Nuisance value of ULFA

Nuisance value of ULFA

Wednesday’s grenade explosion in front of a mall in the heart of Guwahati which had left about a dozen innocent peace-loving people injured has once again focused on the futility of a so-called armed struggle that a handful of misguided people continue to carry forward in Assam. This newspaper has been, from the very beginning saying that the ULFA itself was established on a wrong premise and that what Assam and her people require is a massive movement for work-culture that would in the long run protect the interests of the indigenous communities of the state. While it is a fact that successive state government’s have utterly failed to take advantage of its relationship with the Centre in order to bring about the rapid economic development of Assam, individuals and institutions too have failed to show the right direction particularly to the upcoming generations of the state. Majority of the elected representatives of Assam have displayed lack of understanding of the basic problems and prospects of the state. This is evident from their role in the State Assembly and Parliament, the meaningless and directionless speeches they deliver in public meetings and events and the kind of followers/sycophants they have around them. Likewise, even in public life, there is hardly any person of the calibre of Hem Barua or Dinesh Goswami – not to speak of the likes of Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi – who can initiate discussions in the right perspective and direction about the burning issues facing Assam. Intellectuals too have failed to rise to the occasion and most of the present lot have only indulged in petty matters, often misinterpreting issues because they do not possess a holistic view of matters of public urgency. The on-going debates over current issues like the controversial and notorious Citizenship Amendment Bill, the decision to release the Bangladeshi infiltrators lodged in detention camps, the threats issued to AASU members by pro-Bangladeshi groups for raising objections against certain people of doubtful origin who have managed to enrol their names in the National Register of Citizens – have only exposed the intellectual poverty of the state’s so-called leading citizens and opinion leaders. This exactly is the reason why forces like the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), a bunch of dropouts now reduced to a gang of notorious lawbreakers, continue to thrive. Yet the reality is that the younger generation of Assamese does not subscribe to the ULFA’s ‘ideology’ – if at all Paresh Barua, Arabinda Rajkhowa, Anup Chetia & Company have any – and do not waste their valuable time and energy talking about it. An overwhelming majority of Assamese people – and for that matter people belonging to various ethnic communities of the state – are today least bothered about ULFA and instead are more worried about issues that are much more important; like the increasing clout of the Bangladeshi infiltrators, the threat posed by the infiltrators to the indigenous communities, economic backwardness and how to take Assam out of it, the vicious cycle of corruption run by a nexus of bureaucrats, politicians and contractors, better infrastructure, more employment opportunities, better educational institutions, a total No to bandhs and blockades, to name a few. Given this reality, the ULFA is left with nothing but nuisance value, with Wednesday’s blast in Guwahati, caused by some frustrated antisocial elements only exposing the hollowness and futility of what Paresh Barua and his admirers consider as a struggle.

Top Headlines

No stories found.
Sentinel Assam
www.sentinelassam.com