assam the city of india

Assam - In Nature's Lap

Sunset From River Brahmaputra

I am living in Delhi for my studies from last four years. Once in a year, I get the opportunity to visit my home in Assam, 2000 kms away in Sonepur. I boarded the poorvottari Sampak Kranti from New Delhi railway station on 3rd may. It took 32 hours to reach my destination. Bongaigaon ,The journey was good as many other students were also travelling in the same train. I got off from the train on 5th may, in the morning. Then I took the bus, which was another 2 hour drive to Kalaghadia, an emerging town, My younger brother was already waiting there to take me home. In next half an hour I was in my village much away from the bustling city life. I spent some time shopping in Guwahati, the capital city of Assam.

There are many reasons a traveller should visit the place. Assam is known for its greenery, so my village is no exception.It is as picturesque as a portrait could be. The beauty of the green fields are a treat to the eyes.The beauty of the village is enhanced by the River Beli, which passes by it. The river and high hills surrounds the village from three sides. I took some time out to indulge in Adventure sports on these high hills. While trekking, one thing I noticed was that the place is absolutely wonderful for Eco-Tourism. From these heights, one gets a clear view of the Assam tea gardens that cover a large part on the hills. Though the main attraction of Assam is its wildlife, especially Kaziranga National Park, I was not able to visit them because of lack of time. The sands of the river almost makes a beach on its bank. Another attrative feature is the climate. Neither too hot nor too cold.The amount of rainfall is extraordinary as Cherrapunji (which receives the highest rainfall in the world) is just 5 hours journey.Just two miles from my villages is the baghban Hill, which makes on awsome view.

Thus, my village is an expression of nature. No pollution, no chaos. If one wants to encounter nature from all quarters he must go to my village. Morever,there is a unique culture to team-Assamere blending with Bengali So, my village doesn't just provide food for eyes, but food for thought too.

ASSAM: Death Dance

Wavering and incoherent governmental policies and delusional braggadocio in the face of ULFA's coherent and calculatedly brutal and cold-blooded violence leaves Assam bleeding.

The abiding question is, can the political leadership carry a clearly defined policy to its logical end? And does the ULFA really want peace? Answers to these questions are difficult to find. Things are far from transparent, and there are several forces, both internal and external, at play. The result: innocent people are drawn into the vortex of the violence itself and pay with their lives, again and again, with sickening regularity.

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Outlook India
WASBIR HUSSAIN

The January 5-7, 2007 massacre in eastern Assam of at least 57 migrant workers [as we upload this, the death toll has gone up to 69] from Bihar by rebels of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), one of northeast India’s most potent separatist groups, essentially proves two things – that the insurgents are trigger-happy and continue to lurk around to strike at largely helpless soft targets in a bid to arm-twist the authorities; and that fluctuating and tactless government behaviour over matters of dealing with the insurrection has led to disastrous consequences.

The manner in which ULFA hit-squads, in groups of three to six, went about selectively identifying Hindi-speaking workers in the eastern districts of Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Sivasagar and Dhemaji, segregating them from non-Hindi speakers in some cases, and then shooting them dead from almost point-blank range in thirteen separate incidents, demonstrates that the rebel group was out to create terror and nothing else. Top police officials told this writer that, apart from AK-47 assault rifles, the rebels had also used Universal Machine Guns (UMGs) in the attacks. At least one UMG has been recovered by the security forces from the scenes of carnage.

On this occasion, the usual alibi of a ‘failure of intelligence’ can hardly be cited. The ULFA had itself given sufficient forewarning of violence to come. In a December 2006 issue of its mouthpiece Swadhinata (Freedom), usually circulated through e-mail, the ULFA had said that "outsiders" had set up "mini Bihars", "mini Rajasthans" and "mini Bengals" in different districts of Assam, and called for their ouster. In 2003, and earlier in 2000, ULFA had carried out similar pogroms against Hindi-speaking people from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, killing a total of nearly 150, mostly brick kiln and dairy workers, daily wage earners, etc. The state’s massive counter-insurgency machinery ought to have anticipated such a strike on the Hindi-speaking migrant workers after the ULFA call, and perhaps even have evacuated them or directed them to move to safer areas. Hindi speakers are seen by radical forces in Assam as symbolizing the government that rules this country, or are seen to be part of the dominant political establishment, and seen to be cornering livelihood opportunities that ‘rightly belong’ to ‘locals’.

