ABSU and movement groups stage protest to reiterate demand for Bodoland state

Our Correspondent

Kokrajhar: The All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU), National Democratic Front of Boroland Progressive, People’s Joint Action Committee for Boroland Movement (PJACBM) and people of proposed Bodoland area as a whole on Monday staged a three-hour sit-in in various districts. In Kokrajhar, the movement group staged the demonstration at Bodofa Children Park.

In a memorandum to the Prime Minister and Union Home Minister, the movement group said the NDA-led government was making some exhilarating declarations of new policies and programmes in the field of economy and social sectors for which the government has been praised. The leaders of the movement group said that since the time of creation of Jharkhand, Chattisgarh and Uttarakhand, the policy of reorganization of Indian states had been going on by the parliamentary process till date. It was the NDA government under the leadership of Atal Behari Vajpayee in 2003 which created the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) under the 6th Schedule of the Indian Constitution with the promise to consider the question of Bodoland as and when the appropriate time came. Before that also in 1993, the then Congress government under the leadership of PV Narasimha Rao created Bodoland Autonomous Council (BAC) under the State Act with the same promise. During the period from 1993 to 2018, 25 long years had elapsed and four new states had been created but the issue of Bodoland had been left out by every successive government, they added.

Talking to reporters, the general secretary of the ABSU, Lawrence Islary said that due to relentless discrimination, utter negligence and suppression in all walks of life by the administration led by the dominant communities, the Boro people had become marginalized and had been forced to live as second-class citizens in their ancestral land. He also said their land had encroached and their language and culture, as well as identity, were at stake.

Islary said Assam was divided into three states at the time of creation of new states but the demand for Bodos was not heard and considered seriously. But their existence as a distinct nationality with a distinct language, culture and history was always admitted by the historians of India and abroad, every established institution of the country as well as the successive governments. “The nation has witnessed anger and resentment of the Bodo people as well as other tribes up to the level of resorting to armed struggle also for the last three or more decades along with the democratic ways. But the long-cherished goal of permanent settlement of Bodoland issue has not yet been achieved and that is pushing the Bodo people again to the path of conflict, which is not desired by the all,” he said.

Former Rajya Sabha MP Urkhao Gwra Brahma said that at present the joint movement groups, along with political and non-political organizations, were leading the movement. “We, very often, off and on have been meeting many BJP leaders, leaders of other parties and also top bureaucrats of the MHA, requesting them to take necessary steps to resolve the problem since the beginning of the NDA-led government but all those attempts did not cut much ice. The NDFB (P) alone had 15 rounds of tripartite talks and 27 rounds of talks with the interlocutor during the last 12 years of peace process but there was no progress in the talk,” he said, adding that other joint movement groups under the leadership of the ABSU also have had seven rounds of tripartite talk so far in political level but there was no breakthrough because there was no clear-cut policy of the government with regard to the solution of the problem as learnt from different official sources.

The movement group leaders said that in the new India as envisioned by the present government led by Narendra Modi, the issue of creation of Bodoland state would get due position as a national policy. They sought a national policy with regard to the issue of settlement of Bodoland state, to expedite the process of dialogue on Bodoland state issue at political level to fulfil the BJP’s commitments mentioned in the election manifesto in 2014 to ensure political rights to the Bodos living outside the proposed Bodoland area and to grant ST Hills status to the Bodos living in Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao.

Also read: Assam News