Commentary/Dilip D'Souza
For The Release Of Sanjoy Ghose
It was on May 30 that I first got a hint of the trouble. A short email message arrived that day from AVARD-NE. "We have been under threat from
ULFA for the last month or so," it began. One of their local volunteers had
received a death threat. After that, there had been anonymous posters which
accused them of "cultural imperialism", of "promoting corporate interests"
and of being "enemies of Assamese nationalist aspirations." Over the
previous few weeks, more AVARD-NE workers had been threatened by ULFA
(United Liberation Front of Asom)...
AVARD-NE (Association of Voluntary Agencies for Rural Development -- North
East), a kind of collective of NGOs, is based on Majuli island on the river
Brahmaputra in Assam.
Majuli, some say, is the largest river island in the
world. Actually, Isla de Marajo, in the mouth of the Amazon in Brazil, is
the real holder of that title. But if Marajo is bigger than Majuli, Majuli
is certainly home to far more people: about 150,000 of them, on something
like 450 sq km. And they face a unique and grave problem: the island is
being steadily eroded by the Brahmaputra. Just since 1991, half of Majuli
has been washed away.
For well over a year, AVARD-NE has been pursuing different projects on
Majuli, ranging from training health workers to erosion control schemes.
They began by researching how people actually live on the island, in the
hope that that study, rather than answers that might have worked elsewhere,
would provide answers to Majuli's urgent problems. Their monthly magazine,
Dweep-ALok, regularly details various government development programmes,
including the rupee amounts and the people involved.
In 1996, severe flooding threw AVARD-NE into flood relief work. They also organised a
massive erosion prevention project in Pohardia village on the island. The
thousands of people who volunteered then indicated just how popular
AVARD-NE has become among the island's residents.
That popularity upset various people and groups. ULFA, which in the past
has worked on similar programmes, which has claimed it stands for all the
people of the state, which is now seeing many of its members turn to
extortion and violence, is one of those upset. The message I got on May 30
spoke of others: "... there are other people involved [in the threats to
AVARD-NE] as well -- some contractors, politicians and disgruntled
officials. The fury of the reaction has surprised us."
On June 1, AVARD-NE's email went on, they were going to hold a public
meeting and let the people of the island express their feelings about the
organisation. That meeting turned out to be a huge success, a loud
endorsement of AVARD-NE's work by people too long forgotten by everyone
else.
Naturally, this only upset those people and groups some more. On July 4,
ULFA abducted Sanjoy Ghose, the 38-year-old secretary of AVARD-NE...
Sanjoy is one of the first graduates of the Institute of Rural Management
in Anand, Gujarat. He cut his professional teeth with the Uttar Rajasthan
Milk Union Limited Trust in Lunkaransar, near Bikaner. Starting in
1986 with health and education programmes, Sanjoy spent nearly a decade
with URMUL. In those years, URMUL tackled women's issues, water issues --
including a detailed examination of the Indira Gandhi canal that cuts
through the area -- and much else. URMUL showed the poor residents of those
districts of western Rajasthan that they could take steps to solve their
own problems.
In 1995, Sanjoy left URMUL to steer AVARD's work in Assam. Majuli was
specifically selected because, in addition to all the more routine problems
like poverty, health and drinking water, there is the constant spectre of
floods and erosion. Battling all that, in the shadow of a growing militancy
too, was a unique challenge for Sanjoy and his AVARD-NE team.
But the success they made of it meant that the people of Majuli were
beginning to ask some truly uncomfortable questions. Of a government that
has failed its people just as other governments have across the country,
yes; also of those who have promised deliverance from those failures but
are today little more than peddlers of a dark gun culture. AVARD-NE had
become a threat to ULFA's already-weakening hold on the people in Majuli.
ULFA must have decided that abducting Sanjoy was a good way to counter that
threat. That's just what they did. He was "arrested", they said, because he
was a "government informer" and a "RAW agent."
There was no news of Sanjoy Ghose for two weeks. A local politician called
Dulal Baruah then announced he had been in touch with ULFA, who had
promised to release Sanjoy in a "few days." After that, somebody issued a
release in the name of ULFA on July 23. Trying to escape the "army dragnet" four days after the abduction, the release said, Sanjoy's captors bundled him into a boat and were crossing the swollen Brahmaputra. The boat
capsized, drowning him and some of his captors as well.
As you can imagine,
this news devastated the AVARD-NE team and Sanjoy's family. But the next
day, ULFA issued another release denying the first, pointing out that their
statements are always in Assamese while the July 23 one was in English. In
any case, said this new release, Sanjoy was safe, in good health and would
be released "after negotiations." What these negotiations are, nobody
knows. There have been no demands for ransom, no conditions spelled out for
his release.
That's where this roller-coaster episode stands today. Despite appeals from
his family, ULFA has not offered definite proof that Sanjoy is safe: no
phone calls, no photographs. There seems little option but to wait and hope
that he will return.
And while we do that, we might reflect on the complex tangle of issues that
form the backdrop to his abduction.
First of all, it is a continuing tragedy that we have let Assam in
particular and the North-East in general drift so far from our national
horizons. So alienated are the people from the rest of the country, so
utterly have we failed to address their long-time aspirations, that nearly
every ethnic group in the area is now demanding some kind of
self-determination. Some just want greater autonomy, others are asking for
a separate state within the Union, and still others want complete
independence.
Now that that is happening, we are far too willing to accept the government
line that these demands are just another law and order problem. We don't
mind if the government enacts various special laws that the military then
uses to bash people on their heads. Off and on since 1958, Assam has been
living under something called the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. It
gives the military sweeping repressive powers, along with almost complete
immunity from punishment for misuse of those powers. This forty-year
travesty of freedom and justice is OK, we think. After all, there's a
"threat to national security", isn't there?
Second, the very groups that claim to speak for the people are themselves
sinking into crime, losing both their voice and their legitimacy. Consider
just this line I read recently: "The spread [of ULFA's influence] had its
own fallout: lumpenisation of its ranks ... carrying out extortions and
other activities in the name of the organisation."
No, these are not words from some State-sponsored report. They are in
"Where 'Peacekeepers' Have Declared War", a report by the National Campaign
Committee Against Militarisation and Repeal of Armed Powers (Special
Powers) Act. Its subtitle tells us that this is a "report on violations of
democratic rights by security forces ... in the North-East": that is, one
whose thrust is critical of the State.
Caught in between a deaf, heavy-handed State and so-called "peoples'
movements" gone sour are the people in places like Majuli, facing
immediate, critical problems.
But nobody has listened. Especially not you and I.
Sanjoy Ghose is a friend. Over the last few weeks, I have agonised over
what I can do to help get him released. I feel utterly impotent: this
column is all I can manage. I hope, all the time, that ULFA will see reason
and humanity soon and return Sanjoy to his family.
I also hope, in this year saddled with too much significance already, more
of us see reason and humanity too.
Please send appeals for Sanjoy Ghose's release to newspapers in India and to AVARD-NE, P. O. Box 91, Jorhat 785001, Assam, India. Telephone/fax: 91-376-325528. email: sanjoy@avard.unv.ernet.in
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