Friday, 1 July 2016

30 JUN 1981 PRESIDENT`S RULE_ASSAM

THE ASSAM MOVEMENT
The historic Assam movement was one of the famous movements in post-colonial India mainlyled by students of Assam .This movement was started in 1979 under the leadership of All AssamStudents Union (AASU) and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP) and officiallyended on 15 August,1985 after coming of an understanding with the Government of India whichfound official expression in the memorandum of understanding popularly known as the AssamAccord 1985.While the movement leaders claimed that it was a peaceful Gandhian movement,others saw it violent and fascist character. Many renowned Assamese intellectuals likeAmalendu Guha, Monirul Hussain, Sanjib Baruah, Hiren Gohain, Udayon Misra, TilottomaMisra, Humen Borgohain and some foreign scholars like Myron Weiner, Abdur Rob Khan, GailOmvedt etc had analysed this movement from different perspective.Through this paper I am basically trying to examine this movement as radical movementaccording to our course structure (Radical Movements in India) and highly focus on the massmobilization in the movement.When we discuss about “Assam movement”, through the reference of Dr.Monirul Hussain inhis book "The Assam Movement :Class, Ideology and Identity" mentioned as "By AssamMovement we specially refers to that movement which demand to stop-(i)The illegalimmigration of foreign nationals to Assam from the neighbouring countries-Bangladesh and Nepal and (ii) their participation in the electoral process in Assam/India and (iii) deportation of all foreigners living illegally in Assam so as to (iv) enable the people of Assam to protect their distinct identity in their traditional homeland from threat of foreign nationals.
1
Another Assam's renowned scholar Amalendu Guha critically discussed Assam Movementand he admits that the movement is national in form and not free from strong chauvinistic andundemocratic tendencies.Abdur Rab Khan a social scientist from Bangladesh stated Assam movement a result of therising expectation of the Asamiya vis-a-vis years of neglect towards the legitimatic needed of the
 Asamiya
 
  
According to Gail Omvedt "Assam movement has resulted not because of the basicAssamese fear of losing jobs to Bengalis but losing their land."Tilottoma Misra tries to provide economic issues as the motivating factors behind themovement .According to her, the Assam movement is reflection of the common people’sawareness of the extra-regional big-business stronghold .She characterizes the status of Assam asa colonial hinterland of India. Similarly Ghanashyam Pardesi too characterizes Assam as aninternal colony within a national exploitative system. Omvedt, misra and Pardesi agree thatAssam movement represent the desire for self determination of an oppressed and backwardnationality in India.Myron Weiner sees the Assam movement from the point of view demographic changes .Heobserves it as the result of severe break down of precarious political system where population arein the midst of political, cultural and economic insecurity with invited all classes of people to participate into it numerically.Hiren Gohain finds the movement as a revolt of the destitute peasants and hard pressed petit-bourgeoisie youth against intolerable circumstances .He had rightly remarked in his book called“Assam :A Burning question”(1985 that- the Assam movement was launched by AASU andAAGSP, has its roots in the remote past. This movement has culminated in the present form isthe continuation of the movement of the movement for a university in Assam during the periodthe independence struggle and the movement for an oil refinery and official language in the postindependent period”
2
Udayon Misra finds that this movement achieved unity of community of different segments of the Assamese society out of the fear of Assamese people of losing their identity .His view thismass upsurge as the outburst of a nationality ,which had a long history of neglect ,suppress andexploitation.A.K.Baruah views Assam Movement as the result of the genuine fear of the Assamese peopleof losing their national identity .K.M. Sharma argues that in order to protect their class interest, the ruling class in Assam have been trying to explore certain historically determined weakness that have blocked the process of a distinct and well defined Assamese nationality form
  
