Four Decades Later: Assam Government Reveals Suppressed Investigation Reports
The Assam government made a historic disclosure on Tuesday by making public the long-suppressed Tewary Commission report, which was initially submitted 41 years ago to investigate the violent disturbances during the Assam agitation in 1983, including the devastating Nellie massacre.
The report was originally commissioned by the then Congress government and was subsequently tabled in the state assembly by the AGP government in 1987, but had remained suppressed from public view until this week's revelation. In a significant parallel move, the government also presented the unofficial Mehta Commission report, which examined the same period of unrest in Assam's history.
Conflicting Accounts of Violence and Responsibility
Both the Tewary Commission, led by IAS officer Tribhuvan Prasad Tewary, and the Mehta Commission, headed by former Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh high court TU Mehta, refrained from providing definitive death tolls due to what they described as unreliable data. However, the commissions diverged significantly in their analysis of the causes and identification of perpetrators behind the violence.
The Tewary report attributed the unrest to long-standing issues concerning foreigners and language, while the Mehta report pointed to earlier attacks by migrant Muslims on Assamese people as a primary catalyst for the subsequent violence.
The two reports present contradictory perspectives on whether the 1983 assembly elections served as the trigger point for the large-scale violence, including the Nellie massacre. The elections had been largely boycotted following calls by the Aasu and All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad, the two organizations spearheading the anti-foreigners' movement.
Divergent Conclusions on Election Violence
The Tewary Committee report firmly stated that democratic parliamentary processes like elections should not be obstructed, emphasizing that neither state nor central governments should submit to threats or actual violence. "In our considered view, the decision to hold the elections cannot be blamed for the outbreak of the violence of 1983," the report stated.
It further elaborated: "The evidence produced before the commission clearly brings out that the issues of foreigners, language, etc., have been agitating the minds of the people for the last several decades, exploding into violence on several previous occasions."
The Tewary Commission held Aasu and AAGSP primarily responsible for launching the anti-foreigners' agitation and its consequences, highlighting that these organizations orchestrated widespread arson, riots, and destruction of public property to prevent elections. The commission noted that these actions spiraled out of control, resulting in significant loss of life and property.
The report emphasized that the agitation was exacerbated by the support of numerous government officials, which aimed to paralyze the administration. Importantly, the commission rejected the notion of communal motivations behind the violence, stating: "In some places, the attackers were Assamese, and the victims were Bengali-speaking people, both Hindus and Muslims. In certain other places, Muslims were attackers, and Assamese were the victims."
Land Disputes and Police State Allegations
In its concluding observations, the Tewary Commission identified land occupation by migrants as one of the greatest irritants for the Assamese people, noting that "land has been the main attraction for illegal immigrants."
Contrasting sharply with these findings, the Mehta Commission blamed earlier attacks by migrant Muslims on Assamese people as a direct cause for the Nellie massacre. The commission documented that Assamese Hindus and Muslims were primarily targeted by the administration at that time, and described Assam as having been turned into a "police state."
The Mehta report specifically blamed police, security forces, and civil administration's "negligence" for the death of many people. Regarding the Nellie massacre in what was then Nagaon district (now Morigaon), the report stated that migrant Muslims began attacking nearby villages inhabited by the Lalung tribe and other Assamese people from February 13 itself.
During the days preceding the massacre, the report noted that in some incidents, migrant Muslims solely attacked Assamese and tribal villagers, killing them, while in other cases, casualties occurred from both sides. The report identified the tipping point as the alleged killing of five people traveling by foot, including three girls, one elderly person, and a six-year-old boy, in Chakabaha days before the Nellie incident.
