THE ASSAM MOVEMENT

The historic Assam movement was one of the famous movements in

post-colonial India mainly led by students of Assam .This

movement was started in 1979 under the leadership of All Assam

Students Union (AASU) and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad

(AAGSP) and officially ended on 15 August,1985 after coming of an

understanding with the Government of India which found official

expression in the memorandum of understanding popularly known as

the Assam Accord 1985.While the movement leaders claimed that it

was a peaceful Gandhian movement, others saw it violent and

fascist character. Many renowned Assamese intellectuals like

Amalendu Guha, Monirul Hussain, Sanjib Baruah, Hiren Gohain,

Udayon Misra, Tilottoma Misra, Humen Borgohain and some foreign

scholars like Myron Weiner, Abdur Rob Khan, Gail Omvedt etc had

analysed this movement from different perspective.

Through this paper I am basically trying to examine this

movement as radical movement according to our course structure

(Radical Movements in India) and highly focus on the mass

mobilization in the movement.

When we discuss about “Assam movement”, through the reference

of Dr.Monirul Hussain in his book "The Assam Movement :Class,

Ideology and Identity" mentioned as "By Assam Movement we

specially refers to that movement which demand to stop-(i)The

illegal immigration of foreign nationals to Assam from the

neighbouring countries-Bangladesh and Nepal and (ii) their

participation in the electoral process in Assam/India and (iii)

deportation of all foreigners living illegally in Assam so as to

(iv) enable the people of Assam to protect their distinct

identity in their traditional homeland from threat of foreign

nationals.1

Another Assam's renowned scholar Amalendu Guha critically

discussed Assam Movement and he admits that the movement is

national in form and not free from strong chauvinistic and

undemocratic tendencies.

Abdur Rab Khan a social scientist from Bangladesh stated Assam

movement a result of the rising expectation of the Asamiya vis-a-

vis years of neglect towards the legitimatic needed of the

Asamiya.

According to Gail Omvedt "Assam movement has resulted

not because of the basic Assamese fear of losing jobs to

Bengalis but losing their land."

Tilottoma Misra tries to provide economic issues as the

motivating factors behind the movement .According to her, the

Assam movement is reflection of the common people’s awareness of

the extra-regional big-business stronghold .She characterizes the

status of Assam as a colonial hinterland of India. Similarly

Ghanashyam Pardesi too characterizes Assam as an internal colony

within a national exploitative system. Omvedt, misra and Pardesi

1 Monirul Hussain, The Assam Movement: Class ,Ideology and Identity (Manak Publication,1993)p.7

agree that Assam movement represent the desire for self

determination of an oppressed and backward nationality in India.

Myron Weiner sees the Assam movement from the point of view

demographic changes .He observes it as the result of severe break

down of precarious political system where population are in the

midst of political, cultural and economic insecurity with invited

all classes of people to participate into it numerically.

Hiren Gohain finds the movement as a revolt of the destitute

peasants and hard pressed petit -bourgeoisie youth against

intolerable circumstances .He had rightly remarked in his book

called “Assam :A Burning question”(1985 that- the Assam movement

was launched by AASU and AAGSP, has its roots in the remote past.

This movement has culminated in the present form is the

continuation of the movement of the movement for a university in

Assam during the period the independence struggle and the

movement for an oil refinery and official language in the post

independent period”2

Udayon Misra finds that this movement achieved unity of

community of different segments of the Assamese society out of

the fear of Assamese people of losing their identity .His view

this mass upsurge as the outburst of a nationality ,which had a

long history of neglect ,suppress and exploitation.

A.K.Baruah views Assam Movement as the result of the genuine

fear of the Assamese people of losing their national identity .

2 Hiren Gohain, Assam:A Burning Question (1985)p 36

K.M. Sharma argues that in order to protect their class

interest, the ruling class in Assam have been trying to explore

certain historically determined weakness that have blocked the

process of a distinct and well defined Assamese nationality

formation.