H.N.Baruah obtains this mass-movement as essentially a struggle for Assam's self-preservationand maintenance of national and territorial integrity.Through these several arguments by several noted scholars we come to know about their different perspective on Assam movement and various features of this movement.The historic Assam movement was the consequence of long feeling of insecurity of Assamese people about the demographic structure in the state due to silent invasion by foreigners who weremostly from erstwhile East-Pakistan which is known as Bangladesh.The Assam movement looks like more a political movement than a social movement because of the issue of the immigration of foreign nationals from across the borders of Assam raised by theleaders of the movement apparently look more of a political and constitutional issue than a social problem. But Monirul Hussaain analyzed this movement as a social movement becauseaccording to him Assam movement had all the fundamental elements of a social movement andAssam movement too had its roots in the society and its impact was felt deeply by the people of Assam. In addition to the political, constitutional and economic implication it had significantsocial implication also.
3
Through the discussion of Assam movement by various scholars we understand Assammovement as very complex with many issues and dimensions involved in it which reflect itssignificant natures. According to Monirul Hussain Assam movement is one of the verysignificant social movement with very distinct and significant features among the socialmovements in post-colonial India has seen-Firstly, the issue of foreign nationals participation in the electoral process of Assam /India.Which the supporters of this movement wanted to protect the distinct socio-cultural, economicand political identities of the Asamiya nationality which according to the leadership of themovement was facing an identity crisis in the wake of continuous immigration of foreignnationals from Bangladesh and Nepal .The issue found acceptance from both the masses and thegovernment .It was officially recognized as a national problem.Secondly the movement took place largely outside the traditional party leadership andorganisations .It was largely led by a state -wide organisation known as the All Assam StudentUnion (AASU) which was not affiliated to any political party .In India for the first time Assammovement was a such kind of movement where we see the students participation and organised
the movement in a laqrger way which become popular not only in India but also in throughoutthe world. The organisations which claim to be a non political organisation grow in strength asthe authentic voice of Assam.This led it to a position in which it alone become able to safeguardthe aspiration of Assamese people .Thirdly without affiliated to any political party AASU
 , Asam Sahitya Sabha
a state wideliterary organization and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad(AAGSP) come together to buildup an effective organizational network , the leadership of the movement mobilized the massesfor a relatively durable support base for various protest action and resistance .One importantfeatures of this movement is the mass mobilization . The Assam movement's tremendouscapacity to mobilized masses has given it’s a very distinct status among the contemporary socialmovements in India.
ASAMIYA NATIONALITY:
 We have observed that Assam movement involves the nationality question more, than merely thequestion of foreign nationals in Assam so I would like to defined here the meaning of Asamiyanationality through the reference of Dr. Monirul Hussain.By Asamiya nationality,we mean thehistorically evolved and distinct community of people commonly speaking Asamiya language ,having a composite Asamiya culture,certain specific commonness in psychological make-up,living in a common geographical area and economic zone-the Brahmaputra Valley. It shouldalso be noted that the
 Asamiya
nationality is however a multi caste,multi-racial,multi-religiousand a multi-class community. The Asamiya as a nationality include the non-caste Asamiyahindus like Ahom, Koch-Rajbonshis, Morans, Motaks, Chutiyas, Deuris, Kocharis, Muslimscomprising of Syeds, Shaikhs,Morias and Julahas; caste Hindu Asamiya composed of Brahmins ,Gonakas, Kayasthas, and Kalitas; and other lowly placed castes.In addition the black-tribals of Assam's tea-plantations and the Na-Asamiya Muslims are two other major groups that enteredthe ASamiya nationality during the first half of the present century.
IMMEDIATE CAUSE OF THE MOVEMENT AND ITS STRATEGY AND ROLE
When we discuss about how did the movement start and how the issue was transformed from
'bohiragatos' 
to
'videshi' 
(outsiders to foreigners) the we must mention about the immediate causeof the movement that is
Mongoldoi bye-election
-which is regarded as the immediate cause of 
 
the movement. The death of Hiralal Patgiri the sitting member of 
 Mongoldoi
parliamentaryconstituency prepared the ground for a bye election where it was found that an alarming figure of 45,000 foreigners got infiltrated into voter list (according to the statement of the then chief election officer Shekhder) so Assam movement started in 1979 after a bye-election to the
 Mongoldoi
parliamentary constituency , which is located in an area with a heavy concentrationof East Bengali immigrants ,drew public attention to a rapid expansion of the number of voterssince the previous election two years earlier. The event followed reports of fresh large scaleimmigration from Bangladesh into the state.
4
The All Assam Students Union in collaboration with the press very successfully built up publicopinion among the
 Asamiya
to the effect that the bye-election should be postponed in
 Mongoldoi
constituency till the names of all foreign nationals were deleted from the electoralrolls. On June 8,1979, AASU sponsored a 12-hour general strike(
bandh
) in the state to demand''detection ,disenfranchised and deportation (3D) '' of foreigners .That event turned out to beonly the first of a protracted series of protest actions. On August 26,1979 the AAGSP wasformed as an coalition of various organizations (i.e
. Assam Sahitya Sabha
and many) tocoordinate a sustained statewide movement .An unprecedented mass popular upsurge followed inthe form of sit-ins, picketing in front of the government offices, strikes, and symbolicdisobedience of the law.Between 1980 and 1982, there were 23 negotiating sessions between the movement leaders andthe central government .Even though the Assam movement had immense popular support, therewas considerable disagreement on the demands of the movement in Assam as well as in the restof the country. For the government of India the political costs of agreeing to those demandwould've been high.
5
By the end of 1982, there was an agreement that illegal aliens who came between 1951 and 1961 would be given Indian citizenship and those who came after 1971 would be deported, but the status of those who came between 1961 and 1971 was unresolved. It wasreported that in the negotiations of October 1980,the government's position was that theseimmigrants should stay and the government would pay for their rehabilitation. There were alsodisagreement on the procedures to be used for the detections of aliens -that is, on the kind of documents to be relied upon to prove when a person had actually immigrated. The Assam
4
Sanjib Baruah, ‘’Immigration, Ethnic Conflict, and Political Turmoil-Assam,1979-1985, Asian Survey,Vol.26, No.11, November,1986
5
Sanjib Baruah “Immigration, Ethnic Conflict, and Political Turmoil-Assam,1979-1985”
 Asian Survey,Vol.26, No.11, November,1986 
 
