Demand For Separate State In Tribal Belt Of Bengal Revives Again

Ever since underground leader Jiban Singha of the banned Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) reiterated the call for a separate state, there have been signs of a resumption of activity on part of its activists in Assam and North Bengal.

Northeast India media reported the arrest of two KLO activists from Kokrajhar, Assam, some days ago. Allegedly they were trying to resume their extortion-related activities and had asked for money from a local businessman who complained to the police. The reports did not make it clear whether the activists were collecting money on behalf of the proposed Kamtapur state as per the old KLO demand or functioning on their own. Despite reports of internal divisions and a shift on part of some of its cadres to other groups, the KLO has not yet ceased functioning totally, reduced as it has become.

Sources said the choice of Kokrajhar town, a major commercial/administrative centre of the tribal Bodoland autonomous area, was significant. Presumably KLO operatives sought to exploit the traditional distrust between majority Assamiyas and minority Bodo tribes people in an ethnically sensitive region.

Whether in Assam or North Bengal, the general perception is that the KLO has ceased to be a serious secessionist organisation along with the ULFA in recent years. The covid-related death some time ago of its former leader Atul Roy had affected cadre morale. However, a recently released video apparently by the KLO, showed KLO renewing call for an independent state. It went viral but did not evoke much response from established political parties.

In it KLO strongly attacked West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who firmly opposed all demands to partition West Bengal, whether by the Gorkhas or other ethnic groups. KLO reminded the Chief Minister of Coochbehar’s ‘independent’ status even as India was being partitioned in 1947. It never formed part of West Bengal, he insisted.

However, security analysts did not ignore one part of KLO statement, wherein he claimed that his organisation had now settled its ideological differences with the greater Coochbehar Peoples Association (GCPA). Now the movement for a greater separate Coochbehar state, to be carved out of existing districts in Central/north Bengal and Southern Assam, would be resumed with the total support of the leading ethnic group of the region as a whole—the Rajbonshis.

While political leaders/parties in Assam did not comment on KLO statement, they took the views expressed by veteran north Bengal-based leader Mr. Ananta Ray, more seriously. Speaking independently of KLO chief recently, the GCPA leader whose mass following is known to be greater than others, re-endorsed the call for a separate Coochbehar state. He did not refer to the KLO.

However, observers said it could not have been a coincidence that the two non-mainstream political leaders would speak out stressing their similar tribal loyalties and demands at about the same time without prior coordination.

Evidence of this came from Assam leaders and groups expressing their firm rejection for the statehood demand for Coochbehar state. In video releases and extensive messaging on the social media, they dismissed Mr Ray as a self-styled leader based in North Bengal, with the implication that he did not enjoy much support in Assam.

Other sources however, found Mr Ray’s views and claims more intriguing. He said categorically that union Home Minister Mr Amit Shah was fully apprised of existing ethnic/tribal sentiments in the sensitive Assam-North Bengal border regions and adjacent districts. Mr Shah, he claimed, had promised a sympathetic consideration of long pending Rajbonshi political demands seeking greater fairness and justice, as a marginalised community.

Assam-based politicians did not comment on this part of Mr Ray’s observations. There was, however, a stronger reaction from West Bengal Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Udayan Guha based in Coochbehar itself.

Strongly attacking KLO chief for his views, Guha, often described by his political opponents as a local ‘Bahubali’, said people like Singha did not have any support at all in North Bengal or elsewhere. If he or his followers tried to create trouble and unrest, the state Government and common people would decisively ‘crush’ them.

Singha retaliated pointing out that Guha was an ‘outsider’ in a Rajbonshi-dominated area and only tribal permission had enabled him to settle in Coochbehar. Guha retorted that he had been living in the district for four generations and did not need anyone’s confirmatory certification.

Present indications suggest that the tensions and agitations of ethnicity-based politics and the familiar agitational approach adopted by most local groups to highlight their old grievances in the North Bengal -Assam region, were not over yet.

Again, whether in Assam or West Bengal, no political leader could speak with any certainty as to the role of the BJP-ruled Central Government in the present situation. While the BJP had earlier supported the formation of smaller, separate states on the ground of effective governance, it had never categorically approved of the demand for a separate Gorkhaland, raising a number of questions on the issue. Nor had the BJP at the national level given any indication that the creation of a separate state of Coochbehar, to be carved out of Assam and West Bengal, was being considered seriously.

However, the party has given its general approval to the idea of a separate North Bengal state within West Bengal at the state party level, annoying the ruling TMC no end.

As matters stand, the new Coochbehar state would include parts of Malda, Murshidabad, Dinajpur, Darjeeling and other areas in West Bengal, along with parts of Goalpara, Dhubri, Bongaigaon, Bodoland, Chirang and other territories in Assam. At different times during earlier centuries, the independent kingdom of Coochbehar did rule over many of these and other territories, according to observers. (IPA Service)