H.N.Baruah obtains this mass-movement as essentially a struggle

for Assam's self-preservation and maintenance of national and

territorial integrity.

Through these several arguments by several noted scholars we

come to know about their different perspective on Assam movement

and various features of this movement.

The historic Assam movement was the consequence of long feeling

of insecurity of Assamese people about the demographic structure

in the state due to silent invasion by foreigners who were mostly

from erstwhile East-Pakistan which is known as Bangladesh.

The Assam movement looks like more a political movement than a

social movement because of the issue of the immigration of

foreign nationals from across the borders of Assam raised by the

leaders of the movement apparently look more of a political and

constitutional issue than a social problem. But Monirul Hussaain

analyzed this movement as a social movement because according to

him Assam movement had all the fundamental elements of a social

movement and Assam movement too had its roots in the society and

its impact was felt deeply by the people of Assam. In addition to

the political, constitutional and economic implication it had

significant social implication also.3

Through the discussion of Assam movement by various scholars

we understand Assam movement as very complex with many issues and

dimensions involved in it which reflect its significant natures.

According to Monirul Hussain Assam movement is one of the very

significant social movement with very distinct and significant

features among the social movements in post-colonial India has

seen-

Firstly, the issue of foreign nationals participation in the

electoral process of Assam /India .Which the supporters of this

movement wanted to protect the distinct socio-cultural, economic

and political identities of the Asamiya nationality which

according to the leadership of the movement was facing an

identity crisis in the wake of continuous immigration of

foreign nationals from Bangladesh and Nepal .The issue found

acceptance from both the masses and the government .It was

officially recognized as a national problem.

Secondly the movement took place largely outside the traditional

party leadership and organisations .It was largely led by a state

-wide organisation known as the All Assam Student Union (AASU)

which was not affiliated to any political party .In India for the

first time Assam movement was a such kind of movement where we

see the students participation and organised the movement in a

laqrger way which become popular not only in India but also in

3 Monirul Hussain, The Assam Movement: Class,Ideology and Identity,1993

throughout the world. The organisations which claim to be a non

political organisation grow in strength as the authentic voice of

Assam.This led it to a position in which it alone become able to

safeguard the aspiration of Assamese people .

Thirdly without affiliated to any political party AASU, Asam

Sahitya Sabha a state wide literary organization and the All Assam

Gana Sangram Parishad(AAGSP) come together to build up an

effective organizational network , the leadership of the

movement mobilized the masses for a relatively durable support

base for various protest action and resistance .One important

features of this movement is the mass mobilization . The Assam

movement's tremendous capacity to mobilized masses has given it’s

a very distinct status among the contemporary social movements in

India.

ASAMIYA NATIONALITY:

We have observed that Assam movement involves the nationality

question more, than merely the question of foreign nationals in

Assam so I would like to defined here the meaning of Asamiya

nationality through the reference of Dr. Monirul Hussain.By

Asamiya nationality,we mean the historically evolved and distinct

community of people commonly speaking Asamiya language , having

a composite Asamiya culture,certain specific commonness in

psychological make-up,living in a common geographical area and

economic zone-the Brahmaputra Valley. It should also be noted

that the Asamiya nationality is however a multi caste,multi-

racial,multi-religious and a multi-class community. The Asamiya

as a nationality include the non-caste Asamiya hindus like

Ahom, Koch-Rajbonshis, Morans, Motaks, Chutiyas, Deuris,

Kocharis, Muslims comprising of Syeds, Shaikhs,Morias and

Julahas; caste Hindu Asamiya composed of Brahmins , Gonakas,

Kayasthas, and Kalitas; and other lowly placed castes.In addition

the black-tribals of Assam's tea-plantations and the Na-Asamiya

Muslims are two other major groups that entered the ASamiya

nationality during the first half of the present century.