 
movement leaders combined negotiations with general strikes and civil disobedience campaignsdesigned to demonstrate their power capability.The Assam movement succeeded in significantly disrupting the functions of the governmentalinstitutions in Assam, including the 1980 parliamentary elections and in the Assembly electionsin 1983.The leadership of the movement declared established political parties to be 'irrelevant' tothe problems of the state and successfully mobilized campaigns of non recognition of electedstate governments, arguing that they were elected on the basis of invalid electoral rolls thatincluded the names of large numbers of illegal aliens. President's rule had to be imposedintermittently as elected governments lost their majorities in the State Assembly. Sincenegotiations appeared unlikely to produce a settlement, the Indian government sought to reassertthe legitimacy of the governmental institutions and attempted to cut into the popular base of theAssam movement by seeking to wean away ethnic subgroups that constitute weak links in theAssamese ethnic coalition. These efforts ,combined with the strains caused by the movementitself, repeatedly changed the ethnic alignments in the state. However the movement remainedquite strong. The political crisis was eventually resolved when the Indian government recognizedthe power capability of the movement and made important concessions to their demands. Inorder to understand the chronological events of the active period of the movement scholar Sanjib Baruah in his book '' India against itself: Assam and the politics on nationality '' discussedthe stages of Assam movement through five phases i.e.-(1) June 1979 to November 1980 as festival of protest(2) December 1980 to January 1983 as confrontation(3) the election of February 1983 as the breakdown of order (4)March 1983 to may 1984 as contest between the state and the movement(5)June 1984 to December 1985 accommodationIt is noteworthy that the Assam movement continued till the Assam Accord was signed at themid-night of August 14,1985.A number of historic and unprecedented events and incidents took  place in Assam during the period of 1979 to 1985. The Golap Borbora ministry fell onSeptember 4,1979 within 18 months of its formation as a result of factional crisis in the JanataParty, just like the fall of the Union Ministry headed by Moraraji Desai, which fell because of factional crisis and politically charged bargaining drama.*Three ministries headed by three new
 
 
 
faces were formed and were topled in a successive row. They were- Jogen Hazarika who brokeaway from Janata Party and formed Asom Janata Dal (September 9 to December 12,1979 ),Syeda Anowara Taimur ( December 6,1980 to June 30,1981) and Keshab Gogoi ( January 13 toMarch 19,1982).After the fall of the Gogoi Ministry ,the Assembly was dissolved. The UnionGovernment took a position to hold the Assembly election in February to avoid a ' constitutionalcrisis'. The movement leaders and organizations opposed the election on the ground that noelection could be considered legitimate until the voters' list was thoroughly revised to remove theentry of the names of doubtful migrants. Even in the teeth of strong and violent opposition, the1983 election took place,which was marked by unprecedented violence and massacre , includingthe infamous Nellie massacre in a sleepy immigrant inhabitant village now in
 Marigoan
District. The election installed Congress party to power headed by Hiteswar Saikia . He had tostruggle hard against the onslaught of the opposition parties who had been raising legitimacyquestion on the election of the 1983 election. Despite his comfortable position in the Assembly,he had to submit to a political dispensation which demanded dissolution of the assembly and afresh mandate in the wake of Assam Accord.Apart from a compromise on the 'foreigners' question, the Assam Accord was a broadsettlement that included other significant promises on cultural and economic developmentalconcern that had animated Assamese sub national politics.Among them were a clause in the accord that promised ''constitutional, legislative andadministrative safeguards to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identityand heritage of Assamese people.Another clause renewed the Indian Government's commitment to the '' all around economicdevelopment of Assam'' and a special commitment to establishing advanced institution of learning in the field of science and technology.On the immediate question of Assam, it was agreed that they would be classified into a number of categories based on when they had entered India. Some of them were to be given citizenshiprights, some were to be disenfranchised temporarily and more recent ones were to be deported.
6
NONVIOLENT ACTIVITIES IN THE MOVEMENT
6
Sanjib Baruah, India against itself: Assam and the Politics of Nationality (Oxford university Press,2008,p.116
 
