PUBLISHED IN PROLETARIAN ERA, THE CENTRAL ORGAN OF SOCIALIST UNITY CENTRE OF INDIA, 1ST DECEMBER,2003

Murderous Attacks on Hindi-Speaking People by Chauvinist Forces in Assam

Once again Assam is in flames. During the past few days, murder, arson, violence and terror have plunged the whole state into a horrifying condition. After the bogey of driving out "foreigners", Bengali-speaking people and immigrant minorities, it is now the innocent Hindi-speaking inhabitants who have been made the target. Already, according to official figures, near about 60 people have died, several hundreds have been injured. Houses have been set on fire, Hindi medium schools razed to the ground. Other institutions and shops have been torched, looted. Even small children and women have not been spared in this diabolic attack. Already thousands of people who had been staying in Assam for years and became inseparable part of the society, are now fleeing the state to save their lives. With the spread of communal violence against Hindi-speaking people the innocent, peace-loving people of the state, who had been witnesses to more than one horrible communal strife in the past, are living through harrowing moments. But why and how could the situation take such a turn towards an orgy of violence?

The Gory Parade
It all started on 9th of November last. Several thousand examinees from various other states came to Guwahati and other cities of Assam that day to appear in the recruitment examination for Group D and other posts in the railways. The examination was being conducted by the railway recruitment board. Many among the examinees there were candidates from Bihar as well. But such job aspirants could not sit for the examination. At the instance of All Assam Students' Union (AASU), they were debarred from appearing in the examination. Even the admit cards and other valuable documents of such candidates were burnt. Many were physically assaulted as well. AASU has raised the highly unjust demand of 100% reservation for Assam in Group C and D categories of vacancies in N. E. Railways. How far unjust is such a demand is to be examined separately. But surely there is not even an iota of rationale behind attacking the candidates from other states in the name of a movement based on such a demand. Rather, such an act on the part of AASU has severely tarnished the image of the state. As a reaction to this incident, for two, three days since 12th of November some miscreants of Bihar with the tacit support of the administration there, had been mounting savage onslaughts on the passengers of in-bound and out-bound trains of Assam. At Jamalpur station in Bihar, over a thousand of local rowdies and anti-socials stopped the up-Mahananda Express and ran amock on the passengers, beat them mercilessly, looted their belongings and outraged the modesty of women. Over 400 passengers sustained grievous injuries. Among them the condition of around 30 was serious. The police were silent spectators to all these heinous acts. Similar attacks were carried on the passengers of up-Brahmaputra Mail the same day. Such brutal assaults on the passengers of trains to Assam took place in Katihar station as well causing serious injuries to many. No doubt, such despicable acts are to be severely condemned and protested against. Immediately, a mighty democratic movement needs to be built up demanding identification of the culprits and their accomplices in the administration and meting out exemplary punishment to them. But abandoning the course of movement, if there is an attempt to hold a particular community responsible for all such cowardly acts and then indulge in retaliatory action on them - such can not be endorsed at any cost.
It is now clear that some miscreants connected with reac-tionary organizations, subserving the ruling capitalist class had engineered such incidents in Bihar. The toiling people of Bihar were neither involved in this nor had they any inkling of such reprehensible activities. Rather, it was seen that many Hindi-speaking people made every effort to protect the passengers when the hooliganism was on. The press that carried out interviews of the victims corroborated these facts. So, targeting the Hindi-speaking people in place of the real culprits can in no way be supported by any well-meaning person. But the most unwanted thing happened in Assam. The common Hindi-speaking people, who barely earn their livelihood have fallen victims to worst retaliatory violence.

