Relentless rumor, continued uncertainty and subsequent voluminous media coverage in Assam has recently resulted in the elimination of two innocent lives along with severe injuries to few others and also stranding of thousand railway passengers for days in various isolated locations.
The rumor of incorporating many parts of Assam including the Dima Hasao district in the greater Nagaland (Nagalim) continued to hunt the people of Assam as the Naga movements start approaching for an outcome. Besides Assam, the proposed Nagalim claims the contiguous Naga concentrated areas from Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur (with Naga localities in northern Myanmar).
The uncertainty over the government actions remains fully intact as the content of Naga Framework Agreement is yet to be made public. The Union government in New Delhi signed the agreement on 3 August 2015 with the influential Naga armed outfit (Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland-IM), when Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself announced the peace deal through the social media.
With this background of anxiety and worries, a report was published in a reputed portal indicating that Dima Hasao district (formerly North Cachar Hills district) in central Assam may be incorporated in Nagalim. The contributor Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty in her report titled ‘Revealed: RSS Draft Plan for Nagaland Accord’ quoted Jagdamba Mal, an understood Rashrtiya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ideologue based in Nagaland for decades and tried to authenticate it.
The trouble-stricken Dima Hasao, which is an autonomous district constituted under the sixth schedule of the Indian constitution, homes to Dimasa tribe people with a sizable Naga population. Since the Eighties, the district witnessed various ethnic insurgent outfits and most notorious was the Jewel Garlosa led Dima Halam Daogah, which once terrorized the entire district.
The content of TheWire might have reached few hundred readers, but the same story was reproduced by a section of local (read Assamese) newspapers and satellite news channels to attract the attention of hundred thousand residents of the State. Soon the resentments among the Dimasa people about their inclusion in Nagalim surfaced and it grew abruptly.
Various agitating Dimasa groups including the Jadikhe Naiso Hosom, All Dimasa Students Union, Dimasa Mother Association and Dimasa Women Society etc called for a series of protest rallies across the hills district, where the local political party representatives also participated. The agitators demanded a clarification from the governments over the matter at the earliest.
One such public protest in front of Maibong railway station on 25 January turned violent. The police resorted to firings in presence of the district magistrate Dibyajyoti Hazarika as the protesters started vandalism at the railway properties.
Two tribal agitators namely Mithunjay Dibragede and Prabin Hakmaosa, both in late twenties, were killed in police firings, whereas ten others received injuries. The killings were condemned widely and strikes continued in the district for days which resulted in stranding of thousand railway passengers from southern Assam with Tripura to Guwahati.
Three State ministers namely Chandra Mohan Patowary, Keshab Mahanta and Porimal Suklavaidya visited the trouble-torn district to take stock of the situation. They also met the victim families and assured possible government supports at the earliest.
Amidst the chaos, Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal invited a group of Dimasa civil society representatives and reiterated the government’s stand that not a single inch of Assam land would be ceded to Nagalim. Assuring the delegation of civil society groups in presence of Dima Hasao Autonomous Council chief Debalal Garlosa on 30 January, Sonowal categorically stated that the State’s territorial integrity would not be harmed.
Mentioning about his telephonic conversations with the Union home minister Rajnath Singh, the chief minister declared that even no satellite council or special development authority of Nagalim would also be allowed in Assam.
Sonowal informed that a compensation of rupees 5 lakh each was announced for the victims (of police firings) and necessary steps were taken to provide appropriate government jobs to their close relatives. Monetary benefits and free treatments for the injured individuals were also declared.
The State government has already constituted a one-man committee headed by the State’s additional chief secretary VB Pyarelal to inquire into the circumstances that led to violence and subsequent police firings.
However, public anger against the government in general and the district magistrate, in particular, continued for days. It was visible in a massive protest rally recently organized at Maibong locality in presence of AASU adviser Samujjal Bhattacharya, ABSU general secretary Pramod Boro, and many others.
Jagdamba Mal, who is facing a formal police complaint in Assam, later clarified that he personally put some suggestions to settle the six decades long Naga antipathy, but the concerned reporter blew the content ‘out of proportion’. Mal declared that he was not an RSS member. So his suggestions were ‘nothing to do with the RSS or the BJP governments’.
India, out of its over one billion population, houses nearly 200 million smart-phone users. As the internet connections turn relatively cheaper in the country, more and more upper and middle-class nationals start possessing the net connection and it finally helps to grow the number of alternate media browsers.
Meanwhile, expressing serious concern over the recent unpleasant incidents in Dima Hasao following few media contents, the Journalists’ Forum Assam (JFA) appealed to the common people to be judicious overreacting to media reports.
Northeast India based scribe’s forum, while demanding a regulatory authority over the alternate media, also urged the government to empower the press council (may be renamed as Media Council of India) with the inclusion of electronic and social media.