 
During the six years of the campaign, governmental institution in Assam were quite embattled.Though from the very beginning the movement was a gandhian nonviolent and peaceful massmovement and secular in nature but unfortunately due to some situation created by statemachinery and confrontation with leftist it became violent .There were some incidents that firsttook place in North Kamrup, the first major civilian violence against the civilians in the form of systematically organized rioting against selected
 Na-asamiya
Muslims and Hindu Bengalis inearly 1980. Another world famous violent incident was “Nellie massacre” of February 18, 1983in which over 1200 people mostly women and children were butchered to death within a fewhours All the victims belonged to the
 Na-Asamiya
Muslim Community. The entire BrahmaputraValley was rocked by severe political violence several times with repeated instances of largescale rioting, and killing of civilians by civilians , kidnapping of election candidates and their supporters, blasting of ordinary to very sophisticated and powerful bombs , destruction or roadsand bridges and killing of police firing. Conservative estimate of deaths during this period standsat more than 7000. Another 2 million lost their homes as a result of violence during 1979-1985.
7
ASSAM MOVEMENT AS RADICAL MOVEMENT:Now I come to my main point of discussion that examining the Assam movement as radicalmovement. Before going to examine Assam movement, I am trying to provide a framework of radical movement according to our course structure.The term ‘radical’ is not static concept ,it’s a dynamic concept .which relating to the question of existing norms (what exist ?, what is good ?,what is possible ) Radical movement means thosemovement which is trying to engage with human liberation, self realization freedom in alldominations and question of injustice and structure of domination on the basis of caste ,class,gender etc. For this movement physical survival is the basis for human beings including non-living beings. Everyone should have the right to nature .Society can be evaluated in terms of whether it has equal opportunity to access the nature. Through this movement people want to self realization and to realize their capacities to meet their requirement and to realize as a human being and also people can able to know what are the structures of domination and to come outfrom that structure of domination which is based on caste , class, gender etc. Radical movement
7
Monirul Hussain, The Assam Movement:Class,Ideology and Identity,( Manak publication,1993)p.10
 
 
work within a framework for survival of human being (e,g. physical survival) and transformthemselves by realizing ,rethinking their own self thinking. Survival is the most important issuesof human being and natural right is important for human survival .Everything is need for human being for survival and if society providing such opportunity to everybody and ultimate societywhere everybody has abandon to concuss physical survival, equal opportunity to every to accessnatural resources and radical movement make physical necessary things available for abandon toall assurance to all. Being human to be radical means to be constantly fighting for the species being s. Freedom of one should be guaranteed by freedom of all. A movement which takes intoconsiders ration human beings as human and fight for liberation of human is radical. The four dimensions of radical movement are-a) Relation between human and natureb) Human as a multilayered being and their engagement with other human beings/livingor non-living beingsc) Understanding of nature and dynamics organizing principles of societyd) Being conscious of the consciousnessTo examine a movement as a radical or not, its important to know about the causes, activity,goals, strategy, ideology of the movement and we also have to examine through some questionsthat is – Is it relating to issue of human liberation?, Is it raise the question of domination of structures based on caste,class, gender etc. and is it raised the question of human survivalrelating to natural rights ? Issue about social basis of this movement (who participate in themovement i.e. the agency of the movement) and it also discussed about possibility of themovement.Within this framework of radical movement Assam movement could be regarded as radicalmovement on the basis of its main reason of this movement i.e. illegal immigration of foreignnationals to Assam from the neighboring countries- Bangladesh and Nepal which raised thequestion of survival and accessing natural resources of the Assamese people. Because of thehighest growth of illlegal immigrant Assamese people facing various problem from economicdevelopment, encroachment of land by illegal immigrants ,problems in work field ( due to cheap
 