IMMEDIATE CAUSE OF THE MOVEMENT AND ITS STRATEGY AND ROLE

When we discuss about how did the movement start and how the

issue was transformed from 'bohiragatos' to 'videshi'(outsiders to

foreigners) the we must mention about the immediate cause of the

movement that is Mongoldoi bye-election-which is regarded as the

immediate cause of the movement. The death of Hiralal Patgiri the

sitting member of Mongoldoi parliamentary constituency prepared

the ground for a bye election where it was found that an alarming

figure of 45,000 foreigners got infiltrated into voter list

(according to the statement of the then chief election officer

Shekhder) so Assam movement started in 1979 after a bye-election

to the Mongoldoi parliamentary constituency , which is located in

an area with a heavy concentration of East Bengali

immigrants ,drew public attention to a rapid expansion of the

number of voters since the previous election two years earlier.

The event followed reports of fresh large scale immigration from

Bangladesh into the state.4

The All Assam Students Union in collaboration with the press

very successfully built up public opinion among the Asamiya to

the effect that the bye-election should be postponed in

Mongoldoi constituency till the names of all foreign nationals

were deleted from the electoral rolls. On June 8,1979, AASU

sponsored a 12-hour general strike(bandh) in the state to demand

''detection ,disenfranchised and deportation (3D) '' of

foreigners .That event turned out to be only the first of a

protracted series of protest actions. On August 26,1979 the AAGSP

was formed as an coalition of various organizations (i.e. Assam

Sahitya Sabha and many) to coordinate a sustained statewide

movement .An unprecedented mass popular upsurge followed in the

form of sit-ins, picketing in front of the government offices,

strikes, and symbolic disobedience of the law.

Between 1980 and 1982, there were 23 negotiating sessions

between the movement leaders and the central government .Even

though the Assam movement had immense popular support, there was

considerable disagreement on the demands of the movement in Assam

as well as in the rest of the country. For the government of

India the political costs of agreeing to those demand would've

been high.5 By the end of 1982, there was an agreement that

illegal aliens who came between 1951 and 1961 would be given4 Sanjib Baruah, ‘’Immigration, Ethnic Conflict, and Political Turmoil-Assam,1979-1985, Asian Survey,Vol.26, No.11, November,19865 Sanjib Baruah “Immigration, Ethnic Conflict, and Political Turmoil-Assam,1979-1985” Asian Survey,Vol.26, No.11, November,1986

Indian citizenship and those who came after 1971 would be

deported, but the status of those who came between 1961 and 1971

was unresolved. It was reported that in the negotiations of

October 1980,the government's position was that these immigrants

should stay and the government would pay for their

rehabilitation. There were also disagreement on the procedures to

be used for the detections of aliens -that is, on the kind of

documents to be relied upon to prove when a person had actually

immigrated. The Assam movement leaders combined negotiations with

general strikes and civil disobedience campaigns designed to

demonstrate their power capability.

The Assam movement succeeded in significantly disrupting the

functions of the governmental institutions in Assam, including

the 1980 parliamentary elections and in the Assembly elections

in 1983.The leadership of the movement declared established

political parties to be 'irrelevant' to the problems of the state

and successfully mobilized campaigns of non recognition of

elected state governments, arguing that they were elected on the

basis of invalid electoral rolls that included the names of large

numbers of illegal aliens. President's rule had to be imposed

intermittently as elected governments lost their majorities in

the State Assembly. Since negotiations appeared unlikely to

produce a settlement, the Indian government sought to reassert

the legitimacy of the governmental institutions and attempted to

cut into the popular base of the Assam movement by seeking to

wean away ethnic subgroups that constitute weak links in the

Assamese ethnic coalition. These efforts ,combined with the

strains caused by the movement itself, repeatedly changed the

ethnic alignments in the state. However the movement remained

quite strong. The political crisis was eventually resolved when

the Indian government recognized the power capability of the

movement and made important concessions to their demands. In

order to understand the chronological events of the active period

of the movement scholar Sanjib Baruah in his book '' India

against itself: Assam and the politics on nationality ''

