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Dilip D'Souza

Not A Pretty Reflection

The irony is, Sanjoy Ghose understood his abductors better than most people. Or, I should say, he understood the way they used to be. In a lot of ways, they started out with much the same ideas, agenda, as Sanjoy and his workers did.

Somewhere, that changed. '[L]ying, extortion and murder has become a way of life with ULFA (United Liberation Front of Asom),' says a leaflet about Sanjoy that's being circulated. By July, Sanjoy had become a threat to ULFA precisely because he was raising the issues they used to. Because the ideals they have forgotten were once more in view in Assam. Because his work showed people just how far ULFA had strayed from theirs.

It shouldn't have been a surprise that ULFA abducted Sanjoy.

It shouldn't have been, but it was. More than that, it was a nightmare for all who knew Sanjoy and his work: a nightmare that doesn't end. On December 7, Sanjoy's 38th birthday, his family and friends met in a few cities to remember him, to press for an accounting for his disappearance. Five months after he was abducted, there is no clear proof of what happened to him. ULFA has not produced his body; the Assam government maintains a studied silence about whatever investigations, if any, they have carried out. The real nightmare is this: that an ordinary Indian can be whisked away as Sanjoy was, with no trace, no redress, no official effort to bring him back.

That's why what happened to Sanjoy raises a number of questions which demand answers.

First, what exactly did happen to Sanjoy? Consider what we know. He was abducted from Majuli island on July 4. On July 15, Assam Chief Minister Prafulla Mahanta announced that he had "full knowledge" about the whereabouts of Sanjoy, that he was safe and that the Assam government was working for his release. On July 19, a respected Janata Dal ex-MLA, Dulal Baruah, reported that he had met ULFA representatives in Calcutta. They had told him that Sanjoy was safe and would be released in "a few days."

Three days later, ULFA sent a fax to Assam newspapers saying a boat Sanjoy was in had capsized in the Brahmaputra and he had drowned. The next day, July 23, ULFA issued a statement denying that one; they said Sanjoy was well and would be released "after negotiations." Nothing more was heard till August 4, when the army intercepted an ULFA radio message saying that Sanjoy had fallen off a cliff and died while trying to escape. ULFA confirmed this on August 8, finding a convoluted way to blame the army for the death.

As if the tale was not twisted enough already, there were now two more wrinkles. Chief Minister Mahanta said that as far back as July 8, his government had received "bad news" about Sanjoy. And on August 10, an arrested ULFA member called Amrit Dutta told the police in his confession that ULFA had killed Sanjoy on the day he was abducted, July 4.

After that, nothing.

Just what do we make of all this? Where's the truth in ULFA's statements, promises, and retractions? It is hard to believe, though I dearly want to, that Sanjoy is still alive after these months of silence. But given ULFA's earlier lies, why should we believe their claim that he is dead? And if he is dead, where is his body? If he is dead, why did ULFA kill him?

Besides, what kind of misbegotten game is Mahanta playing? This man, we should not forget, has roots in the same soil ULFA does: both his party (Asom Gana Parishad, AGP) and ULFA grew out of the old All Assam Students Union. That he managed to contradict himself so irresponsibly is bad enough. That he has shown no inclination to find and punish those behind this crime is worse. There can be little doubt that Mahanta and his government retain connections with ULFA. What are these connections? Was Sanjoy a target because he had stumbled upon them in Majuli? Was Sanjoy a threat not just to ULFA but to powerful government politicians too? Do these things explain Mahanta's behaviour?

There are larger questions that are just as confusedly troubling. Why has Assam seen the rise of the AASU, the Bodo movement, AGP, ULFA? What is the discontent there that they tap, that we outside Assam know so little about?

Two issues, more than others, have brewed discontent in Assam. One is the feeling that oil and tea, both vastly lucrative, benefit Assamese not at all. Both these industries are seen as draining the state's resources to enrich people outside the state. There is also popular resentment over "infiltration", or the entry of "foreign nationals" into Assam. AASU fed on these resentments to gain support.

"When [ULFA] started," Sanjoy wrote in an article recently published in The Times of India, "it was a `peoples' movement` seeking to [work] within the confines of the Constitution and existing State mechanisms." That didn't get ULFA very far. As Sanjoy continued: "Instead of ... dealing with the problem seriously, the State dismissed them just as they do many voluntary organisations and peoples's movements today. After all, a small ragtag bunch of students with leftist advisors could hardly take on the State."

With time, some things changed. Sanjoy observed: "Over the years, all the so-called insurgent groups in the North-East [focused on] exploitation by the state with all its collaborators -- traders, businessmen, contractors, those who ... continue to legitimise the actions of the state. The issue of infiltration is now being dismissed as a middle class preoccupation which could divide the struggle against injustice."

That is, these groups were fighting for justice and prosperity for the people of Assam, the things they saw being denied to them by the State. Doing so, they began hearing some refrains which should by now be familiar. They were accused, as Sanjoy says, of being "influenced by Western notions of individual freedoms and human rights." They were easily branded as "anti-national." That label justified the blot on democracy that is the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, the hammer under which the North-East has lived for nearly 40 years. ULFA, in particular, was no more than a terrorist outfit: that was the only view of them that was available for public consumption, especially outside Assam.

Sanjoy wrote: "Faced with increasing poverty and rises in the price of essential commodities, the gradual withdrawal of the state from provision of basic services, and the absence of any investment in development programmes as against the influence and opulence of the metro cities, we are bound to question the policies of the state; and if that is taken to be anti-national, so be it."

Sanjoy knew his work would be called anti-national, the same adjective ULFA was stamped with. To that extent, he must have felt a kind of kinship with ULFA as it once was. To that extent, we must question the very use of the term. Who is anti-national? Why? How is it that whole sets of legitimate concerns can be dismissed as anti-national so routinely?

With time, some more things changed, now getting murkier. The agitation against immigrants turned on minorities: linguistic, religious, tribal. The AGP formed the state government and quickly seemed like any other government in the country: as corrupt, arbitrary and out of touch with the people. ULFA turned to extortion -- the recent Tata Tea episode must be only a hint of what's really going on -- intimidation and worse crime. Both have little time for their origins as movements of the people.

This was the steaming cauldron -- and I have only a decidedly imperfect understanding of it -- that Sanjoy and his team entered in Majuli. It was inevitable that they would step on some large toes.

Some of them belonged to ULFA. His work annoyed them intensely: most of all because it was a mirror to a past long forgotten.

Yes, Sanjoy knew his abductors well. He knew where they had started, how far they had travelled, what they had become. That's the tragedy. For in the end, he had to go because he had held up that mirror. And what ULFA saw in it was ugly indeed.

Visit Friends of Sanjoy Ghose for suggestions on what you can do to keep the issue of Sanjoy's disappearance alive, to press for a full accounting for what happened to him.

EARLIER COLUMN/INTERVIEW/ REPORTS:
• Day of The Guerrillas
• Sanjoy Ghose kidnappers killed in Assam
• Indrajit Gupta condoles Sanjoy Ghose's death
• Death In A Time Of Freedom
• Warrant issued against ULFA chief over death of activist Ghose
• Probe sought into death of Sanjoy Ghose

• Sanjoy Ghose dead, confirms ULFA
• 'If they don't meet and talk, in about 15 years the North-East will be in darkness'
• AVARD wraps up operation in Assam
• Hostage drowned in Brahmaputra: ULFA

Dilip D'Souza