Prominent citizens urge Assam govt not to politicise 1983 Nellie massacre report

Guwahati, Nov 23 (PTI) As the Assam government prepares to place copies of the Tewary Commission Report on the 1983 Nellie massacre in the Assembly later this week, prominent citizens on Sunday cautioned against politicising the findings and urged authorities to address the persistent issue of illegal migration in the state.

Speaking at a discussion organised by digital media platform, ‘The Crosscurrent’, which accessed the report through the Right to Information Act, panellists noted that the report did not attribute a communal colour to the incidents, with many cases being sporadic in nature.

The Commission of Enquiry on Assam Disturbances 1983, headed by retired IAS officer TP Tewary, was constituted on July 14, 1983, to investigate the violence in the state that year.

The final report was submitted to the then-Congress government in May, 1984, with the next Asom Gana Parishad-led government tabling it in the Assembly in 1987.

A recent Cabinet decision of the BJP-led government, of which AGP is a partner, stated that hard and soft copies of the report would be circulated in the Assembly during the upcoming session.

Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, however, has said the House will not discuss the report.

A release issued by the platform said the report mentions 8,019 incidents that took place in the state in 1983, in which total of 2,072 people were killed.

As many as 2,26,951 people were rendered homeless and 2,48,292 people were forced to take shelter in relief camps in the 1983 violence.

Speaking as a panelist, former Arunachal Pradesh Governor Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa said the government of that time should have constituted a judicial commission to inquire into the violence.

Why was the responsibility of the inquiry given to a chief secretary-level officer from outside the state remains a question even today, he said.

Rajkhowa, a former Assam chief secretary, pointed that the report does not mention how so many incidents of violence could occur when the state was under President’s rule.

He maintained that had this Commission’s report been made public 40 years ago and action taken on its basis, at least some resolution of the problems could have been achieved.

Participating in the discussion, senior advocate Santanu Barthakur pointed that the background to the Tewary Commission is ‘immigration’.

The Commission was formed in the context of the situation created by illegal immigration.

If only select portions of the report are discussed, it could create a seriously adverse reaction, he maintained.

Instead of ‘politicising’ this report, the government’s primary responsibility should be to remove the fears and anxieties that have arisen among the people of Assam regarding immigration, Barthakur contended, adding that effective implementation of the recommendations under Clause 6 of the Assam Accord could be one step in that direction.

Clause 6 provides for various Constitutional safeguards for indigenous people of the state, which is part of the accord signed in August 1985 at the end of a six-year-long anti-infiltration movement.

Veteran journalist Bedabrata Lahkar, who reported on the Nellie massacre, said "at that time the entire administrative machinery was preoccupied with conducting the elections".

He further said that as mentioned in the Tewary Commission report, the 1983 violence did not have any specific communal character.

"I myself saw that in Mangaldoi, the reasons for the incidents were different, while in Gohpur, the causes of conflict were different again. Many people think this was a communal clash, but in reality nobody really knew where and why violence was erupting," he said.

He claimed that the clashes followed no single fixed pattern, with the administration failing to stop the violence.

Lahkar added that the questions raised since 1978, which led to the Assam Agitation, remain unresolved even today, which is why many parts of the Tewary Commission report continue to be relevant. PTI SSG SSG MNB