Talks with ULFA?

Assam Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday said that both ULFA chief Paresh Baruah and the BJP-led government have their respective compulsions, but to begin the process for a peace dialogue, the two sides would have to strike a chord somewhere. Chief Minister Dr Sarma, since he took charge, has been repeating about holding talks with the ULFA leader. The ground reality is that ULFA leader Paresh Barua – who has also made some significant overtures in response to the Chief Minister's appeals – does not appear to be clear on what he exactly wants. The ULFA had initially demanded a 'sovereign' Assam. But it could not justify in the past four decades or so its basic demand for 'sovereignty'. Moreover, the ULFA, which mostly comprises high school and college dropouts, also could not prepare a map of the 'sovereign state' they have been dreaming of. All great revolutions and freedom movements across the globe were based on different well-grounded ideologies and specific well-drawn strategies to educate the masses. All that the ULFA did was extortion, abductions and murder. Moreover, when the ULFA targeted the Hindi-speaking people, it only helped the Bangladeshi infiltrators fill up the space left vacant by the fleeing Biharis. A look at the list of persons killed by the ULFA since 1979 will probably reveal that they killed a sizable number of people belonging to different indigenous communities. It will not be surprising if the highest number of people killed by ULFA turns out to be Assamese and of other indigenous groups. The biggest harm and most irreparable harm that the ULFA did to Assam was to destroy the lives of a large number of young people by luring them into the violent path and then pushing them to be killed in the hands of security forces. Many of these boys would have done well had they been guided properly to join security forces instead. And finally, the people of Assam – who have already seen the intellectual capability of those ULFA 'leaders' who have either left the organization or have entered into so-called 'peace talks' – do not see anything worthwhile that the Government needs to negotiate with Paresh Barua.