11 February of this year will be remembered forever by all sections of the democratic people throughout the country not with tears but with wrath and disgust against terrorism to which Com.Anil Kr. Baruah, Secretary of the Assam State Committee of the CPI(ML) and also a Central Committee Member, fell prey on that fateful day. Com.Baruah’s death is an irreparable loss for the party and more than that for the revolutionary democratic struggle in general. He was a person with a clear understanding of the problems, a true democratic spirit, a relentless militancy and all other qualities of a successful leader.
The Incident
It was about quarter past noon that day when two ULFA activists entered the meeting organised by the local body of AIPWA at Naharani under Naharkotia police thana in Dibrugarh district of Upper Assam where Anil Baruah was addressing a gathering of nearly 200 women of the locality. The two with their AK-47 guns fired a few rounds in the air in order to disperse the meeting. Then they approached Com.Baruah, shouting obscene slogans to stop everything. None could imagine till then that their inten-tion was to kill him. A soft-spoken Com.Baruah tried to persuade them: "Well, you have done your job - the meeting is dispersed. Now we shall go back". But to their utter astonishment, Baruah and the five or six women comrades standing with him soon discovered that the two ULFA men were approaching him only to shoot him from a point-blank range. The group of brave women comrades immediately covered him up with their arms. Then there was a tug of war between the two ULFA men and the women comrades. They hurled all obnoxious abuses at the women comrades while pulling, beating, kicking and pushing them with the barrels at their chests and bellies. Failing to make way even after doing all this for about twelve minutes they fired at the leg of Kanaklata Dutta who was virtually lying on Comrade Baruah’s body. She fell down and the two assassins took the chance. As many as seven bullets pierced Anil Baruah’s body while four others were fired at Kanaklata leaving her seriously injured. Kudos to the bravado of ULFA!!
The Reactions
The people of Assam in general, and our party in particular, were dumb-founded by the incident. Because although the ULFA gave a general call imposing a ban during the last parliamentary elections and threatening all the political parties against participating in the elections, many candi-dates of different political parties remained in the fray. Almost all of them organised campaign meetings in spite of this ban and the threat. There was not the slightest hint or any warning meant specifically for our Party. Moreover, people thought that even in case of any casualty it would not come to a man like Comrade Baruah leaving aside some well-known scoundrels. However, people took no time to react with vehement protests against the gruesome killing. Com. Baruah’s Bordoloi Nagar residence at Tinsukia was crowded by thousands of people from all sections of society. The next day spontaneous bandhs were observed in Dibrugarh and Tinsukia districts. The funeral procession was also attended by a huge crowd. People assembled there in tens of thousands irrespective of caste, creed, religion and political ideology in order to pay the last tribute to the beloved leader. It was followed by a month-long continuous protest programmes throughout the state in different forms like holding of protest meetings, bringing out processions - at times with traditional weapons and domestic tools - de-manding an enquiry into the incident and the arrest of the culprits etc. What is encouraging about these various protest programmes is the spontane-ous participation of large number of people including established intellec-tuals, noted artistes, litterateurs, freedom fighters, teachers, student organisations, trade-unions, political parties and common people. In many cases these were organised on public initiatives.
Election results shows that Anil Baruah got 3,307 votes which are not our voters since our comrades had stopped campaigning and started mobilising masses in continuous protest programmes up to the election day. So, the votes were cast by the democratic sections of the constituency as a mark of protest against the killing. Even the local papers said it was a salute to Anil Kumar Baruah and a protest against the ULFA.
In the second phase, a number of anti-terrorism platforms were formed by the people in various places of the state like Tinsukia, Makum, Dibrugarh, Naharkatia, Sachani, Tingkhong, Namrup, Moran, Jorhat, Sonitpur, Nowgaon, Diphu, Howraghat, Haflong, Guwahati etc. with a view to combating terrorism. The concept behind the formation of such platforms is to give an organisational shape to such spontaneous upsurge of the people. Although the concept came from the Party, democratic people irrespective of their political leanings joined these platforms.
