spell further trouble for a region already wracked with violence.