1. The Autonomous State movement in Karbi Anglong and North Cachhar Hills districts of Assam has been a unique component of our Party’s practice during the last two decades. In the aftermath of the Assam movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s,
the state witnessed a new awakening among the tribal communities. In Karbi Anglong district, the demand for an autonomous state as provided under Article 244A of the Indian Constitution grew into a popular movement under the leadership of our comrades. It was this movement which gave us the first electoral success of the Party, albeit under the banner of PDF, the platform which was soon to give way to the Autonomous State Demand Committee. Within a short span of time, the ASDC went on to establish itself as the strongest political force not only in Karbi Anglong but also in the NC Hills. In the latter half of the 1990s ASDC not only controlled both the district councils but it also held all the five Assembly seats as well as the lone Lok Sabha seat from this region. In the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, we contested directly under the CPI(ML) banner and retained the Lok Sabha seat by polling more than 2,00,000 votes. The Congress swept the elections in the rest of Assam, but it failed once again in this region.
Following the July 2000 turmoil in the Party and ASDC, the electoral scene has however undergone a dramatic change. The Congress has staged a comeback in the Assembly and council elections held in 2001. We failed to win any seat in the Assembly election and in the council election we had to rest content with only two seats in the 26-member council. The breakaway group, which is an ally of the BJP and AGP, won two seats in the Assembly and ten in the district council. Currently, the council is run by the Congress with a dubious wafer-thin majority.
The split has clearly taken its toll in electoral terms and has left in its trail its share of demoralisation and confusion, not only in the region but also in the Party as a whole, especially in Assam. Having paid the price, we must draw the correct lessons and address ourselves to the task of turning adversity into an opportunity.
2. The task of building a communist party within a nationality movement is an extremely difficult one and on top of it we were faced with the paradox that our biggest electoral successes were achieved in an area where the Party organisation was virtually in its infancy. The Varanasi Congress had dwelt quite at length on the malady facing the Party in Karbi Anglong and NC Hills. We had talked of problems like “an easy-going lifestyle, a nexus of bureaucrats-contractors-businessmen surrounding executive members and MDCs, the Party and ASDC becoming appendages of the District Council, detachment from the masses and mass movements, factional infighting, etc.”, pointed to the erosion in the organisation’s moral authority in public eyes and posed the “essential theoretical question of usurpation of the leadership of nationality movements by the petty bourgeoisie and its gradual co-option within the bourgeois-landlord system.” The Varanasi Congress had also endorsed a ten-point rectification drive which called for stepping up the Party’s direct role, intensifying the movement for autonomous state, and reaffirming the pro-poor orientation in the council’s functioning.
As a part of this rectification drive we embarked on a course of enhancing the party’s direct role in the region and in the 1999 election we contested and won under the Party banner. In the first post-Varanasi election held in 1998, we thought the ground was still not ready for such a transition. In 1999 the decision was taken after taking all non-Party forces into confidence and we were able to win the elections by polling the highest votes since 1989. In the initial years of the movement we had experienced individual desertions from the ASDC with some members raising the bogey of the CPI(ML) to quit ASDC and join or hobnob with the Congress. But over the years the issue had got settled and after 1992, like the rest of the country in Karbi Anglong too the Party had gradually started functioning openly, of course in tandem with the ASDC.
During the ASDC’s second term in the council, the Party’s effective control over the council functioning had become considerably weak. In the absence of sufficient ideological mobilisation the denial of tickets to the ‘old guards’ in the 1996 Council elections had already laid the basis for the rise of a dissident faction. This faction gradually forged a close nexus with a section of Executive Members of the Council and the Party’s attempts to regulate and reorient the functioning of the council only provoked bitter factional squabbles and the entire organisation got bogged down in a veritable power struggle. Matters came to a head at the time of the KAPC conference in April 2000. While the Party Central Committee insisted on addressing all substantive issues in a step-by-step manner and a reshuffle of the Council was recommended with the concurrence of all the three CCMs involved with the Karbi Anglong Party, Holiram Terang reneged on the agreed understanding and misled the dissidents into a veritable rebellion. Amidst frenzied anti-communist propaganda, he then went on to lead the splinter ASDC faction into an alliance with the BJP and AGP. The renegades also forged a covert nexus with militant outfits like the UPDS and Bodo Liberation Tigers with the sole agenda of ousting the CPI(ML) from the region.
3. At an earlier phase of the movement, the leadership had extended certain unprincipled concessions to the Congress in the hope of extracting greater benefits and securing quick results. This time around, the renegades fell into the trap laid by the BJP. The BJP with its policy of creation of smaller states and its close rapport with the AGP appeared to be the best bet for securing ‘autonomous state’ and autonomy from CPI(ML) and the communist movement seemed a small price to pay!
For those who cared to take a closer look at the BJP’s policy it had been made clear by none other than Advani that the NDA government had no intention of honouring Article 244 A and upgrading the autonomy of the hill districts to the level of an autonomous state. But the renegades were determined to fall for the BJP’s trap. The AGP however suffered a rout in the election and the renegades’ dream quickly turned sour. The Congress staged a comeback in the hills after a decade and the renegades are now debating among themselves whether to stick to the BJP or accept the Congress as the natural ally! Meanwhile they are trying to hoodwink the people into believing that now that ASDC has severed its ties with the CPI(ML) the BJP was prepared to resume tripartite negotiations on the autonomous state issue.
4. Clearly we are facing a new juncture in the Autonomous State movement. The question of rebuilding the Party organisation and reviving the autonomous state movement has been posed concretely on the agenda of the day. The CPI(ML) identity has now been established all the more firmly thanks to the concerted tirade launched by our opponents. Our dependence on the Council has been forcibly ended, and in a way the electoral defeats have been a blessing in disguise.
The following measures have so far been taken to ensure a comprehensive revival of the Autonomous State movement and the Party ín Karbi Anglong and NC Hills: (i) resuming the Autonomous State movement with an extensive “Long March” criss-crossing the length and breadth of Karbi Anglong, (ii) launching a peasant organisation through a convention, efforts are also on to organise the peasants in reserve forest and grazing land against the eviction drive of the government, (iii) asserting the role of our members in the Autonomous Council as a consistent democratic opposition to the Congress-led council, (iv) revitalising KSA and KNCA (Karbi students’ and women’s organisations) and DSU and DWS (Dimasa students’ and women’s organisations), (v) streamlining the publication of Lotichari as a popular bilingual organ of the Party, (vi) expanding Party membership and reorganising Party structures at different levels through conferences, (vii) making bold and painstaking efforts to wean away the masses and ranks from the influence of the renegades, and (viii) restoring and strengthening our ties with the whole range of non-Party, non-Karbi sections under the banner of the Autonomous State movement.
Some of these measures have already been implemented and some are in the process of implementation. The situation still remains quite difficult but a new mood of confidence and determination can be discerned among some of our old comrades and more encouragingly also in some new comrades. We must remember that old habits die hard. Overcoming the trappings of a ruling party or what we can call the ruling party syndrome is a big challenge and if we can successfully meet this challenge, the Party can surely emerge stronger. The experience of renegacy and split can serve as an invaluable political education for the Party as well as for the masses. The better we grasp the lessons, the greater will be our success in terms of building the Party and leading the next phase of the movement. q