Sanjay (Xonzoi) Barbora
Every year, I feel compelled to look back on my own life on a particular day. On May 17, like clockwork, I assess my small world around me and try and figure out how far I have come, or how far I need to go. On this day, in 1996, four armed men shot dead Parag Kumar Das outside his son’s school in Guwahati. The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) had just been voted into power for the second time and Prafulla Mahanta had taken oath only a few days before Parag Das was killed. I was a student at Delhi University on May 17, 1996 and remember my utter bewilderment and confusion, as I packed my luggage onto the train to return home. Coming into Guwahati, just days after the murder, was surreal. People grieved in public and complete strangers commiserated with one another, as they shared private moments of a public event that would shape the future of democracy in Assam.
Parag Das was a human rights activist who I had the occasion to meet briefly a few times. It is easy to lionise a person in death, but he had truly taken it upon himself to learn about his region and its peoples and for this alone, I think he was worthy of the public outcry that followed his assassination. His colleagues and he started Manab Adhikar Sangram Samiti (MASS) at a time when the Indian army had ravaged rural Assam. MASS became the only platform that was able to mobilise public opinion and rally against state excesses. At the same time, Parag Das was aware of the pitfalls of the lack of unity amongst the different civil liberties and human rights movements in the region. He was Assamese, often going out of his way to express that he was of the nationalist persuasion, yet not a shallow patriot. He was critical of any form of patriotism that eschewed the democratic right of self-determination for other, oppressed peoples. As a journalist, he educated the Assamese public about the struggles of other nationalities amongst us. As a political person, he mobilised people to embrace the ethical simplicity of socialism, even going on to author a book on the economic policies of a sovereign Assam. It was because of Parag Das that a generation of young women and men in Assam became more reflective about their relationship with other peoples – like the Naga, Khasi, Boro and others – as also with the Indian state.
For many of us coming of age in the 1990s, Parag Das’ life and work offered a measure of hope in a just world, where the free association of people would be an inviolable rule. Now, 16 years later, it is a daunting task to look back to see how far we have come from those ideals. The human rights movement in Assam (as in the rest of the Northeast) is still trying to come to terms with the incredible militarisation of civil life and of civil society itself. It has had to disassemble and recalibrate its focus from awareness, to mobilising for peace and ceasefires. I am sure that Parag Das would have understood the need to engage with matters other than civil and political rights. After all, he always recognised the need for human rights organisations to take on more than what was expected of them, especially in militarised societies where the space for democratic discussion and dissent had been taken over by the military state and its mimics.
There is a small memorial that has been erected on the spot where Parag Das was shot dead, in Rajgarh Road, Guwahati. Every year since his death, people come from far and near to pay respects and perhaps (like me) take stock of their own lives. In the last 16 years, I have missed quite a few, having been away from Guwahati. But I remember the faces of the people who would come, even during days when repression against anyone seen to be close to MASS was always a possibility. People came because they needed to believe that his ideas were still alive. Over time, their numbers have become smaller, as people either forgot, or moved on in life. It is impossible to write obituaries and mourn the passing of someone whose ideas still live and give hope to many. Yet, I feel the need to reflect on my own life and his absence. I missed out another May 17 in Guwahati. Thinking about it from far away, I wish I could slip in this note with the flowers that accompany my homage: “Parag Kumar Das, your friends seem to have deserted you, but your enemies remain who they are”.
