New Delhi: Three days before the 1983 Nellie massacre, one of the darkest chapters in Assam’s history, the officer in charge of the Nagaon police station, Jahir Uddin Ahmed, sent a wireless message warning that Muslims were “in panic and apprehending attack at any moment”.
“INFORMATION RECEIVED THAT LAST NIGHT ABOVE ONE THOUSAND ASSAMESE PEOPLE OF SURROUNDING VILLAGES OF NELLIE WITH DEADLY WEAPONS ASSEMBLED AT NELLIE BY BEATING OF DRUMS (.) MINORITY PEOPLE ARE IN PANIC AND APPREHENDING ATTACK ANY MOMENT (.) SUBMISSION FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION TO MAINTAIN PEACE (.),” read the message.
The intended recipients were officer in charge of neighbouring Jagiroad police station, commandant of the 5th Assam Police Battalion, and the sub-divisional police officer of Morigaon.
However, the deputy commissioner of Nagaon under whose jurisdiction Nellie falls, and the superintendent of police, remained unaware of the message, as it was never relayed to them.
To make matters worse, the officers marked in the wireless message later claimed they did not receive it before the violence erupted. M.N.A. Kabir, the commandant, learned afterwards that it had been delivered to his wife. For Promode Chetia, the SDPO, it remained unread on his table. At the Jagiroad police station, it languished in the “put up basket” of officer in charge Bhadra Kanta Chetia.
These are among the key lapses identified by the Commission of Enquiry on Assam Disturbances 1983, headed by retired IAS officer T.P. Tewary, in its report tabled in the Assam Assembly Tuesday, 42 years after the carnage led by Lalung tribals that claimed the lives of at least 2,072 Bengali-speaking Muslims.
The report, submitted to the Assam government in 1984 but never made public until the Himanta Biswa Sarma administration chose to release it, does not indicate that the massacre, which took place against the backdrop of the anti-immigrant agitation led by the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGP), was the result of any larger conspiracy.
It also stated that treating the incident as communal would be a “superficial view”, suggesting, instead, that the clashes were primarily economic in nature, resulting from anxieties and disputes over land.
“It is entirely unwarranted to give a communal colour to the incident’s under enquiry. All sections of the society suffered as a result of the senseless violence. The victims were not confined to one religious, ethnic, or linguistic group. In some places the attackers were Assamese and the victims were Bengali-speaking people, both Hindus and Muslims.
“In certain other places Muslims were the attackers and the Assamese were the victims. In several areas the clashes took place between the various sections of the Assamese themselves. In a few places Muslims joined hands with the others in attacking their co-religionists,” concluded the report submitted to the Assam government in 1984.
“If there is a Nellie there is also a Chamaria or a Mabbari or the incidents in the area of the Kampur police station,” the commission flagged, highlighting instances where Hindus were the affected party.
Meanwhile, the government also tabled another “unofficial” report on the violence, prepared in 1985 by the Justice (retd) T.U. Mehta Commission formed by Asom Rajyik Freedom Fighters’ Association (Asom Rajyik Mukti Jujaru Sanmilan) (ARFFA).
The three-member commission took a contrasting view on the elections, saying the then central government, Election Commission, and politicians wanted to capture power by hook or crook, by holding polls.
“Those who favoured elections did so in the name of democracy but started by destroying all that democracy stands for, and ended by destroying all that civilization stands for. ‘Constitutional Compulsion’—a mere ruse-real motive to capture power as done in past by Chengizkhan and Taimurs without their frankness,” it added.
The Mehta commission underlined that the “situation was not at all congenial for holding a truly free and fair election, and that the governments, state as well as central, knew it and the Election Commission ought to have known it”.
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‘Effective preventive action’
Tewary underlined in the report that some “effective preventive action” could have been taken at Nellie ahead of 18 February, 1983, when the massacre took place, had the wireless dak message reached the authorities on time.
“Had these three officers been careful about their dak, they would have come to know of it on 15th February itself and if their knowledge would have been converted into obvious actions, there would, perhaps, have been some effective preventive action at Nellie,” according to the report.
It also points out that there was another foreboding of the massacre. The deputy superintendent of police, P.C. Bordoloi, had received a submission from the Hindus of the area that “Muslims were about to attack the Hindu population, but when the Hindus got alerted, the Muslims retreated”.
“This application was brought to the notice of Shri K.P.S. Gill, IPS (former I.G.P. Law and Order) on 15th February, 1983 who in turn, advised the O.C (officer in-charge) Jagiroad police station to undertake patrolling and to form peace committees,” it states.
It then goes on to fault the Jagiroad OC on another count. During his visit to the area, a day before the violence, the officer was requested by the villagers to beef up security presence by posting some armed forces.
However, the officer rejected the request, citing inadequate availability of police force, says the report.
But that was not the case. “According to his deposition the O.C. Jagiroad P.S. (Bhadra Kanta Chetia) had with him one platoon of CRPF and two sections of the 4th Assam Police Battalion on that day. In fact in his statement (to the commission), he had also mentioned that one company of 10 CRPF had arrived from Nagaon on the night of 17th February, 1983 for posting as 3 fixed pickets at Tongabari, Jhargram and Foha. Thus on the morning of 18th February, 1983 he had the above force,” noted the report.
The commission also pulled up Chetia for his statement that he could not identify a suitable path to the affected villages, and when he did, he got busy saving some people from drowning in a river that fell on the route.
“On that day, within a short period of three hours he is supposed to have rescued two hundred drowning persons, indeed a miraculous task. But in the process, he forgot his primary responsibility towards the villages where great tragedy was being enacted. The Commission does not consider his evidence at all reliable,” said the report.
While holding the AASU and AAGSP for being “primarily responsible for lạunching the agitation (against immigrants) and for its consequences,” the commission said that the decision to hold assembly elections in 1983 despite the opposition mounted by these groups could not be blamed for the outbreak of the violence.
“The evidence produced before the commission clearly brings out that the issues of foreigners, language etc. have been agitating the minds of the people for the last several decades, exploding into violence on several previous occasions,” said the one-man commission.
It observed that the fear of the Assamese of being overwhelmed by numbers is not imaginary as Census figures and reports “prove the point”.
“The danger to Assamese identity was seen long ago not by any previous incarnation of AASU or AAGSP but by the British administrators and Census Commissioners who did not suffer either from pride or prejudice nor had any personal or group interest in the matter,” said the commission in the concluding part of the 548-page report.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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