Why this orgy of violence
A careful analysis of the incidents would reveal that such an attack on the Hindi-speaking people has not been spontaneous. All parochial forces including AASU have directly precipitated this situation resulting in the ghastly acts and gruesome killing of innocent people. Jobs, examination or attacks on train passengers are all pretexts to buttress an altogether different motive which is to create panic among the Hindi-speaking people and force them to leave Assam so that the parochialists could reign supreme. They have the full backing of the Congress in the state. The Congress Government, in fact, is, as in the past, appeasing the chauvinist forces.
Most unfortunately the Ulfa, which once was born within the ambit of AASU, raising demand for independent Assam, and tried to make itself acceptable to the people by avowing to revolution, socialism, Lenin, Mao, etc., is now in cahoot with the AASU in raising the same parochial demands and slogans. Ulfa was involved in the killings of innocent Hindi-speaking people in Nalbari district of Assam three years back. This time also Ulfa, instead of ensuring that the reaction to Jamalpur incident does not assume the character of a fratricidal feud against the Hindi-speaking people, asked for the immediate evacuation of Hindi-speaking people from Assam. Thereafter there are allegations that Ulfa activists are involved in various incidents of murder and violence. It has been reported that after sniffing out the lives of several innocent brickfield workers in Tinsukia, Assam on 2nd of November last, Ulfa officially admitted the responsibility of the killings by saying that Hindi-speaking people are polluting the cultural environment of Assam.
It is noteworthy that the well-meaning people of Assam have condemned the killings in no uncertain a term, have come out in the streets to maintain peace and harmony among various sections of the people. Success to such laudable initiative is what all aspire for.

Was it inevitable
The question is whether it was possible to forestall such inhuman acts. At the instance of and provocation by certain political forces the mind of the people of Assam has been for long overshadowed by various provincial, parochial, sectarian, communal and secessionist thinkings. So tenuous has been the situation that the slightest of provocation could exacerbate the communal conflagration and fratricidal clashes. The Chief Minister of the state was well aware of that. But it was found that instead of taking appropriate administrative measures to stem the possible rot, the Congress government has been mere onlooker to the gory parade. In Dispur, the capital of the state, the Hindi-speaking people were subjected to murderous attacks, their houses were torched and burnt in front of the residences of the ministers and bureaucrats. But the police pleaded ignorance. The modern administration is so well equipped today that if there be a will, such communal conflagration could be stopped within 24 hours. But the carnage has been going on for a week and the people could hardly feel the presence of anything known as administration. The communal outlook of BJP, AGP, etc., are well-known and one could well anticipate what would be their role in such a situation. C.P. Thakur, the central minister, while on a hurricane tour to Assam, put the entire blame on ISI, the Pakistani espionage wing. Such an irresponsible utterance and endeavour to channelise the course of events in another communal line once again unmasked the nefarious design of BJP politics. The Congress government in the state by virtue of its intentional inaction acquiesced in the move of the BJP. This is how the Congress, right from the day of independence had pandered to communal forces throughout the country from the seat of the government, albeit under the garb of democracy.
Elections are on the anvil in five states. In Assam also, campaign for elections to municipalities, corporations and other civic bodies is in full swing. The situation of the state is grim. It is the poor people, no matter what their mother tongue is, who are being killed. But none is bothered. Rather the bourgeois parties have already entered into a competition as to how best they can derive petty-political mileage out of these barbaric incidents. It is this rotten politics that is taking a heavy toll on the unity of the common masses.
It might be relevant to say something about the role of some newspapers in the state in spreading the communal virus. The press and the journalists, as the fourth pillar of democracy, do have an obligation. The truth does not always lie in the mere description of an incident. No responsible publication worth the name can afford to communicate news in such a manner that further propels communal thinking and endangers the cohesion and unity of the country. But an absence of such journalistic ethics has been observed with the majority of the newspapers in Assam.
Why this mounting unemployment
It is necessary to briefly dwell upon the issue that triggered such a situation in Assam. It is true the number of unemployeds is mounting in the state. Not only the lakhs of the unemployed youths are in utter frustration, many of them unable to bear the brunt, are engaging themselves in many an anti-social activities and falling prey to fissiparous and parochial thinkings. Assam is no exception to that. Rather this is the spectacle of the entire country today. So it is but natural that the youth would crave for a job, for a gainful employment. But if they are not aware as to what is the way to at least partially mitigate this hardship, if a correct realistic understanding of this grave situation eludes them, then confusion would be compounded and mutual distrust and hate multiplied. Why there is progressive curtailment in the scope of employment? Why is there a galloping increase in the number of the unemployeds ? One ought to have a clear insight into these. The Indian capitalist class has been saddled to power after independence by usurping all the noble sacrifices, glory of martyrdom and heroic battles of the people for freedom. There is progressive fall in the purchasing power of the people following the ruthless exploitation by the ruling capitalist class. The capitalist economy in the country is caught in the vortex of severe crisis, afflicted by severe recession. In such a situation even the handful of public sector units which were set up at the cost of public exchequer are now facing closure in the class-interest of the capitalists, not to speak of any new industrial venture taking off. Everywhere, there is mass-retrenchment of workforce. With the shrinkage of the home market the capitalist class, in its lust for super profit, is now looking at market overseas and so has to capitulate to big imperialist power. Thus it is opening up the domestic market to the big imperialist sharks and subjecting the people to worst plunder. In the interest of the monopolists, the public sector units, one by one, are being handed over to the capitalists and multinational corporations. In place of labour intensive industries, capital-intensive industries where production is done with the help of sophisticated technology and by employing minimal workers are being preferred for booking maximum profit. So there is massive retrenchment of labour. Every day the ruling capitalist class is coming out with newer devices to retrench workers. Not only this; there is moratorium on employment in government and public sector units at the behest of WTO. In the name of providing central assistance, the central government is forcing the state governments to abolish 10% of the vacancies and the state governments, in turn, are complying with the same with due care. In this backdrop, there is hardly any scope for new job creation. Instead, those in employment are in the face of a great uncertainty of continuation in their jobs. Unless there is an massive democratic movement throughout the country against the policy of curtailment of jobs by both central and state governments and in demand for establishment of new industries and thereby force the central and state governments to reverse their policies, there will be no abatement to this accentuated unemployment problem. Further, what is needed is cemented unity of the toiling people and the youth irrespective of caste, creed, language or religion. Discarding this course, the demand for 100% job reservation for Assam raised by AASU would not solve the problem, but would aggravate it. Thus, far from resolving the problem of unemployment of the youths of Assam, if, on the contrary, centring round the issue of reservation, there are clashes among various segments of the people and youths, it will weaken the very base of a united mass movement towards mitigating unemployment problem. It has to be borne in mind that the ruling capitalist class wants to perpetuate such a cleavage and conflict among the people so that the people are not in a position to get at the truth.
A few more words need to be said about the reservation question. The way demands for reservation in jobs for various groups, sections, and states are being raised, it might entail a dangerous portent. In future, such demands may arise from within various groups of people in other states resulting in further widening of the chasm among different segments. In that event, devastated Assam will be further ravaged. Unity of the people will be threatened. So the issue of reservation has to be viewed very carefully and examined in depth from a correct socio-political outlook.

