Asom: Massacre of Tribe People

Appeal to Workers, Peasants and Toiling Tribal People

25th November saw the most ugly, most brutal assault and massacre of Tribe-People in India ‘Independent', and that outrageous scene was enacted in Guwahati, Asom (Assam). At least two hundred tribe people, mostly students and youth, many of them women, were beaten mercilessly in full sight of state police; girl students were paraded naked; many of those beaten died on spot; govt hospital were filled with dead and deadly-injured bodies – so ghastly was the experience that even an Ahomiya youth, who tried his best to rescue a tribal girl forced to run naked on the road in broad daylight, couldn't forget the traumatic experience of him, an Ahomiya medico ran away in frenzy from a govt hospital seeing scores of blood-littered smashed bodies of tribal youths pouring in the hospital….

What was their fault? Those tribal youth assembled and marched at the call of an ‘Adivasi' students' association of Asom that organised primarily those who are known as ‘Tea-Tribes' — a peculiar name indeed for Tribe People working in the Tea Gardens of Asom, many of them being Santhals (who are perhaps the biggest tribe in India with population of tens of millions) and Mundas, both enslaved and taken from Bengal in the British Period to work in the Tea Gardens. There were also other tribal people in the rally who also didn't get ST status in Asom; and they have been demanding govt acceptance of all Tribe People as ‘Scheduled Tribes' and grant of trifle govt ‘benefits' like ‘reservation' in govt jobs as par constitutional norms. These Tribes, particularly the Santhali, Munda, etc people get that ‘ST' status in all other major states barring Asom, and they demanded only that much ‘justice' from the Congress led govt off Asom. For that ‘sin' or ‘audacity' they were taught well by well-trained thugs — because it is unbelievable that ordinary Ahomiya (Assamese National) people committed such a barbaric act that even would make savages feel shy; and factually too it will be sheer untruth to say that ordinary Ahomiya people neighbouring that site perpetrated that crime even if a section of media propagandised the same saying ‘…infuriated by unruly attacks of thousands of armed tribal youth on shops, cars, etc the local residents hit back'. Those media-persons never bothered to think: If some ‘thousands of armed tribal youth' had really any intention to ‘attack', was it possible for their capital town to remain intact? What really happened was that a handful of non-tribal upper-caste miscreants, as part of a well-planned conspiracy, got into the rally of the tribal youth, and they started breaking glass panes of shops and cars etc; and another bigger gang on miscreants, they too were lads of upper-caste-and-prosperous Assamese, riding on motor-bikes fanned up anti-tribal frenzy, they themselves started the brutal attacks, coordinated the whole gruesome affair, while the state police forces acting just like onlookers, which proved beyond doubt the governmental instigation and conspiracy of the genocide.

The revolutionary workers call upon the workers and all toiling people to condemn that barbaric attack on Tribe people; and not only that, they also appeal to the toiling people of Asom and mainland India to come forward in support of all just demands of the Tribal people and to protest vehemently any oppression of tribal people. The workers being the most revolutionary class of the society must stand solidly against all sorts of oppressions including those oppressions based on non-class categories like caste, nationality-tribe-language-culture-etc, religion, etc. Unless all oppressed people are liberated the working class cannot liberate itself from oppression. It is the bounden duty of the working class to lead the struggle of liberation of the humanity. Besides, it is well known to the workers that those assaulted Tribes in Asom are themselves workers and peasants too, i.e., many of them are our class sisters and brothers and many are our closest ally force in the revolution to come.

The revolutionary workers also call upon all Tribal sisters and brothers, firstly, to ponder whether a governmental sanction of ST status can at all alleviate the real socio-economic status of the Tribe people. Think, for example, the Santhals ‘enjoy' that ST status in Jharkhand and West Bengal; but what that status meant for millions of them residing there? That ST status couldn't solve the precarious condition of the overwhelming majority of Santhals, that couldn't solve their educational problem, unemployment problem, most importantly their ‘land' problem… and the problem of their communally used-and-possessed lands, forests and all natural resources which they ‘enjoyed' for thousands of years before the advent of British Raj. Even the governments failed [and also ignored] to make necessary arrangements for education in Santhali language! They should contemplate that whether the problem of the Adivasis can at all be solved without a thoroughgoing change of the present ‘system', the present ‘rule', without the take up of the ‘power to rule' from the landlords and capitalists by the toiling people of whom they are part and parcel, without marching towards ‘communal (i.e., social) possession and rational use' of Nature. It is heartening to find some workers' and peasants' organisations of Asom and Bengal starting revolutionary agitation-propaganda on this issue very promptly.

Secondly, ‘militant' form of struggle is not something new for the Adivasi people — they have literally fought for independence against the British rule time and again. How can one forget the glorious HUL rebellion, or great leaders of the battles like Sidho, Kano and Birsa!! In the so-called ‘post independence' period too millions of Adivasis participated in all big peasants' revolutionary movements and rebellions. But, after the ignominious decadence and of the rotten ‘left's surfaced, with the old dream of liberation lied shattered, an intolerable vacuum of revolutionary politics and Party being apparent even with naked eyes to the laypersons, curious distortions appeared in the arena of struggles: people have no revolutionary party to lead them and yet people cannot sit quiet with mounting pressure of oppression on them. The would-be or wannabe bourgeoisie of oppressed nations and tribes came forward to fill the vacuum along with other reactionary and reformist forces present in the society. The ‘reformist bourgeois' within the mindset took the opportunity due to the weakness of the ‘revolutionary proletariat' within. We witnessed militant fights, but this time well within the boundary of bourgeois constitutional parliamentary politics and never against the ‘system' or ‘Raj' that rules and oppresses: for example, take the most prominent of those fights — the protracted fight for a separate state (in the form of ‘Jharkhand'). A separate state was won, but what change of material and spiritual conditions was achieved for the millions those who fought for it? The point is: the Adivasi people are never afraid to confront the oppressors in a militant way, OK; but for what end the Adivasi youth will shed their own blood and even face martyrdom?? Do some petty reforms worth those gallant fights? This question needs serious consideration, since each violent action of governments and oppressors creates ground for militant ‘tit-for-tat' like reactions; and in this case, this massacre surely will motivate a section of Adivasi youth to take violent retaliatory measures to compel the violent govt to grant ST status.

 

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