I have been long gone from Assam when the people first took to the
streets in the eighties; got shot at, beaten up and imprisoned and
then took to arms; in the quest for Assam's independence. I was
however aware of the first stirrings and the first expressions of
resentment against Indian rule as far back as 1962 or thereabouts,
when I completed my high school at Guahati. I left Assam in 1963 to
attend IIT-KGP and left India in 1970. For two decades thereafter I
had slowly become increasingly distanced from events and issues in
Assam, primarily due to the difficulty of communication and the
rigors of making a living and helping raise a family, like most
others in my shoes; almost to the point that Assam was beginning to
become a distant memory.
Then came Assam net. Instantly I became re-connected to my roots .
That was 1992 I think. And forgive the levity, the rest is history
:-).
I heard about ULFA, even before Assamnet. I remember the almost
euphoric exuberance amongst our fellow Probaxi Oxomiyas, including
those who today are some of its most strident and vocal opponents and
how they applauded ULFA's activities in the pursuit of Assam's
political self-assertion and even on such acts as summary justice
meted out to corrupt officials and so forth. At no time before or
since had I seen such Assamese nationalist aspirations vented. At
times it was almost scary, because otherwise knowledgeable and
thoughtful people were applauding acts of vengeance and obvious acts
of ethnic/linguistic animosity.It signaled a desperate yearning for
effective and responsive governance and yet displayed a gaping void
in the understanding of the fundamentals of the governance of a
society with a rule of law. What is however incongruous is that
waving of the flag of democracy that my compatriots so love to do,
no doubt from that desire to be associated with and noticed by that
other great exponent of democracy, our very own United States.
This discourse is NOT about ULFA. It is about the WHYs of
independence. But ULFA being the most or only vocal of its
proponents, the issue immediately gets lumped with ULFA. It will do
the our netters good, if they can de-link the two issues. It will
help them look at it objectively, as opposed to as knee-jerk
reactions triggered by ULFA antipathy.
Next: My Take on Why Independence-!
cm
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