Mighty left democratic movement - only deterrent
>From the later half of 1979 there had been chauvinist movements in Assam, first in the name of ''driving away outsiders'' which later was modified for tactical reason as movement for ''driving out foreigners''. Whatever might have been the name given, the objective was to precipitate an acute paro-chial, communal and racial hatred. The massacre of the minority Indian citizens bore ample testimony to that. At that time, on behalf of our party SUCI, we had repeatedly requested the left parties like the CPI(M), CPI and others to come forward and build up a united left democratic healthy cultural movement as against this pernicious culture of racial rancour by involving the working people of Assam so that the general mass could be freed from the influence of the vile doctrine of communalism-parochialism-chauvinism. But our request was not heeded. Rather, the CPI(M), CPI had nurtured such thoughts and beliefs that actually helped the parochial movement to grow. Not only this; in 1996 they even decided to join arch-chauvinist AGP government thus giving fillip to further growth of chauvinist parochial and divisive thinking. Thus, they have, instead of confronting the parochial and separatist forces, contributed to the image-building of the latter. In the last election, held in 2001, AGP deserted the CPI(M) and CPI to forge alliance with the BJP. After being routed in the last elections CPI(M) and CPI had no alternative other than to agree to formation of an eight party combination along with us. Our party had repeatedly urged upon them to build up left and democratic movement in Assam on the burning problems of people's life. But mainly due to the anti-movement mentality of the CPI(M) and the CPI, so far no such united movement could be launched. It is this weakness of left democratic political movement in Assam that provided a fertile ground for the chauvinist and parochial forces to thrive and thunder. Instead of treading along the correct path of building a united left democratic movement involving the entire toiling masses, irrespective of caste, creed, religion and language against the exploitative capitalist rule, the predominant trend of thinking enshrouding the people's mind is to look at every problem from the perspective of communal divide, lingual difference, parochial outlook, etc. centring which there are fratricidal bloodbaths. The current situation in Assam is also a reflection of the same mental trend. In the dangerous situation now prevailing in Assam, once again the imperativeness of a united left democratic movement is felt very much. We hope everyone would take appropriate lessons from the present situation and come forward to embrace the path of left democratic movement.