By Najam Gilani, TwoCircles.net,
Assam has for decades witnessed conflicts involving Bodos and Muslims, which, most often, have turned violent resulting in deaths. Peaceful resolution to the dispute is on everyone’s mind. Talking to TwoCircles.net some prominent Assamese intellectuals said: There should be a check on cross border infiltration; and political leadership needs a will power to resolve the issue.
A few months ago trouble broke out in Bodo-dominated Mohanpur village in Udalguri district when some people from minority community allegedly stole some cattle. The clashes followed after the villagers attacked them. In no time the violence spread to Darrang district, where over 30 houses were burnt down. As the violence got intensified further the district administration imposed an indefinite curfew and issued shoot-at-sight order to bring the situation under control.
Subir Bhoumik delivering speech at Seminar
This fresh violence agitated the intellectuals to think over the resolution of the conflict. Recently a galaxy of noted Assamese intellectuals converged in Guwahati. Manoj Nath of Progressive Media, in association with Panos South Asia, organised a seminar titled “Hurdles: Resolving communal conflicts of Assam.” Among other noted participants of the seminar were Subir Bhowmik, BBC Eastern India Correspondent, eminent lawyer of Assam Aroop Borbora and writer Professor Ismail Hussain.
While speaking to TCN on phone from Calcutta, on the reasons of continuous communal conflict in Assam, BBC Eastern India Correspondent Subir Bhowmick said that basically the nature of conflict is ethnic which has taken the religious shape.
Ismail Hussain delivering speech at Seminar
Noted lawyer of Assam Arup Borbora while expressing his views to TCN said: that the main reason of communal conflict in relation to Assam is the influx of people from across the border. Local indigenous people feel threatened by the high scale immigration. He emphasized the point that guns and bullets are not the solution of this chronic problem; the only recourse is the political dialogue.
Professor Ismail Hussein was of the view: The only way out for this ongoing conflict is that resident Muslims should identify the foreigner element among their group and should report it to the administration, while similar exercise needs to be taken by the Hindus to report about the foreigners from Nepal and Burma, who have found place among them. He further said that government and NGOs need to do some cultural programmes on regular basis to propagate the culture of peace and amity.