Killing of Biharis in Assam much much more

Since the killing of nearly 70 odd hindi-speaking labourers in Assam early January' 07,the world media and public have put Assam in attention once again. In fact this is nothing new for assam.

Assam was the first state in India where communal attacks on a linguistic community took place back in 1951 when the local Assemese people started killing the Bengali speaking people. But being a great nation our people glossed over it and they forgot.

But the then chief minister of West Bengal, Dr. Bidhan Roy told Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru over phone that all non bengalees may be moved out of west bengal withinn 24 hours, all Bengalee from Assam be brought to west bengal and all tea and oil from assm should not be transported over West Bengal henceforth.

Being heavily rebuked, Nehru contacted assam Chief minister and told him about the threat, who then somehow brought situation under control, and further killing of bengalees was stopped for the time being.

But the riots came back again in 1961 and in 1967 and again in 1971. The killing of Bengali people living in remote places continued. Very soon the Tension spread to Shillong and local (Khasi peaking ) people also joined the killer forces and hacked to death many Bengali people.

This is all because the people of assam have been taught to see every thing though the looking glass of community. There is no human being there, each one is either 'A bongali' or 'A bihari' or 'A Madrasi' etc, but not a human being.

In Assam, although it has been stated again and again that bangladeshi muslims people may overtake the local populace in number, still the manifestation of this anxiety is different. When it comes to killing the bengalees, the target has always been (except on a few occasion) the bengalee hindus, that too in a targeted fashion.

Earlier also the bias towards muslims of east bengal was always visible.They were called 'No-Asomiya' or 'New assamese' by the people. Even recently , ULFA has noted that Assam cannot be liberated without the help of Bangladeshis (read bangladeshi muslims). So it is obvious that some people in assam harbour soft corner for the Muslims.


Because those muslim immigrants would marry a local muslim girl and very soon his children would start speaking in assamese at home.And soon they would mix with the local assemese community. The jealusy and violence against the Bengali speaking people continued as they could not compete with the Bengalees in merit or jobs and in anything else.

Then came the dark days of AASU agitation of 1979 to 1985. The students' body AASU wanted all illegal migrants from bangladesh deported or expelled from Assam. They were adament that those people were on the verge of becoming majority in Assam. But once again hindu bengalees were being killed in a targeted manner. Almost every day some people would attack the house of bengali speaking people who lived in villages, remote areas and would kill them.

Even in broad daylight they would kill office going bengalee people (e.g. Bank empoloyee Timir Majumdar while he was going to his office, Dr. Ravi Mitra (geologist), while going to OIL, Duliajan) etc.

But still, AASU maintained that its agititation was peaceful.In the violence that continued for 6 blood filled years, nearly 10,000 bengali speaking people were killed. In most of these incidents the targets were indian hindu bengali people.

The sole exception was one incident at nelli in Naugong district nearly 3,800 people (mostly bangladeshi muslim refugees) were killed. The entire world observes the day as 'nellie day' but our people and our country has forgotten that incident.

Even today AASU condoles the death of 880 activists who died in the hands of police . And still the same AASU forgets to mention the 10,000 odd people who died due their agitation. Even If we accept that there are illlegal immegrants in assam, then the blame squarely goes to the local administration and the Assamese staff. Even if we leave out their percentage from the count we find that the bengali people of Assam are hopelessly under represented in Assam assembly, in jobs and in state scholarships or in sports. In assam cabinet out of 30 ministers, only 1 bengali hindu minister is there., but during AGP goventment there were as many as 3 muslim bengalee ministers in the Prafulla mahanta cabinet.

Conversely we find that the Muslims have formed a political party recently in Assam and in last election they were the third largest in Assembly. Last year I saw the list of students who got the state scholarship. There was not single bengalee name in that list.

I hear that there are bengalee people comprise 37% population of assam. How come there was not a single meritorious student from this community.

Discrimination has always been the watchward in assam. Each applicant for any job , loan or scholarship is treated on the basis of his last name and not his merit. So much so that now a days the bengalee candidates dont even get call letter for many jobs.

In 2003 when some candidates from Bihar received call letters to appear in railways interview, they went to Assam fo interview/ written test. Only to be beaten up by AASU members and other communally minded people(October 2003).

Now the Assemese intellectuals are valiantly trying to call the bengalees 'Benaglee speaking Assemese' as against 'Kela Bongalee' as they used to call earlier.

The reason being that last time they tried to beat up the hindi-speaking people (in Nov 2003), the ULFA base of Bhutan was destroyed by Bhutan Army.

Many sectarian people tried to link that with Indian Army. But they could not prove anything. Many communal person of assam draw his strength from ULFA. They think as long as ULFA is there who can harm me. But that time it did not work, because ULFA itself had to flee and save its hide.

Now the same people are trying to pull Bengalees into their middle to become numerically heavy on others.

But unfortunately for Assam, there has started a heavy exodus of young people from the state. The quality of education has become very low in Assam and students are always agitating.Nearly 50% students of assam are moving out of the state after class X or XII. This will leave the entire state brain dry as the good students will go out of the state and only those agitating will remain there.

Best of luck to all.