 
 
labour provided by illegal immigrants Assamese working class lost their work opportunity) andother resources. The question of natural resources was integrally related in this movement fromthe angles of theorisation of resource conflict between the centre and the leaders in the matter of natural resources belong to Assam.One of the most impressive debate on such conflict was themovement of the oil blockade which was taken place in January ,1980 with a solgan in Assamese''Tez dim Tel nidiu'' ( giving our blood instead of oil) and they demanded for own refinaryinstead of sending of crude oil to the Barauni refinary in Bihar. On the question of naturalresources Assamese people have feared about losing their own land and fear of becominghomeless within their own homeland due to migration from Bangladesh.Assam movement can be regarded as radical movement from the greater participation of masses in the movement, the participation of the masses were n lakhs. If we examine the causes,factor of the assam movement's tramendous capacity to mobilize the masses from the humanliberation, emancipation pont of view people join together irrespective of caste ,class,gender etcas a unified body to protect the distinct socio-cultural ,economic and political identity of asamiya nationality because they have feelings that they were facing an identity crisis in thewake of continuous immigration of foreign nationals from bangladesh and Nepal and in that process we notice that these people have desire to liberation o strengthen,preserve thier ownassamese identity, and their self realisation about this consider it as a radical movement .As a radical movement Assam movement can be seen from the perspective of structure of dominance and exploitation through class aproach. From the time of colonial period in Assamwe noticed the uneven competition between asamiya middle class ( which was numerically verysmall) with the relatively more powerful Bengali middle classs in terms of competition for jobs,market and power at the state level .If we see from colonial administration. the Bengali hadnearly monopolised all the jobs and opportunities. As a result in assamese people's mind astructure of domination created by Hindu-Bengalis and so It had led to an anti bengali feelingsamong the nascent Asamiya middle class which was seen in assam movement . In terms of exploitation the Assam movement was rooted in the agutated mind of the people who hadreasons to protest against the colonil exploitation of the resource of the state by the indian stateand the indian capitalists.Assam can be analysed through the idea of self determination . Theory of self determination ina direct way analyses how a community or group, quest for an identity and searching for a
 
congenial environments for survive. In the assam movement rise of self or identity question,getting shaped and reshaped in several forms, during the movement and in years latter . Theleaders of the movement usedthe term ''Asamiya'' to give a counter the isue of immigration and blame as such illegal immigration became problematic in front of Asamiya identity.This notionthe leaders of the movement used in terms of mobilizes the campaign and fascinate into asuperficial accord-''Assam Accord'' to protect the identity and heritage of the Assamese people. 
STRATEGY OF THE MOVEMENT
:when we discuss the strategy of assam movement , we have to mention that this movement wasled by students of Assam throuhg an non-political organisation i.e All Assam Students Unionand All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad and to achieved their goal of this movement though theleaders of this movement first take Gandhian non-violent strategy as satyagrahas, hunger strike,blocking of roads, strikes and peaceful means but gradually assam movementunfortunately adopted some violent activities to protest against action of state machinery andagainst leftist. This movement ended by signing Assam accord in 1985 and this movementcreated deep impact in Assam both positively and negatively . 
SOCIAL BASIS OF THE MOVEMENT
:When we discuss the social basis of the movement we found that it was the middle class whodesigned the strategy of the movement to capture the state power. In this movement studentswere the agency of the movement who constitute core of the movement, but they were not theoriginator of the movement.Their spontaneity was also induced by the upper class of theAssamese society who controlled the media and public opinion, so the ideological andorganisational roots of the movement rested in this class of people.Assamese society is basicaly a semi-feudal and semi-tribal society within a very slow process of urbanisation.Though the middle clas which evolve primarily of western education hasa dominant position in this society .It is also found that this section has a close connection withthe peasant sec tion of the villages of Assamese society. Therefore though this movement was basically led by students who belonged to the middle class but it gained masive support from the
 