discussed the stages of Assam movement through five phases

i.e.-

(1) June 1979 to November 1980 as festival of protest

(2) December 1980 to January 1983 as confrontation

(3) the election of February 1983 as the breakdown of order

(4)March 1983 to may 1984 as contest between the state and the

movement

(5)June 1984 to December 1985 accommodation

It is noteworthy that the Assam movement continued till the

Assam Accord was signed at the mid-night of August 14,1985.A

number of historic and unprecedented events and incidents took

place in Assam during the period of 1979 to 1985. The Golap

Borbora ministry fell on September 4,1979 within 18 months of its

formation as a result of factional crisis in the Janata Party,

just like the fall of the Union Ministry headed by Moraraji

Desai, which fell because of factional crisis and politically

charged bargaining drama.*Three ministries headed by three new

faces were formed and were topled in a successive row. They

were- Jogen Hazarika who broke away from Janata Party and formed

Asom Janata Dal (September 9 to December 12,1979 ), Syeda Anowara

Taimur ( December 6,1980 to June 30,1981) and Keshab Gogoi

( January 13 to March 19,1982).After the fall of the Gogoi

Ministry ,the Assembly was dissolved. The Union Government took a

position to hold the Assembly election in February to avoid a '

constitutional crisis'. The movement leaders and organizations

opposed the election on the ground that no election could be

considered legitimate until the voters' list was thoroughly

revised to remove the entry of the names of doubtful migrants.

Even in the teeth of strong and violent opposition, the 1983

election took place,which was marked by unprecedented violence

and massacre , including the infamous Nellie massacre in a

sleepy immigrant inhabitant village now in Marigoan District.

The election installed Congress party to power headed by Hiteswar

Saikia . He had to struggle hard against the onslaught of the

opposition parties who had been raising legitimacy question on

the election of the 1983 election. Despite his comfortable

position in the Assembly, he had to submit to a political

dispensation which demanded dissolution of the assembly and a

fresh mandate in the wake of Assam Accord.

Apart from a compromise on the 'foreigners' question, the

Assam Accord was a broad settlement that included other

significant promises on cultural and economic developmental

concern that had animated Assamese sub national politics.

Among them were a clause in the accord that promised

''constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards to

protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic

identity and heritage of Assamese people.

Another clause renewed the Indian Government's commitment to

the '' all around economic development of Assam'' and a special

commitment to establishing advanced institution of learning in

the field of science and technology.

On the immediate question of Assam, it was agreed that they

would be classified into a number of categories based on when

they had entered India. Some of them were to be given citizenship

rights, some were to be disenfranchised temporarily and more

recent ones were to be deported.6

NONVIOLENT ACTIVITIES IN THE MOVEMENT

During the six years of the campaign, governmental institution

in Assam were quite embattled. Though from the very beginning the

movement was a gandhian nonviolent and peaceful mass movement and

secular in nature but unfortunately due to some situation created

by state machinery and confrontation with leftist it became

violent .There were some incidents that first took place in North

Kamrup, the first major civilian violence against the civilians

in the form of systematically organized rioting against selected

6 Sanjib Baruah, India against itself: Assam and the Politics of Nationality (Oxford university Press,2008,p.116

Na-asamiya Muslims and Hindu Bengalis in early 1980. Another world

famous violent incident was “Nellie massacre” of February 18,

1983 in which over 1200 people mostly women and children were

butchered to death within a few hours All the victims belonged to

the Na-Asamiya Muslim Community. The entire Brahmaputra Valley

was rocked by severe political violence several times with

repeated instances of large scale rioting, and killing of

civilians by civilians , kidnapping of election candidates and

their supporters, blasting of ordinary to very sophisticated and

powerful bombs , destruction or roads and bridges and killing of

police firing. Conservative estimate of deaths during this period

stands at more than 7000. Another 2 million lost their homes as a

result of violence during 1979-1985.7

ASSAM MOVEMENT AS RADICAL MOVEMENT:

Now I come to my main point of discussion that examining the

Assam movement as radical movement. Before going to examine Assam

movement, I am trying to provide a framework of radical movement

according to our course structure.

