The Centre and the Government of Assam signed a historic Memorandum of Settlement (MoS) with the pro-talks faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) in New Delhi on December 29, 2023. Indeed, a momentous development, the tripartite Peace Agreement marks the end of a decades-long insurgency in Assam. Reportedly, 16 representatives of the pro-talks ULFA faction, comprising of leaders such as Arabinda Rajkhowa, Anup Chetia, and Sasadhar Choudhury among others, were present during the MoS signing ceremony at the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. In this regard, a Committee would be formed by the Ministry to monitor the progress of implementation of the Peace Pact. 

Insurgency in Assam began soon after the formation of the ULFA as a protest against illegal immigration from Bangladesh. The fall of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) from power was marked by the simultaneous rise of the ULFA that appealed to the raw Assamese emotions with respect to the issue of infiltration. However, it soon transformed itself into an armed militant movement that sought the separation of Assam from the Indian Union. In one of the most gruesome massacres carried out by the ULFA in 2004 in the Dhemaji district of Upper Assam, a huge bomb explosion during the Independence Day celebrations resulted in the death of 18 people, mostly school-going children from the Ahom and Mising communities.

There was a concerted attempt to give a Leftist orientation to the Assamese nationalist sentiments that were emotionally intertwined with the complex issue of immigration. In July 1992, in a publication addressed to ‘East Bengal migrants’, the ULFA identified not only the Indian state but ‘Indians’ as the real enemy. It was this hate campaign against ‘Indians’ (implying Hindi speakers from the Northern Indian states) that eventually resulted in a number of targeted killings of poor migrants from UP and Bihar in Assam. ULFA’s brand of militant nationalism can best be summed up in the words of its former Chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa – “Asom and Asomiya identity is not a part of India and Indian identity.”

In the meantime, the Peace Pact with the pro-talk faction of the ULFA has been welcomed by the Bodos of Assam. However, the President of the All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU) Dipen Boro had opined that the last Bodo Peace Accord of 2020 has not yet been implemented in letter and spirit by the State and the Central Governments for the all-round progress and development of the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR). At the same time, he had cautioned that the existing rights of the sons of the soil should remain unaffected in any case and that every clause of the Bodo Peace Accord, 2020 should be implemented at the earliest; otherwise, the ABSU will launch a democratic movement.

It may be recalled here that in Assam, the movement for a separate and ‘sovereign’ state of Bodoland began in the 1980s in the areas on the north bank of the Brahmaputra. This movement was led by the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), an armed Christian separatist outfit formed in 1994 under the leadership of Ranjan Daimary to establish an ‘independent’, ‘sovereign’, and ‘socialist’ Republic of Bodoland. Born in the year 1960 in the Udalguri district of Assam, Daimary graduated from St. Anthony’s College, Shillong, with honours in Political Science. He received his Master’s degree from the North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU), Shillong in 1985.

Immediately after his return from Shillong upon completing his MA degree, Daimary turned into a rebel-cum-separatist leader. As written by Hiranya Kumar Bhattacharyya in his book Operation Lebensraum: Illegal Migration from Bangladesh, a sinister plan behind the formation of an insurgent outfit and the beginning of a Bodo secessionist movement in Assam was formulated during Daimary’s long stay in Meghalaya, a predominantly Christian state. On October 3, 1986, he founded the Bodo Security Force (BSF), later renamed as the NDFB. The formation of the NDFB marked the beginning of the insurgency in the Bodo-dominated areas of Assam.

The territorial rights of other tribal communities in these areas have been adversely impacted as a result of this wave of separatism among a section of the Bodos. Since the time of its inception, the NDFB had categorically opposed the settlement of any non-Bodo families and communities in the Bodo-inhabited areas through a series of well-planned attacks on vulnerable areas and their residents. It was responsible for organising large-scale attacks against Hindu Santhals, Mundas, and Oraons settled in different areas of the north bank of the Brahmaputra, during the 1996 Assam Legislative Assembly elections. The devastation was massive.