 peasant section of Assam also. It was also to attract the attention of the weak bourgeoisie sectionof Assamese society because in the course of time , they also tried to safeguard the oil,tea and plywood industries from the influence of the strong bourgeoisie class of India. 
MASS MOBILISATION AND PARTICIPATION IN THE MOVEMENT:
Through this paper I am trying to highly focus on the mass mobilization in the movement. Fromthe mass mobilization poin of view Assam movement is regared as one of the most vibrantdemocratic mass movement in independent India. The Assam movement's tramendous capacityto mobilize the masses has given its a very distinct status among the contemporary socialmovement in India. Even the critics of the movement have admitted that the movement attainedthe character of a mass movement by the later part on 1979. Some member of the older generation belonging mostly to the Congress party, who had seen the mass participations of theAsamiya in the national movement 1942, has compared the magnitude of the participation withthat phase of the national movement. Mass participation and popular backing made the Assammovement historically as well as sociologically very significant among the well known socialmovement that India had experienced during the post-colonial period. monirul Hussain in his book ''The Assam Movement :Class, Ideology and Identity'' discussed about the mass participatioof the movement .According to him '' though there are other examples of historically significantmovement like the Telengana movement of the early fifties, the Naxalbari movement based onthe Maoist ideology of rural insurrecion of the late 60's and early 70's ,the Navnirman movementog Gujarat and the Bihar movement of the pre emergency days and the Punjab movement in theeighties , but admittedly all these movements stand nowhere near Assam movement in terms of mass mobilization and participation.'' The Assam movement created a strong and relativelydurable support base among the masses. As I already mentioned that assam movement waslargely led by a state -wide students organisation known as All Assam Students Union (AASU)which was not affiliated to any political party and the Assam Sahitya Sabha, a state wide literaryorganisation and another constituents of the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP) cometogether to build up an effective orgnisational network and methods of co-ordinations from itshead quarter at the Gauhati university to deep down inruarl areas of the Brahmaputra Valley.Through this vast organisational network, the leadership mobilized the masses for a relatively
 
labour provided by illegal immigrants Assamese working class lost their work opportunity) andother resources. The question of natural resources was integrally related in this movement fromthe angles of theorisation of resource conflict between the centre and the leaders in the matter of natural resources belong to Assam.One of the most impressive debate on such conflict was themovement of the oil blockade which was taken place in January ,1980 with a solgan in Assamese''Tez dim Tel nidiu'' ( giving our blood instead of oil) and they demanded for own refinaryinstead of sending of crude oil to the Barauni refinary in Bihar. On the question of naturalresources Assamese people have feared about losing their own land and fear of becominghomeless within their own homeland due to migration from Bangladesh.Assam movement can be regarded as radical movement from the greater participation of masses in the movement, the participation of the masses were n lakhs. If we examine the causes,factor of the assam movement's tramendous capacity to mobilize the masses from the humanliberation, emancipation pont of view people join together irrespective of caste ,class,gender etcas a unified body to protect the distinct socio-cultural ,economic and political identity of asamiya nationality because they have feelings that they were facing an identity crisis in thewake of continuous immigration of foreign nationals from bangladesh and Nepal and in that process we notice that these people have desire to liberation o strengthen,preserve thier ownassamese identity, and their self realisation about this consider it as a radical movement .As a radical movement Assam movement can be seen from the perspective of structure of dominance and exploitation through class aproach. From the time of colonial period in Assamwe noticed the uneven competition between asamiya middle class ( which was numerically verysmall) with the relatively more powerful Bengali middle classs in terms of competition for jobs,market and power at the state level .If we see from colonial administration. the Bengali hadnearly monopolised all the jobs and opportunities. As a result in assamese people's mind astructure of domination created by Hindu-Bengalis and so It had led to an anti bengali feelingsamong the nascent Asamiya middle class which was seen in assam movement . In terms of exploitation the Assam movement was rooted in the agutated mind of the people who hadreasons to protest against the colonil exploitation of the resource of the state by the indian stateand the indian capitalists.Assam can be analysed through the idea of self determination . Theory of self determination ina direct way analyses how a community or group, quest for an identity and searching for a
 
congenial environments for survive. In the assam movement rise of self or identity question,getting shaped and reshaped in several forms, during the movement and in years latter . Theleaders of the movement usedthe term ''Asamiya'' to give a counter the isue of immigration and blame as such illegal immigration became problematic in front of Asamiya identity.This notionthe leaders of the movement used in terms of mobilizes the campaign and fascinate into asuperficial accord-''Assam Accord'' to protect the identity and heritage of the Assamese people. 
STRATEGY OF THE MOVEMENT
:when we discuss the strategy of assam movement , we have to mention that this movement wasled by students of Assam throuhg an non-political organisation i.e All Assam Students Unionand All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad and to achieved their goal of this movement though theleaders of this movement first take Gandhian non-violent strategy as satyagrahas, hunger strike,blocking of roads, strikes and peaceful means but gradually assam movementunfortunately adopted some violent activities to protest against action of state machinery andagainst leftist. This movement ended by signing Assam accord in 1985 and this movementcreated deep impact in Assam both positively and negatively . 
SOCIAL BASIS OF THE MOVEMENT
:When we discuss the social basis of the movement we found that it was the middle class whodesigned the strategy of the movement to capture the state power. In this movement studentswere the agency of the movement who constitute core of the movement, but they were not theoriginator of the movement.Their spontaneity was also induced by the upper class of theAssamese society who controlled the media and public opinion, so the ideological andorganisational roots of the movement rested in this class of people.Assamese society is basicaly a semi-feudal and semi-tribal society within a very slow process of urbanisation.Though the middle clas which evolve primarily of western education hasa dominant position in this society .It is also found that this section has a close connection withthe peasant sec tion of the villages of Assamese society. Therefore though this movement was basically led by students who belonged to the middle class but it gained masive support from the
 