That the ULFA was going to indulge in something as mindless or devastating as this was, moreover, to be expected for more reasons than one: first, it is bent on making New Delhi sit up and perhaps compel it to concede some of its immediate demands, such as the release of five of its top leaders from prison – and random killings and attacks on soft targets have been a settled ‘negotiating ploy’ in the past; secondly, ULFA was trying to make sure that its call for a boycott of the upcoming National Games at Guwahati between February 9 and 18, 2007, was taken seriously by the authorities. The National Games are India’s biggest sporting event and ULFA knows only too well that the Congress-led government in Assam has a lot at stake. The successful holding of the National Games is expected not only to boost the state’s image outside, but would also be a big feather in the cap of Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, one of the rare political leaders in Assam to have led his party to victory in two consecutive state elections. The call for a boycott of the National Games was, consequently, a key bargaining ploy to secure immediate ULFA objectives, including the release of detained leaders, getting the heat of counter-insurgency operations off its back yet again, and perhaps even forcing the government to resume peace talks, but on terms more acceptable to ULFA.

The assassination of two grassroot-level Congress leaders in Tinsukia and Golaghat districts respectively, coinciding with the massacre of Hindi speakers, falls in the same pattern that seeks to create maximum terror and corner the Congress-led governments, both at Dispur (Assam’s official capital) and in New Delhi.

It is significant that the latest string of attacks began on January 5, 2007, a day after union home secretary V.K. Duggal visited Guwahati to review the security for the National Games in view of the ULFA threat. Duggal gave out a strong signal that the Games would be held on the dates fixed at any cost. There was nothing wrong in that message. But, if media reports are to be believed, the home secretary added, rather gratuitously, that the ULFA threat need not be taken seriously. Apart from the fact that such an observation adds nothing to any objective threat assessment, it appears to have been taken as a provocation by ULFA to demonstrate the ‘seriousness’ of their intentions.

New Delhi has, in fact, played according to the ULFA script. That the home secretary had to rush to Guwahati to review the Games’ security was itself a ‘victory’ for the rebels. Such a visit was both unnecessary and counter-productive, as a security review could have been done from New Delhi itself. Worse, New Delhi’s decision to rush minister of state for home, Sriprakash Jaiswal, to the worst-affected Tinsukia and Dibrugarh Districts after the ULFA massacres, is another questionable act, confirming that the impact of the attacks has, indeed, been massive. In such a situation, the authorities required to ensure that the injured receive proper treatment, survivors and the next of kin of the deceased are given immediate relief, and, of course, intensify efforts to neutralise the killers. High-profile political visits do little to further any of these ends and provide nothing more than a further supply of the ‘oxygen of publicity’ to the perpetrators of terror.

The ULFA insurgency appears to be escalating once again after the fragile peace process broke down in September 2006. The peace initiative in itself was kick-started by the ULFA, when it constituted a peace panel called the People’s Consultative Group (PCG), comprising 11 hand-picked representatives, on September 7, 2005. The government of India held three rounds of talks with the PCG between October 2005 and June 2006, one meeting each attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and home minister Shivraj Patil, respectively. These exploratory parleys were to have led to possible direct talks between the ULFA and New Delhi, and resulted in the centre announcing a ‘unilateral suspension of military operations’ (an euphemism for a ceasefire) on August 13, 2006. The truce snapped six weeks later and on September 24, 2006, New Delhi ordered the Army back on the ULFA’s trail.

Assam government officials now disclose that New Delhi had decided to go for a truce with the ULFA in August 2006 without even consulting the state authorities. If this is the case, the centre had clearly gone for a reckless gambit in Assam vis-à-vis the ULFA. That New Delhi again misjudged the ULFA’s intentions has become clear with authorities in Assam as well as the intelligence community now coming up with details of how the rebels used this six-week interregnum to regroup, renew old contacts, relocate or hide weapons and explosives, and even fix improvised explosive devices in interior roads used by the security forces. There was also a clear difference of opinion between the state and the central government over the approach to deal with the ULFA insurgency.

