Dear Baruah:
I am appalled by Assam Govt's. autocratic move to stifle academic inquiry in this manner.
Nellie is a blot, a horrible stigma to Assam's psyche and its honor. That someone like Dr. Kimura took the trouble to understand what really happened, should have been applauded and what she found should have been given unfettered access for the people of Assam, not merely the intellectual community, to discuss and debate. For that is the only way to reconcile the conflict and bury its ghost, so that nothing like that would ever again happen.
But instead "Big Brother" clamped down at the 59th minute of the 11th hour.It would be very interesting to find out the origins of the order to shut Dr. Kimura up in this fashion. I smell a rat.
It is yet another example of the rotten state of governance.
Best,
m
At 6:31 PM -0500 11/10/04, Sanjib Baruah wrote:
http://www.sentinelassam.com/Sentinel, Guwahati, November 11, 2004
Govt cancels Japanese scholar's lecture on Nellie By a Staff Reporter GUWAHATI, Nov 10: The State Government has asked the Centre for North-East India South-East Asia Studies (CENISEAS) not to go ahead with its lecture on the Nellie massacre, which was scheduled to be delivered at Dispur today by a Japanese scholar. The Government has not shown any reason behind its move to stop the lecture barely half an hour before its scheduled beginning. The lecture was scheduled to be delivered by Ms Makiko Kimura, a post-doctoral fellow, Japan Society for Promotion of Science. According to the senior fellow and head of CENISEAS, Prof. Sanjib Baruah, Assam Home Commissioner BM Mazumdar sent a faxed message to the CENISEAS, barely half an hour before the start of the lecture, requesting it not to hold any lectures of this sorts without prior discussion with the State Government. The fax message, according to Prof. Baruah, cited no reason for its move to cancel the lecture. Talking to The Sentinel, Prof. Baruah said that the State Government could have prevented them from holding the lecture as soon as the reports of the lecture had come out in the local media. "We have brought a foreign scholar for the lecture, and its cancellation at the eleventh hour does not send a good message to the outside world," Prof. Baruah said, and added, "Such lectures are generally attended by very few people, that too, only intellectuals, and such, I don't think the lecture will disturb the communal harmony in the State."
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