The term ‘radical’ is not static concept ,it’s a dynamic concept

.which relating to the question of existing norms (what exist ?,

what is good ?,what is possible ) Radical movement means those

movement which is trying to engage with human liberation, self

realization freedom in all dominations and question of injustice

7 Monirul Hussain, The Assam Movement:Class,Ideology and Identity,( Manak publication,1993)p.10

and structure of domination on the basis of

caste ,class ,gender etc. For this movement physical survival is

the basis for human beings including non-living beings. Everyone

should have the right to nature .Society can be evaluated in

terms of whether it has equal opportunity to access the nature.

Through this movement people want to self realization and to

realize their capacities to meet their requirement and to realize

as a human being and also people can able to know what are the

structures of domination and to come out from that structure of

domination which is based on caste , class, gender etc. Radical

movement work within a framework for survival of human being

(e,g. physical survival) and transform themselves by

realizing ,rethinking their own self thinking. Survival is the

most important issues of human being and natural right is

important for human survival .Everything is need for human being

for survival and if society providing such opportunity to

everybody and ultimate society where everybody has abandon to

concuss physical survival, equal opportunity to every to access

natural resources and radical movement make physical necessary

things available for abandon to all assurance to all. Being human

to be radical means to be constantly fighting for the species

being s. Freedom of one should be guaranteed by freedom of all. A

movement which takes into considers ration human beings as human

and fight for liberation of human is radical.

The four dimensions of radical movement are-

a) Relation between human and nature

b) Human as a multilayered being and their engagement with other

human beings/living or non-living beings

c) Understanding of nature and dynamics organizing principles of

society

d) Being conscious of the consciousness

To examine a movement as a radical or not, its important to

know about the causes, activity, goals, strategy, ideology of the

movement and we also have to examine through some questions that

is – Is it relating to issue of human liberation?, Is it raise

the question of domination of structures based on caste,class,

gender etc. and is it raised the question of human survival

relating to natural rights ? Issue about social basis of this

movement (who participate in the movement i.e. the agency of the

movement) and it also discussed about possibility of the

movement.

Within this framework of radical movement Assam movement could

be regarded as radical movement on the basis of its main reason

of this movement i.e. illegal immigration of foreign nationals to

Assam from the neighboring countries- Bangladesh and Nepal which

raised the question of survival and accessing natural resources

of the Assamese people. Because of the highest growth of

illlegal immigrant Assamese people facing various problem from

economic development, encroachment of land by illegal

immigrants ,problems in work field ( due to cheap labour provided

by illegal immigrants Assamese working class lost their work

opportunity) and other resources. The question of natural

resources was integrally related in this movement from the angles

of theorisation of resource conflict between the centre and the

leaders in the matter of natural resources belong to Assam.One of

the most impressive debate on such conflict was the movement of

the oil blockade which was taken place in January ,1980 with a

solgan in Assamese ''Tez dim Tel nidiu'' ( giving our blood

instead of oil) and they demanded for own refinary instead of

sending of crude oil to the Barauni refinary in Bihar. On the

question of natural resources Assamese people have feared about

losing their own land and fear of becoming homeless within their

own homeland due to migration from Bangladesh.

Assam movement can be regarded as radical movement from the

greater participation of masses in the movement, the

participation of the masses were n lakhs. If we examine the

causes, factor of the assam movement's tramendous capacity to

mobilize the masses from the human liberation, emancipation pont

of view people join together irrespective of

caste ,class,gender etc as a unified body to protect the distinct

socio-cultural ,economic and political identity of asamiya

nationality because they have feelings that they were facing an

identity crisis in the wake of continuous immigration of foreign

nationals from bangladesh and Nepal and in that process we

notice that these people have desire to liberation o

strengthen,preserve thier own assamese identity, and their self

realisation about this consider it as a radical movement .