This subsequently led to the formation of the Adivasi Cobra Force (ACF) in Kokrajhar district during the second half of the 1990s, with the purported objective of protecting the Adivasi population of Lower Assam through an armed rebellion. A rival militant group of the NDFB, the ACF was formed under the leadership of Durga Minz, and a few other senior leaders such as Xabrias Khakha and Kandu Murmu. The ACF subsequently expanded its activities to places such as Bongaigaon and Dhubri in Lower Assam, indulging in sporadic acts of violence, killings and extortion in several areas of the region bordering Bhutan and North Bengal.

Prior to the signing of the Peace Pact with the ULFA, a Peace Agreement was signed on December 1, 2023 by the Centre and the Government of Manipur with the United National Liberation Front (UNLF), the oldest militant outfit of the state. Celebrating this historic milestone, the State Government of Manipur hosted a reception programme for the members and cadres of the UNLF at Imphal’s Kangla Fort complex. Hundreds of cadres of the militant group, including its acting Chairman Moirangthem Nongyai and General Secretary Chabungbam Thanil, and their family members attended the programme. The Peace Pact with the UNLF is certainly one of the biggest achievements for conflict-torn Manipur.

Formed on November 24, 1964, with Kalalung Kamei as the President, Thankhopao Singsit as the Vice-President, and Arambam Samarendra Singh as the General Secretary, the UNLF was ideologically opposed to Manipur’s merger with the Indian Union in 1949 and thus aimed at restoring the State’s ‘Independence’ and ‘Sovereignty’. By the end of the 1960s, the UNLF had established itself as a well-knit underground organisation, with a fairly wide network of supporters in the Imphal Valley. In fact, the Meitei insurgents were the ones to have introduced urban guerrilla warfare techniques and engaged Indian troops in built-up areas in the Imphal Valley.

It is in the backdrop of these developments that an attempt has been made in this article to analyse in detail the multi-faceted nature of the insurgencies of the North-East, and their inter-linkages with the cross-border arms and drugs syndicates, having transnational ramifications for human safety and security. Insurgency in North-East India has covered the entire spectrum of conflict beginning from the subversion of constitutionally elected governments to full-scale guerrilla warfare, carried out overtly or covertly with the support of the local population of the region. It has been a protracted struggle conducted methodically over the years, step-by-step, to attain specific intermediate objectives.

In states like Assam, Nagaland, and Manipur in particular, insurgency has posed a formidable challenge to the established Government of the day, calling for effective counter-insurgency measures to defeat the insurgents by bringing about a complete transformation of the existing socio-economic and socio-political order, to maintain the unity and territorial integrity of Bharat. Insurgency and secessionism have worked in tandem by first psychologically distancing and then separating people away from their own kinsmen and eventually the entire country. As a result, the North-East’s indispensable and inseparable connection with the philosophical and spiritual heritage of Bharat and as well as Bharatiya itihasas was broken off.

There are several reasons behind the misrepresentation and misinterpretation of the North-East as a region and its people in the media and as well as academia. The continuous neglect of this region in terms of development by the successive Governments at the Centre after Independence was notably one of the major causes. This led to some serious and grave consequences not only for the North-East but also for India’s national security. The uprise of popular discontent amongst the people of this region had eventually led to the emergence of several armed insurgencies across different states, instigated by many non-state actors.

The insurgency in Mizoram that began towards the late 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s amidst the devastating Mautam famine, is a good example of this phenomenon. The entire range of the Mizo hills is covered with thick bamboo vegetation of two different varieties. One of them flowers and sprouts its seeds in a cycle of every 50 years while the other every 30 years. The flowering and seeding of bamboo shoots trigger off a phenomenal increase in the population of rats, leading to a large-scale destruction of the entire standing crop. This causes a severe scarcity of foodgrains, causing mass starvation, hunger and deaths.

Although these famines are common in many East and Southeast Asian countries like Myanmar and Japan, they have been observed in many regions of Southern Africa too. In India, the Indo-Myanmarese frontier tract of Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh has often been devastated by this famine. But, nowhere has the outbreak reached the proportion as it has in Mizoram. In the late 1950s, Mizoram was another district of the then Government of Assam, headed by Chief Minister Bimala Prasad Chaliha. The food shortages that initially began with the flowering of bamboo in the Southern Mizo hills, were ridiculed by the then Congress Government as “exaggerated” and “local superstition of the tribals”.

