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The Rediff Special/ Subir Ghosh

ISI in Assam: Not a wolf cry anymore

The frantic air-dashes by Union home ministry officials to Assam is telling. The possibility of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence fishing in the troubled demographic waters of the state is not a mere bogey any more. What was an impending threat only a few years back is now a reality. What was a pernicious pathogen till yesterday, has today infected the host and spread to such an extent that its debilitating effects are already beginning to show. The days of crying wolf for politicians are over -- the most subversive activities in Assam today carry the ISI mark.

Demographic realities in the state are murky enough. Ethnic equations are always difficult to understand. But the ISI understands it better than most. Well, enough to upset the wavering demographic equilibrium beyond redemption -- throw life so much out of gear that peace will never return.

Nourishing militancy or providing logistic and strategic succour to militants hell-bent on blowing up public property (and with it, the public too) to smithereens is one thing. That is something, albeit difficult, that can be tackled mechanically. The ISI's nefarious designs of carving out a sovereign Islamic state, perceived only as a cry of the proverbial wolf a decade ago, may begin to bear fruits soon.

The present demographic equation in Assam is too well-known to be elaborated. Not only were illegal migrants from Bangladesh not detected and evicted after the 1985 Assam Accord, the influx itself is unabated. Bangladeshis and their now legally-franchised voter-descendants are a majority in Lower Assam. These districts are now sheer extensions of the frontiers of an ever-burgeoning Bangladesh. Illegal migrants till the soil and have made it their home in other North-East states too. These aliens are multiplying at such an alarming rate that, unless checked right away, they will outnumber the very people who belong to the land.

The waters were troubled enough for ISI to fish and the catch for the asking was too big. On one hand, the overwhelmingly Bangladeshi Muslim population provided it with the ideal demographic launching pad for a pan-Islamic terrorist uprising. Islamic fundamentalism had found a veritable breeding ground in Assam particularly after the demolition of the Babri Masjid by the marauding triumvirate of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal. Bangladeshi Muslims, till then peacefully and steadily eating into the Assamese societal fabric, now made easy meat for the ISI to create a pivot of Islamic militancy.

While mobilising Muslims was done surreptitiously, a diversion too had to be created. The gullible leadership of the United Liberation Front of Asom, in trying to find a powerful friend to take on the even more powerful Indian military, played into the ISI's hands. Its subversive activities are now remote-controlled by the latter. The sweet dreams of a sovereign Asom have faded away. Now it is unconsciously working towards realising the ISI's goal, not its own -- Asom.

Ironically, the same ULFA had refused to blow up oil installations in 1991 on the grounds that those belonged to their own folk and provided employment and livelihood to the people they were fighting for.

Taking the ISI bull by its horns is not going to be easy. Those like the Congress and Left parties, obsessed with their minority vote bank, have always sought to obstruct the abrogation of the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act at all costs. Without these voters they would be done for.

The Asom Gana Parishad, comprising the firebrand youths of yesterday who had vowed to throw back the illegal migrants, have been the biggest traitors to the Axomiya cause. In always passing the buck to successive Union governments and tying up with the Left parties, it has sought to placate and appease the same people they had wanted to be out of Assam.

Like the ISI, the Bharatiya Janata Party too is out to fish in troubled waters. The AGP, the vanguard of the anti-alien movement of the 1980s, is perceived to have toyed with popular sentiment and ended up as miserable failures in evicting the aliens. The BJP wants to fill in that yawning gap. The same troubled waters can provide a big catch to the BJP too. Disgruntled with the AGP, the mainstream Axomiya society can only hope to get succour from the BJP. Herein lies a small catch. The BJP is not technically against foreigners -- it only wants the Muslim Bangladeshis to return; the Hindus can stay back.

These Hindu foreigners too are illegal migrants, but they love the BJP. The Hindu Bangladeshi electorate upset the Congress applecart in the Barak Valley in the 1998 election. They can pull the rug from under the feet of many elsewhere too. But then, Hindu Bangladeshis are not the only foreigners rallying behind the BJP. Another chunk of foreigners is steadily increasing in the North-East -- Nepalis. The migrant labour from Nepal has already distorted the ethnic equilibrium in Sikkim, and is now a substantial lot in Meghalaya. It too adores the BJP. These Nepali voters were instrumental in the BJP bagging three seats in the 1998 assembly election there.

Caught in this vortex are the common people. They have very few to voice their concerns. Many do not realise how grave the situation is. And those who do, have no one else but the students' organisations to fall back on. The All-Assam Students Union lost out on a lot of goodwill and firepower because of many of its leaders of the 1980s heydays forming the AGP and then frittering the mandate of the people.

Students organisations elsewhere too have been agitating over this issue for a long time, but they are too insignificant a political-mechanical force to evict the Bangladeshis. The student community being ephemeral and transient has little chance of making an impact. And with student leaders quite often ending up joining this party or that, the situation remains dismal.

The ISI cannot be tackled by ritualistic socio-political tools like bandhs and dharnas. As long as political parties continue to meddle with an issue as sensitive and potentially explosive as this, the disruptionist agency from Pakistan will be able to carry on with its mission. For latecomers, this objective is nothing new. Way back in the 1940s Mohammad Ali Jinnah had asserted at a public meeting in Guwahati that Assam was in his pocket waiting to be merged with Pakistan as and when it emerged.

Jinnah's assertion which was almost made a reality by Syed Saadullah, the prime minister of Assam (the head of the government in the pre-Independence days was not the chief minister), who encouraged migration from today's Bangladesh areas on agricultural pretext. Gopinath Bardoloi exposed Saadullah's gameplan and toppled his government. During the pre-Partition negotiations, Bardoloi successfully lobbied against Assam being given to Pakistan. Jinnah's wish remained unfulfilled. The ISI wishes to realise that dream.

Just as Pakistan has not forgotten the humiliation of the 1965 war, its failure in assimilating Assam into its territory rankles memories and passions even now. The latter is not a much talked-about issue. Particularly because the Indian government has always suffered from the Durand syndrome -- that any external offensive or threat would come from the north-west frontier of the country. Though the Chinese aggression of 1962 dispelled that myth, security concerns in the North-East were never accorded the deserved priority.

Resting the blame for this state of affairs is no big deal. Too many people have contributed their mite to compounding the situation. But grappling with the problem and weeding out the ISI from the North-East is going to be one uphill task for the Indian government. That the situation would go out of hand had been a warning from civil society. It went unheeded. That the situation is going out of hand is a cry for help. It should not go unheeded.

EARLIER FEATURE:
When India nearly lost Assam to Pakistan

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