10 Yrs After Ban, Bandhs Keep Plaguing Northeast

By Samudra Gupta Kashyap

On January 6, 2010, when the Gauhati High Court declared bandhs in Assam and Meghalaya illegal and unconstitutional and asked the state governments to take “appropriate action” against those who called bandhs, people in the two states wondered if they would finally be delivered of this menace that had disrupted millions of mandays in the region in decades.

Ten years on, it is clear that nothing has changed. With the state governments yet to enforce the High Court order, life continues to be disrupted not just in Assam and Meghalaya but across most of the states in the Northeast.

An economic blockade in Senapati district in Manipur, which began on July 31, for instance has been converted into an indefinite bandh. In western Meghalaya, a three-day bandh called by the outlawed Garo National Liberation Army crippled life. In Arunachal Pradesh, a 48-hour bandh called by the All Nyishi Students’ Union brought life to a standstill in Itanagar on August 6 and 7. And Assam has seen at least one statewide bandh and as many as half-a-dozen local and district-level bandhs in the past one month.

Other agitational programmes too have continued, with some like highway blockades and rail roko programmes impacting normal life as severely as bandhs do. Bringing railway movement to a halt, too, has become frequent in Assam in recent months, with police firing on demonstrators in at least one occasion.

There is no end to the reasons for calling a bandh or a blockade. If the Manipur blockade-cum-bandh is for creation of a new district, then the one in Itanagar was against alleged inaction by the state government over a derogatory remark a New Delhi newspaper made against a particular community of the state in May.

“Some people resort to agitations for any simple reason. The latest protests in Assam have been against unloading some turbines from a barge for onward dispatch to a dam construction site,” said Assam minister and official spokesman Himanta Biswa Sharma. He was ridiculing the protests against mega dams by the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) and other groups.

A recent study says Assam alone has suffered over 120 bandhs — statewide, regional, district-level and some even confined to one town — since the High Court declared these illegal. In 2002, when a group of citizens filed a PIL seeking relief against bandhs, it had cited 59 bandhs between April 2001 and March 2002, with the Northeast Development Finance Corporation putting the loss to the state due to these at Rs 41.14 crore.

Last month, popular singer Zubeen Garg invited the wrath of some groups after he and three others filed an FIR against them for calling a bandh. A week later, the quartet filed an FIR against the Bharatiya Yuva Morcha, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and BJP for calling another bandh.

“Though the police registered cases on the basis of our FIRs, nothing has happened. The High Court has clearly said that the state government should ensure that bandhs do not curtail the fundamental rights of the common man. But no action has been taken against anybody,” said Zubeen Garg.