Such an attitude not only betrayed the Government’s complete lack of understanding of the tribal society, but also reflected the basic lack of empathy towards the traditional knowledge systems of the hill people. The flowering of bamboo was soon followed by an abnormal increase in the number of rats, subsequently leading to the destruction of all food crops and forest wealth of Mizoram. The Church played an important role in providing all forms of support to the gullible hill people in their hour of crisis. In fact, immediately after the famine started, the British confiscated the rice supplies, to be returned by the Church at a later stage.

The tribals were dying from hunger every day, with village chieftains being forced to beg the Church for food. The Mizo National Famine Front (MNFF) was subsequently formed under Laldenga, who is still adored in Mizoram as one of the state’s mightiest heroes. In 1966, the Mizo National Front (MNF) began as an underground movement for the setting up of an independent Mizo nation. It was because of the complete laxity on the part of the newly independent Indian Government during the Mautam of 1958 that played a key role in alienating the Mizos first from the Government of India, and eventually from the Indian state.

Thanks to Nehru’s near-complete abdication of his responsibility towards the North-East, the Church became the primary beneficiary of this mess. Mizoram was completely Christianized within three decades. This was accompanied by massive urbanization of Mizoram, leading to the extinction of several traditional institutions of the Mizos. Although there were several attempts from different sections of the Mizo society to stop this process of Christianization, they could not attain much success. The largest Church in Mizoram by religious denomination, i.e. the Mizoram Presbyterian Mission Veng Church in Aizawl was built atop the place where the most sacred pagan shrine was located earlier.

During the period of the MNF-led insurgency in Mizoram when a direct conflict was going on between the newly-converted Christian Mizos on the one hand and the Buddhist Chakmas and the Hindu Reangs on the other, Tripura witnessed violent clashes between the tribal and the non-tribal population of the state. This was led by the now-banned National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) which sought to establish an independent Tripuri state by seceding from the Union of India. The Baptist Church of Tripura was not just the ideological mentor of radical Christian separatist groups such as the NLFT, but it also played an important role in the supply of arms and ammunition for the soldiers of the “Holy Crusade”.

The religious institutions of the Hindu Jamatiyas of Tripura who had been resisting Christian conversions for long, became the foremost target of the terrorists of the NLFT. The organization was also held responsible for targeted killings of a large number of Hindus (especially Bengali Hindus who migrated from Bangladesh on the grounds of religious persecution) during the long period of rule of the Left Front in Tripura. Many such incidents were, however, never reported in the media. In April 2000, the Secretary of the Noapara Baptist Church in Tripura, Nagmanlal Halam, was arrested with a large cache of explosives that he had purchased with “love offerings” and “gifts to further the message of Jesus Christ”.

Halam later confessed that he had purchased the arms illegally and that he had been supplying explosives to the NLFT for the past two years to establish the ‘Kingdom of Jesus’ on the earth. A few months later after this incident in the same year, a Hindu spiritual leader named Shanti Tripura was executed in cold blood by ten radical Christians of the NLFT. They justified the assassination by claiming that they felt “marginalised” to live amongst the existing majority, indirectly referring to those Hindus who refused to convert. Once a key player in the insurgency of the Northeast, expansion of the ‘Kingdom of God and Jesus Christ’ in Tripura was one of the aims spelled out in the manifesto of the NLFT.

In Mizoram, on the other hand, a distinctly Christian Mizo identity was manufactured by the Church from scratch by borrowing patches of culture from different tribes, e.g. dance from the Paites, language from the Lushais, costume from the Raltes, etc. In other words, the Church played a vital role in the ethnogenesis of the Mizo identity. The Mizo insurgency lasted from 1966-1986, the initial period successfully fomented a wave of terror throughout the Lushai hills and its neighbouring areas wherein the insurgents captured several key towns including Aizawl and a radio station. The end of Pakistani support after 1971 led to a weakening of the insurgency.

(To be Contd…)

Image source: Indian Military Review