A cocktail of militant groups, almost all of them divided into two factions, and a flip-flop peace policy being pursued by the Government, promises to make Asom the North-east’s hottest insurgency theatre in 2009 and the years ahead. So folks, fasten your seat belts and get ready to live with insurgency and its new manifestations for sometime to come.
If year 2009 began with a string of explosions in Guwahati, killing six people and injuring more than 50 others, it could have been because of the turf war within the State’s major insurgent groups that is threatening to spin out of control. If the ULFA had formally split on January 1, the day the blasts took place, the chasm within the NDFB widened further on that day.
Now that the Alpha and Charlie companies of the ULFA’s potent ‘28th battalion’ had formally christened their faction as the ‘pro-talk ULFA group’ and have announced giving up the demand for sovereignty, the decks have been cleared for the leaders of this group to sit for peace negotiations with the Government. Now what can this lead to?
The recalcitrant ULFA group headed by its military chief Paresh Baruah will be aware of attempts by the pro-talk faction as well as the counter-insurgency apparatus to sideline it and make it irrelevant if possible. So, it is obvious that the ULFA hardliners would retaliate as much as it can in a bid to prove that treading the road to peace with a bunch of pro-talk ULFA activists can never bring lasting peace to Asom. The January 1 bombings in Guwahati, which the Assam Police says was carried out by the ULFA, could have been an attempt by the hardliners in the group to demonstrate its strike potential. The ULFA, of course, has denied its involvement.
It is indeed a Catch 22 situation for the Government. If the ceasefire has fuelled the internecine feud within the ULFA and has increased the possibility of more violence by the hardliners, the recent statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the Government would talk peace with only those groups who first lay down arms has angered the pro-talk ULFA faction. The pro-talk ULFA faction has said there cannot be different yardsticks for talking peace with different rebel groups or factions and said it might be compelled to give up the democratic path it has chosen to reach a solution and take up arms again.
There is merit in the position taken by the pro-talk ULFA faction. After all, groups like the NSCN-IM, NSCN-K, NDFB and the DHD are some major insurgent groups in the region that are on a ceasefire with the Government and are engaged in talks, either formal or otherwise, without actually laying down arms. Now, if the Government makes it mandatory for any group to first lay down arms before peace talk starts, it would amount to following a peace policy that is not uniform or one that is inconsistent.
Now, the near zero tolerance policy laid down by the Prime Minister last week will impact on groups that are on a ceasefire and have split from the hardliners. Two such groups are the pro-talk ULFA faction and the NDFB group headed by Dhiren Boro, the new president. After all, both the pro-talk ULFA group and the Dhiren Boro faction of the NDFB (Boro may not like to say it so explicitly now) have given up the sovereignty demand and now if the Government decides to adhere to its tough posture of no-talks-without-laying-down-of-weapons idea, these groups would be the ones that would be cornered and become irrelevant. The hardliners in such a scenario will have the last laugh because they would then succeed in boosting the morale of their cadres by saying the Government does not care one bit about groups who come forward to talk peace. Now, that is an unenviable situation that the Government finds itself in.
The NDFB scene is much more murkier. For three years after the group entered into a truce with the Government, no one thought the group would ever split. Things changed dramatically after the October 30, 2008 serials blasts in Asom where some cadres of the NDFB were said to have been directly involved. The NDFB leaders based in Asom replaced Ranjan Daimary alias D. R. Nabla as president. They appointed Dhiren Boro as the new president and then went on to expel Nabla from the outfit. Nabla, however, refuses to recognize the Boro-led group and says he continues to be the president of NDFB. No prizes for guessing that the two factions are set to engage in some biter clashes. The only face-saving development in the New Year for the pro-talk NDFB faction is the extension of the ceasefire by the Government for six more months.
Other key rebel groups in Asom too suffer from the problem of factionalism. The DHD and UPDS are examples. In this scenario, peace is a distant dream in so far as Asom is concerned and this will remain so as along as the Government does not firm up an unambiguous counter-insurgency policy. The need of the hour is to de-politicize the approach to peace and deal with insurgent groups with a transparent response mechanism.