As a radical movement Assam movement can be seen from the

perspective of structure of dominance and exploitation through

class aproach. From the time of colonial period in Assam we

noticed the uneven competition between asamiya middle class

( which was numerically very small) with the relatively more

powerful Bengali middle classs in terms of competition for jobs,

market and power at the state level .If we see from colonial

administration. the Bengali had nearly monopolised all the jobs

and opportunities. As a result in assamese people's mind a

structure of domination created by Hindu-Bengalis and so It had

led to an anti bengali feelings among the nascent Asamiya middle

class which was seen in assam movement . In terms of exploitation

the Assam movement was rooted in the agutated mind of the people

who had reasons to protest against the colonil exploitation of

the resource of the state by the indian state and the indian

capitalists.

Assam can be analysed through the idea of self determination .

Theory of self determination in a direct way analyses how a

community or group, quest for an identity and searching for a

congenial environments for survive. In the assam movement rise

of self or identity question, getting shaped and reshaped in

several forms, during the movement and in years latter . The

leaders of the movement usedthe term ''Asamiya'' to give a

counter the isue of immigration and blame as such illegal

immigration became problematic in front of Asamiya identity.This

notion the leaders of the movement used in terms of mobilizes the

campaign and fascinate into a superficial accord-''Assam Accord''

to protect the identity and heritage of the Assamese people.

STRATEGY OF THE MOVEMENT:

when we discuss the strategy of assam movement , we have to

mention that this movement was led by students of Assam throuhg

an non-political organisation i.e All Assam Students Union and

All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad and to achieved their goal of

this movement though the leaders of this movement first take

Gandhian non-violent strategy as satyagrahas, hunger

strike,blocking of roads, strikes and peaceful means but

gradually assam movement unfortunately adopted some violent

activities to protest against action of state machinery and

against leftist. This movement ended by signing Assam accord in

1985 and this movement created deep impact in Assam both

positively and negatively .

SOCIAL BASIS OF THE MOVEMENT:

When we discuss the social basis of the movement we found that

it was the middle class who designed the strategy of the movement

to capture the state power. In this movement students were the

agency of the movement who constitute core of the movement, but

they were not the originator of the movement.Their spontaneity

was also induced by the upper class of the Assamese society who

controlled the media and public opinion, so the ideological and

organisational roots of the movement rested in this class of

people.

Assamese society is basicaly a semi-feudal and semi-tribal

society within a very slow process of urbanisation.Though the

middle clas which evolve primarily of western education has a

dominant position in this society .It is also found that this

section has a close connection with the peasant sec tion of the

villages of Assamese society. Therefore though this movement was

basically led by students who belonged to the middle class but it

gained masive support from the peasant section of Assam also. It

was also to attract the attention of the weak bourgeoisie section

of Assamese society because in the course of time , they also

tried to safeguard the oil,tea and plywood industries from the

influence of the strong bourgeoisie class of India.

MASS MOBILISATION AND PARTICIPATION IN THE MOVEMENT:

Through this paper I am trying to highly focus on the mass

mobilization in the movement. From the mass mobilization poin of

view Assam movement is regared as one of the most vibrant

democratic mass movement in independent India. The Assam

movement's tramendous capacity to mobilize the masses has given

its a very distinct status among the contemporary social movement

in India. Even the critics of the movement have admitted that the

movement attained the character of a mass movement by the later

part on 1979. Some member of the older generation belonging

mostly to the Congress party, who had seen the mass

participations of the Asamiya in the national movement 1942, has

compared the magnitude of the participation with that phase of

the national movement. Mass participation and popular backing

made the Assam movement historically as well as sociologically

very significant among the well known social movement that India

had experienced during the post-colonial period. monirul Hussain

in his book ''The Assam Movement :Class, Ideology and Identity''

discussed about the mass participatio of the movement .According

to him '' though there are other examples of historically

significant movement like the Telengana movement of the early

fifties, the Naxalbari movement based on the Maoist ideology of

rural insurrecion of the late 60's and early 70's ,the Navnirman

movement og Gujarat and the Bihar movement of the pre emergency

days and the Punjab movement in the eighties , but admittedly all

these movements stand nowhere near Assam movement in terms of

mass mobilization and participation.'' The Assam movement created

a strong and relatively durable support base among the masses.

