Guwahati, Nov 25 (PTI) More than four decades after bloodshed, the Assam government on Tuesday circulated reports of two commissions in the assembly on violence in 1983, including the Nellie massacre which claimed over 2,000 lives, throwing spotlight on one of the state’s bloodiest periods just a few months ahead of elections.
Both the reports — of Tewary Commission, which was officially constituted by the then chief minister Hiteswar Saikia of the Congress, and the non-official Mehta Commission — had contradicting views on the Nellie massacre and other incidents of violence which took place as assembly polls were held during President’s Rule in 1983 amid a boycott called by the protagonists of the Assam agitation against illegal foreigners.
The Tewary Commission report was circulated in the assembly on the first day of the Winter Session, as sufficient copies were not available when it was originally tabled by the AGP-led government in 1987, and was therefore not handed to legislators at the time.
The Tewary Commission, headed by retired IAS officer Tribhuvan Prasad Tewary, stated that the violence had no “communal colour” though the fear of the Assamese people of “being overwhelmed” numerically by migrants was “not imaginary”.
The Commission held the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) and Asom Gana Sangram Parishad (AGSP) “primarily responsible for launching the stir and for its consequences”, saying incidents of destruction and bandhs were organised on a “pre-planned and extensive scale” and eventually spiralled out of control.
On the other hand, the Mehta Commission put the blame on incumbent central government, Election Commission, “politicians who wanted to capture power by hook or crook”, the then Assam governor and his advisor bureaucrats at the state’s secretariat.
The report mentioned some of the findings as — foreigners problem, ignoring the promise to revise electoral rolls and failure of talks followed by “terror and draconian measures providing grave and sudden provocation” to people.
The Justice (Retd) TU Mehta Commission was formed by Asom Rajyik Mukti Jujaru Sanmilan (Assam Freedom Fighters’ Association) after large-scale violence during and close to the state assembly elections in February 1983, in the midst of Assam Agitation.
The Assam agitation was spearheaded by AASU and the AGSP and the boycott of elections received popular support and even led to the resignation of over 150 senior government and public sector officials in the state.
In the run-up to the 1983 polls, over 150 supporters of the agitation died in incidents of police firing and many others were killed in ethnic and communal clashes at various places including Nellie, Gohpur, Khoirabari, Sipajhar, Jamugurihat, Silapathar, among others.
On the cold morning of February 18, 1983 in the small town of Nellie in Central Assam’s Morigaon district, over 2,000 people, most of them immigrant Bengali-speaking Muslims, were killed allegedly by Tiwa (Lalung) tribals while almost three lakh people lived in relief camps for months.
The Tewary Commission’s report stated that the decision to hold the elections cannot be blamed for the violence as it maintained that parliamentary process should not be obstructed nor any government must submit to threats or actual violence.
On the other hand, the Mehta Commission said the excuse of constitutional compulsions were a mere eyewash, and highlighted “failure of EC to play a constructive role, power captured with repression, provocative speeches of politicians which flared up group violence, and negligence of law and order”.
The placing of the report of the non-official Mehta Judicial Inquiry Commission on the “election violence of 1983” was unusual as a private probe report was circulated in the assembly by the government.
AASU and the AGSP, which had jointly spearheaded the six-year Assam Agitation that began in 1979, did not testify before the Tewary Commission, following which the ‘Assam Freedom Fighters’ Association’ took the initiative to constitute a non-governmental commission, headed by T U Mehta, in January 1984 to probe the incidents.
The Tewary Commission’s report was submitted to the Congress government but it was not tabled in the assembly and no reasons were given for this.
In 1987, the then chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta had placed the report in the assembly and had promised that he would provide printed copies in the days to come but subsequently insurgency gripped the state and President’s Rule was again imposed in the state. The copies were not given to the MLAs and MPs and even the assembly library does not have a copy.
Mahanta had led the agitation as the AASU president and then went on to form the political party Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), storming to power as the then youngest chief minister after the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985.
The subsequent Congress, the AGP in its second term and the first BJP government in the state did not circulate the report, perhaps fearing that it would antagonise the indigenous people.
The Assam cabinet had recently decided to place the Tewary Commission report in the state assembly following which the AASU requested that the Mehta Commission be also placed in the House.
The opposition parties have, however, questioned the government’s move to table the two reports ahead of assembly elections, due in March-April next year, and said digging up old graves may jeopardise the camaraderie between different communities. PTI DG SSG TR ACD
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