ARTICLE

Labouring Conflicts in Karbi Anglong


Sanjay Barbora is a Research Associate at the North Eastern Social Research Centre, Guwahati, Assam. (Sanjay Barbora )

In 2002-2003, the two autonomous hills districts of Karbi Anglong and North Cachar Hills in the North-East state of Assam witnessed an unprecedented increase in ethnic conflicts. In both instances, the causes of the conflicts have been ethnicity, control over resources and loss of rights over the land. In Karbi Anglong alone, conflicts between ethnic militia, claiming to protect the interests of the Karbi people and settlers (Hindi-speaking and Kuki), have claimed more than 300 lives. More than a thousand others have been displaced from their homes. They live in make-shift camps or have moved to other districts where they feel more secure. The make-shift camps have received only bare minimum attention from the Autonomous Council authorities. Displaced Kukis (and other settler communities) usually move back to districts where they feel safer while Hindi-speaking settlers continue to live in the foothills and plains where they are protected by the presence of large numbers of paramilitary forces.

 

History of Conflicts

These conflicts, though tragic, have an underlying reason attached to them. The movement of people into this Sixth Schedule (autonomous) district has increased manifold in the past 15 years. What was essentially a sparsely populated region was transformed into a classical frontier, attracting many land speculators and agriculturists back in the 1960s and 1970s. According to Elwin Teron, an Autonomous State Demand Committee (ASDC) leader, the decadal growth in the district has been as much as 60 per cent since 1991 (The Council provides a fraction of food grains needed for such a large number of people. The men usually deal with the administration. It is the women who have to arrange for a bulk of the day-to-day survival ration by going to nearby villages and negotiating with others).

 

The Karbis comprise 63.36 per cent of the total hill (scheduled) tribes population in Assam. The ‘autonomous’ district status is something that Karbi Anglong has enjoyed from the time the Constitution was framed, though the territory has been redefined over the time. In 1986, ASDC was formed to spearhead a movement for a separate state. In the Council elections of 1989, ASDC won as many as 22 of the 26 seats. However, the demand for a separate state, though still an important factor, has seemingly lost out to electoral politics and splits within the movement.

 

The Importance of Land

The total area of the district today stands at 10,434 square kilometres, of which only 37 square kilometres are classified as “urban” land in the 2001 Census. Agriculture is the main occupation of the people who live in this district. Paddy is the main crop though new crops have been encouraged in the past few years. Crops like tea, coffee and rubber have been promoted by the respective regulators of the industry. For the miniscule population not employed in the primary sector, government jobs are the only source of employment.

 

In such a situation, land transfer and land use assume great importance. The transfer of land has been at the core of conflicts in the district. In June 2000, members of United People’s Democratic Solidarity (UPDS), a Karbi militia, carried out attacks against Hindi-speaking agriculturists in the Hamren sub-division. In retaliation, the settlers armed and aided by the Central Reserve Police Force deployed nearby and attacked several villages killing many Karbi farmers. The violent events were repeated in 2001 and 2002. In 2003, a fresh series of ethnic conflicts appeared due to divisions between Kuki and Karbi communities around the area of Singhason Hills. In March 2004, suspected members of a Karbi militia killed six Kuki ginger cultivators, who refused to pay taxes on ginger cultivation. In retaliation, members of Kuki Revolutionary Army, a Kuki militia, raided three villages and killed as many as 30 Karbi people.

 

Conflicts and Autonomy

Given the fact that Karbi Anglong is an autonomous district governed under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, it would seem like an indictment against autonomy where ethnic clashes have become a norm. A critical look at the structure of autonomous arrangements will show that this violence is actually a fall-out of state policy and local political decisions. In the process of discouraging community ownership, always associated with “primitive slash-and-burn” cultivation, the process of privatisation of land has been encouraged at all levels. This puts the indigenous agriculturists at a disadvantage, as they neither have the labour nor the capital to invest in their individual land holdings. Hence, they lease out the land to settlers, who are better prepared for commercial and large-scale farming. Added to this, is the ubiquitous presence of the State that has long forgotten its welfare role. Indeed, in Karbi Anglong and other parts of Assam, the most visible presence of the State is the military personnel and their attendant informers in different villages.

 

The inability of the State to provide adequate security and also the politicisation of ethnic identity has led to proliferation of ethnic militia, each seeking to “protect its own”. Hence, even a calculated political decision to allow Kukis (displaced in the Kuki-Naga clashes in Manipur in the 1990s)to settle in Karbi Anglong, has to be accounted for in blood barely ten years later. While the Kukis are a designated Scheduled Tribe, they are not considered “indigenous” in Karbi Anglong. The decision to allow them to settle in parts of Karbi Anglong was not merely accidental, but had electoral promises attached to it. Therefore, the demand of the Kukis for a regional council, coupled with their refusal to pay “taxes” for cultivating ginger have been contributing factors in the conflict.

 

Life in Relief Camps

More than 800 Karbi villagers today live in make-shift relief camps in the Diphu sub-division following the violent clashes in 2002-2003. The displaced Kukis have left to live with their kin in other districts. The relief camp at Manja (near Diphu) alone accommodates more than 290 people. Almost all of them are from five villages near the Singhason Hills. In their absence, their houses and fields have been trampled by elephants. Women have been the worst-hit in this dislocation. In subsistence agriculture, women play a large role in the production process. In the camps, they have to care for the displaced people by organising ration from nearby villages. The children in the relief camp have not seen a class room for the last four months. Despite the occasional tutorial by concerned persons around the town, it is unlikely that they will be able rejoin schools this year. Borsing Teron, a 60-year-old farmer, says: “We lived in peace with our neighbours. Now we are being asked to go back with police security. How can the police protect us?”

 

The future of labour and employment opportunities in Karbi Anglong will be dictated by the memories of the tragic events of 2002-2003. Firstly, there is a need to re-assess land use policies. The contradictions of exalting “community” land while promoting privatisation have to be taken seriously. With this, much of the archaic provisions (of the Sixth Schedule) that allow divisive politics to take root, have to be addressed. More than anything else, policy-makers and grassroots activists have to wrench themselves from this schizophrenic discourse of intolerance and victim-hood that threatens to overwhelm the political and economic lives of the people in Karbi Anglong. The lack of any concrete policy to handle these complexities, on the part of both Assam government and the Centre, will only exacerbate the conflicts thereby leading to loss of lives and livelihoods.

Author Name: Sanjay Barbora
Title of the Article: Labouring Conflicts in Karbi Anglong
Name of the Journal: Labour File
Volume & Issue: ,
Year of Publication: 2004
Month of Publication: May - June
Page numbers in Printed version: Labour File, Vol.2-No.3, Labour and Employment in Situations of Conflict (Article - Labouring Conflicts in Karbi Anglong - pp 21-24)
Weblink : https://www.labourfile.com:443/section-detail.php?aid=104

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