Winding up ULFA

Assam has, in the last few days, seen certain significant developments on the insurgency front. While Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had, in his maiden press conference immediately after taking oath on May 10 had appealed to Paresh Barua, chief of the proscribed United Liberation Front of Asom - Independent (ULFA-I) chief to give up violence and come to the negotiation table in the interest of restoring permanent peace in the state, Barua too has responded quite positively. Violence, kidnapping, extortion can never solve problems, it only makes things complicated, Sarma had said in his very first press conference as CM, appealing to all militant groups to come to the negotiation table and play a role in restoring peace. Going by the trend of events, it appears that Paresh Barua too was looking for an opportunity to make his intentions heard. Thus, Barua's group kidnapped two employees of a private firm working with the public sector Oil India Ltd inside Arunachal Pradesh in December 2020. While both persons were freed in the middle of the elections, the rebels picked up three more persons, this time all employees of Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) on April 21 from near Sivasagar. While two of them were freed after an exchange of fire between security forces and the rebels one day later, they managed to shift the third ONGC employee into Myanmar through Nagaland. Chief Minister Sarma, however, displayed tremendous acumen and diplomacy in handling the case. While newly-elected Titabor MLA Bhaskar Jyoti Barua made the first move by organizing a meeting of the abducted person's wife with the Chief Minister, a few days later the Chief Minister landed up at the abducted employee's house in Titabor and made a direct appeal to the ULFA(I) chief to release him. As has been seen, ULFA(I) chief Paresh Barua was probably waiting eagerly for such an appeal, and even as the Chief Minister was still at Titabor, Paresh Barua announced that he would soon release the hostage. While the ONGC employee returned home safely on Saturday, Paresh Barua made it amply clear that he was not against holding talks with the government to resolve his issues. What is even more interesting to note is that Barua, also often termed by intelligence agencies as a most dreaded terrorist, has showered praise on Sarma, terming him as one of the ablest Chief Ministers Assam had ever had. Going overboard in praising the Chief Minister, Paresh Barua even said that he has found in Sarma a rare quality in that he was one who possesses the capability to talk straight with the Government of India on Assam's pending issues. Though the ULFA's violent movement has caused immense loss to Assam – including the loss of lives of a couple of thousands of able-bodied and courageous young men who were misguided and lured into the violent path – it is now very important for the government in general and Sarma, in particular, to grab the opportunity and sort out the ULFA's issues once and for all. There is no denying the fact that the past governments, both at the Centre and in the state, were directly responsible for the rise of the ULFA, as also of the other insurgent and armed movements which followed. Some of the issues raised by the ULFA appear to be genuine, but then not all that the ULFA leaders have been saying all these decades are based on facts and reality. Similarly, the response – if at all – of the civil society and the intelligentsia of Assam was also very pathetic in that there was no attempt whatsoever to tell the misguided ULFA leaders that the path they had chosen is incorrect, as also some of their demands. Needless to recall, the civil society and intelligentsia of Assam had before that miserably failed to guide the students when the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) had launched the anti-infiltration movement in 1979. Former Chief Ministers – Mahanta, Saikia and Gogoi – too had miserably failed to handle the militancy issue. It is hoped that Himanta Biswa Sarma – who had had the rare opportunity of closely watching all his four predecessors including Sonowal – will not repeat such mistakes and make the right move to take the ULFA insurgency issue to a logical end through peaceful negotiations. As far as Paresh Barua is concerned, he should realize that it is time he winds up his business of terror and violence at the earliest and contribute positively towards the overall development of Assam including the protection of the indigenous people from the onslaught of the infiltrators.