[Assam] Sentinel editorial

[Chan Mahanta]

Ram:

Before this allergy sufferer exposes itself to the allergen you 
spread over assamnet :-), WHAT do YOU think of the piece? Which parts 
struck a chord with you, and why?

Once I can figure out where and how you stand, I may have a thing or 
two by way of analysis to put forth :-).

c-da











At 2:13 PM -0500 10/19/06, Ram Sarangapani wrote:
>At the risk of stimulating allergic reactions from certain quarters, 
>here is the editorial from today's Sentinel for those who haven't 
>already read it.
>______________
>The Voice of ULFA
>T his is not to explain what the voice of the ULFA is. The people of 
>Asom know well what this voice means, what this voice seeks, and how 
>this voice has 'liberated' them, including, of course, the outfit's 
>latest brand of ''freedom struggle'' - use of children and students 
>in planting explosives. So what we want to explain here is how the 
>voice of the ULFA has been perfectly duplicated by some so-called 
>civil society groups like the People's Committee for Peace 
>Initiative in Asom (PCPIA). The PCPIA, as though it has earned a 
>divine contract to represent the people of the State, has called an 
>Asom bandh today demanding: 1) direct peace talks between the 
>Government of India and the ULFA; 2) release of five top jailed ULFA 
>leaders; and 3) immediate withdrawal of Army operations from the 
>State. Clearly, the PCPIA - the voice of the ULFA - has missed quite 
>a few pertinent points, and these points are refreshingly simple. In 
>this we also have a regime of bizarre pro-ULFA and so-called human 
>rights organizations whose business it seems to be to bully further 
>the ordinary citizens who are already sandwiched between the ULFA's 
>terror reign and the consequent Army operations in the State.
>The first point, then, is obvious: you cannot hold the State to 
>ransom by calling a bandh, thereby crippling the economy of an 
>already beleaguered State economy, if you think that you should be 
>defined as a civil society group. Any answer, PCPIA? No civil 
>society group, in any civilized society, would call a bandh as 
>today's; however, when an organization acts as a frontal 
>organization of an underground outfit and represents a view as 
>partisan as the PCPIA's, and, more important, when such an 
>organization masquerades as a civil society group, a bandh as 
>today's is but natural. For, such a civil society group would not 
>bother to look into the fallouts of such a bandh: its murder of work 
>culture in an already lethargic society, and the message it sends 
>across to the younger generation. The message is that one can call 
>bandhs in any random manner and of any random kind as long as one 
>knows that it means the business of bullying tactics. After all, 
>people love their lives and the very word ''ULFA'' haunts them. So 
>as today's bandh goes in the name of the ULFA, one would naturally 
>have people staying indoors, safe and quiet. And, of course, it also 
>means an extended Diwali holiday! This will enable the PCPIA to 
>declare what a success the bandh was. In this column, we have had 
>occasion in the past to talk about a typically parasitic 
>bandh-culture mechanism in place that requires the bandh supporters 
>to design the bandh package in such a way that it adds to the 
>already existing holidays. So, call a bandh on a Friday or on a 
>Monday so as to have an extended weekend - so much for the 
>liberation of a people!
>The PCPIA wants the release of the five top jailed ULFA leaders as 
>if this is the only mantra for the success of the peace process in 
>Asom. What is the guarantee that these ULFA leaders would not jump 
>out of parole once they are released? Would the PCPIA give us such a 
>guarantee? Can it? And why should the Government of India be 
>interested in releasing these jailed ULFA leaders when it has the 
>Anup Chetia experience to fall back on and when there is no written 
>letter from the outfit, stating its willingness to sit for direct 
>talks, as demanded by the Centre? Let the PCPIA also answer this: is 
>it still civil for an organization that claims itself to be a civil 
>society group to call a strategic bandh to voice its demand for the 
>release of five top jailed leaders of an outfit that has already 
>blocked all avenues of development in the State? Is not the PCPIA, 
>then, making a tall claim that it is indeed the voice of the ULFA, 
>that it can, therefore, bully anyone around in the name of the 
>banned outfit, and that it has chosen to remain ignorant of the 
>nitty-gritty of a peace process as paradoxical and yet as sensitive 
>as the current one in the State?
>By paradoxical, we exactly mean what the dictionary says: something 
>to do with ''an apparently sound statement or a proposition which 
>leads to a logically unacceptable conclusion''. This peace process 
>as anchored by organizations as the PCPIA starts on a sound note - 
>it is made out to be all about the ''people'' - but leads to 
>conclusions, such as the discourse behind today's illogical bandh 
>call, that are unacceptable simply because peace cannot be one-sided 
>and the PCPIA has given us a whole lot of reasons to believe that it 
>speaks the ULFA language. And we call the peace process sensitive 
>because it involves the future of the State and the future of a 
>threatened Asomiya identity. The peace process is sensitive because 
>it involves a populace that has been forced to bear the brunt of 
>counterinsurgency operations, with their own stories of alleged 
>human rights violations. And, most important, the peace process is 
>sensitive because there are vested interests that want the industry 
>called 'insurgency' to continue. Given all this, it is actually so 
>simple for the ULFA to script the peace chapter in Asom: they can 
>come forward and say, ''We want to talk with the Government of India 
>right now.'' High-sounding e-mails to the media are a futile 
>exercise, the ULFA must know this. Peace is simple if the mind is 
>simple. And the Asomiyas are a simple community. Let the ULFA make a 
>simple gesture of peace. It can directly sit across the negotiating 
>table with the Government of India to talk peace. The Government of 
>India knows what it has to say, and the ULFA too, as one hopes, 
>knows what it has to say. What is the need for a PCPIA or a PCG, 
>then? Did the ULFA consult its five jailed leaders while 
>constituting the PCG?
>
>_______________________________________________
>assam mailing list
>assam at assamnet.org
>http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.assamnet.org/pipermail/assam-assamnet.org/attachments/20061019/19d6a0ef/attachment.htm>