GUWAHATI: The Bodos are back on the warpath with the state government formalizing the creation of an autonomous Bodoland by 2 notifications on Dee, 17.
On Tuesday’s daylong Assam bandh, called by the Al] Bodo Students Union (ABSU) in protest, was a total success in the Bododominated Kokarajhar and Bongaigaon districts, but evoked little response elsewhere.
Most Bodo leaders rejected the notification, calling it undemocratic and anti Bodo, They have threatened to back out of the February accord as well, if the government did not concede their demand of adding 515 villages to the Bodo territory. The interim Bodoland Autonomous Council (BAC) chief, Prem singh Brahma, and a handful of his followers have welcomed the nonfiction, The BAC chief, S.K.Bwismutiary; quit the council in protest against what he called a unilateral declaration. He said the Bodos were betrayed by the stale government. The additional 516 villages, though not in keeping with the accord had been promised to them verbally, he claimed, ‘The vice-president of the Bodo People’s Party (BPP), Baliram Boro, voiced the popular sentiment when he called the Brahma group traitors. Boro was equally critical of the: chief minister, Hiteswar Saikia who, he said displayed chauvinism to caste and language. He added that the renewed Bodo agitation would bring down the Saikia government as it had brought about the. Fall of the AGP. government in 1990, However, it is feared that the Bodo: leaders might renew their demand for a separate homeland outside the state and the BPP’s: threat, soon after the notification, that it would start a “fresh vigorous movement” for a full-fledged state, is being: taken seriously, The Bodo leaders, who first demanded a separate state and later settled for an autonomous council following an accord in February, feel they have been taken for ride. According to the accord, the autonomous Bodoland would constitute villages in which the Bodos: population was 50% or more. Such villages did not exceed 1,600, the stale government offered 2,570 adjoining villages when it created: the Bodo territory on O¢t.28, this did not include the 515 villages: demanded by the Bodo leaders:
Article extracted from this publication >> December 24, 1993