8 March, the international women’s day was observed by Sadou Asom Pro-gressive Women’s Association as ‘Anti-Terrorism Day’. Protest rallies and meetings were organised in Guwahati, Nowgaon, Jorhat, Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Sonitpur and other places where 300-800 women participated with flags and placards. On 11 March, a month after the assassination of Com.Baruah, a huge rally was organised by the Party at Naharkatia in Dibrugarh. An esti-mated 3000 people from Tingkhong, Chacani, Naharani, Naharkatia and other parts of the Lok Sabha constituency from where Com.Baruah contested in the last election brought out a protest procession through the main streets of Naharkatia under the leadership of General Secretary Vinod Mishra, Dr. Jayanta Rongpi, MP, and Comrade Rubul Sarma, member of Central Committee. The procession was followed by a public meeting. Addressing the rally, Vinod Mishra congratulated the women comrades who tried their best to resist the incident. He also offered thanks and gratitude to all parties, organisations and individuals who protested against this brutal killing and stood by the democratic forces in the fight against terrorism. During his speech Comrade Mishra said that Com.Anil Baruah had been with the people of Assam in each and every crucial socio-political situation and from even before the ULFA was born. He had dedicated his life to the cause of the people of Assam. And it is for this reason that the democratic people were bursting with wrath and disgust against this ruthless murder. He also added that the ULFA was becoming a instrument in the hand of the imperialist and capitalist forces and that is why they had started killing communist lead-ers.
Addressing the rally, Dr. Rongpi said that the spontaneous protest of the people of Assam against this killing had proved that the ULFA had become irrelevant in Assam and this also indicated that the organisation had arrived at its peak and it was fast degenerating. Comrade Rubul Sarma has compared the ULFA with Badan Barphukan in the history of Assam who for his personal gains brought Maan soldiers from Burma and tortured the inno-cent people of Assam with an unimaginable cruelty. Likewise, the ULFA lead-ers from their foreign hideout have been causing sufferings to the people of Assam with foreign weapons. The rally was also addressed by Bulan Saikia of Sonowal Kachari Jatiya Parishad, Brojen Bori of Assam State Power Work-ers’ Union, Brij Pradhan of Asom Sangrami Chah Sramik Sangha, Raju Baruah of Progressive Women’s Association, Pankaj Kumar Das of Revolutionary Youth Association, Subhas Sen of CPI(ML) Liberation, Golap Bora of AISA and others. The meeting unanimously resolved to continue the movement against terrorism. It also resolved to observe 11 February every year as anti-terrorism day. The meeting condemned the callousness on the part of the government in holding an enquiry into the assassination and demanded imme-diate arrest of the culprits.
The Assam assembly in its ongoing session has condoled the death of Anil Kumar Baruah, but it is yet to declare an enquiry into the case. With these demands of holding an enquiry and the arrest of the culprits, the party and the various local bodies of the anti-terror platforms plan to stage a dharna in the assembly on 27 March. It has also planned to hold a state-level convention of these anti-terror platforms in Guwahati on 11 April.
The party foundation day on 22 April will be celebrated in Assam with various programmes which include dedicating the party state office in Guwa-hati to Shaheed Anil Kumar Baruah and laying the foundation for a statue of the martyr.
Why the Killing?
One reason might be that the ULFA could not approach any other candidate because of the tight security measures which Com.Baruah declined as a matter of principle. So he became a soft target for the local activists of the ULFA. But then the leaders of the banned organisation, while claiming responsibility for his murder after two days of the incident, have said that he was killed because of his involvement in reactionary and anti-revolutionary activities. However, this has not convinced the people.