 peasant section of Assam also. It was also to attract the attention of the weak bourgeoisie sectionof Assamese society because in the course of time , they also tried to safeguard the oil,tea and plywood industries from the influence of the strong bourgeoisie class of India. 
MASS MOBILISATION AND PARTICIPATION IN THE MOVEMENT:
Through this paper I am trying to highly focus on the mass mobilization in the movement. Fromthe mass mobilization poin of view Assam movement is regared as one of the most vibrantdemocratic mass movement in independent India. The Assam movement's tramendous capacityto mobilize the masses has given its a very distinct status among the contemporary socialmovement in India. Even the critics of the movement have admitted that the movement attainedthe character of a mass movement by the later part on 1979. Some member of the older generation belonging mostly to the Congress party, who had seen the mass participations of theAsamiya in the national movement 1942, has compared the magnitude of the participation withthat phase of the national movement. Mass participation and popular backing made the Assammovement historically as well as sociologically very significant among the well known socialmovement that India had experienced during the post-colonial period. monirul Hussain in his book ''The Assam Movement :Class, Ideology and Identity'' discussed about the mass participatioof the movement .According to him '' though there are other examples of historically significantmovement like the Telengana movement of the early fifties, the Naxalbari movement based onthe Maoist ideology of rural insurrecion of the late 60's and early 70's ,the Navnirman movementog Gujarat and the Bihar movement of the pre emergency days and the Punjab movement in theeighties , but admittedly all these movements stand nowhere near Assam movement in terms of mass mobilization and participation.'' The Assam movement created a strong and relativelydurable support base among the masses. As I already mentioned that assam movement waslargely led by a state -wide students organisation known as All Assam Students Union (AASU)which was not affiliated to any political party and the Assam Sahitya Sabha, a state wide literaryorganisation and another constituents of the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP) cometogether to build up an effective orgnisational network and methods of co-ordinations from itshead quarter at the Gauhati university to deep down inruarl areas of the Brahmaputra Valley.Through this vast organisational network, the leadership mobilized the masses for a relatively
 
durable support base for various participation and resistance. In terms of build up a vastorganisational networks in all over Assam specially in Brahmaputra valley AASU had already built up its units in almost all educational institutes dominated by the
 Asamiya
students. On theother hand the
 Assam Sahitya Sabha
,one of the constituents of the AAGSP had 700 branchesall over Assam. The response of the people at this stage was so overwhelming that in many places the branches of the AAGSP were set up not on the initiative of its leaders but on theinitiative of the people themselves. During that time mass participation became highlyspontaneous as a result, the movement became stronger and more popular and mobilization became easier and systematic. When the leadership of the movement gave a call for strike, massralley, weak-long satyagraha people gave their full support to thr leaders and deliberately theycome to join the movement irrespective of caste ,class ,gender etc. In beginning of Assammovement, when the leadership of the movement gave a call for a 12 hours Assam bandh on 8thJune 1979, the response from the people was very high, people gaves their full suport tothebandh. Significantly this was the begining of an active phase of protest actions and massmobilizations.In 1979,12th to 18th November the leadership of the movement announced aweeklong action programe with satyagraha,courting arrest in front of the offices of the deputycommissioners, and sub-divisional officers tc. During these days thsis programme recorded amassive participation of men,women and students. The government employees too,participatedin the programme defying government's orders. According to Monirul Hussain in his book aboutthis events '' Those who had seen the last days satyagraha, particularly at Guwahati, would besure to remember it for a lifetime because a vast sea of humanity had gathered s never beforein the areas around the deputy commissioner's court and hoh court, Pan bazar and Dighali-Pukhuri areas.
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The state government constructed many temporary jails , and even these jailsfailed to accomodate the rising tide of satyagrahis.The people gathered ina discipline manner andmarched peacefully to court arrest.It had clearly demonstrated the massive support that themovement had succeeded in buliding up. Several lakh of people courted arest throughout theBrahmaputra Valley.In Guwahati alone about 5 lakh people offered satyagraha.Therefore fromthe mass participation in the movement , Assam movement is regarded as one of the most vibrantdemocratic mass movement in India.
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Monirul Hussain, The Assam Movement: Class,Ideology and Identity,( Manak publication,1993)p.111
 
