From far-flung hamlets they arrive early on buses, minivans, trucks, and even bicycles. The morning chill fails to dampen their spirits as they rush to reach the protest site to hear their leaders speak. Most of them are daily wage earners sacrificing a day's pay to turn up for the rally. The Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) is demanding 12 bighas and 1.5 kothas of land be allocated to the landless in rural and urban areas respectively. This is a revolution for them, a revolution that gives voice to their aspirations for land ownership. Uncomfortable questions, however, cannot be avoided.
Never before has the clamour for land been so intense in Assam. On 29 January, more than 10 people lost their lives in fighting at the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border at Behali reserve forest in Sonitpur. Violence on 7 January between the Karbi and Rengma Naga tribes that left 16 dead illustrates the depth of ethnic animosity in the region while the self-immolation and subsequent death of a KMSS protestor on 24 February outside the Assam Secretariat speaks volumes about the intensity of the struggle for land. The Tarun Gogoi-led government was busy distributing land pattas on the same day as the immolation, though only to a select few.
Both the government of Nagaland and its inhabitants have been at constant loggerheads with Assam over land issues. While the government of Assam is accusing the Naga administration of aiding land theft, it is lobbying the Centre to demand the return of territory that has been encroached upon. As the Assam police carry out indiscriminate reprisals on villagers, clashes have become a regular affair in the bordering hamlets of Sibsagar and Jorhat. Tea gardens dominate the region, which means labourers often bear the brunt of violence.
Although the adjacent conflict with Arunachal Pradesh is nothing new, its seriousness has been underscored by recent deaths, capturing the attention of the public as well as the authorities. Claims emerging from the intelligence agencies that Maoists are setting up footholds in the border areas of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh are cause for concern. The Chief Minister of Assam Tarun Gogoi asserted that recent land-based conflict with Arunachal Pradesh was aggravated by Maoists attempting to implicate locals in an active confrontation with armed encroachers. That corruption and ineffective governance in the handling of land titles was instrumental in the Maoists establishing a presence in Orissa provides an ominous precedent for current events.