M.V. Kamanth
The Governor of Assam, Lt Gen S.K. Sinha is reported to have said that the State was not part of India before the British annexed it in 1826, notwithstanding its "civilisational and cultural unity with India" for several centuries. Critics of the Governor have taken umbrage at this statement pointing out that it could encourage the ULFA in its anti-national activities.

Insisting that Assam was not "part of India" before the British annexed it in 1826 is begging the question. Was Mysore "part of India" before the Battle of Seringapatam (Shrirangapattana) in 1798? Was Punjab "part of India" before organized Sikh resistance to British authority was finally ended at the Battle of Gujrat and Punjab was annexed to the Indian Empire on March 29, 1849? A politically united India did not exist even during the almost half a century rule of Aurangzeb. That does not mean that the concept of "One India" did not exist ever. Such a concept was very much alive as in the statement that Bharat extended "asetuhimachalaparyanta" from the bridge at Rameshwaram to the towering mountains of the Himalayas. A civilisational and cultural unity of India always existed that could enable Sankara (c 788-820 AD) to travel from his birthplace in Kaladi in Kerala to the four corners of India and carry his message of advaita in Sanskrit. No matter what anyone may say, down the centuries there has been cultural unity of India that remains and will remain unshaken. Assam has always been part of that cultural unity even from the days of the Mahabharata as the reported wanderings of Arjuna will testify. To say, therefore, that Assam has a right to separation is ridiculous and preposterous.

Assam is very much part of India and there is no getting away from the fact, ULFA or no ULFA. What had kept the many parts of India from coming together was the absence of easy communication. This enabled sub-nationalism to grow unchecked. Whatever may be our other quarrels with the British—and we have many sound reasons for those quarrels—we have to be grateful to them for three reasons: the introduction of railways, the linking of the country with mail service and telegraph and the introduction of English as state language. It does not need to be stressed that the British introduced these innovations for their own selfish reasons; but the end result was mostly beneficial. It brought Indians together in a common bond of 'Indianness'. Punjabis and Bengalis, Tamils and Biharis, Kannadigas and Manipuris could see their oneness as never before. It can never be disrupted by anyone. The process of unification has proceeded too far down for it to be sidelined. It will continue to march forward until total unity is achieved.

The biggest enemy of national unity is the sub-nationalism that was encouraged by the creation of linguistic States in India. That was a wrong step to take whatever might be the sentiment behind it. It was this that spawned such irrelevancies as Kashmiriyat and Punjabiat as if Kashmiris and Punjabis are a different species of humanity. It was again this same sub-nationalism that spawned regional parties like the DMK and AIADMK, the Telugu Desam and in Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena. They have been hurdles in the march towards total emotional integration of India.

But there have been other factors that have kept India together and always will, like the Hindi cinema, like Hindustani music and now, of course, Doordarshan. These are accelerating the process of unifying India, even as do cricket and football, badminton and kabaddi, hockey and tennis. Kapil Dev, Sachin Tendulkar and Saurov Ganguly come from three corners of India but when they play a Test their sub-national origins are submerged under their sheer Indianness. And that is as it should be.

The tragedy in the North-East is that the people there have yet to get out of their tribal coccoon; but this is not something that can happen overnight. It takes time and a lot of patience and understanding. In the rest of India it is not uncommon for a Maharashtrian to marry a Gujarati or a Tamil to marry a Kannadiga or an Andhraite to be proficient in Telugu, Urdu, Hindi and Marathi. Shri P.V. Narasimha Rao is credited with fluency in half a dozen languages. This is because the process of assimilation has been very fast in Andhra Pradesh which is at the very heart of India. That this process has been very slow in the North-East explains the rigidity of ULFA as of the demand of the Bodos for a separate State. It is a preposterous demand because it tries to perpetuate separatism when the thrust should be toward the building of a unified north-eastern State that includes all north-east's so-called Seven Sisters. But such is the pernicious influence of sub-nationalism that in just the last two years some 4,200 persons have been killed in brutal violence and nearly 3,600 abducted. To what purpose, one may legitimately ask. A popular slogan in the United States at the height of the Vietnam War said: "Make Love Not War", and no truer words were ever said. That is what we need to encourage among the warring tribes of the north-east who have been wasting so much of their energies in a futile bid to hold on to their tribal identities when there is so much to gain by joining hands for the economic progress of what is their home ground. Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh need, not fratricidal strife, but the joy of living together and striving together in fraternal unity. To dismiss people under the category of "us" and "them" is easy enough but to get "them" to be part of "us" and thus promote peace and prosperity for both is a more challenging job. What the Seven Sisters need are better inter-State roads, better inter-State communications, more inter-tribal links, more inter-community marriages for the greater glory of the entire area which remains indubitably part of India.

It is here that Assam being the premier State in the north-east and the Assamese being numerically the single largest group that can give the lead. They are an affectionate, sentimental people with a great cultural tradition. It is sad to see the ULFA following a defeatist policy that can only damage both Assam and its people. General V.P. Malik is right: it is necessary to have a political dialogue between the Government and ULFA and Bodo militants. They have to be brought into the mainstream of Indian life, as much for their own good as for the essential unity of India. The Khalistanis tried to break that unity; they failed. Kashmiri militants tried too. And they too have failed. ULFA will fail. But should that be at the cost of so many good lives? For the ULFA to claim that prior to the British take-over of Assam it was a free state is no argument for separatism as we come to the end of the millennium. Hasn't the ULFA heard of European Union to the point of having a common currency in Europe? Look forward ULFA, not backward!