GUWAHATI: The seeds for the swearing-in of the fourth Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) of BJP-UPPL-GSP combine, led by Pramod Boro, were sown in the third peace accord signed in January with the Centre and the state government.
For ousted former BTC chief Hagrama Mohilary, who heads BPF, it was a repeat of history that he had written 17 years ago when he signed the previous Bodo accord in 2003 with the NDA government at the Centre and the Congress government is the state. Mohilary, a former militant leader after disbanding his Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT) formed BPF and took charge of BTC.
Ironically, the second Bodo accord of 2003 signed by Mohilary came into being after then Congress state government dissolved the previous autonomous council, known as Bodo Autonomous Council (BAC) born out of the first Bodo accord in 1993, which was first led by former MP SK Bwiswmuthiary for an interim period and then by Prem Singh Brahma.
The Bodo heartland was once the state’s most troubled spot where civil groups and militant outfits were engaged in peaceful and armed movements for either separate state or secession. Each phase of the movement gave rise to peace accords — the first in 1993 and then in 2003 and now in 2020. And in all these accords, the only common link has been the powerful All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU).
The first accord was signed with ABSU and Bodo People’s Action Committee (BPAC), which failed and the Bodo homeland plunged into its most violent period. ABSU resumed its movement for a separate state, a new militant outfit, BLT, unleashed terror in support of their demand. Ethnic riots broke out between Bodos and Santhals in Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon, leaving thousands homeless. A decade later, the second accord came by and this time, too, ABSU prepared the ground work but the final accord was signed by the reformed BLT members only with the Centre and state to form the BTC under the 6th Schedule of the Constitution, with safeguards of rights of non-Bodos.
With BLT disbanded, it was the older NDFB fighting for sovereignty, which unleashed its reign of terror in the last 17 years, which included the serial blasts in the state in 2008 that left over 100 dead. The period also saw re-run of ethnic riots between Bodos and migrant Muslims in 2012 and 2014.
After NDFB disintegrated itself into four factions, it was time for another accord and the third one was signed with ABSU as the principle signatory (represented by Pramod Boro then as ABSU president), along with the leaders of the four NDFB factions. PM Narendra Modi then said the accord is “an end to a decades-old problem and marks the beginning of a new era of peace and progress.”
The Bodo homeland is still not free from militancy and fragments of NDFB remain at large. After taking oath as the new BTC chief, Boro said, “One of our primary objectives is to instil total peace in BTR and I appeal to all those who are still at large to join the mainstream.”