Crisis of leadership in Assam: A historical perspective

The malaise afflicting Assam ever since the days of the Cabinet Mission and prior to it is the crisis of leadership. In the grouping plan of the Cabinet Mission for the proposed partition of the country, Assam was placed in group C, clearly destined to be merged into Pakistan, thus ringing the death knell to the Assamese identity. This stirred the Assamese soul. At this critical juncture, Gopinath Bordoloi, the chief minister (or PM), tried hard, but there was none to hear the plight of Assam. That was a cry in the wilderness. Despondent, Gopinath Bordoloi fell back. Fortunately for Assam Gandhiji, at this critical juncture, he was busy in the terror-ridden Nowakhali in Bengal. Bordoloi dispatched two senior Congressmen, Bijoy Chandra Bhagawati and Mohendra Mohan Choudhury, with a letter to the Mahatma. On reading the letter from Bordoloi Gandhiji, he remarked, “Assam must place her demand boldly. Otherwise, I will say Assam has no men but manikins. Emboldened by this letter, Bordoloi approached the Congress high command in Delhi and forcefully made the demand. This compelled the Congress leaders to take action in favour of Assam. It is because of the Mahatma that we are now citizens of India. I shudder to think what would have befallen us without Gandhiji’s timely intervention.

Earlier, as World War II broke out, the AICC passed a resolution asking all the Congress ministers to resign in protest against India’s participation with men and material in the war without the consent of the Indians. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, the then president of AICC, toured Assam and published a statement at Shillong: “Considering the special situation of Assam, the Assam Ministry should not resign”. But the Assam Cabinet, with Bordoloi at the head, resigned. Taking this opportune chance, the opposition Muslim League formed the alliance ministry with Muhammad Saddulla as the Chief Minister, which opened the flood gate for lakhs of Muslim infiltrators to enter Assam under the fake “Grow More Food” programme that has plagued the state till now. Even Lord Wavel, the Viceroy, taunted, “Whether it is Grow More Food or Grow More Muslims?” The colonial ruler took no action. In fact, as it is evident from “The Report on Assam in 1854” by a British judge, the early Britishers encouraged Muslim migration from East Bengal. They opened large tracts of virgin soil for jute cultivation in the interest of the company’s economy. With due reverence to the Lokapriya, it must be said that the resignation of the Bordoloi Ministry in this burning situation was a Himalayan blunder. This is the bruise Assam is still bleeding from: that flood gate.

Bordoloi’s successor, Bishnu Ram Medhi, the iron man of Assam, opened large tracts of Bahmaputra Chapori in Mangaldai for the indigenous people, just to resist the onslaught of the land-hungry emigrant Muslims. The motive of the League can be well understood from the advice of Jinnah to the restive Moinul Hoque Choudhury, secretary of the young group of the All India Muslim League: “Wait, I am going to offer you Assam on a silver platter.”

The same measure Medhi took was taken in other districts as well. He continued Bordoloi’s mission of peace in strife-torn Nagaland. A section of the social high-ups grew jealous of him for reasons best known to them. The erudite I.C.S. officer-in-charge of Nagaland, Satyen Borkotoky, working under him, wrote a libellous book against him that meant nothing but character assassination. It was quite unworthy of his talent. Besides, it was against professional ethics. Once, Nehru wrote him a letter asking him for the rehabilitation of two lakh displaced persons from East Bengal. Medhi wrote back, “There is not sufficient land for the indigenous people of Assam. So, the order cannot be carried out.” This incurred Nehru’s displeasure. Soon, an opportunity presented itself. A group of MLAs from Assam approached Nehru with the request to replace Medhi with another of their choice. The shrewd Prime Minister sent Medhi, the veteran politician, as Governor of Madras, thus making him insular in Assam politics, and instead sent Gandhian Bimala Prasad Chaliha, a Rajya Sabha MP from Assam. The long 14 years of his tenure saw a number of ‘Andolans’. When the political demand for Assamese as the state language arose in the Assembly in 1960, his reply was “Let the demand come from Cachar”. The reason for this was that he was defeated in the by-election from the Amguri constituency and then elected from Badarpur in Cachar. Whenever an important issue came up for discussion in the House, we read a line in ‘The Assam Tribune”: “The chief minister is slightly indisposed. He will not attend assembly today.’ What Bordoloi and Medhi did for the indigenous people of Assam was undone during the subsequent ministries only for the appeasement of certain groups. Sarat Chandra Singha, otherwise an honest and performing CM, asked back during the 6-year agitation, “Where are the foreigners?’ In India, Assam is known for agitation, or Andolon. But why? An able leader of all India’s stature with vision and foresight can stop an emerging agitation with convincing dialogue with the centre and can avoid all sorts of losses in the public, private, and government sectors. Dev Kanta Borooah rose to a height to be the president of the AICC but crash-landed. Less said of the AGP is better.

Whenever a critical issue linked to Delhi came up, e.g., a refinery, Assam could rally around only one stalwart of all India—the late Hem Barua, who could convince the parliament with his eloquent oratory and dash. It is sad to say that he fell victim to a political conspiracy. Yet Assam had the rare good fortune to have a distinguished barrister-at-law, Taroon Ram Phookan, who could put a British sahib to discomfiture with a single act. On seeing the dashing personality of Phookan for the first time in one AICC session in those days, Motilal Nehru, the stalwart Congress leader, uttered, “Oh, the tiger of Assam!” Unfortunately, he died in 1938. In the Non-Cooperation Movement of 1921–22, during his visit to Assam, Gandhiji was lodged in Phookan’s havely and performed the ‘Bilati Barjan Jajna’. What an irony of fate that the discomfitured hero of the Transval Railway Station of South Africa met the tiger of Assam in his own place! Had he been alive, he could certainly have filled the void created by the crisis of leadership in Assam.