 
CONLUSION: (with critical assessment)Assam movement being very complex social movement with many issues and dimensionsinvolves in it, no view can be above controversy from issue of illegal immigrants to issue of identity crisis. If we see this movement as radical movement from the perspective of humanliberation, emancipation, structure of dominance as well as survival in terms of accessing naturalresources(natural rights) and interms of self realization, being conscious of the consciousness,goal,strategy and agency of this movement, though we consider this movement as radicalmovement but Assam movement can't escape from criticism.To achieve their goal though they first time used gandhian non-violent means but in later theyused various violent activity i.e.- mass killing, bombing, kidnapped etc, so it was seen that inthe name of human liberation ,emancipation to protect Assamese identity, nationality they usedviolent method as a means .In the question of agency of the movement the Assamese middle class who was the mainoriginator and designed Assam movement and they used the students as instrument to protecttheir own interest and achieved their goals.As we know Assam movement was ended after signing Assam Accord(1985) and Assammovement was institutionalised through forming a regional political party named Asom GanaParishad (AGP) and it came into power through !985 election but AGP could not able to fullfillAssamese people's aspiration.The government headed by Prafulla Kumar Mahanta earnednotoriety for its misgovernance and misrule , as a result AGP dismissed in1990 December Assembly Election and again Congress government came to power.Though people gave another chance to the AGP in 1996, there was hardly any positive change inits style of governance .Gradually the factional rivalry and intra -party conflict has thereforecaused irreparable damage to the party that came into being with the pledge to serve the cause of Assamese nationalism. In this way , a party grown out of the six years Asaam movement hasgradually lost space in the immagination of the Assamese psyche as a saviour of regionalinterest. As a result by raising the question of Minority, D voters (doubtful voter) issue a new political party from minorities formed in Assam named All India United Democratic Front(AIUDF) led by Baddaruddin Ajamal which has able to show their strong position in Assam by being major opposition party in recent Assam Election (2009). Where AIUDF won 22 seats
 
whether onced main regional prty in Assam AGP won only seats which give us a doubtful position of regional party in Assam.The issue of illegal migration remains a transitional political and electioneering issue to beforgotten soon after the election. Although the foreign national issue appeared to have died downsoon after Assam Accord, it again surfaced recently after a period of two decades. It was keptalive within the gamut of Illegal Migrants Detection Tribunal(Act) IMDT, which now standsnullified by the Supreme Court after the historic verdict on July 12,2005.The Act was enacted in1983 to protect the indigenous muslims from harassment on indigenous Muslims when they wereasked to prove themselves as Indian citizens. In the name of protecting the indigenous Muslimsagainst such harassment, it is alleged, the Act ultimately protects the illegal migrants.
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One of the most significant effects of the Assam movements is that the immigrants issue has been put firmly on the public agenda. Earlier framework of ethnic accommodation attempt toobscure the immigration question. The AGP ministry has a new portfolio of AccordImplementation under the Chief Minister.It indicates the importance attached to the issue bysupporters of the Assam movement and the AGP. But now the issue has left the backrooms of  political horse-trading , there is space for new innovation in dealing with the question.The perceived failure of the Assam movement to resolve Assam’s immigration crisis led to aradicalization of Assamese sub nationalism, giving it a separate turn. Another effect of thesustained campaign was the rupturing of ties between a number of ethnic groups . There wereepisode of violation between ‘indigenous’ and ‘immigrant’ communities. The campaign also ledto a friction between the ethnic Assamese and some of Assam’s “plain tribal” groups –the Bodomovement is in some ways an outgrowth of the Assam movement. So needless to say theAssam movement has become a reference movement for tribal movement that have emerged inthe hills and plains of Assam.The Assam movement represents the unresolved nationality question in a multi-national nationstate. Although Assam movement apparently tried to address the nationality question in Assamwhile trying to protect and promote the aspirations of the Assamese speaking population livingin the Brahmaputra Valley , it was actually designed by the middle class Assamese elite as astrategy to capture the state power.

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