India has pressed its army into a violent action against the tribal population of Assam living in its forests. The army campaign this time has been named “Operation Rhino”. In November 1990 the then Indian government headed by Chander Shekhar had given orders to the armed forces to crush the ULFA dissidence. The forces were withdrawn after five months of a largely futile exercise. The media was full of stories of killings rape and looting by the Indian armed forces resulting in the alienation of the population from Delhi. Just as operation “Bajrang” was a disaster for India the fate of the current operation is bound to be no different.

What the people of Assam headed by ULFA demand is freedom from Indian imperialism They lived as independent people for centuries until the British empire yoked them to its erstwhile Indian colony in the same way as independent Punjab was annexed by London to be finally transferred to Delhi as its western estate. However the immediate provocation for the deployment is the hostage issue. While the ULFA abducted more than a dozen top officers engaged in exploitation of Assam’s natural wealth oil to press Delhi to set free all the 500-odd Assamese held for years India dragged feet and was willing to release 400 of them. Delhi ordered the deployment as the talks were still on regarding the modalities of the exchange of prisoners a fact most Opposition groups in the Assam Assembly pointed out.

Obviously the Assamese do not trust the bona fides of the Indian government. The latter shamelessly admits that it has no “serious cases” against the 400 ULFA men held in prison for months and years under arbitrary and lawless laws. It is the same story as in Punjab and Kashmir where too thousands of young Sikhs and Muslims have been held for years without trial and in many cases even without any charges. India cannot claim to have any moral authority to keep the political activists of Punjab Kashmir and Assam in jail. This lack of morality invests the actions of the Assamese and other militants in “abducting” Indian officers with a certain degree of righteousness. The world public opinion can justly deplore the abductions by militants only if India follows laws acceptable as fair and applies norms without discrimination against all sections of its population. As things are India follows one set of laws for its minorities (such as anti-terrorist act and the disturbed areas act) and quite the other set for the majority whose members are free to kill and main the members of the minority communities without any punishment being awarded. Thus the killers of thousands of Muslims Sikhs and Christians go scot free.

The army’s action in Assam shows that India refuses to learn either from its own past or from the experience of the Soviet Union and the east European countries namely that the use of force against the public has its limitations and that eventually all crisis situations should be tackled peacefully and on the basis of political reforms human rights and democratic aspirations of the people. A note deserves to be taken of certain reactions to the specific of political parties especially the regional groups of Assam which are critical of the action. The Janata Dal among the national political parties is upset. Influential sections of the media in particular the Times of India Indian Express and the Tribune do not have high hopes on the army’s deployment that the problem will be solved. These straws in the wind deserve to be watched and welcomed keeping in mind the essentially unbending nature of India’s imperial fascist polity.

We call upon Sikh groups all over the world to express their solidarity with the people of Assam in their hour of trial. This could be done by passing resolutions against India’s aggression on Assam and by sending copies to leaders of India and other countries. They should also put pressure on the Sikh component of India’s armed forces not to be party to the illegal immoral and high-handed action against the Assamese.

Article extracted from this publication >> September 20, 1991