Actually our Party is growing in mainstream Assamese society, and this has developed the conflict between us and the ULFA. Earlier during 1990-95, there were confrontations with the ULFA in Sonitpur and Nowgaon. In Barpeta a section of the ULFA cadre came to our fold and after this crossing over the ULFA vigorously propagated against us. On 10 January 1995, they brutal-ly killed Com.Lachit Roy who was the secretary of the Barpeta district committee. Before he joined our Party, Com.Roy was the organising secretary of the Barpeta district committee of ULFA. In December 1997 in Jorhat one of our AISA leader and the General Secretary of the Jorhat College Union was kidnapped by the ULFA. He was beaten up brutally and then released. In Naharkatia thana area, where Com.Baruah was killed, many women cadres of the ULFA had come over to our fold. This phase of our growing expansion at the grassroots posed a threat to them. Com.Baruah’s assassination is a culmination of this growing confrontation between the ULFA and our Party.
But the killing of Anil Baruah has been widely condemned by the Assamese intelligentsia and the democratic sections of the Assamese people. This has further isolated the Assamese people from the ULFA. The latter has now totally degenerated to purely an armed outfit. They are now trying to enter the forest areas. The leaders are now operating from their hideouts in Bangladesh and Bhutan. Out of frustration, a section of the ULFA wants to surrender. The Assam government is trying to accommodate this section. Still the time has not yet come to say that soon the ULFA will be come to a dead end. But it is sure that another split in the organisation is imminent and further isolation of the organisation continues. Protests and mass movements against the ULFA are going on and all the comrades of Assam have pledged to carry on the unfinished task of Com.Anil Baruah. Only this way can one take up the challenge of the fascist forces. The situation of Assam has changed: the regional forces like the AGP were routed by the voter in the last elections while the ULFA has been considerably isolated. Only the revolutionary Left can lead the genuine aspirations of the people of Assam.
Rubul Sarma
(Translated from the Assamese by Souravpran Goswami)
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‘This bloody barbarism has to end...’ The spontaneous reaction from Left and democratic intellectuals over the killing of Comrade Baruah was overwhelming. Professor Hiren Gohain is one of the most widely respected left intellectuals of Assam with a long involvement with the struggles of the Assamese people for democracy and justice. Known for his outspoken tirades against ULFA, Prof.Gohain present-ly teaches at the Guwahati University. Following are excerpts from his writings regarding the killing published in the Assamese daily, Dainik Ja-nambhoomi. Martyr Anil Baruah, a committed leader of CPI(ML)’s Assam State Committee, has been known to me for a long time. I do not support many a issue raised by his party but it is a fact that under Baruah’s leadership the party has been able to organise broad-based mass movements on peoples’ issues. They had extended partial support to the Assam Movement and at times had also expressed sympathy towards ULFA. Two unidentified youths approached from his back and pumped bullets into the body of this tireless and idealistic party leader and worker. He was about to address a meeting. The rally was organised by Nari Sangathan. These two cowardly assassins also ill-treated the women who were present there and one of them had reportedly sustained bullet injuries. It is noteworthy that the killers have totally ignored the contributions and the social role of Anil Baruah towards Assam. Instead of targeting the known and identified exploiters and oppressors, they have identified a humble social worker as their target. Baruah have virtually spent every-thing he had for organising people, launching mass movements and taking up peoples’ causes. Perhaps this was his crime in the eyes of the killers. Enough is enough. This bloody barbarism has to come to an end. Otherwise ULFA’s prescription will take a ‘sick’ Assam towards death rather than curing it. The people of Assam must decisively resist this fascist acts of ULFA. Leftist leader Anil Baruah’s name has to be counted among the first few who have embraced martyrdom while resisting fascism during the past two decades. After refraining most of the people in many places of Assam at gun point from casting votes, ULFA is now up to congratulate them for supporting its revolutionary cause. This argument is quite alarming. A spontaneous poll boycott and one enforced at gunpoint can be easily differentiated even by an idiot. So, abstinence from voting cannot be termed as a decision of the people of Assam. But this oft-repeated claim by ULFA is something different from an ordinary lie. Hitler’s propaganda minister Goebbles used this tact-ic of political campaign of repeating a lie, so that people get confused and, at a point of time, start believing it.
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