Picture : ANI/X
Two days after the Assam government announced plans to make public the Tewary Commission Report on the Nellie massacre of 1983, a cross-section of people have voiced apprehension that the move could jeopardise peace among communities.
According to media reportrs, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma hadtold reporters that the state cabinet decided to table the Tewary Commission Report in the next assembly session in November.
During the Assam Agitation from 1979 to 1985 against infiltration, over 2,100 people were butchered, mostly Muslims, in a single night in the infamous Nellie massacre of 1983.
“I don’t understand why such an old report will be made public after almost 43 years of the incident. When the wounds have already healed, why scratch those now? Is it being done to instigate people ahead of the assembly elections?” Leader of the Opposition Debabrata Saikia told PTI.
He said when people are living in harmony in the greater Nellie area, tabling of the report may destabilise the prevailing peace and trust among communities.
“It seems the CM is frustrated with people of all castes and religions uniting after Zubeen Garg’s death. People from all communities are demanding justice for him and showing allegiance to Garg’s ideology, which was against communalism,” Saikia said.
Nellie (in Morigaon) is a cluster of around 16 villages. On February 18, 1983, Assamese Hindus and indigenous tribal neighbours attacked the villages and killed over 2,100 people in a span of about six hours.
The attacked residents primarily belonged to the Bengali-speaking Muslim community whose predecessors had migrated from former East Bengal from as early as the 1930s.
On July 14, 1983, the Assam government had set up a commission under the leadership of T P Tewary.
The 551-page report was submitted to the erstwhile Hiteswar Saikia government in May 1984, but never tabled or made public.
Parthajit Baruah, who made a full-length feature film on the massacre The Nellie Story’ opined that bringing out the report at a time when the entire state is grieving Garg’s death is “surprising and disappointing”.
“The time is not conducive now. The people are emotionally broken. We expect the government to unearth the truth behind Garg’s death in the first place,” he said.
Baruah also said tabling and discussing the Tewary report is likely to divert the entire attention from Garg’s case.
“There is another aspect. Against the popular notion of killing only Bengali Muslims in the massacre, many tribal locals also died in the incident in Raha area. I have shown that angle in my film, which surprisingly was not discussed in society,” he said.
As per a research paper ‘Denying the Animosity: Understanding Narratives of Harmony from the Nellie Massacre, 1983’ by Jabeen Yasmeen of IIT-Bombay, the carnage was one of the worst mass-killings in post-Independent India.