As I already mentioned that assam movement was largely led by a

state -wide students organisation known as All Assam Students

Union (AASU) which was not affiliated to any political party and

the Assam Sahitya Sabha, a state wide literary organisation and

another constituents of the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad

(AAGSP) come together to build up an effective orgnisational

network and methods of co-ordinations from its head quarter at

the Gauhati university to deep down inruarl areas of the

Brahmaputra Valley. Through this vast organisational network, the

leadership mobilized the masses for a relatively durable support

base for various participation and resistance. In terms of build

up a vast organisational networks in all over Assam specially

in Brahmaputra valley AASU had already built up its units in

almost all educational institutes dominated by the Asamiya

students. On the other hand the Assam Sahitya Sabha ,one of the

constituents of the AAGSP had 700 branches all over Assam. The

response of the people at this stage was so overwhelming that in

many places the branches of the AAGSP were set up not on the

initiative of its leaders but on the initiative of the people

themselves. During that time mass participation became highly

spontaneous as a result, the movement became stronger and more

popular and mobilization became easier and systematic. When the

leadership of the movement gave a call for strike, mass ralley,

weak-long satyagraha people gave their full support to thr

leaders and deliberately they come to join the movement

irrespective of caste ,class ,gender etc. In beginning of Assam

movement, when the leadership of the movement gave a call for a

12 hours Assam bandh on 8th June 1979, the response from the

people was very high, people gaves their full suport to thebandh.

Significantly this was the begining of an active phase of

protest actions and mass mobilizations.In 1979,12th to 18th

November the leadership of the movement announced a weeklong

action programe with satyagraha,courting arrest in front of the

offices of the deputy commissioners, and sub-divisional officers

tc. During these days thsis programme recorded a massive

participation of men,women and students. The government employees

too,participated in the programme defying government's orders.

According to Monirul Hussain in his book about this events ''

Those who had seen the last days satyagraha, particularly at

Guwahati, would be sure to remember it for a lifetime because

a vast sea of humanity had gathered s never before in the areas

around the deputy commissioner's court and hoh court, Pan bazar

and Dighali-Pukhuri areas.8 The state government constructed

many temporary jails , and even these jails failed to accomodate

the rising tide of satyagrahis.The people gathered ina discipline

manner and marched peacefully to court arrest.It had clearly

demonstrated the massive support that the movement had succeeded

in buliding up. Several lakh of people courted arest throughout

the Brahmaputra Valley.In Guwahati alone about 5 lakh people

offered satyagraha.Therefore from the mass participation in the

movement , Assam movement is regarded as one of the most vibrant

democratic mass movement in India.

CONLUSION: (with critical assessment)

Assam movement being very complex social movement with many

issues and dimensions involves in it, no view can be above

8 Monirul Hussain, The Assam Movement: Class,Ideology and Identity,( Manak publication,1993)p.111

controversy from issue of illegal immigrants to issue of identity

crisis. If we see this movement as radical movement from the

perspective of human liberation, emancipation, structure of

dominance as well as survival in terms of accessing natural

resources(natural rights) and interms of self realization, being

conscious of the consciousness, goal,strategy and agency of this

movement, though we consider this movement as radical movement

but Assam movement can't escape from criticism.

To achieve their goal though they first time used gandhian non-

violent means but in later they used various violent activity

i.e.- mass killing, bombing, kidnapped etc, so it was seen that

in the name of human liberation ,emancipation to protect Assamese

identity, nationality they used violent method as a means .

In the question of agency of the movement the Assamese middle

class who was the main originator and designed Assam movement and

they used the students as instrument to protect their own

interest and achieved their goals.

As we know Assam movement was ended after signing Assam

Accord(1985) and Assam movement was institutionalised through

forming a regional political party named Asom Gana Parishad

(AGP) and it came into power through !985 election but AGP could

not able to fullfill Assamese people's aspiration.The government

headed by Prafulla Kumar Mahanta earned notoriety for its

misgovernance and misrule , as a result AGP dismissed in1990

December Assembly Election and again Congress government came to

power.