However, if New Delhi did go ahead with the truce without taking the state government into confidence, ULFA’s latest accusation that the centre, and particularly home secretary Duggal, is not interested in pushing peace or is sabotaging the peace process, can hardly hold good. In any event, the peace process was derailed essentially because the two sides came up with pre-conditions and counter-conditions that were not acceptable to the other party — the government wanted a written assurance from the ULFA that it was indeed interested in talking peace; the ULFA insisted on the release from prison of five of its leaders, all members of its 18-member policy making central committee.

Assam Police data shows that, between 1991 and October 2006, Security Forces have killed 1,128 ULFA cadres and have captured another 11,173. Further, 8,465 ULFA militants surrendered before authorities during the same period, and ULFA lost its largest base, in Bhutan, after the Royal Bhutan Army’s December 2003 assault on the rebels. Despite these gigantic reverses, ULFA continues to strike terror in Assam. Of course, ULFA has been forced to change its strategy from direct gun battles with government security forces to carrying out ‘stealth attacks’ – bombings on soft targets – thereby taking care to reduce casualties on its side. Unlike the targeted assassinations and attacks of the past, ULFA had increasingly resorted to triggering off Improvised Explosive Device blasts in public places, killing civilians. Between January and October 2006, 92 civilians were killed in 100 explosions across Assam. Through the latest massacres, of course, the ULFA has demonstrated that it has not given up on the Kalashnikov and the UMG, indicated rising levels of confidence, though their targets remain soft.

The incoherence of government policy must at least partially be blamed for these developments. There is little evidence of a clear decision on whether the security forces are to go full steam against the ULFA, keeping up the heat of counter-insurgency operations without a break, or whether a serious process of negotiations is to be established and sustained in a forceful and sincere manner. Both the centre and the state government have failed to rid themselves of a high measure of tentativeness in dealing with the problem. It should be clear by now that neither the ULFA nor the government can expect to engage both in war and peace at the same time. The government must recognize that the ULFA is an idea and a force whose strength cannot be conclusively defined in terms of the number of cadres the group has, or the number of rebels killed or captured. At the same time, ULFA needs to recognize that it can never hope to achieve a military victory.

Sriprakash Jaiswal who visited Assam on January 7, 2007, and met with the kin of those killed in the latest massacres, as well as others, may actually send in 7,000 to 9,000 more paramilitary troopers to combat the elusive ULFA rebels as demanded by the state authorities. But this will do little to end the dance of death across the state. After his meeting with Gogoi, Jaiswal grandly declared that "ULFA was taking its last breath". Just a few hours later, ULFA killed another eight workers from Bihar in Sivasagar District and one in Dibrugarh District.

Providing security to sections of vulnerable people in remote areas is simply impossible, irrespective of the quantum of force available in the state. The Assam government is seeking a joint military offensive involving Assam and the adjoining Arunachal Pradesh, which borders the eastern Tinsukia district, and indications are that New Delhi will okay this proposal.There is little hope, however, that such a move will bring an end to insurgency in Assam. The abiding question is, can the political leadership carry a clearly defined policy to its logical end? And does the ULFA really want peace? Answers to these questions are difficult to find. Things are far from transparent, and there are several forces, both internal and external, at play. The result: innocent people are drawn into the vortex of the violence itself and pay with their lives, again and again, with sickening regularity.

Assam Bihu Dance Video

Do you like Assamese Music? Assamese Music is very sweet. If you are new to the world of Assamese Music, then we want to request you to give it a try! In most of the Assamese Music, you will find the touch of folk tunes. And out of all the folk tunes, Bihu tunes are the most famous in Assam. Bihu Songs hold an important role in Assamese Music Industry. Every years thousands of new Bihu Songs are released.

All of them are not perfect or good. Then also in most of the songs, you will find the smell of Assam! Sorry we want to mean about the Assamese people, Assamese culture, Assamese traditions etc. In this site, we will try to feature some good Assamese Music.

But, as there is no boundary for music, you can see some western touch in new Assamese Songs and Videos. Many people don’t like it. But, we think that, if you are not forgetting your roots, then everything is okey! So, though many modern songs and videos are being produced in Assam, there are also lots of good, original Assamese Songs and Videos. People like both of them. Afterall it is a matter of choice and taste.