GUWAHATI
Giving the 1983 election-related violence in Assam, headlined by the Nellie massacre, a communal tag would be unwarranted, a panel formed more than four decades ago to probe one of the goriest chapters in the State’s history said.
The Commission, chaired by Tribhuvan Prasad Tewary, a retired IAS officer, held the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) and the Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuva Chhatra Parishad (AJYCP) primarily responsible for launching the Assam Agitation and its consequences. It, however, said that the Assamese people’s fear of being outnumbered by outsiders was real and envisaged by British administrators much before the organisations spearheading the agitation were formed.
The anti-foreigners’ agitation was triggered in 1979 by the alleged entry of non-citizens, aka “Bangladeshis”, during the revision of electoral rolls for a by-election to the Mangaldoi Lok Sabha seat. The agitation ended when the Assam Accord was signed on August 15, 1985.
The agitation claimed several lives between 1979 and 1985, but the killings spiked during the controversial three-phase elections held in February 1983, when the State was under President’s Rule. According to the Tewary panel’s report, 3,023 people were killed across 11 districts between January 1 and April 30, 1983.
Making the report public on November 25, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said it was tabled in the Assembly in 1987 when the Asom Gana Parishad – now a minor ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party – was in power, but only the then Speaker was privy to it.
‘Not poll-driven’
The report said the decision to hold the elections could not be blamed for the outbreak of the violence of 1983. “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,” it said.
Citing several instances of violent incidents across Assam between 1950 and 1982 that were not driven by polls, the report junked the theory that elections should not be held when there is a threat of violence. Boycott calls by agitating groups marked the 1983 polls, which recorded a turnout of 32.74%.
“The AASU and AAGSP are primarily responsible for launching the agitation and for its consequences. There is overwhelming evidence that, with a view to preventing the holding of elections, arson, riots, destruction of public properties like buildings, roads and bridges, sabotage of railway tracks, intimidation, picketing, bandhs, etc., were organised on a pre-planned and extensive scale. The whole situation got out of their control, and the violence resulted in enormous loss of human life and property,” the report said.
The highest casualty during the 1983 election was in Nellie and adjoining villages. Unofficial estimates say more than 2,000 people, mostly Bengali-speaking Muslim women and children, died in the Nellie area, while the Tewary panel pegged the toll at 1,811.
‘All communities suffered’
The report said it was “entirely unwarranted to give the incidents under enquiry a communal colour. “All sections of society suffered as a result of the senseless violence. The victims were not confined to one religious, ethnic or linguistic group,” it said.
“In some places, the attackers were Assamese, and the victims were Bengali-speaking people, both Hindus and Muslims. In certain other places, Muslims were the attackers and the Assamese were the victims. In several areas, the clashes took place between the various sections of the Assamese themselves. In a few places, Muslims joined hands with the others in attacking their co-religionists,” it said.
“If there is a Nellie, there is also a Chamaria or a Malibari (Kamrup district). In Chawlkhowa (Darrang district), a section of the minority community joined hands in attacking the immigrants. There is Arno Chapori and Gohpur (Biswanath district), where the attackers and the victims both were members of the majority community,” the report said.
It indicated that taking “only a very superficial view to give a communal colour to these disturbances” would amount to ignoring the historical forces in operation for the last several decades. “Many perceptive witnesses have gone into this historical aspect and have interpreted the disturbances as clashes of economic interests. In many cases, they arose out of land disputes,” it said.
The report pointed out that the composition and distribution of the population in Assam were such that one group, constituting a majority in one area, is a minority in another area. “Once violence spreads, there is a chain reaction of attacks and counterattacks. In a total conflagration, the loss of life and property does not remain confined to this or the other group,” the report said.
The report acknowledged the fears of the Assamese people of “being overwhelmed by numbers” (of non-indigenous people). “The danger to Assamese identity was seen long ago, not by any previous incarnation of AASU or AAGSP, but by the British administrators and Census Commissioners (chiefly C.S. Mullan, 1931) who did not suffer either from pride or prejudice nor had they any personal or group interest in the matter,” it said.
The Tewary Panel underlined the need to preserve the Assamese identity. “It will help in building a cordial atmosphere if the minorities themselves come forward in identifying the infiltrators… With the cooperation of all concerned, it would become quite difficult for the illegal migrants to clandestinely pass off as citizens of India,” it said.
Published – November 28, 2025 02:28 am IST
