Not for nothing, the ULFA and now the People’s Consultative Group—nominated to hold direct talks with the Government of India—are feeling betrayed by Delhi’s insensitivity. Slighted, the ULFA has now stepped up its tirade by even going to the extend of accusing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of launching a “false propaganda” against the ULFA and blamed his government of adopting double standards on the issue of talks. The line of criticism is that New Delhi had shown “false interest in talks with ULFA” and then managed to hold polls in Assam and then again staged a drama by suspending operations against the outfit to ensure peaceful celebration of Independence Day. And now when it has gotten what it wants, the Government of India has pulled the carpet from underneath and virtually dislodging the peace process and thereby the hopes of the people of Assam. What is also disturbing in this entire development is that the old ploy of creating differences within people’s resistance movement continues to remain a ‘hidden’ agenda.
On the face of it, this latest debacle clearly goes to show that the Indian establishment does not genuinely care to establish permanent peace but rather to keep a conflict situation under ceasefire for its advantage. This only discredits the civilian government in Delhi in the eyes of people in the region. One of the major problems seems to be that the elected government at the Centre appears to be ill advised by military generals and home ministry hawks that see the problem merely through the narrow prism of their security paradigm. The manner in which the ULFA problem has been handled over the last few months simply gives the impression that it is the military establishment and not the civilian government which has been given the power to veto. Such a development is extremely unfortunate. For the ULFA nominated People’s Consultative Group in particular, the recent development will be no doubt discouraging and they have every reason to feel insulted by Delhi’s retracting from its commitment made over the last three rounds of talks to find a political solution to the conflict.
While there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the suspension of military operations reciprocated by ULFA was indeed a golden opportunity to push forward for direct peace talks, at the end it is the Tarun Gogoi led Congress government in Assam failing to act as a genuine facilitator for peace and also the elected government in Delhi not taking control of the peace initiative and thereby virtually giving the military establishment the power to decide. In this sense, it is the democratically elected government at the Centre and in Assam which has failed the people’s genuine desire for peace. On hindsight, it was also a wrong policy shift for the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to completely pull itself out of the negotiations and to allow the Union home ministry to take over the Assam peace process. In future, the Home Ministry should be allowed in only after all the ground modalities have been worked out under the PMO as there is greater chance of peace initiatives surviving under this process.