Though people gave another chance to the AGP in 1996, there was

hardly any positive change in its style of governance .Gradually

the factional rivalry and intra -party conflict has therefore

caused irreparable damage to the party that came into being with

the pledge to serve the cause of Assamese nationalism. In this

way , a party grown out of the six years Asaam movement has

gradually lost space in the immagination of the Assamese psyche

as a saviour of regional interest. As a result by raising the

question of Minority, D voters (doubtful voter) issue a new

political party from minorities formed in Assam named All India

United Democratic Front (AIUDF) led by Baddaruddin Ajamal which

has able to show their strong position in Assam by being major

opposition party in recent Assam Election (2009). Where AIUDF won

22 seats whether onced main regional prty in Assam AGP won only

seats which give us a doubtful position of regional party in

Assam.

The issue of illegal migration remains a transitional political

and electioneering issue to be forgotten soon after the election.

Although the foreign national issue appeared to have died down

soon after Assam Accord, it again surfaced recently after a

period of two decades. It was kept alive within the gamut of

Illegal Migrants Detection Tribunal(Act) IMDT, which now stands

nullified by the Supreme Court after the historic verdict on July

12,2005.The Act was enacted in 1983 to protect the indigenous

muslims from harassment on indigenous Muslims when they were

asked to prove themselves as Indian citizens. In the name of

protecting the indigenous Muslims against such harassment, it is

alleged, the Act ultimately protects the illegal migrants.9

One of the most significant effects of the Assam movements is

that the immigrants issue has been put firmly on the public

agenda. Earlier framework of ethnic accommodation attempt to

obscure the immigration question. The AGP ministry has a new

portfolio of Accord Implementation under the Chief Minister.It

indicates the importance attached to the issue by supporters of

the Assam movement and the AGP. But now the issue has left the

backrooms of political horse-trading , there is space for new

innovation in dealing with the question.

The perceived failure of the Assam movement to resolve Assam’s

immigration crisis led to a radicalization of Assamese sub

nationalism, giving it a separate turn. Another effect of the

sustained campaign was the rupturing of ties between a number of

ethnic groups . There were episode of violation between

‘indigenous’ and ‘immigrant’ communities. The campaign also led

to a friction between the ethnic Assamese and some of Assam’s

“plain tribal” groups –the Bodo movement is in some ways an

outgrowth of the Assam movement. So needless to say the Assam

movement has become a reference movement for tribal movement that

have emerged in the hills and plains of Assam.

The Assam movement represents the unresolved nationality

question in a multi-national nation state. Although Assam

movement apparently tried to address the nationality question in

9 Abu Nasar Saied Ahmed(ed), Nationality Question in Assam :The EPW 1980-81 Debate (Akansha Publishing House,2006) p.17-18

Assam while trying to protect and promote the aspirations of the

Assamese speaking population living in the Brahmaputra Valley ,

it was actually designed by the middle class Assamese elite as a

strategy to capture the state power.

REFERENCES:1) Monirul Hussain, The Assam Movement:Class, Ideology and Identity, (ManakPublication,1993)

2) Sanjib Baruah, India Against Itself: Assam and the Politics of Nationalitry, (Oxford University press,2008)

3) Abu Nasar Saied Ahmed(ed), Nationality Question in Assam: the EPW 1980-81 Debate (Akansha Publishing House, 2oo6)

4) H.N. Rafiabadi, Assam From Agitation to Accord( Genuine Publication,1988)

5) Sanjib Baruah,Immigration, ethnic Conflict, and political Turmoil-Assam,1979-1985, Asian Survey, Vol.26, No.11, Nov.1986

6) Amalendu Guha, Little Nationalism Turned Chauvinist :Assam 's Anti - foreigner Upsurge, 1979-80,EPW,Vol.15,No.41/43,October,1980

7) Hiren Gohain, Once More on the Assam Movement, Social Scientist, Vol-10,No-11,Nov,1982